"Gardevoir and Gallade happen to be my absolute favorite Pokémon, so I've bred quite a vanguard of them," Jiachen noted.
"What do you think? If any catch your eye, I'll happily transfer a couple over to your slots directly."
"A true gentleman does not strip a friend of his prized companions," Feng Che replied, adjusting his cloak. "Speak freely, Jiachen. What was that secondary tracking file your console wanted to unroll just now?"
"The situation structures like this—exactly one month from today, the native Dragon Clan of the Unova Region will convene the legendary Dragon Festival."
"This functions as the paramount ancestral banquet of Opelucid City. The internal factions of the Dragon Clan will enter the competitive brackets to definitively elect the supreme commander to govern their entire global bloodline network."
"As the data stands, the absolute premier frontrunners favored by the algorithms are Drayden, the resident Opelucid Gym Leader, and his biological granddaughter, Iris."
"My house commands an ancient, classified secret rite capable of systematically converting standard Psychic-type aura channels into authentic Dragon Force."
"What say your station to forging a set of duplicate files so we can sneak into the brackets and play around?" Jiachen smirked, his tone highly mischievous.
"The Dragon Festival...? That introduces an exceptional strategic variable," Feng Che pondered, his fingers idly raking over his chin.
If my vanguard can forcefully clamp our fingers around the central command structure of the Unovan Dragon Clan, the long-term geopolitical resistance caking this region will plummet drastically.
The necessary timeline required for my house to execute a total, uncompromised unification over the entire Unovan continent will compress by several multiples.
"Concurrently, Jiachen... does your stable house any verified intelligence packets mapping the current factional layout of Unova? My profile is a newly transferred foreign node; my database lacks a dense tracking matrix regarding the local internal powers."
Feng Che pivoted his sharp gaze straight onto his friend's console.
Jiachen's expression shifted, dropping into a highly embarrassed, gridlocked grimace.
"Allow my station to deliver the comprehensive structural briefing regarding the paramount factions dominating the Unovan grid."
"My brainless older brother only recently cleared his return vector to report to the mainland; his database is utterly starved of fresh political metrics. Elite Feng Che, your query selected the absolute wrong terminal," Caitlin stated flatly, a sharp flash of violet light unraveling as she Teleported directly into Jiachen's private lounge.
"The internal power distribution within the Unova Region is extraordinarily labyrinthine, sharing a near-identical structural mess with the Sinnoh mainland."
"However, an explicit divergence separates this grid from Sinnoh—the Unovan perimeter completely lacks an entrenched, centralized Holy Temple faction."
"The macro-geopolitical landscape is partitioned and governed by exactly five sovereign nodes: the ancestral Dragon Clan, the Caitlin Corporate Family, Team Plasma, the Unova League Administration, and the rogue Gym Leader Coalition," Caitlin briefed with clinical detachment.
"What under heaven is this Gym Leader Coalition?"
Feng Che's brow furrowed, his terminal throwing a minor processing error.
"Your office can credit that magnificent asset directly to the account of our exceptional Champion, Alder. It was his policy of total administrative decay that forcefully drove the local regional Gym Leaders to forge a mutual, self-sustaining defensive vanguard."
"Alder allocates absolute zero cognitive processing power toward developing or stabilizing the Unova Region; his singular executive directive is ensuring the infrastructure refrains from completely exploding into total structural failure during his current seasonal cycle."
"Whenever a regional Gym Leader routes a high-priority emergency petition to the central bureau requesting resource backup, the Unova League's automated response script invariably instructs the station to manage the hazard single-handedly."
"Consequently, over an extended chronological timeline, the local Gym Leaders naturally mass-produced this autonomous Gym Leader Coalition to shield their own perimeters."
"The modern Gym Leaders across this region listen to the central League's dictates but refuse to authorize a single deployment run under their banner. The definitive sovereign founder who drafted and anchors this Gym Leader Coalition is none other than the Master of Opelucid City, Mr. Drayden."
"Our Caitlin Family permanently preserves an uncompromised posture of absolute armed neutrality. So long as external syndicates abstain from launching an offensive cascade against our boundary fences, our grids maintain peaceful relations."
"Alder understands precisely where my office has hard-coded its line; therefore, his console commands zero courage to provoke my perimeter."
Feng Che listened in absolute silence as the geopolitical data of the Unova League unraveled across his visor, the administrative decay revealing itself to be thoroughly putrid.
"The continent has literally degraded into a fractured wasteland of warring feudal warlords... It is zero wonder Team Plasma was permitted to expand its parameters at such a preposterous velocity."
"This absolute systematic failure rests squarely on Alder's shoulders," Feng Che growled, a sharp surge of cold fury leaking from his posture.
"My data networks have intercepted a secondary, highly classified piece of underground intelligence," Caitlin added, her tone dropping into a grave literary rhythm.
"Months ago, Alder authorized a covert full-scale engagement against the Sovereign Lord of Team Plasma, N."
"The data confirms N executed an uncompromised full-battle sweep, systematically crushing and liquidating every single asset within Alder's active stable."
"Alder's core partners sustained such catastrophic, irreversible cellular trauma that their baseline combat torque has permanently cratered—dropping completely below the Champion threshold."
"At this exact chronological millisecond, the World League's global supreme command is quietly running a black-budget diagnostic audit to verify this rumor."
"The exact microsecond the servers confirm Champion Alder no longer commands a single active partner capable of demonstrating authentic Champion-tier pressure metrics, the global board will forcefully strip the crown from his belt."
