CH8 (238), Advice, Some Extra Work, And Revision

After confirming that everything was correct I took both lists and went to my parents to show them the fruits of my effort. They were in the living room watching the news.

"Mom, Dad, I'm done with my project," I announced while waving the two papers.

"Oh, that's great, honey," mom said with a smile, while dad looked curiously at the papers I was waving around.

"Good job, junior. Let's see what you wrote," dad praised me before asking me to show them what I ended up with.

"One is showing the Pokemon grouped by species and rarity, while the other is ordered purely by my presumed rarity of the Pokemon," I declared while handing over my work.

Mom took the first paper which had the Pokemon grouped by species and rarity, while dad took the one based on rarity. They began to curiously look over their respective papers, and I had fun seeing their fascination as well as their surprise whenever a Pokemon showed up on the list that they had not expected.

Once they were done with their list, they swapped the papers and began looking over the other one as well, before placing both papers on the table so that it was visible to everyone.

"Mikail, you did a tremendous job. There are quite a few Pokemon on the list that I had no idea were living there, but I'm unsure about the rarity bit. It's not that I'm doubting you, but it's hard to correlate with my own experience and I'm sure you'll be hard-pressed to show the validity of the ratings you've given."

"Ow!" Dad cried out after mom slapped him on his arm after he said the last bit. He rubbed his arm throwing her a look that said don't do that again. Mom just huffed before she turned to me with a smile.

"Don't listen to your dad. You did a great job and I'm sure your ratings have a solid reasoning behind them," she said encouragingly before throwing dad a semi-glare.

"Hey, I didn't say that he didn't do that. I was just trying to say that he'll have to provide a good enough explanation for the ratings and the Pokemon on the list. Without that he won't be able to receive alliance rewards or publish the lists, at least not anywhere serious," he complained in a miffed tone.

"Ah, sorry, honey," mom said while caressing the arm she hit.

Dad looked sufficiently mollified after mom's apology and nodded before he continued.

"I've seen you browsing the web and collecting information, and I know that you have been exploring Mt.Moon, but that won't be enough as evidence or source. You'll need more or at least a detailed list of links you used as a basis for your list," he added, and I had to nod.

I had expected that, so I had copied the address of each site that I had used while searching for information on Mt.Moon. The link list itself was 3 pages long.

"I've made a reference list with every website I used for the project. I also added a note there that I used my own experience, as well as the information from several residents including a tribe leader from the Clefairy/Clefable tribe," I replied, and dad nodded proudly, but still chose to offer some advice.

"I would still recommend you to further validate your lists by finding more residents and individuals to confirm your findings, as well as more sources online and offline to corroborate your claims."

"Sure," I agreed since he was right and it wouldn't hurt to make my claim more rightful before publishing it, especially since it would increase its legitimacy instead.

So, that was what I did before and between the meetings with Rose, Ace, and Weiss. I found more trainer articles online that supported my case and also found articles made by professors and other professionals that backed up my findings.

Not only that, I paid the Elder Clefable another visit and requested that he introduced me to any senior resident that would be willing to share his or her experience regarding the inhabitants of the mountain range with me.

Thankfully, the elder agreed and brought me along to visit some of her friends, two of them were coincidentally also tribe leaders, while the other two were strong loners.

The two tribe leader friends were a Snorlax and Golem, while the loners were a Steelix and Skarmory. I asked them about the Pokemon they had come across within the mountain range and they didn't mind answering my questions out of their friendship with the elder Clefable.

I was really thankful for her help since I did not think that her friends would have bothered paying attention to me without her presence. At least not in a way that I would have liked.

That all 4 of them were at the platinum stage, the upper range at that, at least according to them, was pretty astonishing even if I should have expected that, seeing that the elder was just as strong.

Still, I had not expected to meet them outside the deeper areas of the mountain range, assuming that other strong tribes/Pokemon would not bother with the outer region.

At least that was what I thought before the Clefable elder told me that we were already within the inner area. I had not known that since the elder had teleported us to her friends.

Well, I used that chance to ask questions about the strength distribution of Mt.Moon, and I was talking about the upper range here since the weaker ones could be found everywhere. That information would be useful to add to my project.

They said nothing regarding the territories but told me at what stage the strongest Pokemon in each region were. The strongest Pokemon that could be found in the outer area were generally in the dark gold state, and funnily enough, the strongest among those actually was a Dugtrio.

I was shocked when I heard that honestly not expecting to hear the words strongest and Dugtrio in the same sentence. Clefable-dono seemed to have noticed my skepticism so she elaborated, adding that the Dugtrio was much bigger than a normal one and that it looked a bit different as well besides its size.

That meant it probably had a giant gene and probably another one as well, maybe an ancient or royal gene. Well, with that I could barely accept its position. I mean I would have honestly expected that position to go to a Golem, Nidoking, Rhydon, Ursaring, or other such Pokemon.

