CH20 (384), Oak Lab’s Harem Plan

Toedscruel as well as Toedscool's appearance, typing, stage, and abilities had been checked during the preliminary examination. Their blood had been sent to the lab for testing as well, and after he did that, Professor Oak moved toward one of the computers.

He asked for my notes and began using them as well as his recollections to write a proper report. I silently watched him work since it was a learning experience and he had not given me anything else to do.

The professor made sure to be as thorough as possible while filling out the report he was writing, and a bit more than half an hour later he saved the report before he began printing copies of it.

Once a stack of them was ready, he went to the lab phone and called his lead assistant. He began listing out several lab/research assistants and gave the order for all of them to assemble in office no.1 within 20 minutes. James, Sarah, and Hiro were also among the 9 assistants the professor listed to Peter, his lead assistant.

The two of us left the lab and moved towards the office as well after he hung up. Professor Oak directly moved toward the computer and booted it up before turning on the projector as well.

"Mikail, my boy," he addressed me after looking up from the screen. "Do you happen to have a picture of your Toedscruel and Toedscool?"

"Yes, professor," I replied truthfully and he looked happy at the positive answer.

"That's great," he said with a nod. "Could you please upload a copy of those pictures on this computer? I'd like to project the pictures while we go through the report with the others so that they can have visuals to go with the text."

"No problem," I agreed to his request and connected my phone to the computer.

I then chose a decent picture of Toedscruel as well as Toedscool and uploaded it on the computer before I disconnected my phone once more. After that, I opened the pictures so that they were displayed side by side.

The projector showed them on the wall in all their glory, and since the professor wanted to keep their appearance a secret/surprise, he turned off the projector for the moment. He did so just in time since the first assistants began trickling in just a minute later.

I had upon the request of Professor Oak, placed a copy of the report on the table at each seat reserved for the assistants, so those that came began to silently read through the report after greeting us and taking a seat.

The professor signaled me to take a seat as well, while he went and sat down at the head of the table. I sat down pretty close to him but stayed away from the two seats on his left and right since those were reserved for his four main assistants, such as Peter and James.

Speaking of James, he gave me a smile and a jovial greeting when he made an appearance before taking his seat to the professor's left, where he proceeded to look through the report just like everyone else. Sarah and Hiro sat down next to me when they showed up, which I was pleased with since I did not truly know any of the other assistants that came.

I knew their names, but I had not interacted with them aside from the initial introduction and the occasional greeting when I came across them during the last 6 months. That was mostly because they were usually busy with important work due to being part of the highest-ranking assistants here at Oak Labs.

It took only 12 minutes instead of 20 for everyone to arrive, but the professor still chose to wait for the full duration to give everyone time to go through the report.

"It is good to see all of you," he officially began the meeting. "As you have read, we have a new research project thanks to Mikail. During this meeting, I would like to go through the steps that have to be taken to correctly register the new species within the alliance database and the research groups that have to be formed to tackle the individual subjects that have to be explored."

I could feel the excitement of everyone in the air, but that was not surprising since research on an unknown/unregistered species was significant work.

The prestige of having their names added to the research papers and alliance registration documents could allow them to take a step forward in their career.

I was sure everyone here was dreaming of becoming a full-fledged professor and this project could help them on the way there. I know that among them, at least Peter was qualified for the position of a Junior Professor.

I was guessing he was waiting for some reason, probably shoring up on successful projects for the committee before he finally became applied for the position.

"First of all, since there are only one Toedscruel and Toedscool available, there is only so much that could be done simultaneously. Moreover, the cooperation of the two Pokemon is necessary for our research, and doing tests for the whole day could lead to the loss of said cooperation.

Taking that into consideration, I am now declaring that the actual tests directly involving those two have to be limited to 3-4 hours per day. This means that we have to establish a timetable for any research involving the two Pokemon.

Any group that wants access to them has to sign up on the list and no group is allowed to do so more than thrice a week without substantial evidence why they need the extra time," Professor Oak declared and everyone expressed their understanding.

"Good," the professor nodded in satisfaction. "As far as the research groups are concerned, I shall appoint the team leaders, and said leaders then have to recruit the rest of the members of their group on their own."

After that, he started the projector and told them that these were the new Pokemon that had been discovered. We began discussing everything that had to be done, and multiple subjects were documented.

Further tests had to be performed to validate the new ability of Toedscruel. I knew the ability was called Mycelium Might, but it remained unnamed for the time being.

