Chapter 739: The Sinnoh Tournament Begins

The opening ceremony of the Sinnoh Tournament was truly grand.

A massive venue, with fully occupied seats all around, was divided into five sections, each designated for people from a specific region.

Since this was the first time the five major regions were organizing a joint tournament, it attracted an incredible number of spectators. In addition to the large local crowd from Sinnoh, people from all regions traveled by plane to witness the event.

And those who couldn't get tickets could only stay home and watch the live broadcast.

At the center of the venue was a vast open space. Given its scale, it seemed capable of hosting more than ten battlefields at the same time. Each battlefield could automatically rise or descend, and the type of terrain was randomly selected by the tournament organizers.

Due to the large number of participants, consisting of trainers from five regions who had obtained eight badges, the tournament rules were quite simple: a knockout format where the winner advanced and the loser was eliminated.

Originally, the League's tournament division had proposed that, before reaching the Top 128, each battle would be fought with a single Pokémon, and the winner would advance.

However, this proposal was rejected by a high-ranking official of the Pokémon League, arguing that it was not stable enough.

Ultimately, it was announced that before reaching the Top 128, each trainer would use two Pokémon in one-on-one battles; the winner would advance, and the loser would be eliminated.

From the Top 128 onwards, the limit would be three Pokémon per trainer in one-on-one battles, and the winner would advance.

From the Top 32, the limit would increase to four Pokémon in one-on-one battles.

Upon entering the Top 16, the tournament would follow League standards: six-on-six battles.

Finally, and unlike other tournaments, the semifinals would feature full battles.

When Cain learned about the new tournament rules, he couldn't help but admit that this format was much better. Although it might take longer, at least no one could complain about losing due to carelessness while being the stronger trainer.

If you lose with two Pokémon, you have no excuses.

Moreover, full battles in the semifinals also showed that the League was genuinely looking for trainers capable of fighting real battles, not just standard trainer battles.

Some trainers excel in standard battles, but in life-or-death battles, they are completely useless because they don't know how to fight in that way.

With Team Rocket having withdrawn, the League saw an opportunity, and the goal of this tournament was to find promising candidates to train and turn into a main force against Team Rocket.

Fighting Team Rocket obviously required combat skills in life-or-death situations.

Of course, there were also rewards in the tournament; otherwise, how would they attract participants?

From the Top 64 onwards, there would be prizes based on ranking. But the League, cunning as ever, did not reveal the details and only stated that the prizes would be announced gradually once the Top 64 had been determined.

This added suspense.

However, those with deeper knowledge understood that this Sinnoh Tournament was tied to the future distribution of resources within the League.

And compared to that resource distribution, the rewards for the participants were insignificant.

No one in the world could truly calculate the total resources owned by the League. Not even the President of the Pokémon League, who resided at the top of Mt. Silver, could explain it completely.

In any case, if the League said they wouldn't disappoint the participants, they would probably keep their word.

Cain and the other Hoenn representatives stood in the center of the stadium, on the speaker's platform, during the opening ceremony.

Alongside them, people from the other five regions were in the same position.

Among them, Cain was able to recognize some familiar faces.

For example, Will, the future Elite Four member of Johto; Lorelei, from Kanto; Shauntal, from Unova; Diantha, from Kalos; and, of course, Cynthia, from Sinnoh, whom he knew well.

Cain was quite surprised to see Lorelei leading the Kanto team in this tournament.

Was Lance older than Lorelei?

Cain wasn't sure.

But since Lorelei was participating in the tournament, Dragon-type specialists were probably starting to tremble.

Just by looking at those standing on the platform, one could tell how fiercely competitive this tournament would be. Cain was somewhat worried about Steven—could he reach the podium?

However, Steven, always confident, didn't see it that way.

In his mind, even if he couldn't reach the podium, there was still Cain as an additional backup. With this double safety net, he believed that reaching the podium was practically guaranteed.

The outcome? Who knew.

The host spoke endlessly, to the point of boring both those on the platform and the audience. Only then was the Sinnoh Tournament officially declared open.

The debut of Cain and the other featured participants didn't bring benefits—rather, it brought problems. Any future opponents they faced would give 120% of their effort to defeat them. If they weren't exceptionally strong, the upcoming battles would be challenging.

Finally, the total number of participants was announced: nearly 4,000! This meant that each region had more than 800 participants.

Of course, it wasn't an equal distribution.

Since Kanto and Johto were considered one region, they had the most participants, accounting for nearly one-third of the total.

Kalos, which had recently joined the League, had the fewest, with less than 10%.

Sinnoh, as the host region, had the second-highest number of participants.

Hoenn ranked third in the number of participants.

In any case, with over 4,000 participants, Cain would need to win at least five battles to reach the Top 128.

Although the first five rounds would be fast, the stadium could only host about ten battles at a time. To reduce the number of participants from over 4,000 to just over 2,000, nearly 2,000 battles would be needed.

This meant long waiting times.

Cain felt he had rushed a bit. After the first round, there would probably be several rest days.

This would allow many Pokémon to fully recover.

The opening ceremony seemed endless, but the tournament began quickly.

The recommended participants from each region were obviously the first to compete.

The matchups were determined randomly by computer, supposedly with absolute fairness and impartiality.

Maybe others believed that—but Cain didn't.

Are you kidding?

Not to mention anything else—since the tournament was in Sinnoh, wouldn't the organizers pull some tricks?

Cain didn't believe otherwise.

And the first match proved it.

The opening battle was between Cynthia, from Celestic Town in Sinnoh, and a young trainer named Souta, from Cerulean City in Kanto.

(End of chapter)