The meeting did not end quickly.
It stretched for over two hours, moving from one subject to the next with careful restraint—joint research initiatives, disaster-response coordination, trainer accreditation, cross-border Pokémon movement protocols. Every topic was examined, dissected, and cautiously parked for later discussion.
By the end of it, one thing was clear.
No final decisions would be made today.
Each representative needed time. Time to consult their governments, their agencies, their military advisors—and, in some cases, their financial backers.
The resistance surfaced most clearly from the United States.
Not loudly.
Not openly.
But persistently.
Their representative returned to the subject of Pokémon sales more than once, each time framed differently.
"Complete prohibition may be unrealistic," he said at one point. "Perhaps a regulated private market—licensing, oversight, taxation—could coexist with your ethical framework."
I didn't raise my voice.
I didn't argue.
"There is no discussion to be had on that matter," I replied evenly. "Abuse, ownership-for-profit, and commodification of living beings will not be legalized under any cooperative framework I endorse."
The silence that followed wasn't confusion.
It was calculation.
Everyone in that room understood what wasn't being said.
The Pokémon trade funded powerful interests. Corporations. Wealthy families. Political donors who had already begun adapting the chaos of the new world into profit streams.
Ending that trade didn't just change policy.
It threatened influence.
The American representative eventually nodded, expression carefully neutral, and moved on without pressing further. But the tension remained—an unspoken fault line running through the alliance.
By the time the meeting drew to a close, no one pretended otherwise.
"This is not a decision any of us can make alone," the Canadian representative said diplomatically. "We'll need internal consensus."
"Agreed," echoed others.
I inclined my head.
"Then we reconvene in person," I said. "One month from now."
A few eyebrows lifted.
"The Pokémon Academy entrance examinations will be taking place then," I continued. "You'll be able to observe our system directly—our training methods, our safeguards, and the kind of people we intend to place at the front of this new era."
No objections followed.
Flights would be arranged.
Security coordinated.
Agendas prepared.
As the screens began to go dark one by one, I leaned back slightly, exhaling for the first time since the meeting began.
After the meeting, I returned to the volcano island.
Training resumed immediately.
It was brutal.
Not the flashy kind of brutal—no dramatic breakthroughs every day, no clean victories—but the kind that ground you down slowly, testing whether discipline held when exhaustion set in.
My own body felt it first.
Long-distance runs across uneven volcanic rock, balance drills under intense heat, reaction training while fatigued. Captain Sethi made sure there was no room for complacency. Every mistake was punished—not harshly, but consistently.
My Pokémon weren't spared either.
Primeape's training focused on control rather than power. Channeling rage without losing awareness. Learning to disengage. Learning to stop. More than once, he collapsed into the ash-covered ground, chest heaving, eyes burning—not with fury, but frustration.
Pidgeot trained aerial dominance under hostile conditions—thermal instability, sudden updrafts, simulated ambush zones. Her Steel Wing strikes became sharper, more precise. Less wasted motion.
Pikachu worked endurance and restraint—maintaining charge without discharge, controlled output rather than raw voltage.
Thwackey trained adaptability—terrain use, rhythm disruption, coordinated movement with teammates rather than solo engagements.
It wasn't glamorous.
But it was necessary.
During that time, we moved.
Island to island.
Some were quiet—Pokémon watched us from a distance, curious but calm.
Some were neutral—territorial warnings, posturing, but no escalation.
And some were hostile.
Those islands taught us the most.
Where force was sufficient, we subdued and stabilized. Where it wasn't, we withdrew and marked boundaries instead—perimeters enforced not by dominance, but by clarity.
And somewhere between those encounters, between ash and sea spray and exhaustion, an idea began to take shape.
An old one.
Borrowed from hundreds of webnovels I'd once read without thinking they'd ever matter.
The Academy Entrance Exam… didn't belong in a city.
It didn't belong in a stadium.
It belonged out here.
On islands. In wild zones.
I shortlisted five.
Each different.
Each dangerous in its own way.
None impossible.
The plan formed quickly after that.
