Longwei was already looking much better. His clothes had been washed, the filth on his body had been cleansed, and the bandages on his head had been removed. The only indicator that anything had happened at all were the fresh bandages still visible around his hands and neck. There were also fresh bandages wrapped around his torso, arms, and legs, but those weren't visible underneath his white clothing.
"We'll get that squared away while we're there." Mr. Farview said to Longwei from across the dining table. "Lots of places are providing IDs. Police stations, hospitals, even pokécenters. They've been real eager to roll these out to everyone the last couple years ever since our regions signed that treaty. They'll find out where you're from, so long as you've already registered for an ID."
Diver—the floatzel—lowered the final set of bowls onto the table, and Longwei and Mr. Farview both gave them a nod in thanks as the pokémon sat down to join them for lunch. Mr. Farview's daughter, Elizabeth, had already left on a bus to catch a contest in Jubilife City live, and so would not be joining them. And unfortunately for Luxio, she didn't have the proper anatomy to sit at a table nor was she large enough to reach her head over and eat from it comfortably, so she had to eat from plates on the floor. How sad!
"You don't have to go so far for this old man, Mr. Farview. You've already given so much kindness, I shouldn't impose myself any more."
"No no, I insist. I wasn't taught to leave a man in need to fend for himself. We'll drive you on over and make an early shipment of produce at the same time, so don't give me that 'being a burden' excuse."
"I'm sure my wounds have healed enough overnight for me to make the journey."
"I'd like to believe that, but I'd rather drive you there myself and hear it straight from a licensed professional."
Longwei nodded in resignation. Such mortal concerns over bodily health were not entirely unfounded. Longwei remembered how fragile he was before he had broken past the early cultivation stages. Which sadly was presently the case for Longwei. Despite having a healthy body near the pinnacle of mortal health, he no longer had the Qi reinforcement to back it up.
'I have a long road ahead of me.' he thought, taking a yellow fruit that had spots of orange. 'Especially if my dantian is the bottleneck. But I know not how to address that.'
Looking inwards, he again viewed the inside of his dantian. Just like before, it was simply a hollow sphere with particles of meridium floating about. There had been no change, which was expected considering he had not attempted to cultivate.
He recognized the fruit in his hand. A sitrus berry, one of the fruits that had stronger healing properties. An idea formed.
Taking a gamble, he bit into the fruit and latched onto the energy it released just like he had in the forest with the oran berry. This time, however, the energy had a path to his dantian, so he felt confident that there would be no issue.
The energy absorbed cleanly, traveling briefly throughout his meridians and settling within a small corner of his dantian. Before Longwei could breathe a sigh of relief that his gamble didn't backfire, the energy began to glow.
Longwei suppressed a reaction as he observed the glowing energy like a tiger stalking a pig. The nearby shreds of meridium that had been loosely floating within his dantian were pulled in to the beacon like moths to a flame, forming a clump of gray that smothered all the light. The clump of meridium shone, then began to reshape into—'A beam! It's forming the beginnings of a beam!' The glowing eventually stopped, and some excess meridium that had not been melded began to float away aimlessly
'So there is a method… Intaking more energy stimulates growth?' He plopped the rest of the fruit into his mouth and continued to observe, but the results were less than before. Believing most of the fruit's essence had been taken from his first bite, Longwei grabbed another of the same fruit and tried again. The results were even less impressive.
Curiosity piqued, he fished a different fruit from the bowl, a small one no bigger than a strawberry, and plopped it into his mouth. It had a bit of a kick to it compared to the last one, but flavor was a secondary concern for Longwei. He then ate another and compared the results. As he expected, the first result was strong while the second was weak. 'It seems a variety is most effective. Hmm… If energy intake is all that is necessary, then normal cultivation methods should be functional as well. I will have to experiment with this later.'
Mr. Farview and Diver politely refrained from reacting as Longwei proceeded to grab one of every food item arranged throughout the table and set them onto his plate, then do the same thing for a confused Luxio. Mr. Farview and Diver were thinking the exact same thing: their guest had truly forgotten everything, even the taste of food. They envied him greatly for being able to re-experience such wonders for the first time. 'At least the old man's got an appetite.' Mr. Farview thought to himself.
(~)
Longwei and Mr. Farview heaved the final crate of produce into the back of the weathered pickup truck. "Aaaand that's the last of em." Mr. Farview said, dusting off his calloused hands. "I'm surprised you could lift such heavy weights at your age, Mr. Sun."
"Appearances can be quite deceiving. There is much power in these old bones." Longwei got into the passenger seat, ecstatic to finally ride in an actual car again. Sure, Yongyu had Qi-powered carriages, and even boats that could fly, but it just wasn't the same. There's just something about being inside a self-propelling metal box running on mundane fuels that magical wooden carriages and flying boats simply couldn't compare to.
