3 weeks went by since I started to go to school and I finally caught up with my peers. I was now on the level of someone who knew pokemon for their whole life and then a little more. I was very proud of my accomplishments and was ready to take on a new task. Which in a way came very quickly, it seemed that our class planned to go on an excursion.

We went and visited a pokemon centre, where we got the task to look after a few of the mons. One of the nurses showed us a few tricks in order to spot injuries and what symptoms a pokemon shows when it got sick. We learned how to (properly) use medical items that you could get at any pokemart. I understood how important this knowledge was and made notes in order to rehearse all this in order to ingrain it into my memory.

In the following weeks, we made many such trips. We went to a daycare centre and played with the pokemon there. We once took a bus to Eterna City and visited the Arena. We watched one of the fights and our teacher commented on every move that the participants made. I was really enthralled by the power of Gardenias' Roserade and was mortified when it was beaten by the challengers' Staravia. It was still a great fight, I made a bunch of notes of it and thought of possible counter attacks that would have been possible. It must have been quite shameful for the gym leader to lose in front of such a big crowd, even more so if some of them will very likely challenge her too in the future.

In a month, there will be the first round of written tests and if my grades are good enough I will gain the opportunity to rank up. From what I have heard, I will have to take a trial which varies from season to season. I felt certain that I will manage it without a problem. I just had to study hard and then it should be a cakewalk.

And I just did that, studying took over all of my free time. The other children in the orphanage looked at me as if I was crazy (which I probably was, not that it mattered). Marcia seemed pleased with that and helped me out in any way she could. All of it took a toll on me but I persevered. Even as I started to lose weight because of all the stress or when I had problems staying awake in the middle of the day, my Steel-like willpower held on. It was a few days before the test would that I allowed myself to rest. I would still read through the notes I made but what I couldn't learn until now, I wouldn't be able to learn in the next few days.

Then it was finally time for the test period. The first subjects were the same as in any kind of school, so I knew that I had them in the bag. The real challenge was in-depth knowledge of pokemon. I got a list of 10 pokemon that I had to describe in any possible way I could think of. Appearance, behaviour, eating habits, evolutions, learnable attacks. The list went on. Next, I got a description of a situation in which a problem occurred and I had to solve it. The solution had to be logical and creative. After that was done, each of us got a picture of a pokemon from different angles. I was then asked what was wrong. The pokemon in question had some kind of injury and we had to write down how we would help it.

As the last 2 questions were ethical in nature, they questioned someone's morality. It was a brilliant way to sort different kind people. There were also other questions but they were mostly theoretical and did not pose a problem. After a resting period of 2 days, we got our results and it seemed as if my answers pleased the jury. I was allowed to partake in the trial, which would be held tomorrow at 9 am. I was really excited and couldn't even sleep that night. I was totally exhausted when it was time to go and was almost sleepwalking to school. The teacher who would hold the trial smiled at my bleary-eyed expression and asked me if I slept well. I answered him with one of my creepy grins, which worked wonders with my bloodshot eyes and the dark circles around them. He let me pass but mumbled to himself about "spooky kids with no sense of humour". //No good Sir I have quite the good sense of comedy and I promise that you will find it 'Terrific'. Kekekeke!//

So here I was, standing next to all the others waiting for the final test to begin.