CH121 (351), Choosing My Fire Lizard (2)

Well, the tour after lunch did not have a lucky start. It took roughly an hour until I came across another outstanding egg. It was the third egg I checked in room 18, and if I was not wrong it was the 227th egg I checked out in total.

The egg was one with light purple potential, and this time around it was a female one. I placed the egg on the same rank as the other light purple one and the Shiny egg. After memorizing the position of the unit I moved on, but none of the other eggs in the room stood out.

Unfortunately, the same was true for room 19 as well, and room 20 did not have any outstanding eggs as well. The best one there was an egg with blue potential and a passable talent.

It was during my assessment in room 21 that I found another diamond. I just finished inspecting a third of the eggs in the room and touched egg number 6. Looking at the status screen I was presented with a big surprise.

'Species: Charmander

Gender: Male

Type: Fire

Potential: Deep Blue

Stage: None, PokeEgg

(Genetic) Modifiers: Ability Variation

Abilities: Blaze, Tough Claws

Talents: Solar Boost

Affinities: Fire, Dragon (Budding)'

Egg number 256 turned out to be quite a surprise. While Deep Blue potential was not something new during this visit, it was the first time in general that I saw the Ability Variation modifier.

It literally did what it said, and changed one of Charmander's abilities to one it normally did not have. In this case, it switched Solar Power with Tough Claws. The effect of Tough Claw was the standard one that increased the power of contact moves by 30%.

The fact that Tough Claws was the ability that Mega Charizard X gained upon mega evolution could have been a coincidence, but it was more likely that one of his ancestors had been a Mega Charizard X.

As for why I said ancestors and not parents? Well, to be honest, I doubted that he would have been here if that had been the case. The egg would have either stayed with its parents or would have been placed in a special hatching room of its own. At least, that's what I would expect for the egg of a Mega Charizard.

Hmm, actually, it was also possible that one of its parents was simply a strong dragon type whose existence exhibited itself in this way. Regardless of which one it was, I believed that a dragon-type predecessor was involved somehow.

The fact that the egg/Charmander had a budding dragon affinity did support my descendant theory. It could have been a coincidence as well, but it was more likely that the two elements were linked.

This did not necessarily mean that I thought that one of them necessitated the other, cause I didn't. I was just thinking that they were connected in this case.

Anyway, the Ability Variation was not the only thing that stood out with this egg. It also had a pretty great talent on top of having a modifier. Solar Boost granted Charmander an all-around 10% boost during the day.

This boost did not require the presence of Sunny Day, but if Sunny Day was active, then the boost increased by another +5%, resulting in a total overall increase of 15%.

Honestly, this was a pretty great talent. Not only did it increase his racial value/parameters during the day and Sunny Day, but it also boosted the power of moves. It could even be said to synergize with Tough Claws, raising the power of contact moves by 40% during the day or by 45% during Sunny Day.

All in all, the egg/Charmander having an Ability Variation, good talent, and budding dragon affinity catapulted him straight to the top of my preference list. While the egg did not directly pull down the previous favorites to second place, it was still the one I was currently favoring the most.

Still, we only had 3 p.m right now, so there was still the chance of coming across a better egg, so I moved on to the next unit. While it was only a regular light blue potential egg, I did not mind and kept checking out the other eggs.

It was more than an hour later, while I was inspecting the eggs in room 25 that I came across another egg that stood out from the rest. It was another Shiny Charmander with Deep Blue potential and surprisingly this time around it was a male one.

Seeing a male Shiny even if it was an unmatched one took me by surprise simply because nearly all Shinies I had come across until now had been female for some strange reason. Probability said that should not have been the case, but it had happened to me, so seeing a male Shiny was kind of refreshing.

In fact, that was the only reason that I mentally moved his priority a bit higher than the female Shiny I had come across at the start. However, that seemed to have used up quite a bit of my luck since I did not come across any outstanding eggs even after finishing with room 30.

Still, I obviously did not let that stop me and kept going. Room 31 was a bust, and so was room 32 as well as room 33. By the time I finished inspecting all eggs in room 33, it was already 5:07 p.m, leaving me with less than an hour until my time was up, and there were still 6 rooms I had to check.

It seemed as if I would be unable to check all of them with the time I had left, but I still decided to do my best to check as many rooms as I could during that time.

It was around 5:30 p.m, in the middle of my examination of room 35 that I finally found another outstanding egg. If I was not wrong that was the 420th egg I inspected that day, and it was a talented one. I meant that quite literally.

'Species: Charmander

Gender: Female

Type: Fire

Potential: Deep Blue

Stage: None, PokeEgg

Genetic variation: None

Abilities: Blaze, Solar Power

Talents: Solar Absorption

Affinities: Fire'

Charmander's potential was Deep Blue, which had become the minimum requirement to have a chance at entering the list of outstanding eggs during this search.

She did not have any modifiers, but that was okay. It was her talent that made her outstanding in my eyes. Solar Absorption was most definitely a talent that was tied to her Solar Power ability.

