For the next 2 weeks, all of my time was dedicated to either studying, working out, or relaxing. I worked my way through the materials, starting with what I felt would be easiest.
First up was the type matchups. While this would come into play with the final exams, I figured it was a good start. Given the time I have spent playing the games, I knew most of these off the top of my head. I had a blank chart that I could fill in with colors to denote effectiveness and compare it to a hard copy. First time I only messed up a few, and they were usually involving Fairy types since I didn't have as much experience with them.
I headed to the fitness center for a few hours after lunch, then came back for a nap. I woke up, and continued my studies until dinner. After dinner, I did some last minute reviews and then relaxed until bed. This became my routine until that Saturday.
Next up was the item guide. I was familiar with most of the items, as well as the prices. There were a few that I never heard of, mostly because they weren't really in the games. It only took about a day for me to be comfortable with them. I did make a few flash cards of some of the trickier items to review a little later.
I started on the laws of the region next. Turned out that most of the regions had the same laws nowadays, where there were some major differences even a few years ago. The Pokemon leagues and governments came together to set a unified law system to make traveling and relocating between the regions easier. Some regions had some exclusive laws that pertained to them specifically, but didn't have a major impact. The main differences were in regards to Pokémon. They had rights nearly to the level of humans. There were obviously cruelty laws as well as abuse laws.
Pokémon could be taken by humans in one of three capacities. The first was for battling, but that was only officially allowed for trainers. The second was as pets, generally not captured. If a person gave up their Pokémon license, they could keep their Pokémon as pets. The third way was for employment. Companies and even individuals could employ Pokémon for various jobs and professions. People could have their Pokémon accompany them and even help out at work, within reason. Pokémon used by companies were provided with housing and food, along with various other benefits varying on the Pokemon. As an example, a moving company employing fighting type Pokémon would also provide them with a fitness club membership and access to large training areas.
There were laws about disturbing natural habitats for Pokémon, as well as laws against the hunting of Pokémon. Acting in self defense was a gray area, due to there being a fine line between defending yourself and cruelty laws. There was even the option to defeat and capture or...eliminate troublesome Pokémon in areas for people, like a bounty of sorts. They had to have appropriate paperwork and legal channels gone through to keep it from just making fake claims to allow unlawful hunting.
I spent nearly three days looking over not only the supplies reading, but looking into additional information. The parallels between the Pokémon work and our world were surprising, but some of the unique laws were nothing I had ever even considered.
Before I knew it, the weekend had arrived. Given my progress, my parents allowed me a day to relax and we headed to Slateport City to visit the market. The cool salty air coming off the sea made for a beautiful day and I couldn't wait for my next chance to explore the city in much more detail.
That night, I actually had a night out. I met up with Sam to go shopping for some new clothes. We grabbed a bite to eat and had a nice time. There was a little bit of flirting, but neither of us pushed it. We both knew it was too soon and I'd be leaving anyway. Down the road though, who knows what may happen.
Sunday began the Pokémon League Rules. A lot of it was already familiar or intuitive. 8 badges, league cycles per year, all pretty simple stuff. One thing that stood out was that you didn't have to do everything in one year. If you did not qualify for the finals by the deadline, but wanted to continue, you simply registered for the next cycle. There would be a period of time during the championship that you could not challenge any gyms as the leaders would be at Ever Grande City for the finals. I doubted I would be able to qualify my first year, so I quietly decided to myself to just see where I was before the finals and go from there. Everything else was pretty self explanatory and I was comfortable by Monday night.
Tuesday began the Pokemon Academy final exam. As I had suspected, most of the stuff I had reviewed came into play for this. There were a few additional things, like local and world history, geography, and stuff like that. I did spend a little more time studying for this than the other materials. I noticed I even skipped the fitness center one day due to being caught up in all of this. I felt confident as I headed to bed Thursday night, planning to take it easy mentally on Friday. I reviewed the material in the morning, and headed fo a long fitness session after breakfast. I ended up there until nearly dinner time. I was definitely nervous, but confident to say the least. I knew I'd be able to do a last minute review before leaving just to be safe. I managed to do a last run through of the material before passing out early.