"Well I'm glad for it. We'll be able to beat the lunch hour rush, so long as there aint any traffic on the way." The man said, getting into the driver seat and clicking his seat belt into place.
Longwei couldn't wait.
(~)
Longwei could do nothing but wait.
The towering structures of metal, glass, and concrete that had impressed him at first had long since lost their splendor. Now there was naught but the idle thrum of engines and the honking of horns, broken up every couple minutes by the vehicles rolling forward a few feet. He'd been trying to pass time by cultivating, but it was exceedingly difficult thanks to the many honking horns and other noises that frequently broke his concentration. He hadn't been able to make any progress at all!
Mr. Farview glanced his way and chuckled bitterly. "Well, I guess we know why my daughter decided to take the bus bright and early rather than ride with us…" he said. "She'd have missed the contest if she had to sit in this traffic."
The door to the minivan next to them slid open and 3 teenaged girls poured out, each running for the sidewalk without fear of the immobile traffic. The girls all held stylized little flags and were dressed in peculiar clothes that had the imagery of a gray cat-like pokémon—glameow—sitting regally with a dark-blue haired girl wearing a dress posed behind it.
Mr. Farview laughed. "Or she'd had have to make the next couple miles on foot like those poor girls, hahaha!"
A chain reaction set off, and soon hundreds of passengers were leaving their vehicles and making a run for it. The sidewalks became packed with people, most of them girls wearing clothes and carrying items similar to the first group. Mr. Farview laughed harder.
Even Longwei couldn't help but chuckle. "This contest must be pretty important to warrant such a passionate crowd. What is it about, Mr. Farview? A competition of martial prowess, of arts, or something else?"
"Oh, some hotshot performer is getting their last ribbon so a lot of people don't wanna miss it." Mr. Farview said, then shook his hands in a so-so gesture. "And to answer your question, it's a bit of both. It's basically a battle tournament, except everyone's scored based on how fancy they look compared to their opponent. I've never been a fan of it, too much opinion involved if you ask me."
Longwei nodded sagely. "I see. So there are still battle tournaments, then?"
Mr. Farview snapped a finger in approval. "Yep, and that's where the real competition's at. Teams of no more than 6 per trainer duking it out until one side goes down. Now that there's real pokémon battling, where the real trainers find out who's the best."
"And this is where the so-called 'Regional Champion' is crowned?" Longwei asked, remembering a bit of what he had found from his brief internet searches last night.
"Right on the money." Mr. Farview slapped his steering wheel. "Whoever wins the regional competition gets the rights to challenge the Elite 4. If they beat them, they get to challenge the Champion. Whoever's strongest wins. Straightforward, just like pokémon battling should be. Course, the 3 runner ups also get the right to make the challenge, but most of them don't even make it past the first Elite 4. After all, if ya can't win the regional conference then what hope do you have against the Elite 4, let alone the Champion? There are some other ways to make the challenge too, like bein a gym leader, but none of them ever use it."
"How does one qualify for this competition? And are there other prizes available, or possibly lesser competitions one can take part in instead? Managing another region is… undesirable to me."
Mr. Farview turned his head and gave Longwei a teasing smirk, missing the hidden meaning in the last sentence. "Confident aren't ya? There's a cash prize depending on how far you get in the conference, but before you can even enter the conference you gotta get at least 8 badges by defeating the various gyms throughout Sinnoh. Each of those give you a prize of their own—cash, and sometimes whatever trinket they feel like handing out. Usually it's just some cheap Technical Machine, though. You gotta really impress em to get anything more."
"Are these cash prizes significant? And surely defeating the leaders of 8 established sects is no small matter. How would one new to the world of battling begin their journey?"
"It's scaled based off your badges. 0 badges means a beginner's challenge, 8 or more means you're facing the real fights. I got 8 badges and placed final 64 in my one and only conference before settling down. The money I got from it all was more than enough to buy and develop the house and farm you saw earlier. Good neighbors too, and I wasn't even charged for that!"
'One of those neighbors was throwing rotten food at your house last night…' Shaking his head, Longwei continued his line of questions. "I see. How do you believe Luxio would fare?"
"Luxio's got the power to win some for sure, but gyms judge both pokémon and trainer. If you look like you're only relying on strong pokémon to win everything for ya, there's a chance they might refuse to give you their badges. The first badge you'll probably get, cause that early on all they're really testing is to see if your pokémon are able and willing to fight. But after that… they'll start demanding you get more involved, that you show the knowledge and skill worthy of the badge level. As long as ya win you'll probably get the badges and the cash prize, but they'll only give you the bare minimum cash and they'll definitely not be giving you any of the bonus trinkets. Seeing how you lost your memory and all, ya might wanna do some studying and get some practice in with Luxio before ya make any challenges, to make sure you get better rewards."
Longwei absorbed the information like a very absorbent sponge. "Interesting. And are there any requirements to enter this competition?"