For the inner area, the strongest Pokemon were at the platinum stage, and the strongest Pokemon here was actually the Steelix that the elder Clefable introduced to me.

Still, I could accept Steelix being the strongest in the inner area. I was curious what the other candidates for the position were so I asked the elder, but obviously not beside the Steelix since I did not want to insult it. The other four were a Machamp, Probopass, Gengar, and a Flygon.

I won't lie, I was excited about the Flygon, simply because it was a dragon. I was actually thinking about asking Kinji what he thought about the species since they kinda resembled bugs a bit, so I wouldn't mind helping him catch a Trapinch if he said that he was okay with the species.

I mean, who knew, maybe he would manage to cause a variation, turning it to the first bug/dragon type. Hmm, that actually sounded like an interesting project that did not seem impossible.

Anyway, the strongest in the center/core area were at the palladium stage. The big boss was a Tyranitar, with a Rhyperior and Aggron being its rivals, which was pretty impressive. Tyranitar were always a favorite simply because of its status as a pseudo-legendary and its cool look.

I did not hide my interest in the Tyranitar, but I received a warning from Clefable to forget it. Nearly all Larvitar and Pupitar were within the core region, and thus under the purview of the big boss, so trying to get one without his approval was suicide.

Trying to get his approval was also suicide, so I would have to shelve the thought until I was at least able to defend myself and escape. They further mentioned that there were legends about even stronger Pokemon but they couldn't confirm it and simply said that those were myths.

Oh, they also warned me that stronger Pokemon could wander outside their regular areas if they felt like it, even if it did not happen often. That was what happened with the Steelix and Aggron that clashed close to me.

I did ask if the friend of Clefable-dono was the Steelix that I saw, but I was told that it was another one. After we had visited all four and I had received my answers we returned to the Clefairy tribe, where I thanked the elder for her help.

After I returned home I had to do some revisions to my list. I increased the rarity of some species while reducing the rarity of two others. Absol's rarity was increased to 9-stars and it was moved to the fifth group.

Houndour and Houndoom got their rating increased by one star, just like Ursaring. That moved both Houndour and Ursaring up to Group 3. Slugma had its rating reduced by 0.5 moving down to Group 3, and Magcargo also had its rarity reduced by 0.5 to 7.5.

Finally, Gliscor seemed a bit rarer than I had assumed, due to the Razor Fang being harder to find, so its rating was elevated by 0.5 to 8-stars. I did not forget to add a mention of the upper strength distribution, as well as the strongest Pokemon of each region/area.

However, I also added the warning regarding movement between areas I had received. The next day I made another adjustment after reading a book by a scientist and academic called Seymour, who worked around Mt.Moon for decades due to his work/research being about the Moon Stones and the Clefairy line.

He wrote a book which was about the ecology at Mt.Moon, and that led me to reduce the rarity of Gligar by 0.5 to 4.5. The other literature I read after that only verified the numbers on my list.

On Palkiday of the third week, I felt satisfied with the work and verification I had done, so I finalized the list and compiled all references as well as sources before turning all of it into one file.

I saved it on my PC, my phone, and on a memory card before printing the whole file. I then talked with my parents about how I should go about publishing my findings/research. We all agreed that it would be better if I did it under the protection or backing of someone influential.

To expedite the verification and to make sure my work did not get buried. We went over my options and professor Oak came up since he had the reputation of encouraging and sponsoring all promising research.

However, the difficulty of bringing my work to his attention made them hesitate. Still, I actually thought about an organization that was right under my nose, so I mentioned using the Aaron Aura Academy and publishing my finding with their help.

They considered it and said that it was a good idea, which was why I had printed out the file. I wrote Mr. Burns yesterday and he told me to come over today, so I was going there right now.

After I entered the academy, I directly went towards Mr. Burns's office and saw him waiting in front of the door. He motioned me to follow him and led me straight to the office of Mr. Cameron instead.

Mr. Cameron seemed to have been expecting us since he directly told us to enter as soon as we arrived in front of his office door. He told me that Mr. Burns had told him about my request, and he asked me to let him take a look at the file.

I handed over the stack of papers to him and told him that most of them were references and sources. Mr. Cameron nodded before carefully looking through everything. I spent the next 15 minutes nervously waiting for him to finish and address me.

Once Mr. Cameron was done, he placed the stack onto his table before he closed his eyes and began to ponder for a bit. He then opened his eyes and told me they would support me and help me publish my findings.

He guaranteed that the Academy would take none of the credit and accredit the whole work to me. They would only mention that I was a prized student of the academy.

I did not ask for a written contract or anything, since I knew that his word was worth more than a piece of paper. For reputable people at their level, their words were worth their weight in gold, so I was not worried. I thanked him and moved to leave.

Mr. Cameron added that the Academy would keep me up to date on the progress of the publication before dismissing me. After thanking him once more I left. Mr. Burns accompanied me until the building's entrance and he praised me for my work before returning inside.

I let out a relieved sigh before walking back home to give my parents the good news.

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