"This..."
The Trainer on the opposite side had clearly never witnessed such a situation before.
Watching his Swift get directly intercepted by a Bullet Punch without leaving a scratch, he was obviously at a loss.
Compared to its bewildered Trainer, Eevee's performance was much better.
Seeing that it wasn't receiving any instructions from its Trainer, the helpless Eevee had no choice but to use Charm on its own.
A faint pink glow rose from its eyes, and facing the seemingly unbeatable Riolu, Eevee adopted a pitiful expression, quietly gazing at the Fighting-type.
Riolu, being looked at by Eevee in such a manner, felt a bit awkward.
Its heart softened, and its will to attack seemed to gradually fade.
Under Eevee's gaze, its attack power was lowered.
David secretly chuckled as he watched Riolu's embarrassed expression, never expecting his own competitive fighter to have such a side.
However, with Riolu's strong willpower, it quickly broke free from this state.
The recovered Riolu seemed somewhat angry—not at its opponent, but at itself for losing focus during battle.
Its eyes instantly filled with determination.
This left Eevee, who was about to try the same trick again, completely confused.
At this moment, Riolu had no distracting thoughts. Only the desire for victory remained in its mind.
The power of Aura condensed into a sphere between its paws, and it hurled it toward the nearby Eevee.
This was Lucario's signature move—Aura Sphere.
After many days of practice, combined with its Aura Link with David, Riolu had finally completely mastered this move.
The unprepared Eevee was hit directly by Aura Sphere, and the super-effective damage from the Fighting-type move immediately caused Eevee to lose its ability to battle.
"Eevee has lost the ability to battle. The match is over. The winner is David!"
The electronic prompt sounded, announcing the result of the match.
In just a few minutes, David and Riolu had already secured their first victory of the day.
While it might take some time to explain, in reality, only three moves were exchanged.
If it weren't for wanting Riolu to adapt more to the battle atmosphere and waiting for the opponent to finish their strategy, a single Aura Sphere would have quickly ended the match.
The subsequent battles were rather uneventful.
The opponents David was matched with weren't necessarily inferior in terms of Pokémon level. After all, most of them had raised their Pokémon for several years, and through the passage of time, many had entered the Veteran tier.
However, they truly lacked experience battling other Trainers of similar skill levels.
Their battles basically only focused on type advantages and level differences.
It's important to understand that engaging with opponents of similar skill levels greatly improves one's own abilities.
For David, all the matches in the entire Rookie Tournament combined hadn't provided as much improvement as battling those final few Veteran-tier opponents.
Constantly battling weaker opponents would only dull one's own skills.
By the end of the morning, David had already achieved a seven-game winning streak.
The battles themselves didn't take much time. Most of it was spent waiting for the system to match opponents.
Opening the ranked battle app, his morning's record had been logged into his personal profile.
Name: David Ranked Battle ID: 128328648 Identity: New Trainer Ranked Tier: Poké Ball Tier Consecutive Wins: 7 (Ongoing) Total Wins: 7
Looking at the time, it was almost noon.
David left the battle arena.
Just then, his friends' current battles were also mostly finished.
After chatting for a while, they prepared to go grab lunch.
Among them, David was the fastest, having achieved seven consecutive victories—just three matches away from Teacher Dominic's morning requirement.
Next was Miles, who had also achieved six consecutive victories with his evolved Arcanine.
As for Willow and the others, although they had lost once or twice, each of them had accumulated at least five wins, so overall, completing the task before the end of the day shouldn't be a problem.
Aside from them and a few others who were doing well, most of the other classmates were struggling somewhat.
Even Emery, who was close to David, had only managed three victories, with more losses than wins.
According to David's observation, most of the classmates' Pokémon were around level sixteen.
With their current strength, encountering Pokémon below level twenty was manageable, but if they were unlucky enough to face Veteran-tier Pokémon, it would be very difficult to secure a win.
Recalling Teacher Dominic's words from the morning—prohibiting students from battling each other—David now understood that the goal of ten victories was never meant for everyone to achieve.
It was likely that Teacher Dominic himself never intended for everyone to complete it.
As it was already noon, David and his group temporarily left the battle venue.
They found a restaurant nearby, ate lunch, and then found a place to rest after the morning's battles.
Even without being injured in battle, Pokémon also needed reasonable rest time.
At 3 PM, David stood in the battle arena, waiting for his opponent to arrive.
In the time before, he and Riolu had successively won two more battles.
Now, he was just one victory away from the required ten.
After quite a while, just as the allotted waiting time was about to expire and David thought the other party might have forfeited, his opponent finally arrived in a leisurely manner.
It was a middle-aged man, appearing to be around forty years old.
"It seems my opponent is you!"
"You students—instead of staying in school and playing around, you come here trying to learn how to battle before you've even grown up... Do you really think choosing a Trainer major makes you a Professional Trainer?"
"I think you little brats are only at this level, all here to give me free wins. Perfect. Today I'll rely on you kids to get back into the Great Ball tier."
Despite the regulated waiting time nearly ending, this guy only arrived at the last minute.
Yet, as soon as he showed up, he started spouting nonsense, looking completely nonchalant, as if he didn't take the battle with David seriously at all.
However, from his words just now, it wasn't hard to deduce that the guy had apparently already defeated several students from Class 1, and he had previously been in the Great Ball tier before dropping down.
"Are you going to battle with your mouth? I don't have time to waste with a loser. If you want to fight, let's start. Otherwise, shut your mouth and get lost."
Hearing the unpleasant words from the other side, David frowned.
David had always been someone who believed in reciprocity—treating others as they treated him.
Seeing the other party's attitude, he retorted without hesitation.