Something that had been pointed out, was that the tests for Toedscruel and Toedscool had to be done separately because of Toedscruel's talent. Toedscool's results would be taken as the baseline since Toedscruel's talent was unlikely to be a universal one.

These tests aimed to discover the extent of the new ability/Mycelium Might. The word status moves did cover a pretty broad spectrum, after all, so the goal was to find out which ones were affected and which ones were not.

Honestly, I had no idea about that as well, so I was curious too. I was pretty confident that at least the ones that caused a non-volatile status, such as burns and sleep were included.

However, there were still moves that caused volatile statuses, such as confused and cursed, as well as volatile battle statuses, created by Aqua Ring and Minimize, so a lot of tests had to be done. Jennifer, one of the 4 main assistants was assigned as the leader of the group responsible for this matter.

We had yet to receive any results on the blood samples Professor Oak took, but that was not surprising since it had only been an hour or so since then. Yet, the blood tests would confirm whether Toedscruel and Toedscool were without a doubt a separate species or not.

That part was more of a formality for us, but no one present doubted that indicators would be found that would show a distant relation to the Tenta-line.

Studying that matter would undoubtedly require more blood to be drawn from Toedscruel and Toedscool. Still, the professor made it unequivocally known that drawing any blood could only happen with the permission of Toedscruel and Toedscool.

Furthermore, the blood analyses along with body scans would be crucial in calibrating the potential tester to work on Toedscruel as well as Toedscool. James was assigned the leading role in this matter, and I gave him a thumbs-up when the professor announced it.

Another subject was their diet and their reaction to substances of different types. This was the first issue that had someone outside of the main assistants assigned as the team leader. Sarah received the role, and I congratulated her while she was beaming in her seat beside me.

Checking the natural move pool as well as the moves they could potentially learn was another research topic, and Hiro was chosen as the team leader for this one. He was another assistant that did not belong to the main quartet.

Peter as the lead assistant was assigned the "biggest" research topic, propagation. A species compatibility analysis had to be completed but I pointed out the first hurdle when it came to any testing as well as the future propagation plan.

Toedscruel already had a partner and neither Toedscruel nor Vileplume gave me the impression that they would be okay with the idea of Toedscruel fertilizing some volunteer females.

Toedscool was the only alternative, and since he was already close to 30 years old, no one saw any problem with him acting as the candidate for the project.

This meant that the lab would be officially planning a harem for the guy in the name of science. It had to be tested which species were compatible with him and which of those could actually produce viable children, as well as the rate of a Toedscool among the children.

The fact that Vileplume was Toedscruel's partner and that they successfully produced children meant that the Toeds-species/line belonged, at the minimum, to the grass egg group because that was the only one that Vileplume were compatible with.

Whether Toed-members belonged to a second or third egg group had to be explored some more. Still, it was decided that they would start with the species that belonged purely to the grass group, and all species viable for reproduction were listed.

I mentally went through the list of Pokemon that qualified, at least those I knew. Those were Oddish, Gloom, Vileplume, Bellossom, Belsprout, Weepingbell, Victreebel, Tangela, Tangrowth, Exeggutor, Sunflora, Carnivine, Lilligant, Maractus, Foongus, Amoonguss, Lurantic, Shiinotic, Steenee, Tsareena, and Eldegloss.

Depending on the compatibility between the species, and the strength of the individual Pokemon involved, as well as their evolutionary stage, the ratio of children being of a particular species varied, so it was decided that only those at or below Toedscool's stage would be matched with him.

This limited or removed some of the species on the list, at least for now. As Vileplume and Toedscruel had proven the ratio could be pretty slanted since only one of their 30+ children was a Toedscool.

That either meant that the compatibility between their species was low, or rather tilted toward Vileplume, and her being at the third evolutionary stage while Toedcruel was at the second was mentioned as one of the possible reasons.

Either way, since it took them so many tries to produce a Toedscool, the team decided that it would be ideal to pair multiple members of each species with Toedscool to raise the likelihood of a new Toedscool being born. Just to be on the safe side, they ensured that each partner had at least 2-star potential, 3-star potential was preferred, and 4 stars would be ideal.

However, I was pretty sure the team would mostly focus on the first 11 species since it would be easier to get those and only procure one representative each for the rest.

Regardless, from a certain angle, it looked as if the prestigious Oak Labs was preparing a huge harem for Toedscool and that thought made me nearly laugh out loud in the middle of the meeting. Thankfully, I had enough self-control to keep it in since doing so would have been pretty embarrassing.

Also, due to the size and expansiveness of the propagation issue Bernard, the last one of the 4 main assistants was assigned to assist Peter as a co-leader.

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