บท 778: Chapter 673: Eve of the World Championship_1
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Alliance Island, with its skyline dominated by towering skyscrapers standing side by side with ordinary high-rise buildings, has once again become the venue for the quadrennial Pokémon Alliance Conference.
Silver City is one of the grandest cities on Earth, as well as a melting pot of cultures, where technological facilities are perfectly blended with natural landscapes. Despite being studded with skyscrapers, the city's greening efforts are also quite on point.
And on both sides, there are the seas.
April 20th, the second day after the China Team's arrival.
In Silver City, the China Athlete Village.
"Good morning."
Outside the meeting room, Fang Yuan arrived just in time to run into Tang Xinlan, who was dressed in the red and white team uniform.
This time, the uniforms for the China National Team were in red and white, and the style was quite similar to Fang Yuan's red.
"It's not early anymore, there's only one minute left before the meeting time," Tang Xinlan remarked quietly before she walked directly into the meeting room.
At nine o'clock this morning, a total of ten national team Trainers will hold a collective meeting to familiarize themselves with the rules of the world tournament.
"As long as I'm not late, it's fine," Fang Yuan followed her in, taking a quick glance at the seven people who had already taken their seats in the meeting room upon entering.
Team one: Su Shu, Yun Kai, Xu Haoran, Xie Qingyi.
Team two: Shang Ren, Mu Fan, Zheng Hongyi.
With Fang Yuan and Tang Xinlan seated, the only one missing now was Champion Jiang Li.
Almost immediately after, Jiang Li, holding a pile of documents, entered the room, saying, "Sorry, I had to grab some stuff and am a bit late."
Jiang Li, with a look of helplessness, approached the holographic projection control panel and then suddenly said, "How about Yun Kai takes over the presentation? It feels so troublesome..."
Yun Kai remained silent in his seat, just shaking his head.
Yun Kai's temperament might be more suited for being the team captain compared to Jiang Li, but when it comes to strength and tactical knowledge, Jiang Li was the one better equipped to lead.
Jiang Li scratched his head and then looked around at everyone. He was familiar with all the members of team one and had gotten to know team two quite well, as they had all undergone special training together. As for Fang Yuan, who had not taken part in the special training and came to the Pokémon Alliance to receive an award in advance… Well, it's probably best left unmentioned.
Some people, while publicly the general commander of the national team and the captain of team one, were also serving as bodyguards for the members of team two in private.
This is outrageous!
"As for the rules, I think everyone has already familiarized themselves with them in advance, so I'll make my explanations brief. Let's focus the meeting time on discussion," Jiang Li opened the holographic projection device and said.
With a burst of electronic sound, the emblems of 136 countries appeared on the screen behind Jiang Li.
"This time, a total of 136 countries are participating in the world tournament," he said.
When Jiang Li finished speaking, he felt something off about the atmosphere and said, "Don't be so serious, you can interrupt me with questions while I'm talking."
The room fell into silence once again.
Su Shu smiled and asked, "Among these countries, which ones have Psychic participants?"
"I don't know, but for this world tournament, there are 136 participating countries, each divided into team one and team two, making a total of 272 teams, or 1360 Trainers," Jiang Li replied.
"The participating countries' teams will compete in the form of national team battles, and the specific format of these battles is divided into three modes..."
As for the battle rules, everyone present was already familiar with them.
The rules of the China-Japan exchange match were based on the rules set by the China Association and Japan within the context of the Pokémon Alliance Conference.
The purpose of this was to let the participants get used to it in advance.
The national team battle format consists of three individual battles, two team battles, and one King-style battle.
Winning one of these three modes earns 2 points, 2 points, and 3 points respectively, leading to a total of 13 points; the side with the higher score wins.
"Among these, team two members can be substitutes for team one, but only one person per match is allowed," continued Jiang Li.
As he finished speaking, the team two members looked desperately towards Demon King Fang Yuan, who, at that moment, was also smiling back at them.
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This rule... there's nothing that can be done then.
With Fang Yuan here, the other two team members will most likely not even qualify as substitutes.
"However, the biggest change is that this time the entire B-team can directly participate in the World Championship."
"Here's the important part."
"Out of 272 teams, there are 16 seed teams that don't have to go through the preliminary rounds and can directly advance to the final championship. These teams are the A-teams from the top sixteen countries of the previous Pokémon Alliance tournament, which means that I, Su Shu, Yun Kai, Xu Haoran, and Xie Qingyi, can directly advance to the main competition."