Only 1,000 students would advance to the practical phase.
Some would come through training camp referrals—those already observed under pressure.
The rest would qualify through a nationwide theory examination.
Those 1,000 would be divided across the five islands.
Three days.
No external rescue unless lives were genuinely at risk.
Limited supplies.
Limited information.
Not to break them.
To reveal them.
How they survived.
How they adapted.
How they treated Pokémon when no one was watching.
But there was one problem.
I couldn't turn it into a simple Pokémon-catching competition.
That would teach the wrong lesson.
Power chasing.
Recklessness.
Numbers over judgment.
This exam needed to measure something deeper. Not strength, but Worthiness.
I kept turning the idea over in my head for the next few days.
Training continued, the routine unrelenting, but my thoughts kept drifting back to the islands and the exam. The more I pushed my body and Pokémon, the clearer it became that the entrance test couldn't just be difficult—it had to be honest. It had to reflect the world as it was now, not the one we wished still existed.
During that time, I traveled again.
Not for combat.
Not for suppression.
This time, I went to talk.
Island by island, zone by zone, I met the leader Pokémon. Some were obvious: dominant species that controlled territory through strength alone. Others were quieter, older, their authority rooted in stability rather than fear. Conversations took different forms depending on who I spoke to. negotiation, presence, intent, and restraint.
Slowly, agreements formed.
For the duration of the Academy Entrance Exam, any Pokémon above a certain threshold—those powerful enough to wipe out students without effort mostly above level 35—would not initiate attacks. If provoked, they would respond, but only with enough force to knock the students unconscious, not kill them. Harsh, but fair. The islands were not playgrounds, and the students needed to understand that there was no mercy in the wild.
As I moved between these territories, watching Pokémon interact among themselves, something else became clear to me again—something I had known intellectually, but hadn't fully realized until now.
Most Pokémon loved to fight.
Not mindless violence, not cruelty—but challenge. Conflict sharpened them. Victory strengthened them. Even defeat, when survived, pushed them forward. Battle wasn't corruption to them.
It was growth.
That realization finally unlocked the missing piece.
The exam didn't need to avoid combat.
It needed to frame it correctly.
That was when I came up with the Battle Point system.
Students would be allowed—encouraged, even—to engage Pokémon across the islands. But every battle would carry weight. Winning wasn't everything, and losing wasn't free. Each engagement would be a decision, not an impulse.
To make it clear, visible, and impossible to misunderstand, I devised a simple marker system.
Scarves.
Every Pokémon participating in the exam zones would wear one, color-coded by strength.
White scarves marked Pokémon roughly in the level range of one to ten—harmless for most examinees. Defeating them earned zero points.
Blue scarves marked Pokémon from levels eleven to twenty. A successful battle earned one point. Losing cost one point.
Green scarves represented levels twenty-one to thirty. Two points for victory. Two points lost on failure.
Orange scarves marked serious threats—levels thirty-one to forty. Five points for a successful fight, but just as punishing if lost. These battles would test judgment more than strength.
And finally, red scarves.
Level forty and above.
Ten points.
Nearly impossible, even for coordinated groups.
These Pokémon weren't meant to be hunted. They were warnings made visible. Challenges for those arrogant enough to believe numbers or desperation could replace experience.
The system did exactly what I wanted.
It rewarded calculated risk.
Punished recklessness.
And made avoidance a valid, intelligent strategy.
Not every strong trainer would score high.
But every wise one would survive.
Once the framework was finalized, I contacted Colonel Rawat.
I laid out the system in full detail and asked him to begin preparations immediately. Surveillance grids were to be established across all five islands—discreet, layered, and redundant. Drones, satellite feeds, ranger teams on standby. No interference unless absolutely necessary.
This exam would be watched. To understand the next generation before they ever stepped into power.
As I ended the call, I looked out over the ocean once more, volcanic islands breaking the surface like scars left behind by an older, angrier world.
If the future was going to be forged here—
Then it would be forged honestly.
Through choice.
Through consequence.
And through battles that actually meant something.
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