Mr Farview clicked his tongue. "Right, I forgot to answer that one. Well you're in luck, because we're on our way to fulfill that requirement right now. All ya need is an identification and a pokémon. Once we drop this produce off we'll swoop over to the nearest pokécenter and get you your ID, plus a pokéball for your luxio friend that's snoozing in the backseat."
The traffic moved, and the car rolled forward another couple feet before coming to another stop. "Shame it'll probably be late afternoon by then. And traffic on the way out might be just as bad… We'll probably be spending the night at a hotel. It seems Diver and Specter'll have to watch over the homestead by themselves till tomorrow."
"Specter?"
"Oh, she's real shy and prefers staying in the fields, so I'm not surprised ya missed her. She's a phantump, one of those ghost-grass types with the head of a tree trunk. Wandered onto our fields earlier this year and started helping around without saying a word. Haven't registered her as one of our pokemon, but we still treat her like family nonetheless."
(~)
Several hours of small talk passed until they had finally broken through the traffic, and Longwei had learned much of the world from their talks. After a brief stop to drop off the farm's produce, the two men and one luxio entered a nearby pokécenter to get Longwei his ID. There they found themselves brought into an office where they had to face the most dreadful enemies of all: paperwork and bureaucracy.
"And your address?" The pink-haired nurse named Joy asked from behind the table. She had somehow maintained her joyful atmosphere even though they had all been stuck in that room for over an hour, which when combined with her efficient professionalism made the experience much less dreadful than it could have been.
Mr. Farview chose that moment to speak up. "He's currently staying in our homestead."
"Understood, Mr. Farview. We'll register him under your address." She clacked away at the keyboard briefly, and the bulky machine in the corner of the office whirred to life. "Your card will be finished in a few moments. Was there anything else you needed today?"
Mr. Farview slid some cash across the table. "A pokéball for Luxio, if you've any available."
"That we do!" The nurse took the money and placed a red-and-white pokéball on the table, seemingly always carrying a spare on her just in case. "One pokéball as requested. Make sure to hold it against your ID card to register it properly!" The machine finished whirring and spat out an ID card, which Nurse Joy gave to Longwei. "And with that you are now a fully registered citizen of Sinnoh. Because Sinnoh is a member of the League of Regions, your Sinnoh identification is also viable within any League-affiliated region! Now, is there anything else I can do for you?"
Longwei quickly registered the pokéball to his ID. "I suppose there is one final thing." Longwei stated, looking down at Luxio. She was sitting by Longwei's chair during the entire process with eyes empty to the world, having entered a zen-like state from sheer boredom over the last hour. "Luxio here still requires a checkup."
Mr. Farview turned sharply towards Longwei, suddenly remembering why he had initially planned to bring him to the city in the first place. He had forgotten to visit the hospital and get Longwei examined!
Nurse Joy, ignorant to Mr. Farview's inner thoughts, cheerily responded to Longwei. "Absolutely Mr. Sun! Simply speak to my sister at the front desk and tell her you've brought Luxio in for her first checkup. She'll handle things from there!"
Longwei nodded and stood up, the action breaking Luxio from her comatose state. "I will do that. Thank you for your excellent service, Nurse Joy." He held his hands together and bowed deeply.
She fanned the air and smiled. "Oh, I'm just doing my part! Have a good day, gentlemen and lady!"
The trio entered the hallway, and Mr. Farview cleared his throat. "Aint you forgetting something?" He said, pointedly looking at Longwei's bandaged hands.
Longwei paused, and then realization flashed across him. "Ah, you're right! How foolish of me." Farview smirked. Longwei turned and spoke to Luxio, holding out the pokéball he had received. "Disciple, if you would quickly register yourself with this device?"
Mr. Farview's smirk vanished. He guessed he would try again after they had finished their business in the pokécenter…
"Mreow." She brought a claw to the pokéball and vanished in a flash of red light. The ball shook in his hands once, and then a soft ding chimed out.
"And if I remember correctly, to release I simply hold the ball outwards and give it a meaningful tap…" Longwei did just that, and a red beam shot out which then coalesced into Luxio standing before him. She mreow'd once more and fell back into step by Longwei's side. "Most convenient. Now, to get you your health checkup. We've put this off long enough."
Mr. Farview rolled his eyes with a wry smile.
The group moved to the lobby and Longwei sent Luxio in for a checkup. Longwei passed the time through meditation, and soon half an hour had passed.
"Mr. Sun, your pokémon is ready!"
Luxio burst through the double doors and jumped into Longwei's arms before anyone could stop her. The force of her impact would have knocked him to the floor had he not spun after catching her, which masterfully dispersed the force and helped maintained his balance despite his weaker mortal body. Longwei thought such an act was proof that he was still superior to others, able to accomplish such feats even as a mortal. To everyone else in the lobby, it was cute and warmed their hearts.
