CH80 (444), Tying Up Loose Ends

The next morning the lab was just the way we left it, but the insides of the safe had frosted over a bit. Still, the safe did its side hustle and kept the lab safe. Regardless, we directly began the tests, and we naturally started from the "quick" ones, namely the bonus tests.

James and Professor Oak did not allow Weiss and her family or any random outsiders for that matter to participate in the capability tests of the Arctic Heart, so while we had no problems with the ice-type Pokemon part since those were readily available at the lab, we had to ask for help with getting some Ice Elementalists to take part in our tests.

We naturally were not going to just sit around while the professor was organizing the elementalists, so we simply began with the ice types we had around the lab. By the end of the day, 23 ice-type Pokemon belonging to 7 different species had repeatedly tested at least 4 of their ice-type moves while under the influence of the Arctic Heart, and we were able to tentatively confirm the 50% move bonus.

I said tentatively because we had to go through their whole ice-move list first so that we could confirm that the bonus applied to all ice moves, or at least all the ice-type moves the Pokemon at the lab knew.

Anyway, I clocked out a bit earlier today, at 5 p.m. instead of 6:30 p.m., so that I could rush back to Hope Town since it was dad's birthday. Mom decided to throw a dinner party, which began at 6 p.m., so I helped a bit with preparing the tables and stuff.

Rose along with her parents came, along with a few of dad's other friends, which by now included Weiss and Ace's parents, so those two and their parents actually came as well. Oh, and Kinji also got invited, so I had quite some fun and dad was happy.

I gave dad a bunch of handcrafted Pokeballs from Urahara as a birthday gift, which I did my best to make. They were actually some of the best balls I made so far and would have sold for a lot of money on the market. He liked them and I knew his Pokemon would enjoy them.

Anyway, the guests started leaving after 10 p.m., and by 11 p.m. we were the only ones left. There were offers to stay and help with the cleanup, but mom declined. We did it ourselves and it was 11:52 p.m. by the time I was back in my dorm.

The next morning I was back at the lab and saw the "volunteers" Professor Oak himself had organized. From what I heard throughout the day, they had to sign some really strict contracts. I would have never signed those, but whatever they got from the lab in return had to be worth it, if 6 Ice Elementalists decided to sign it despite the strictness.

We, as in Carl, Sibel, and I, were just happy that we could partially finish our tests. It took us until around lunchtime on Palkiday, the next week, to finish all the tests for the move bonus part. That was enough time for both the Pokemon to note and confirm the increase in the effectiveness and power of all their ice abilities/moves.

However, they had a problem detecting how much their training speed was increasing since it kept changing while the Arctic Heart's ice domain kept growing. That was also why I said partially done since we had to keep observing the situation while the ice zone finished growing before the test could conclude.

The most interesting thing that happened during this time, something that actually lured the professor over, was that the enlightenment opportunity actually got triggered by one of the Pokemon that took part in the test. A Dewgong managed to "learn" Aurora Veil.

There were no documented cases of a Dewgong learning Aurora Veil before this. I would know, I looked it up. It was not part of their move pool as far as I and everyone knew, but Dewgong managed to "just" learn it while taking part in our tests.

Everyone was pretty excited about that, but since no one else exhibited a moment of genius, we were unable to confirm whether the "miracle" had anything to do with the Arctic Heart or not. Unfortunately, we would need more examples to put a stamp on the enlightenment part if we wanted it listed among the Arctic Heart's capabilities.

Regardless, by the time we clocked out on Dialday, the ice domain had reached a diameter of around 206.5 meters, and it was still growing. Due to that and the fact that we were measuring how the increase influenced the training boost, the tests had to be continued during the weekend.

However, I was told that I was not allowed to come to work over the weekend since Carl and Sibel could easily supervise the tests without me, and my month-long break had officially begun. Sibel was assigned Kyoday, and Carl got Grouday. I still ended up paying the lab a visit on Kyoday, which happened to be the last day of the month.

The reason I came was to finally check up on the egg room. There were only 1 to 2 months left until the first eggs hatched, and I wanted to take a look at them beforehand. I kept tabs on the situation, which is why I knew that the number of eggs went from 42 to 55 during the last 8 or so months, with some more still on the way.

The number of eggs was not that surprising since I believe they only stopped adding to the harem just before the number of partners hit 70. I also heard that the mothers went right back at it after they laid the egg, and most of them were already with another egg that would be due in a few more months.

