Chapter 44: Library

In the evening, Professor Sato made a special visit.

After checking on Sandshrew's condition, he took Ryoma to a school dormitory and gave him an access card. With this access card, he could freely enter the school laboratory building and also enjoy some student privileges.

Not long after Professor Sato left, Yuto appeared, saying he wanted to take Ryoma out to see the scenery of the school campus.

"Yuto, you came at the right time. Where is your university's library?" Ryoma suddenly asked as they walked along the path on campus.

"Library? What do you want to find the library for? Our Pokémon university's library is a bit special; it only contains knowledge about Pokémon, so outsiders cannot enter," Yuto replied, somewhat puzzled.

Ryoma was taken aback and pulled out the access card Professor Sato had given him earlier, hesitating as he said, "This is the access card Sato Professor gave me. He said it would allow me to enjoy some student privileges, so I'm not sure if I can enter the library."

"This is…"

"Wow, isn't this Professor Sato's assistant card?!"

Upon seeing the access card in Ryoma's hand, Yuto suddenly exclaimed.

"What's wrong?" Ryoma asked, confused.

"What's wrong? This is serious!"

"This is Professor Sato's assistant card, which basically only his aides can obtain. Every year, countless people compete fiercely for this position, and I can't believe you managed to get it!"

"If others find out, they'll surely want to kill you for it!"

Yuto shot a jealous glare at Ryoma.

"So that means I can enter the library?" Ryoma's eyes lit up.

"As long as you have that card, you can enjoy the privileges of a research student within the school. As long as it's not in those very special places, you can move around freely with your privileges!" Yuto sighed, realizing that this slacker had surprisingly transformed into a research student.

"What are we waiting for?! Let's hurry to the library!" Ryoma said eagerly.

Now, his mind was filled with various knowledge about Pokémon, but he was completely blank on how to train Pokémon.

As long as he could grasp the knowledge of how to train Pokémon and combine it with the Pokémon knowledge in his mind, he could surely create a more reasonable training plan!

Under Ryoma's insistence, Yuto reluctantly led him to the library. However, he stopped at the entrance and did not follow him inside.

"Are you not going in?" Ryoma asked in confusion.

Yuto rolled his eyes at Ryoma and shrugged. "I would like to go in, but accessing the library requires paying certain credits. I've already used up my credits to write that report on Defense Curl and Rollout, so now I can't get in."

"Can I go in?" Ryoma frowned.

"With Sato Professor's assistant card, who would dare stop you?"

"Just go right in; as long as you have that card, all your activities in the school are free."

"Ahhhh, I'm so jealous!"

Yuto cursed under his breath and, without further ado, turned to leave.

"It seems this is the third benefit given to me by Professor Sato."

Ryoma tightened his grip on the access card in his hand and nervously approached the library, fearing someone might stop him.

Perhaps due to the evening, the library was empty, with not a single person in sight.

"Please scan…"

As Ryoma arrived at the library entrance, he immediately heard a mechanical prompt.

He quickly took out the access card and scanned it at the scanning station.

"Scan successful… please proceed with facial recognition."

Hearing the mechanical prompt, Ryoma's expression changed slightly, and he steeled himself to go for the scan.

"Scan successful, Sato Professor's assistant, welcome."

The mechanical voice brought Ryoma great joy, indicating that Professor Sato had included his information when applying for the assistant card.

As expected of a renowned scholar, everything was meticulously organized!

Ryoma silently praised Professor Sato and quickly entered the library. As he watched the door close behind him, he let out a sigh of relief.

At this moment, Ryoma had the chance to take in the school library, which was filled with a variety of books about Pokémon.

Not rushing to find the books, Ryoma went to the computer in the library, where he could see all the collections and the locations of the books.

Upon opening the computer, he first saw a large catalog. According to the labels in the catalog, this library surprisingly had a total of 100,000 books!

Ryoma silently marveled and clicked on the sorting method, adjusting it to categorize by type, then selected Ground Type.

Entering the Ground Type shelf, there were still thousands of books available. Ryoma brought up the sorting options again and found an option to sort by Pokémon species.

Without hesitation, Ryoma quickly clicked on the Sandshrew option.

Instantly, the number of books in the catalog drastically decreased, and soon only three lonely books remained!

"Uh, are there really so few books about Sandshrew?"

Looking at the solitary three books on the shelf, Ryoma's expression changed slightly.

He quickly returned to the previous option, thought for a moment, and clicked on the Geodude option, which immediately brought up hundreds of books.

Three books vs. hundreds of books!

Geodude won hands down!

Frowning, Ryoma returned to the previous category and this time clicked on the Rhyhorn option, finding that there were still hundreds of books available!

"It seems that this short amount of time is not enough for humanity to conduct in-depth research on all Pokémon."

"Popular Pokémon like Geodude, Rhyhorn, and Onix become powerful once trained, so most of the researchers focus their efforts on these Pokémon."

Trying a few more times, Ryoma sighed helplessly; his hopes of finding a training method for Sandshrew had been dashed, and it was clear he still needed to rely on himself.

Taking a deep breath, Ryoma returned to the Sandshrew shelf and opened the three books one by one.

The titles of these three books were "The Habits of Sandshrew," "The Body Structure of Sandshrew," and "The Differences Between Sandslash and Sandshrew."

As expected, none of them were specifically about training Sandshrew, but Ryoma still decided to study them carefully to deepen his understanding of Sandshrew!

After all, his current knowledge of Sandshrew had come primarily from the anime and games, and he did not know much about what the real-world Sandshrew was like.