Six years.

[Ding: You have an incoming video call, would you like to pick?]

"Who is it?" asked a young man with a heavy voice.

[Cynthia Sharon]

"Yes."

As soon as he said those words, the wall on his right lit up before the face of a beautiful young girl appeared on it.

Her blonde hair, which covered her left eye, gave a unique charm to her.

"How is my cute baby?" said Cynthia as soon as the call connected before she stopped and looked at the boy in front of her.

"Will you stop teasing me with that name? It's been six years, dammit," he said grudgingly as his voice became heavier than before.

*HUFF* *HUFF*

As he did one push-up after another, his breathing became more ragged than before.

Cynthia looked at the boy; her eyes could not help but stare at him.

He was tall, around 178 cm. He had a lean build with muscles visible at every part of his body. His black hair fell over his face, covering his dark black eyes. He had a handsome face, not beautiful but handsome.

"You do realize it can be very dangerous for me if you pick up my call like this?" she said as she looked at him with doing pushups on three fingers with weight placed on his back, around 200kg.

"Where are you now?" asked the boy as he kept doing his push-ups.

"I just got my official license today; I am leaving for Kalos region as my first destination after doing some business in Sinnoh," said Cynthia as she was still staring at the boy's toned muscles.

"So it has been six years already," he said as he did one last push-up and stood up as the weights fell off his body.

He turned towards Cynthia before giving her a sweet smile, "Congratulations on your Trainer License."

Cynthia looked at Alan's face with a sly smile, "you do realize what your face can do to me, right?"

"Tsk," clicking his tongue, Alan walked towards a nearby chair and dropped on it, "why Kalos?"

"The mega stone for Drake can only be found in Kalos; there is also a Kalos League next year," explained Cynthia as she looked at Alan with a smile, "when are you getting your Trainer License?"

"Tomorrow," he replied while grabbing a bottle of water and gulping it down, "we can finally go on a real journey and do some real fights."

"Did you decide where you are going?" she asked, hoping he would come to Kalos as well.

"Yes, but it is not Kalos," he said, disappointing Cynthia. Alan noticed her disappointment and spoke in a calm voice, "I will make sure to come to visit you there since I do have some business to take care of in Kalos."

His words brought a big smile to her face as she asked again, "So where are you going then?"

"Kanto," his words surprised her, "I will do the gym circuit and might take part in Indigo Conference. I also heard there is something called rookie tournament taking place as well."

Understanding his thoughts, Cynthia gave a slight nod, "it is taking place in the Sinnoh region too; I will be taking part in it before I head to Kalos."

"If only the Elian region had a league this year," said Alan with regret.

Being one of the weakest, the Elian region did not hold a league every year, at least not yet. It only took place every ten years and the next one would be in seven years.

"From what grandma told me, Elian region will soon have an Elian Gathering where trainers who were top 16 in different rookie tournaments will participate. Maybe you can be the first to win it when it does?" she said, trying to cheer up Alan.

Alan nodded his head before he changed the subject.

"I talked to Sabrina a few hours ago, and she is going to Johto," said Alan as he looked at Cynthia, "I think she needs a specific pokemon from that region?"

Cynthia nodded her head, "I talked to her as well; she told me she would also be participating in the Johto region Gym circuit. I hoped we three could go on a journey together."

"We will go together on the next one."

"I will make sure you keep your words," said Cynthia, happy with the promise he gave, "how is Eve?"

"She has gotten lazy, always sleeping," said Alan before looking at the necklace placed on the table beside him. The small Pokeball attached to the necklace twitched a bit as it heard Alan's words, "I need to take a shower now; I will call you later."

"Tsk, I will let you off for now. But you better come see us else we are going to come to Kanto and beat your ass," she said before giving him a flying kiss and cutting off the call.

[I still can't believe you three haven't started dating] a voice said from the small Pokeball.

Alan ignored it and walked towards the bathroom to take a bath. As he sat in the tub filled with hot water, he thought about everything that had happened in the last six years.

The most obvious was that his relationship with Cynthia had become closer than ever, not just Cynthia but also someone else.

A smile appeared on his face as he thought about another girl.

'Sabrina,' he said the name in his head.

The three had kept in contact with each other after the Virindia City festival, and their friendship grew more than ever while Cynthia and Sabrina became best friends or maybe sisters.

They occasionally met each other whenever he went to Kanto or Sinnoh for league missions, and their relationship grew more than just being friends.

They knew each other's feelings, but they had not spoken openly about them.

He shook his head, getting rid of those thoughts and started thinking about other things.

He had joined the pokemon school for two years, where he learned to use a weapon and train his body correctly. His strength now was a lot different than before; just a casual swing from him could kill a weak pokemon.

He had chosen a weapon too.

It was different than what he had thought he would use. But he was glad he chose what he did.

The pokemon school had helped him master his weapon by fighting different students as well as pokemons.

After he graduated, he got his beginner licence which allowed him to take on league missions, and with tier 6 Privilege, he was not restricted to just one region.

The Privilege was divided into ten tiers, and each Privilege tier till Tier 5 needed a certain amount of League Points to unlock. While above that, one needed to do 'specific' things for the Pokemon Alliance to unlock them.

Tier 1: ???

Tier 2: ???

Tier 3: ???

Tier 4: ??? (Gives three extra pokemon slots)

Tier 5: 10,000,000 (Gives two extra pokemon slots)

Tier 6: 1,000,000 (Gives one extra pokemon slot)

Tier 7: 100,000

Tier 8: 10,000

Tier 9: 1,000

Tier 10: 100

As he did missions and earned league points, he used them to gather resources to increase Eve's potential. He bought as many singularities he could or anything else that could raise the potential of Eve, but as if she was a deep well, Eve absorbed it all, and her potential would barely budge.

