Chapter 16: Reaching the Top Four is Success
Arthur could say this one sentence truthfully, he wasn't bragging.
Because he really wasn't that enthusiastic about his main job as an internet celebrity.
These days, the total amount of time he spent on Star Blog was less than an hour, probably not even as long as his fans.
Usually, he would just post some photos of Froakie's daily life regularly, and upload a fabricated memoir of his life in Moonwhisper Mountain every once in a while.
He only did this because Eleanor Vance asked him to.
Because he typed slowly, after the initial excitement wore off, he rarely interacted with fans online.
Not to mention, he never took the initiative to do any hype or marketing.
In the memoirs he wrote, the name of Suicune never appeared, leading many fans online to give him new nicknames such as "unfilial son" and "the kind of child that Suicune will beat up."
But even so, his follower count was steadily increasing, and the release of the promotional video caused it to skyrocket, which stunned the experienced operations staff at Articuno Media.
Was this the legendary Buddhist marketing, lying down and gaining followers?
However, Eleanor Vance and the others weren't idle. They quickly took advantage of this surge in followers to arrange Arthur's first live-stream promotion.
This time, he mainly promoted Pokémon food and snacks, which in this world were daily necessities with high consumption. They weren't useless products of intellectual tax, so the effect of the first live stream was pretty good.
At the same time, an interesting incident occurred during his live stream:
When Arthur was promoting a snack stick for cat-type Pokémon, Eleanor Vance used a subtitle board off-camera to remind him to use his creativity and pad out the time.
The filming location happened to be his own kitchen, surrounded by some of the tree fruits, meat sauces, and dried fish that he usually bought to make food for Froakie.
He glanced at the ingredient list of this snack stick and thought it looked simple, so he simply tried to reproduce a version in front of the camera.
Because the recipe on the snack packaging definitely wouldn't include the steps, Arthur was improvising at the time, and he didn't think much about it.
But when he finished, Eleanor Vance rushed the cats they had brought for tasting to the camera. Without exception, the three Meowth chose the snack that Arthur had made on the spot, and even fought over it, using the move "Scratch."
The several opened brand snack sticks next to them were ignored, and the scene was once very awkward...
For a while, the comments in the live stream, which didn't have many viewers, were full of jokes like "hahahaha," "major car accident," "refund the money," and "RNM pay up."
So after this live stream, Arthur inexplicably gained a series of other titles, such as "brand destroyer," "pimp of brands," and "cat friend"...
However, in the end, the sales of this live stream were surprisingly good, which greatly relieved his financial pressure, and he paid off the Froakie down payment he owed Eleanor Vance.
After that, although Articuno Media was still working hard to find endorsements for him, Arthur's energy and focus were completely off this.
Because the Pokémon competition that Eleanor Vance signed him up for was finally about to begin.
This event called "Golden Autumn Cup" was hosted by the Alliance TV station and co-organized by many well-known enterprises in the City. This year was the ninth year of its operation.
In terms of level, this "Golden Autumn Cup" was a semi-professional event, so all non-professional players could register, regardless of conditions.
Speaking of which, it is necessary to mention the event level of Pokémon competitions in this world.
Because in this era, Pokémon competition has become the undisputed number one sport in the world, with almost universal participation and heat that far surpasses all traditional competitive events, the competitions it spawned are particularly numerous.
At the same time, because the level difference between trainers in Pokémon competition is extremely large, the specifications of the events are clearly differentiated, and different levels of competitions even use different rules.
The current mainstream competitions have three levels—
The highest level is the T1 League.
There is only the Alliance Cup, which is hosted by major alliances once a year; the Champions Cup, which is hosted by clubs every two years; and the World Cup, which is hosted by Alliance representative teams every four years.
The T1 League competitions have the largest venues, with a size of 90x45 meters, comparable to a standard football field.
At the same time, the T1 League limits the number of moves Pokémon can use in a single game.
Because the Pokémon skill list that can participate in this level of events is quite fancy, often with more than twenty moves. If they are not limited, they can drag the length of the game for a long time in a disadvantageous situation, causing tons of damage to the viewers' bladders...
Below T1 are the professional leagues.
Events at this level are mostly club-based, and they are often the qualifiers for the higher-level T1 League.
For example, to participate in the biennial Champions Cup, you must first get a ranking in the professional-level events within your alliance.
The standard venue for professional-level leagues is smaller than T1 leagues, and there are also limits on the number of moves Pokémon can use in a single game.
Below the professional level are the third level of semi-professional leagues.
This level of events is the most numerous, including various university competitions, regional competitions, named competitions, city competitions, etc.
The competition venues for semi-professional leagues are only 60x30 meters, about the size of four basketball courts, and there are no restrictions on Pokémon moves. They are the most accessible competitions.
However, even within semi-professional leagues, there are huge differences in the scale and popularity of the events, and the level of quality varies greatly.
Some leagues are run like eSports internet café competitions, focusing on a sense of participation.
But some competitions have considerable value, such as the "Golden Autumn Cup" that Arthur has signed up for.
Although the name of this competition sounds a bit tacky, it is hosted by the Alliance TV station, and the well-known Skyspire City Pokémon competition club, Sea Carp Club, regularly sends people to be judges.
From the second session onwards, the top four of this competition can reliably receive invitations from the Sea Carp Club to enter their youth training camp, becoming a reserve professional, which greatly raised the competitive level of this event.
As Eleanor Vance and Arthur had said earlier: winning a ranking means getting a chance to debut, referring to qualifying for the Sea Carp Club's youth training camp by reaching the top four of this competition, becoming a reserve trainer for the youth training team.
This kind of competition, which can bring promotion hope for individual players, belongs to the highest level among semi-professional competitions and is often jokingly called a ticket competition by the audience, meaning winning means getting a ticket to advance to professional.
So for Arthur, the goal of this battle is also very clear—
Reaching the top four is success!
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