The Four Heavenly Kings Team of Hua Nation definitely ranks among the top five in the world, so naturally, it's included among the previous top sixteen.
To prevent these powerful nations and teams from facing each other too early, this World Championship has a special arrangement for these top-level competitors.
"Apart from the 16 seed teams, there are 256 teams left, with 120 A-teams and 136 B-teams all participating in the preliminary rounds," Jiang Li said to Fang Yuan and the others.
"The organizers will divide these 256 teams into 16 major divisions based on their strength, and each division will have approximately half A-teams and half B-teams among the 16 teams. These 16 teams will compete for the championship of their respective division."
"Ultimately, the champions of the 16 divisions will compete in the final championship with the 16 seed teams to determine the world champion."
"The China Association is paying more attention to the B-team this time because, in theory, B-team members can participate in more matches than A-team members throughout the tournament," Jiang Li analyzed.
"In other words, as long as our B-team continuously defeats the A-teams of other countries and becomes the division champion, there's even a chance that two teams from Hua Nation could appear in the final championship," Shang Ren said.
"Exactly, having two out of the 32 teams in the finals being from one country is a great honor," Yun Kai said.
"However, looking at the draw rules, for the 16 teams in each division, the first round is basically one country's A-team against another country's B-team. The draw is extremely harsh for B-teams—without absolute strength, B-teams will likely be eliminated by A-teams from other countries in the first round, and they will only continue to serve as substitutes," Xu Haoran said.
"Our B-team has a high chance of facing an A-team from some country in the first round of the upcoming division battles."
"Not to worry, our B-team cannot be regarded as a typical B-team," Xie Qingyi said with a smile.
As one of the top five countries, even Hua Nation's B-team could crush some of the weaker countries' A-teams, let alone with top-level combatants like Fang Yuan and Shang Ren on the team—that's even more reassuring.
"That's right, our B-team as a whole is very strong. A-teams from large nations, strong nations, and regional powerhouses are usually seed teams. The A-teams we'll face won't be very strong—just there to be crushed. With some effort, becoming the division champion is still a hopeful endeavor," Fang Yuan said.
The division competition requires winning four matches in a row to advance to the final championship.
Fang Yuan glanced at Shang Ren, Tang Xinlan, Zheng Hongyi, and Mu Fan, feeling confident there wouldn't be any problems.
Shang Ren's strength was also quite formidable in this World Championship; coupled with his own, even if they encountered the Four Heavenly Kings Team from some regional powerhouse, victory was still achievable.
"Received," Tang Xinlan said.
"Understood," Zheng Hongyi and Mu Fan also indicated.
"So, our B-team's goal is to become division champions and make sure two Hua Nation teams are among the 32 teams vying for the world champion title," Fang Yuan said.
And once they reached the final championship, whether the B-team could continue progressing no longer mattered.
They were bound to face tough opponents, and the team wouldn't be able to enhance their overall strength quickly; depending on Fang Yuan and Shang Ren wouldn't be enough. But there was no helping it, and even if they were to lose later on, B-team members would still have the chance to become substitutes for the A-team, continuing to compete on the World Championship stage.
"Although battling is mainstream, those special competitions cannot be overlooked." After a heated discussion, Jiang Li added.
Even though they didn't need to participate in the division preliminaries, it wasn't like the 16 seed teams would just watch the other teams compete the entire time.
They would partake in another kind of special competition similar to the Olympics.
The special competitions consisted of 18 entertainment events, each corresponding to one of the 18 attributes like normal, fire, bug, water, poison, and so on...
These 18 events... only Pokémon corresponding to the event's attribute were allowed to participate, and each event had a different format.
The 80 competitors from the 16 seed teams could freely sign up to compete for 18 gold medals, 18 silver medals, and 18 bronze medals for their country.
Special competitions weren't battles; combat strength wasn't as crucial. Events like Flying-type flying skill contests and Water-series surfing competitions placed more emphasis on coordination ability and energy control level.
Beyond Pokémon battles, the entertaining competitions between seed teams also drew considerable audience attention. Although they weren't combat-based events, they provided an excellent opportunity to gauge the trainers' Pokémon strengths from other seed teams, as any capability was part of one's overall strength.
During this lengthy World Championship, not only were there fierce Pokémon battles, but also engaging attribute competitions, all designed to prevent audience fatigue, with the organizers sparing no effort.
At present, Jiang Li and Fang Yuan had clear objectives: to allow the A-team to win as many gold medals as possible, and for the B-team to strive to become division champions.
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