Pokemon Lord of Fear

After finally sending off the gleeful Volcarona—and the visibly relieved Yanister—Edward looked up to see Zoroark walking in, holding a few documents.

"Boss, tomorrow's the start of the contest," Zoroark said, handing the papers to Edward. Edward took them and gave a quick glance.

It was the program for the opening ceremony of the first Tom Tree Contest.

Yes, that's right.

The Hoenn League had rather dramatically arranged an opening ceremony. Edward didn't really understand why there needed to be one, but the thick stack of documents in his hand made it clear—the Hoenn League was dead serious about this.

They probably intended to turn the Tom Tree Contest into a formal, recurring competition or even a festival. And the benefits of doing so were obvious: it would attract large numbers of people from other regions to travel to Hoenn.

Lately, Hoenn had been stealing the spotlight.

"Go on stage, perform the 'split tree' stunt with the Tom the Persian actor, wave to the crowd, and sign autographs?" Edward read off the list of things he had to do, his eye twitching slightly.

Was this an opening ceremony or a celebrity concert?

Thankfully, Ada and the others would be joining him onstage for the autograph session. After all, the whole League was very curious about the core creative team behind Tom and Jerry.

"How many participants are signed up now?" Edward asked, glancing at Zoroark. The plan was to hold the opening ceremony tomorrow, then have each region crown their local champion on the first day. On the second day, all the champions would come to Hoenn and compete together to determine the ultimate winner.

The entire event spanned just two days—a very short schedule.

"As of the registration deadline, we had 13.6 million people sign up," Zoroark answered instantly without even looking at the data.

Edward rubbed his face.

Over thirteen million participants? That had to be the largest contest in the history of the Pokémon League, right? Even the regular regional championships didn't have that many competitors.

After all, you usually had to collect eight Gym Badges just to qualify—and that alone was enough to eliminate a huge number of people.

But when he thought about it, it made sense. Collecting Gym Badges required actual strength. Meanwhile, to participate in the Tom Tree Contest?

All you had to do was know how to split a tree.

"So that means over thirteen million trees have to be made into Tom Trees?" Edward rubbed his chin. Compared to the vast greenery of the Pokémon world, this number was actually negligible.

In the Pokémon world, nature always came first—humans came second. When faced with nature, humanity didn't pose much of a threat.

Sure, there were still some shady factories and chemical plants polluting the environment, but overall, the natural scenery of the Pokémon world remained stunningly well-preserved.

Take Hoenn, for example—towns and buildings only occupied about 10% to 20% of the region. The rest belonged to nature. Forests were everywhere.

So really, chopping down thirteen million trees wasn't that big a deal on a global scale.

"Let's just hope the opening ceremony goes smoothly. I'd hate for it to get us banned or something," Edward muttered, massaging his brow.

The whole League's attention had shifted to the Tom Tree Contest lately, and Edward had already heard that quite a few major companies had signed on as sponsors.

Even his dad had complained over dinner that ad slots for the Tom Tree Contest were now as expensive as those during the finals of the Masters Tournament. That really showed how insanely popular this event had become. The Hoenn League must be grinning from ear to ear.

With all that income, the League would have the resources to tackle many projects. Each region's League generally handled its own finances, and now that Hoenn was rolling in money, it could finally make some big moves.

"Boss, about that new character we introduced in Tom and Jerry—Second Cousin Merlin—he's now ranked third in the audience popularity polls," Zoroark said, handing over another document.

Edward glanced at it, then set it aside.

"What's the public reaction to the whole magic thing?" Edward asked, recalling the Volcarona that had come to find him. That thing had nearly set the sky ablaze with its version of Incendio, making Edward think that Harry Potter might be a massive hit in this world—though it could also inspire copycats that were even worse than the "tree-splitting crotch" move.

Edward could already imagine it: a trainer in the wild with a Gyarados suddenly being ambushed. The trainer shouts "Avada Kedavra," and the Gyarados responds with a Hyper Beam that wipes them off the map.

The "Three Unforgivable Curses" might all be possible in the Pokémon world—which was frankly terrifying.

As for the simpler spells like Levitation or Expelliarmus, those could be easily mimicked.

"Boss, take a look at this," Zoroark said, handing over his phone.

Edward took it and saw a video from a content creator on the eternal trending site PoképokéTV. The creator was analyzing Edward's newly introduced concept: magic.

In the Pokémon world, the term "magic" wasn't particularly strange.

Nor was it a term Edward had invented.

But the concept of magic in the Pokémon world was more like something from a fairy tale—like a witch in a story. For example, in one of the most popular fairy tales, the idea of magic was central.

A mysterious, super-strong witch gave a magical berry to Princess Diancie, who had been driven from her home by an evil stepmother. The princess set off to find her grandmother, only to discover that she had been eaten by a Mightyena. A brave Lucario hunter appeared and helped Diancie defeat the Mightyena.

Diancie was very moved. Then she met seven Maushold, who took her in. The brave Lucario smiled and turned into a bubble in the sea. Diancie, after eating the magical berry, fell into a deep sleep, and her hair grew very long.

Eventually, she met a brave trainer prince who broke the curse. She put on the crystal shoes he gave her and helped him win the Pokémon League championship. Then they lived happily ever after.

When Edward heard this story as a kid, he regretted learning the Pokémon language so early.

He'd never imagined words could be so devastatingly effective.

But that's essentially what "magic" meant in the Pokémon world—eat a berry, fall asleep. That's magic. Later interpretations were just glorified versions of psychic power or enhanced abilities.

"Looks like everyone's pretty interested in Merlin's magic," Edward murmured thoughtfully.

(End of Chapter)

(Man this arc is hard to read and translate, its probably entertaining in Chinese or something and it gets lose in mtl.)