CH44 (408), The Work Never Stops

We spent Kyoday investigating the soothing effect of our Mystic Yache Essence Gem, and by the end of the day, we concluded that the effect worked on all Pokemon with the ice-typing.

We requested the help of a lot of ice-type Pokemon aside from the Glaceon, such as Dewgong, Snorunt, Jynx, Swinub, Delibird, Sneasel, and even a Cubchoo before arriving at that conclusion. While that did not cover all available ice-type combinations, it did cover enough for us to come to our conclusion.

As for the extent the soothing effect had on Pokemon, that needed more data, since our tests showed that the effect on our testers was different depending on their strength/stage, and even on whether their typing was a pure one or not. It had the best effect on the bronze stage Cubchoo, as well as the iron stage Snorunt, and the worst effect on Jynx, but that was probably more due to her being at the (high) gold stage than her additional psychic typing.

The last point that we had yet to determine was the effect the soothing effect would have on Ice Elementalists and humans with ice affinity. Mine was pretty average, or maybe slightly above that, but I left it untouched so far, and it seemed the effect our gem had on me relying purely on that affinity was only minimally better than the one it had on Carl or Sibel, who did not have any ice affinity that they knew of.

Hell, it might not even be minimally better, since I also only got a pleasantly cool feeling, just that it seemed more pleasant to me compared to what Carl and Sibel had described. I was not sure how to explain the difference, but as I said it was a minimal one at best. Not that I mentioned that out loud, since I had no plans whatsoever to attract any attention to my ice affinity, average or not.

Anyway, we wanted to see how the soothing effect would affect people with a high ice affinity and then those that had already become Ice Elementalists. We unanimously decided to ask Weiss for help since she came from an Ice Elementalist family, so finding the necessary number of people with an ice affinity that has yet to take the next step, as well as Ice Elementalists, was easy for her.

Well, that was if James and more importantly the Professor gave their approval on involving Weiss once more, considering that it would also involve quite a few people from her family. We proposed extending the previous offer to the Mystic Yache Essence Gem as well in return for their help since it virtually cost us nothing and simply reserved a certain amount of objects for them for some time.

We made the request to James two hours before we called it a day, and he promised to pass it on to the professor as soon as possible. I asked him to pass me the answer the moment he received it, even if he only got it late today or sometime tomorrow.

The tomorrow part was important since Grouday was our no-work day, so he might have decided to wait until Arcday, which I didn't want since I was planning to call/inform Weiss as quickly as possible. She had to organize the people on her end after all, and this way she could directly bring them over on Arcday, which would allow us to start a day early.

Thankfully, James sent me an email that gave me the go-ahead close to two hours after I returned to the dorm, so I called Weiss and told her about the request and attached offer. She hung up after she told me that she had to speak with her dad first.

I was sure that would be an interesting conversation due to the NDA she had signed. Nonetheless, Weiss called back less than half an hour later and accepted on behalf of her family. They would only vaguely be told what it was about and would sign an NDA before being led to the lab to take part in the experiment.

She informed me that they would arrive at the Pallet City Teleportation Hub on Arcday at 3 p.m. I thanked her and wished her a good night before I sent Carl as well as Sibel a message to tell them that I had dealt with the Weiss issue.

Anyway, I went back to Hope Town to spend some time with my parents just in time for breakfast, and I stayed until close to 11 p.m. before returning to Pallet City. The next morning, my group decided to work on producing more Mystic Ice Gems for the next round of projects, since we had to wait for Weiss to complete the analysis of our Mystic Yache Essence Gem.

We would be starting on the Frost Cap experiment after finishing the tests involving the Weiss group. We were not planning on completely determining the degree of effect the soothing aura had on ice-type Pokemon yet. Doing that would take a long time, so any research in that direction could wait until we succeeded with the Glaceon project.

Anyway, we applied for a batch of pressure machines to expand our production number, and by the time I had to leave for the Teleportation Hub at 2:55 p.m., we managed to finish the first round and had started the second round. The first round netted us 12 Mystic Ice Gems, as would every subsequent round.

I made it to the hub on time and met Weiss as well as the people she brought along. I was not surprised to see that 7 out of the 20 or so people were kids since we had already expected that to be the case. It only made sense that the only people in the Schnee family with a good to great ice affinity that had yet to become Elementalists would be kids.

As long as their parents did not mind their kids signing the NDA, I did not mind either, and since they were here, it meant their parents gave their okay. Once the kids had signed the NDA there was no need to worry about them blabbering out any information since they would be unable to do so even if they tried to do it.