Anyway, I went to the lab and first paid a visit to Toedscool and his harem to talk with them for a bit before I moved on to the egg room. I already knew what to expect, but I still could not help but be a bit surprised when I saw the eggs/eggshells.

For the longest time, I thought there was just one possible pattern for an egg according to its species, and I was just so used to seeing eggs where the pattern/color scheme was clear-cut since that was what I got to see at shops or egg centers or my own breeding farms.

However, it seemed the shops and centers were sorted like that on purpose since no one wanted to buy a Horsea egg and end up hatching a Remoraid. The truth was that eggs with a definite pattern only came about when two Pokemon of the same species or evolution line paired up.

If that was not the case, the pattern got mixed up, and while with part of the eggs one could still identify the parents through the pattern, many were not clear cut unless one actually knew the two Pokemon that had been involved in the creation of the egg.

Even in those cases, one would not know for sure which one of the parent species the baby would end up as, just which one was more likely. That was why there was an unidentified egg section at shops as well as egg centers, and not just because they failed to recognize the species due to the pattern being too similar to another as I thought to be the case.

Honestly, I could have easily found out about it a long time ago, but my own "foreknowledge", along with my experience in Utopia or at the stores just made me assume that my "foreknowledge" was right, and I was not interested in digging deeper. Now that I thought about it, this also seemed to be the only point in time one could visually observe that a Pokemon had a "mixed" heritage.

Well, that interesting tidbit aside, I also realized that I could have made a pretty penny with that whole unidentified egg thing by simply using my observe function. Though, I/we would have had to wait until the egg/Pokemon hatched, and I was not sure if I could bring myself to directly resell a baby for profit just after it was born. I guess the method we actually used fit me more, but that chapter was closed and I wasn't planning to reopen it.

Anyway, what I was seeing right now, was a sea of mixed-patterned eggs. They did sort the eggs with the same mother species together, but there was no Toedscool group since they had no idea which egg was a Toedscool one and which one wasn't.

Also, looking at the patterns, I could say that if these eggs had been just been found in the wild, they would have had a hard time identifying the parents. Toedscool was an unknown, so that was no surprise, but I was guessing that even for the mother species only about 60 to 80% would probably have been correctly guessed.

I came to that assumption because I managed to do it with about half the eggs while inspecting the eggs, and I was assuming the ones who did it as a job would be a bit better than me since they were professionals. Regardless, once I was done looking at the setup and the eggs the regular way, I began "observing" them to confirm their species.

The arrangement I made with the professor had been that I would receive two-thirds of the eggs that took after the mother's species, and a third of the eggs that took after Toedscool, with the additional condition, that the first 12 successfully hatched Toedscool would go to the lab/Professor.

Well, from my appraisals, I found out that the 55 eggs would hatch into 8 Oddish, 5 Bellsprout, 8 Tangela, 4 Exeggcute, 7 Sunkern, 4 Petilil, 2 Maractus, 3 Formantis, 10 Bounsweet, and 4 Toedscool.

That meant that I would get none of the Toedscool, 5 Oddish, 3 Bellsprout, 5 Tangela, 2 Exeggcute, 4 Sunkern, 2 Petilil, 1 Maractus, 2 Formantis, and 6 Bounsweet due to the lab getting its share first. At least I got the right to first pick, which meant that I was allowed to choose which ones I wanted.

I naturally chose the ones with the best potential, but I had to admit that the average was pretty high due to the potential of the parents. Toedscool had light green potential, and the lab did its best to get either 4 or 5-star mothers for the harem plan, so the worst potential I actually saw in the whole batch was a Tangela with Yellow potential.

Still, thanks to the first-pick arrangement, all 5-star babies would naturally end up being assigned to me, so I did not mind the lab arrangement. The same arrangement ensured that I could circumvent the professor's hatchling rule, and pick up the babies just 3 months after they hatched, instead of waiting triple or even quadruple that, which was generally the norm at Oak's lab.

Anyway, after I was done with the eggs, I paid a quick visit to Sibel to greet her, before I left the lab and made my way to Hope Town to officially start my month-long break.

While I was enjoying my vacation, the work at the lab was continuing as usual, and I received a message from Carl in the middle of the second week that they were finally done with the tests, and that they only had to keep an eye on the vanishing speed of the ice zone, which had reached a diameter of about 289 meters.

Meanwhile, they were tasked with working on improving the production process of the Arctic Heart to raise the output and average fusion rate we had neglected to get a viable version as soon as possible.

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