And after Cain assumed office, the first "S"-level incident he handled was precisely a matter he himself had caused.
He made Phoebe, who had originally been temporarily occupying the position of Chief-level researcher, rise in one go to the position of Elite Four.
The Ghost-type Elite Four of the Hoenn region, Phoebe!
From that moment on, Steven and Phoebe together became Cain's right and left arms, able to help him handle many urgent missions.
The facts proved that, when a position is one level higher, it truly can crush people. Most of the "B"-level and "A"-level combat missions that needed to be handled, Cain handed over to them to resolve.
Steven had already chosen to compromise. Ever since he entered the Research Department, he had always been in Cain's hands.
If Cain wanted to shape him one way or another, everything depended on a single thought from him.
Basically, whenever it was a difficult mission, he would make him resolve it.
But the facts also proved that, if one does not go through hardships, one does not truly know how powerful one can become. Steven's capabilities were forced out by Cain until they surfaced.
Precisely because he had the help of people like them, Cain was able to implement this level system with peace of mind.
After it was perfectly carried out for two weeks, Steven and the others also gradually began to accept this model.
In reality, neither he nor Phoebe was too busy. It was only that, once they were needed to act, it was always for relatively troublesome matters, the kind that could not be solved in one or two days. Apart from that, there was no problem.
Moreover, the facts proved that, after implementing this classification of incidents by levels, everyone's efficiency in handling affairs increased all at once.
The matters that had originally accumulated were also completely resolved over the course of two weeks.
Each person was used efficiently. There was no longer a situation where two people were so busy that they could not finish anything, while two others were so free that all they wanted to do was sleep.
Basically, it was achieved that everyone had something to do, but that each person's work was not too complicated, ensuring that after finishing their tasks, they would still have a certain amount of free time to attend to their personal matters.
Whether it was training Pokémon, challenging opponents, accompanying family, or even spending time with their girlfriends or boyfriends.
A month had passed since Cain assumed the position of Champion, and the appearance of all the personnel of the Hoenn League seemed completely different. No one complained anymore that the tasks were too tedious, and no one complained anymore that, although their talent was so outstanding, they suffered from having no channels for promotion.
Because, within the classification of incidents, Cain also confirmed along the way the system for promotion of positions and what level of incidents corresponded to each promotion.
Doing this, in reality, could be considered touching the fundamental interests of the large and small families of the Hoenn region, and for a time it provoked disturbances of greater or lesser scale.
But Cain's method for resolving it was very simple: he allowed some members of families with outstanding strength or potential, when classifying the level of an incident, to classify incidents one level above the position they occupied.
In other words, someone who originally could at most classify "C"-level incidents, as long as they were outstanding enough, could receive permission to classify "B"-level incidents.
One should not look down on this simple increase of one level. What it represented was a rise in the level of authority.
But, in reality, who exactly possessed this kind of power was still something Cain decided. After reviewing and investigating a portion of the people, he granted it to those family members who were truly quite outstanding, and not to those who merely spent their days doing nothing.
At first, the people in charge of those large and small families were quite happy, but later they began to realize the true flavor of the matter.
Was this not first taking away the power that had originally belonged to them, only to then leave only those people with relatively outstanding strength and potential the possibility of using that power again?
In the end, were the ones losing not precisely those families?
Only, at first they had not seen it clearly, and Cain had left them dizzy with a stick in one hand and a carrot in the other.
The truly powerful families did not care about these things. For example, the Stone family, to which Steven belonged.
Every person from the Stone family who went to work in the League was a top-class elite. They did not limit the development of the League; on the contrary, they were engines that drove its advancement.
In contrast, those small and medium-sized families whose strength was not that great, but who had countless petty ideas, were the ones that suffered the greatest losses.
From this point, more or less, a portion of the people could see that Cain had the intention of acting against those families of the Hoenn region.
The future Hoenn League would no longer be a place where those useless people who covered themselves with the title of family members came to pass their days. Did they want to rise to high positions? Did they want to possess greater authority?
They could do it. Let them show their talent, regardless of whether their identity came from a powerful family or from an ordinary household.
For Trainers born from ordinary families, this was a blessing. Because the doors of promotion that had originally been blocked were opened, and they once again saw hope.
In only one month, because of Cain's intervention, the entire Hoenn League underwent enormous changes.
But as long as they continued working in the Hoenn League, anyone who spoke of Cain could not help revealing sincere admiration.
Although only one month had passed, the attitude and working appearance of these people were completely different from what they had been a month earlier. It was a feeling full of vitality, an appearance of having been reborn.
Of course, as president of the League, Juan also saw all these changes. At first, he was still worried that Cain, having just assumed the position, would act so drastically and undertake these kinds of measures, provoking a reaction from those large and small families.
But after waiting for a month, that reaction not only did not appear, but the "chronic illness" of the entire Hoenn region, under Cain's scalpel, actually showed signs of gradually improving.
(End of chapter)