She mewl'd and mreow'd frantically over the horrors enacted upon her by the nurse and chansey. She cried about how glad she was to be back to safety. But her words were mostly lost on Longwei, who did not understand pokémon. "I'm glad to see you too, Luxio." He said with a humorous tone.
"And I'm glad we're finally done here" Mr. Farview interjected. "Because we still have to get you checked as well." He punctuated that with a cocky smirk. Longwei wasn't sure if he was making a joke or if he was happy to be watching out for a friend, but he went with the latter.
A short walk brought them to a human hospital, and half an hour later the results were in. Yes, two different hospital visits each took only half an hour. This is the power of fantasy.
"Other than the cuts and bruising that have still yet to fully heal, Mr. Sun has a clean bill of health. No concussions or any other internal problems." The male doctor said neutrally, adjusting his rimless round glasses as he pretended to read from the stack of paper in his hands. "And there's nothing that can really be done about the memory loss. A psychic lock could have been dealt with, but there was no such thing. Which means there is nothing we can do."
Mr. Farview wasn't sure whether to be happy for Longwei or upset at himself for being so worried over nothing, but he went with the former. Better to have worried for nothing than to have been careless at a price.
"If that is all, then you may go." The doctor left the room without waiting for a response, taking the result papers with him.
"Is that… common?" Longwei asked as he followed Mr. Farview to the exit.
"Nope. While not every doctor or nurse is a joy, so to speak, most are at least polite." Mr. Farview tsk'd in disapproval. "Well, it's about time we found a hotel. It's already evening, and aint no way I'm waiting in any more traffic after all that."
Longwei suddenly stopped in the hallway. Mr. Farview turned around in confusion, confusion which only grew when he saw Longwei had clasped his hands together and bent forward in a standing bow. "This senior wishes to thank you for everything you have done for him. But he will remain a burden no longer."
Mr. Farview scratched the back of his neck in embarrassment. "It's no problem, really, but—"
"This senior will repay your kindness one thousand fold at some time in the future. This he swears upon his honor." Longwei ceased bowing and stood to his full height, no longer maintaining the false hunch of an old man, and looked down at Mr. Farview with a warm smile. "If ever you have need of me, I will answer your call. Even if I must defy the heavens to do so. But for now, this senior must walk his own path."
The younger man was almost at a loss for words. "I… Hmm. I know those eyes. You're dead set on this, huh." Longwei's appearance did not falter, his determination resolute. "Well… Alright then. Here." Mr. Farview opened his wallet and took out a stack of money notes. "A portion of the money we got from selling that produce earlier. It aint much, but it'll cover your early expenses."
Longwei took the money and bowed a second time. "I, Longwei Sun, swear upon my immortal soul that I will forever remember your kindness." He stood tall once more. "Farewell, Hunter Farview. May the will of heaven favor you and yours." Longwei began walking towards the exit.
"Make sure to visit in two months!" Mr. Farview hollered from behind him. "My wife and the rest of my team will be home from vacation by then, and I want you to meet them!"
Longwei turned his head to nod sagely and continued walking.
A nurse poked her head from one of the many doors in the hallway. "Shhhh!"
"Oh, uh, sorry." Mr. Farview said in a hushed voice.
Longwei strode out of the hospital with purpose in his steps and released Luxio from her pokéball. She scanned the early evening city for something, then cocked her head at Longwei in confusion when it was not found.
"And now," he said, orienting himself towards the main attraction for aspiring trainers in Jublife City. "Now, Luxio, you and I will test our mettle against this city's so-called gym."
Luxio responded with a toothy grin and fell into step beside him, eager to show off in front of her human.
He stepped into his private lab in a hurry, the stack of papers held tightly against his chest and the flask of blood still secured in his coat. He quickly tapped the electronic keypad to seal the metal doors behind him and breathed a sigh of relief. Nobody had noticed him leave with the items, and no one had questioned him for clocking out early. He was clear.
'This—this can make me rich!' He thought madly, hastily inputting the data into his large computer as if the stack of papers could burst into flames at any moment. 'A human with signatures almost like that of a pokémon! Such a discovery would make them all recognize me as a genius!'
He placed the blood flask into a slot attached to the computer. With the press of a button it was whisked away to undergo a more thorough analysis and documentation.
'And the genome! Its sequence has no close matches with any of the cataloged regions! Where is he truly from? Is he even of this world?!'
"Porygon! Catalog any data you find online regarding a man named Longwei Sun! And if he visits any human hospitals, you are to inform me immediately!"
A pixelated image of porygon—the pink and blue cyber duck pokémon—momentarily flashed on the main screen of the large terminal, followed by a big green check mark.
Charon continued typing, noting down everything he could remember from the encounter.
'I need to complete this research quickly! I can't let anyone else take my credit!'