There was also no need to worry about the mental health of the kids since it was proven that the psychic pact was harmless even to kids as long as the creator was a decent one. All NDAs I had came from Professor Oak, so that was not a problem. I mean if there has been such a problem, I would not have allowed them to participate in the first place.

Anyway, once all of them had signed the NDAs, and I handed over the "trade" agreement to Weiss, we headed to the lab. We immediately began with the assessment, and it took us only until the end of the first session, the very same day, to be done with the affinity test section, so the kids did not have to join us the next day.

Only one of the kids, who according to Weiss was the most talented one of the batch, ended up somewhat feeling the soothing effect released by the Mystic Yache Essence Gem. I usually did not check out human status screens, but I made an exception for our research and checked all 7 kids.

The kid that ended up feeling the effects, even if not at the same level as the Pokemon or Elementalists, had a high ice affinity. However, he was not the only one since there were 3 more kids with a high ice affinity, yet they did not feel anything, so I speculated that his ice affinity was pretty close to the supreme grade.

Anyway, we closed the affinity part with the conclusion that only those rare geniuses could make use of the soothing aspect of the Mystic Yache Essence Gem. An interesting side effect of that, which quite a few people noticed was that our gem could be used to easily discern such geniuses.

Simply have people touch or stay close to the Mystic Yache Essence Gem and anyone that could actually feel the soothing effect was a talented ice-element genius. The members of the Schnee family were quite excited when those that reached the same conclusion shared it with the rest and I could see that Weiss was also quite excited at the use of our gem.

The next day, during the second session, we kept examining the Elementalist and by the end of the session, it became apparent that most of them received the same benefit as the non-pure ice types, while 2 of them received the same benefit as the pure ice types.

Naturally, those two were the most talented ones among those that had come along and even among the whole Schnee family. Unsurprisingly, Weiss was one of the two, and both had a supreme ice affinity.

Sadly, I had no idea to which degree their supreme affinity belonged, but that was not really important for our test. We thanked all Schnee family members, including Weiss, for their help, and before they left, Weiss even asked me to call her in case I needed her help.

Anyway, the most important thing for us was that we managed to finish our analysis within two days, which meant that we could start with the Frost Cap experiment starting tomorrow. Since Kyoday was the last day of the month, we could use the last four days before the new month began to work on the new round of experiments.

Well, Giratiday turned out to be a pretty good day, and not because we ended up succeeding with our Frost Cap experiment on the first day, because we didn't. No, it was a good day because Eggy managed to reach the (mid) iron stage sometime before dinner.

Sadly, that was the sole good news I received that week. We ended up closing up the month with only having reached a 69% fusion rate between the Frost Cap Extract and the Mystic Ice Gem.

On Grouday, the first day of the new month, I once again went back to Hope Town. Not only did I spend some time with my parents, but I also discussed with them what I was going to do with the 3 months after this one.

The new month was not only the 35th one of 2181, but it was also the last one of the third term, which meant I would have a 3-month long holiday after it, due to following the school system's schedule. I frankly admitted that I did not want to stay away from the lab and our ongoing experiment for that long.

There was no way Carl and Sibel could just sit around and twiddle their thumbs while I was on vacation. No, they would continue our experiments and I did not want to miss so much, so we ended up agreeing that I would keep going to the lab until the final week of the 36th month so that I could spend the final week of the year at home.

Well, it was more like a week and a half, but whatever. Aside from that, I would only work full-time from Arcday to Dialday and halftime on Kyoday for the rest of the weeks of that month, so that I could spend the weekend with my family and friends.

As for the new year, I would be on vacation until the final week of the first month of the new year, then I would use the final week to catch up with Carl and Sibel on what I had missed during the two weeks without me, and help them out for the rest of the week. The reason I was going to miss only two weeks was that the lab would be "closed" for Rayquaza's Patrol.

Anyway, I would be gone for another three or so weeks before once more going back to the lab for the last week of the 3-month vacation period, which meant I would end my vacation a week early. I shared my plans with Carl, Sibel, as well as James upon my return to the lab on Arcday.

Carl and Sibel looked happy that I would not be gone for 3 whole months, and James told me that he saw no problem with that, but that he would still need to ask the Professor if my plan was permissible or not.

Thankfully, he approached me an hour before I clocked off and told me that the Professor had agreed with my request/proposal. My colleagues seemed really happy when I shared the news with them, and they thanked me for taking our research seriously enough to forgo quite a bit of my vacation just to keep working on the project.

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