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The rich sense of history inside the game, so much like the real world, had made Quinn helplessly immerse himself in the cultural background of human society in the Pokémon world.
Ever since he first entered the game, he had always paid close attention to the events happening around him.
Naturally, some time ago, through the large promotional sections in the newspapers, he had learned that Azure Bay City, the largest city nearby, was about to hold its annual major event, the Bibarel Cup Fishing Tournament.
Long before the event had even begun, while it was still in the preparation stage, he had already been sitting on the sofa in his rented room, waiting in front of the television for the live broadcast.
This kind of social event, organized by NPCs on their own, was the best way to reflect a region's cultural character. Quinn naturally could not miss it.
Because of that, he became one of the few players in the game who witnessed Sobble's entire appearance through the television broadcast.
In fact, the very first post about Kael on the in-game forum had been made by him.
Before the news had even caused waves among the players, Quinn had already rushed to Azure Bay City first.
Although his playstyle leaned more toward researching the game's background, he was still a player.
How could he possibly remain unmoved by Sobble, a Pokémon that could currently be called one of the absolute top-tier finds in the game?
Especially when he had an information advantage.
Because of his personality, Quinn was calmer and more rational than most people his age.
But in the end, he was still only a student. Faced with such a tempting prize right in front of him, of course he could not control himself completely.
Unfortunately, the advantage of obtaining the information first did not allow Quinn to pull ahead of the other players.
Just like the players who arrived at Azure Crystal Marine Park later, he failed to find even the slightest trace of Sobble inside the park.
Plop.
Quinn sat down on a large rock by the lake, panting slightly, feeling a little discouraged.
"It was clearly here. How can there be nothing?"
He studied the picture he had cut out from a news article in his hand, carefully comparing it with the surrounding environment.
The place Quinn was at happened to be where the fishing tournament had originally been held. It was also the place where Kael had first appeared on camera.
Now, along the broad lakeshore surrounding this huge lake, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of players were scattered everywhere, searching for traces of Sobble.
Quinn had already been here for several days, but he still had not discovered anything.
"Looks like I'm just not meant to have this kind of luck."
He shook his head in self-mockery and casually opened the forum, planning to see whether any players had found information related to Sobble.
Suddenly, a post with an extremely eye-catching title drew his attention.
[Major Discovery! Azure Bay's Sobble Is Actually Here!?]
With some doubt and a faint trace of surprise, he immediately clicked into it and began reading.
Two minutes later.
Smack.
Quinn shot up from the rock as if he had been launched.
A look of joy appeared on his face. Without saying another word, he rushed toward the park entrance.
When he had first seen the post, he had thought the poster might only be using clickbait to farm attention.
But as he continued reading deeper into the contents, Quinn became completely convinced by the information the poster had provided.
Because aside from giving Sobble's current location, the post had also listed a series of detailed pieces of information about this Sobble.
At the very end of the post, the poster had even included a temporary photo of Sobble taken through the system's camera function.
In the photo, Sobble no longer looked as fierce as he had on television before. Instead, he was staring at the camera with a strange expression, as if wondering about something.
Perhaps because the shot had been taken in a hurry, the photo was not especially clear.
Even so, Quinn could still identify the Sobble in the photo through the features of its body and skin.
The Sobble in that picture was absolutely the same one he had discovered back then, the fierce Sobble who had appeared on the television broadcast.
He glanced briefly at the comments below and saw that there were only a few dozen replies. Most of them had basically nothing to do with the actual topic of the post.
Quinn immediately knew that he had once again gained a small lead by accident.
Secretly delighted, he ignored the strange looks from the nearby players and sprinted out of the marine park.
To reach the Water-type Gym as quickly as possible, he extravagantly used what little starter money he had left to hail a taxi on the street.
Taxis in the Pokémon world were basically no different from those in the real world. They were ordinary cars.
As for the legendary vehicles pulled by Tauros or Gogoat, those had basically been replaced and vanished from human society after mechanical automobiles were invented.
Because they were inconvenient and inefficient as transportation, they now only existed as special tourist experiences in a few travel cities.
Azure Bay City's developed and convenient road system allowed the taxi carrying Quinn to travel all the way smoothly. In less than two hours, it arrived at the Water-type Gym located on the suburban edge of Azure Bay City.
Anxious, Quinn rushed toward the Gym entrance the moment he got out of the car.
It was not because he lacked patience.
It was because he had already seen quite a few players like himself near the Gym.
Quinn did not believe these people had come here simply to challenge the Gym.
Among them, there were absolutely others like him who had rushed to the Gym because of that incredibly tempting Sobble inside.
Quinn had originally thought that aside from himself, almost no players in Azure Bay had discovered the forum post yet.
Now, his heart immediately became anxious.
He had to hurry.
He had to use this short window of time, while most players still had not reacted, to capture Sobble.
After entering the Gym, Quinn still could not directly request to challenge Sobble.
He first had to go through a long and complicated set of procedures, registering on the League's official website before formally obtaining the right to enter the Gym challenge.
Quinn noticed that at least five or six players had entered the Gym at the same time as him.
But that did not mean all of them would have the chance to meet Sobble.
How could the only Gym in Azure Bay City have only one Pokémon responsible for accepting challenges?
To satisfy the growing number of Gym challengers, Azure Bay's Water-type Gym had set up five different battlefields during the same time period.
Challengers were divided among them to improve efficiency and reduce the pressure on the Gym's defending Pokémon.
In other words, under random grouping, if their luck was bad, it was entirely possible that none of these players would encounter Sobble.
"Hah…"
Quinn took a deep breath and gripped the number card he had been assigned.
Then he walked toward the corresponding battlefield.
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~Support with 200 PowerStones = 1 Bonus Chapter
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For early access to advanced chapters on P-atreon:
P-atreon/iamxeno
(Just remove the - hyphen to access normally)
Thank you so much for your support and for reading!