It took him six years of constant work to get her to where she was right now. And over these six years, he had never seen a pokemon with Blue potential in its first evolution. At the same time, those who had pokemon with yellow potential at first now had gotten their pokemons to at least Light Green potential.

While some got it to Deep Green, many were stuck there, just like he was stuck at Deep Blue.

Jumping a grade was a gulf that was very hard to leap over.

He had tried to go back to league headquarters to buy more eggs, but to his disappointment, it was only for those who needed starters. So he could only make money through either the black market or league missions.

[Ding: Pokegram Notification from Arcelia City Auction house.

This is a reminder for Alan Salvador about your booking of a private room in this year's Arcelia City Auction. We hope to see you in six hours.]

"Time to go," he said as he stood up before drying himself and changing into new clothes.

He wore a loose off-white shirt and black pants with black shoes. He wore his glasses over his black eyes and left his hair messy, the look he liked the most or Cynthia and Sabrina like the most.

He walked towards the table beside his bed before grabbing his necklace and two black rings before he wore them one by one.

Each ring had an alphabet written on them.

The one in his right hand had a C, while the one in his left hand had an S.

They were given to him by Cynthia and Sabrina for getting them the hat and the doll at the fair. He was not into accessories, but he liked these and started wearing them.

Once he was ready, he walked out of his apartment and headed towards the city's south.

After he had earned good money, rather than living on rent, he got himself an apartment and started living there.

As he walked in the streets of Arcelia city, which he was very familiar with after six years, he could feel people's gazes on his face.

'I still can't get used to all the stares from people,' he thought before he pressed the left side of his head.

As soon as he did, a small screen appeared in front of his face, only visible to him.

This was the new generation Pokedex installed as an AI chip inside the person making it more convenient than the one you had to carry manually. As the home screen appeared before him, he navigated through the apps before opening the one he was looking for; Pokecab.

He called for his ride and waited by the side of the streets. Within two minutes, a car was floating before him, and he quickly got into it.

"South Arcelia," he said as soon as he sat inside.

He stared at the city while he reminisced about the past. He had made many good memories while also some bad ones.

Especially his first time killing a pokemon.

During his first year in the pokemon academy, he was exposed to the cruelty of the pokemon world. He had to kill a pokemon with his own hands if he wanted to graduate from the first year into second.

At first, he thought it would be easy, but he could not move his hands when it was time for it.

Only when he went to the wild forest for an academy task and was attacked by a horde of wild monsters, which he was now sure were released by the academy itself, did he kill his first pokemon to save Eve and his life.

The next few weeks were horrible since he got nightmares about the pokemon he killed before he finally started to get over it.

It was only thanks to Cynthia and Sabrina that he recovered quickly.

'How many pokemons have we killed since then?' asked Alan to himself.

Each region had a league in this world, and every league was under the Pokemon Alliance (PA).

The league was in charge of public safety against pokemon tides, criminal organizations and such, but they could not be everywhere at every time. Hence, they gave out missions to trainers and paid them with league points.

With each point being worth 100 pokedollars, doing League Missions was one of the best and stable sources of income for trainers, albeit dangerous on a few occasions.

"Where exactly in South Arcelia?" asked the cab driver while looking at Alan from the rearview mirror, snapping him out of his thoughts.

"There is only one place worth going in that part," said Alan, and the driver understood what he meant.

Alan took out a mask from his left ring and quickly wore it before reaching his destination.

Over six years, Devon Corporation had made breakthroughs in many fields, with space rings being one of them.

They were just like trainer bags but at a smaller level. Their space was minimal but enough to keep some essential go-to things.

The rings Cynthia and Sabrina had bought for him were none other than these space rings.

"We are here," said the driver as he parked the car by the footpath and Alan nodded his head before getting off. The money was paid automatically from his bank account.

He walked towards a dark alley and soon reached the back of the tall buildings filled with garbage bins and infested with Rattata.

Alan walked to one of these bins and gave three knocks on it.

*BANG* *BANG* *BANG*

After few seconds, the bins parted way exposing a stair case that lead him downstairs. He quietly followed them down and after going down for few minutes, he was exposed to a brand new world.

It was city under a city.

Shops everywhere selling everything one could possibly imagine. From pokemon to pokemon eggs. From TMs to Pokeballs.

There was nothing that was not available here; of course for the right price.

This was Arcelia Cities Black Market.

Alan walked along the busy underground streets looking from one shop to another. It was his daily routine to come here in hopes to fetch some good things.

When a pokemon is tested for its potential, there is a slight chance that it would fail. One could have the potential checked again but it was a lot more expensive to do it the second time for the same pokemon.

These pokemons were then sold in black market at cheap price by their owners in hopes that they could be sold to some naive people for a reasonable price.

Alan had used this point as his source of income where he bought high potential pokemons, usually yellow and rarely green, before he tested their potential again and sold them for their actual value earning him a big profit.

His God Eyes had brought him a lot more benefits he could think about. Even the money for his apartment was earned this way.

Alan looked at the new batch of pokemon and a smile appeared on his face, hidden by the mask.

'Let's see if I can get something useful and make some money before the auction.'

*************

Author's Note: A slow chapter to mark the beginning of the new arc. I will be showing what he did in six years in small flashbacks at 'appropriate' times.

Hope you enjoy this.