25 Learning about the world

I immediately grabbed the pokenav out of my bag and looked it over carefully. It was a bit bulky but for the most part was about the same shape as an old flip phone. It was sand yellow with a single blue button in the middle of it that released the latch opening the device and a camera lens at the bottom. Once open the entire top part of the device was a screen while the bottom half was a directional pad and clicker button. Pressing the clicker button the pokenav's screen immediately lit up brightly and a prompt asking for my I.D number appeared.-

Retrieving it from my bag I carefully used the directional pad to type in the number on the card before hitting accept. It was much more primitive than the tech on earth so I had no trouble at all figuring it out. I got a loading screen after that as the device sent out a signal to the nearest tower to input the data to the server. It didn't take long thankfully , only about thirty seconds in total before I got put on the home screen. Clearly the device was made to be very user friendly as the seven options were clearly labeled to be chosen.-

The options were Hoenn map , condition , internet , match call , camera , ribbons and rescue call. Clicking on the first option I was presented with a familiar but significantly different map then the one I remember. In emerald the map of Hoenn was very small and only showed "important" places alongside the routes. This map was dotted with towns , villages , forests , routes , caves and mountains. Yes mountains as in more than one of the things unlike in the game where it was basically just mt. chimney. This was made it abundantly clear that the landmass I was currently standing on was WAY bigger than in the game.-

This made perfect sense to me since I always thought that being able to cover the entire region on foot within maybe two days was ridiculous for a whole region. Interestingly the pokenav also showed where I was on this map and much to my surprise I am actually not that far from Littleroot village. According to the device twelve miles away from it at the base of mt. grey in fact. The forest around us was also known as needle forest in fact and was labeled as a tier 1.5 danger area.-

I frowned at that though as I didn't understand what it was referencing with that tier so I ignored it for now and began to pour over the map to figure out roughly how big Hoenn actually was. After getting the distance between where I was and the furthest point from me which was the evergrande league it came up to a little over a thousand miles from here to there. This is to say the real Hoenn was nearly half the size of Australia on earth.-

This meant at normal walking speed it would actually take about six or so months to complete a full gym circuit if one only walked. Obvious people had bikes and pokemon so walking is not the fastest method here but the comparison in size and time for travel between reality and the game is clear now. Satisfied with this knowledge I backed out of the map and went down to internet to see if it is the same as on earth. As it turned out it was a little different as it was filled with forums and informational guides but that was it.-

I looked up danger tiers to figure out what was up with that and was impressed by what I found. The danger tiers were created by the league based on the level of power a gym leader used depending on the amount of badges you have. For example tier 0 means that all the pokemon are complete novices and easy to fight normally no matter how skilled one is. Tier 1 is at the same level as a first badge gym leader challenge. 'This means this area is between one and two badges right around.' I thought and after remembering the levels of the pokemon nearby I couldn't help but agree.-

'The average level around here is sixteen to twenty five on average with anything lower or higher being unusual. If gyms follow the same level scheme as in the game then my team sits at right around the third badge or halfway to the fourth badge. That's not super powerful but is at least above average I think , lemme check' I thought before checking to see the average power level for trainers. Surprisingly there was actually a graph showing the average number of people who became trainers per year and how many reached a certain gym badge level of power in their careers.-

Surprisingly the number of people who make it past the third badge is massively lower than those that make it to the second. Like seventy percent failure rate low which made me quite confused to be honest. As far as I could tell the only real challenge to reaching past the third badge should be the effort in getting comfortable battling and training. It was only at this point I felt like an idiot because it only just dawned on me that most who try to be trainers are probably just doing it because they can and thus don't have the drive to really go the distance.-

Basically the magic of the occupation is gone by the third gym so they give up. If the average gym level is the same as in the game then I have already gone past the third badge and was well on my way to the fourth. I chuckled as I remember that I also probably had Gaia train in a way that could be considered unorthodox to say the least so her power was way higher than it should be normally.-

After that I decided to scratch one of the biggest mysteries of the games , why all the nurse joys looked the same. Surprisingly this was a pretty common question for new trainers and so had an answer from the Joy clan themselves. Apparently one of their ancestors had rendered aid to a wounded Mew and the grateful legendary made it so all that persons female descendants looked the same as them minus small personal features and gave each look a like great affinity for healing. 'That is the sort of crazy shit a legendary like Mew can accomplish easily if pokedex entries are right.' I thought with a chuckle.-

There was also another clan that had a similar thing going on for them except they all had great affinity for justice somehow. This was the Jenny clan and just like the Joy clan they were apparently a massive clan with members nearly all over the globe. I also looked up information on trainers with legendary or pseudo-legendary pokemon and sighed in relief at what I found. It wasn't common for someone like me to pop up but it also wasn't unheard of as well. An example was that a man named John who made friends with a Latios in disguise that chose to join his team before he even caught a single pokemon. It was a rare event for people like me to pop up but definitely nothing I needed to worry about causing a huge commotion with.