I mean it literally affected the effects of Solar Power, so it was impossible to say that Solar Absorption was not related to Solar Power. I would even straight up say it was derived ability, so Charmander was extremely lucky that she inherently obtained this talent without any outside influence.

Anyway, enough dancing around the subject, let's directly address the effect of the talent. Solar Absorption had two effects. First, it annulled the damage from Solar Power, and second, it turned the 50% Energy Capacity/Attack boost of Solar Power into an overall offensive one. This meant that it also raised her strength by 50%.

Unfortunately, since Solar Absorption was tied to Solar Power, it needed Sunny Day to come into effect or at least an environment that was equal to Sunny Day.

In the end, while the talent was certainly a pretty good one, that went so far as to remedy the biggest drawback of Solar Power, it was still not enough to shake the position of my favorite egg.

Had the boost been independent of Sunny Day that would have probably been different, but since that was not the case, the egg fell a bit short compared to the others at the top.

I was honestly curious if Utopia's optimization would have upgraded the talent and what the result would have been like, but I was ultimately not willing to bet on the chance that the optimization could upgrade it.

Once I was done considering all factors, I moved on to the next egg and continued my inspection. Sadly the other eggs from room 35 did not make the cut, and the same was true for the eggs from room 36.

When I began checking out room 37 it was already 5:42 p.m, leaving me with only 18 more minutes. Seeing how I would only manage to finish all 39 rooms if I abandoned all pretense and spent only a few seconds per egg to check their status, I chose to give up on both rooms 38 and 39.

There was no way I could suddenly switch to just scrutinizing the eggs for a few seconds without looking extremely suspicious, so simply continuing as I had been doing was the most logical choice, and if through some joke from fate, the ultimate Charmander egg had been in one of those two rooms, then I could only say that my luck was too bad. Still, I would not know it even if that was the case, so whatever.

Regardless of all that possibility talk, I finished my inspection of the eggs in room 37, but unfortunately, I failed to find any outstanding candidates. I took a look at my watch and saw that it was already 5:57 p.m, so I decided against moving on to room 38 since I would feel worse if I had to stop after checking out 2 or 3 eggs than if I did not check any further eggs.

I inspected over 450 eggs during this visit, which was more than enough. The majority had light blue potential, with quite a few eggs having blue potential.

There were a few deep green potential ones, but that much was alright considering that they had no way to check the actual potential of the egg. Besides, it was possible that the great treatment they received here would help them raise their potential to light blue before they hatched, so it was not as if they had to stay deep green.

Still, it made sense that the standard of the eggs here was so high since the assistants had shared with me that this was the Oak laboratory's most precious breeding center, which received eggs from multiple reserves across the northern continent that Professor Oak had a stake in.

Anyway, it was time for me to decide which egg I was going to choose. My top picks were two Shinies with deep blue potential, two Charmander with light purple potential, an egg with deep blue potential, an ability variation, a good talent, as well as a dragon affinity, and finally an egg with deep blue potential and a pretty good talent.

Well, the last one was the first to get disqualified since his talent was just not enough to trump the others. The two light purple eggs joined it a short moment later as well since it was easier for me to raise the potential of the other eggs to light purple than it was to unlock the Shiny gene or such a combination of modifier, talent, and affinity.

In the end, that same argument led me to disqualify the two Shinies as well. The probability of unlocking the Shiny gene was higher than somehow coming across such a triple combo once more, especially with a talent that could rival Solar Boost.

So I ultimately ended up choosing the triple-factor egg. I had already suspected that it would end up like this the moment I saw its status screen, but I still had to do a serious comparison before making my final decision. Still, it ended up as the winner anyway.

"Mikail, it is 6 p.m. Your time is up, so you won't be able to visit the other rooms," the female assistant reminded me, and I gave her a thankful nod.

"That's okay," I told her. "I've already made my decision," I shared and both assistants looked relieved when I said that.

"It's good that you've already made your choice. Come on lead the way. We should not delay it any further since your visit time is already over," the male said, and I acknowledge that he was right, so I began heading toward room 21. After stepping inside I directly headed to the 6th egg.

"This is the egg I want," I informed both assistants. They nodded before the female went up to the terminal and began typing on the keyboard that appeared on the screen.

"She's doing the checkout procedure," the male assistant explained, and I nodded, having already come to the same conclusion.

"Alright, you can take the egg now," the female assistant spoke up a minute later, so I went up to the unit and took out the egg.

"Here, place the egg inside this," the male assistant said while handing me an incubator that he pulled out of one of the cabinets inside the room.

"That's one of the top incubators on the market, so you can leave the egg inside until it hatches without any worries. If anything does come up with the egg the incubator will release a red signal," the female assistant explained while I was putting the egg inside the incubator.

"Thank you, both of you," I thanked them seriously and they smiled at me while telling me I was welcome. After I stored the egg inside the incubator, they led me back toward the reception room, and I received a really unexpected surprise the moment I stepped there.

Waiting for me in front of the reception desk was the legend himself.

"Hello there, young Mikail," Professor Oak greeted me. "I've been waiting for you," he said with a smile, confirming that he was here for me.

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