Caitlin bared a secondary piece of explosive intelligence that shook the grid.
"When that regulatory timeline clears, your station represents the absolute premier candidate to automatically inherit the sovereign Champion throne of Unova."
The Capital of Steel and Glass
Following the adjournment of the private council, Feng Che's designated high-clearance residential suite was mapped within Castelia City.
This was a towering, hyper-modern metropolis choked with gargantuan, sky-scraping glass skyscrapers, functioning concurrently as a premier international deep-water maritime port.
Castelia City operated under the immediate local jurisdiction of the Bug-type Gym Leader, Burgh.
The luxury estate allocated to Feng Che was engineered with uncompromised, decadent opulence.
Compared to other continental governing branches, the administrative protocols of the Unova League were exceptionally loose; Elites were programmatically exempt from remaining stationary, guarding the central headquarters. Protocol merely required their consoles to monitor emergency alerts, forcing an immediate deployment run only when the central mainframe sustained a direct military siege.
Occupying the absolute highest-tier Presidential Suite of Castelia's premier five-star hotel, Feng Che—whose private ledger lacked absolute zero financial constraints—unrolled the classified intelligence scrolls he had harvested from Caitlin's database. He systematically audited the macroeconomic charts and public safety indices of the Unova Region.
"This Alder truly functions as a deadweight bureaucrat," he muttered, his features turning cold.
"A hyper-prosperous, economically brilliant continent has been forcefully compressed by his administrative decay into this poverty-stricken, structurally backward end-state."
"According to the fiscal ledger of the past year, the gross domestic product of the entire Unova Region measured at a mere one-fifth of the Sinnoh Region's baseline output."
"Furthermore, his council continuously enforces a highly conservative policy of strict economic isolationism—barring high-volume foreign commodities from clearing the ports, allowing the local price indices to skyrocket without restriction."
"The public safety network is even more decayed; individual municipalities operate under absolute decentralized autonomy, while the Unova League maintains a policy of non-interference. The institutional authority of the League has plummeted to absolute zero."
"Alder may very well demonstrate an exceptional, apex-tier proficiency when operating as a baseline Pokémon trainer, but his cognitive faculties completely lack the necessary criteria to function as an elite administrator."
"His unrefined doctrine of non-action has thrown the entire Unova Region into absolute structural chaos."
Yet, confronted by this ruined geopolitical landscape, Feng Che's hands were temporarily tied; he had yet to officially unseat Alder to claim the sovereign Champion throne, meaning his console lacked the administrative authorization to unroll global structural edicts.
"The internal rot caking this grid is noticeably more convoluted than the Sinnoh layout."
"It is zero wonder Team Plasma's recruitment lines scaled so explosively; the Unova League itself manufactured the breeding ground for their expansion," Feng Che muttered, lightly rubbing his temples to buffer the cognitive strain.
"No wonder Sky Lord Sky was so frantic to force my transfer into this sector, looking to utilize my house as an iron broom to sweep the Unovan infrastructure clean."
"Banish the stress... We dismantle the bottlenecks one cycle at a time."
Alder's executive council had saddled Feng Che with exactly three primary operational mandates.
The first directive required him to assume total command over the regional public safety index—a long-term, grueling logistical siege that promised negligible visual returns within the immediate chronological window.
The second mandate instructed his stable to host the upcoming Unova League Championship and execute the definitive Title Exhibition Match against the tournament victor.
The third assignment ordered his house to personally prepare and bankroll the necessary volume of starter Pokémon required to fulfill the upcoming rookie distribution cycle.
"This third mandate... my office can effortlessly manipulate its parameters to function as a massive, free marketing engine to skyrocket the global brand reputation of our Pokémon Day Care."
Naturally, while Feng Che had casually validated the request to assist in resolving the starter deficit, his verbal response had systematically omitted a critical clause—he had never stated his house would transfer those high-value assets to Alder's accounts free of charge.
"Furthermore, Alder's directive merely requested my stable provide 'standard starter Pokémon'... his code failed to specify exactly which regional generation or bloodline criteria those assets had to map to."
Feng Che's memory files smoothly audited his internal inventory; semesters ago, he had captured a maximum-tier, prehistoric Feraligatr commanding immense genetic leverage. Through continuous breeding programs utilizing high-purity Water-type matrices within his day care, the ancient predator had mass-produced a massive, highly stable colony of newborn Totodile.
This was the absolute, perfect opening to liquidate the inventory.
Driven by the calculations, Feng Che smoothly activated his terminal, routing a direct secure line back to Packdo's console in Kanto.
"Sovereign Leader Feng Che!" Packdo's disciplined voice boomed across the speaker grid, his posture tightening.
"Audit our current active day care registries. Exactly how many starter Pokémon are currently resting within our nursery vaults?" Feng Che cutting straight to the primary parameters.
"Our active Totodile colony currently indexes at exactly 33 independent specimens. While their individual genetic talent traits display a minor degree of variance, our high-purity nutrient conditioning has forced their baseline parameters to uniformly lock within the Yellow Aptitude tier."
"Our Bulbasaur nursery houses exactly 16 independent nodes..."
"..."
"Summing the comprehensive global registry across all generations, our active starter inventory currently stands at exactly 236 independent Pokémon."
"Dead-center of that pool, exactly 101 specimens have successfully cleared the necessary criteria to lock their structural talent ratings inside the standard Yellow Aptitude tier," Packdo reported with absolute mathematical precision.