512 CH143 (507), The End Is Near (1)
The current/12th month ended on Giratiday next week, so the new/fourth week was the last complete week of this month. I usually chose the weekly project that I was going to join myself, but when I came to the lab on Arcday, I actually got a request to join a project from the project leader.
Moreover, I knew both the project as well as the project leader. The project leader was Peter, and the project was the Toedscool breeding analysis project. I naturally agreed with Peter's request, and thinking back to our previous conversations I already had an idea why he asked me to join the project.
Throughout the week, I realized that they were pretty much done with phase one and that my assumption had most likely been right. On Dialday, at the end of the day, I got the confirmation when Peter approached me to talk about the end of phase one and the concurrent retirement of Toedscool along with his harem.
Phase one had been focused on the species that were exclusively part of the grass egg group, and even amongst them, certain species were left out due to their shape. However, phase two expanded the specimen group to all grass egg group members. This included those with a secondary grouping and those that had previously been left out due to their shape.
Additionally, they were going to use a new batch of Pokemon for the second phase, including some of the Toedscool that had matured within the last 2.5 years. With the Toedscool that had finally grown up and had become capable of taking the place of my Toedscool, there was no reason to keep him anymore, so he was being retired.
Toedscool's harem was being retired along with him since they did not want any breeding between family members to impact their results. Well, that, and they disapproved of the idea of breeding between first-grade relatives here as well.
Toedscool's retirement would also mean that I would no longer gain any eggs/hatchlings since I used to get that due to his participation in the breeding project, and I was honestly fine with that. Not only had I gotten more than enough hatchlings by now since they were in the hundreds, but I was also planning to add Toedscool's 68 harem members to Utopia as well.
Besides, the total number of Toedscool's family either surpassed or came pretty close to 400, so I had more than enough grass types for now, even if Toedscool's harem decided to stop having children for the next few decades/centuries.
I mean, it was only natural and logical that at one point the kids would want to find a partner and maybe have kids of their own, which would cause a number increase anyway. I'd simply have to introduce a few "wild"/unrelated grass types to ensure that no extensive "Sweet Home Alabama" stuff happened.
Though I was getting ahead of myself for a bit considering that I had yet to receive an assurance that I would be allowed to take in Toedscool's harem members. With that in mind, I asked him how the situation on that matter was looking.
"I brought up that topic during the last high-level meeting and various opinions as well as views were thrown around, both against and for your case. The Professor listened to everything that was said, before asking for my opinion. I obviously expressed that I was in favor of you gaining custody of the various female grass types related to Toedscool," Peter began explaining while making sure I knew that he has been on my side during the whole thing.
"Thank you," I directly expressed my gratitude and he gave me a friendly nod along with an "anytime" before he resumed his narration.
"Naturally, the final decision was up to the professor, and after he had listened to all of us, he said that he would ponder on the issue and share his decision with us once he had come to one, before moving on to the next topic of our meeting.
Professor Oak did call me to his office three days later and shared that in consideration of the numerous contributions you made to Oaks Labs as well as the alliance through your research results, he decided to allow you to take in the females, as long as you sufficiently compensated Oak Labs for them.
The professor said that he could not simply hand them over to you since you were already being compensated for your work in the form of shares and/or merit as well as contributions points. That is why you have to pay for them," Peter finished his explanation, and I was just relieved that I was allowed to take Toedscool's harem in after all.
"That's absolutely fine with me," I assured him. "Besides, it's true that I've received money and merit points for my research results. I'd just like to know how much I have to pay for them," I admitted before asking the actually important question.
"After discussing things and taking everything into account, we've settled on 70% of the official/general price in their respective home regions. That was the lowest we could go without appearing overly excessive," Peter began and I had to agree that this was already quite a markdown since the regional price alone cut down the amount I had to pay by quite a bit, not to mention the 30% price cut.
"That's already much more than I was expecting," I freely admitted with a grateful nod. There was no reason for me to be ungrateful after all. "So, in the end, how much do I have to pay for everyone?" I repeated my question.
"Well, there are 68 females of various species in Toedscool's harem. To be exact, there are 9 Gloom, 2 Vileplume, 2 Bellossom, 8 Weepingbell, 2 Victreebel, 7 Tangela, 1 Tangrowth, 3 Exeggutor, 8 Sunflora, 2 Carnivine, 5 Lilligant, 2 Maractus, 8 Lurantis, 7 Steenee, and 2 Tsareena in his harem.
Amongst them, the Vileplume, Bellossom, Victreebel, Exeggutor, Sunflora, and Lilligant have all evolved through an evolution stone, so their "market" prices were correspondingly higher compared to regular Pokemon that evolved without the necessity of an evolution stone.
Further, despite there being eight silver-stage Pokemon amongst them, we only charged you the average bronze-stage price for all of them. The same was true for the potential of the Pokemon. Despite there being 5 5-star Pokemon amongst the harem, we counted all of them as 4-star Pokemon during the price calculation.
Taking all of those factors into consideration, the total for all 68 Pokemon comes up to 115.27 million Poke, but you can just pay 115 million instead," Peter finished and when he mentioned the total fee, I had to admit that I was a bit surprised since I had expected the price to be quite a bit higher even with all the concessions Peter mentioned.
They had to have chosen the lowest possible price for each species, and even though the current total was only a bit higher than the amount I invested into Hades/Haunter alone, I was still grateful to Peter, the Professor, and everyone involved in this since it showed their care for me, not just with words, but actions.
There was a lot I wanted to say to express my gratitude, but I ultimately settled for a heartfelt "Thank you".
"Please thank the professor and everyone else on the team for me as well," I added before pulling out my phone. "Should I pay the money into the usual lab account, or into a separate one?" I asked after opening the payment application.
"You can transfer it to the regular account, just write Project Harem in the reference area," Peter replied with a chuckle and I had to chuckle as well when I thought about someone reading that transaction slip.
"Alright, you can take them with you now. As for the eggs that have yet to hatch, you can collect them as they hatch," Peter declared once the payment had been settled. Next, we went to the drawer that contained the Pokeballs of all harem members. With the balls in hand, I made my way to Toedscool and his family.
I told them that they would be leaving with me and that their part in the project was over. They seemed happy enough with the news, and after briefly saying their goodbyes to their kids, at least the ones that would stay at Oak Labs, I recalled them inside their balls and placed those inside Utopia.
I let them all out while I made my way to my dorm room. All 68 of them went through the Utopia newcomer treatment. None of them managed to reach 6 stars, but over 60% of them had their potential upgraded to 5 stars or within the 5-star range. Though light blue potential was the most common grade among them, 3 managed to reach deep blue potential.
The rest of the 30-plus percent had 4-star potential. Though most of those had deep green potential with only 6 of them having green potential. I had all of them moved to the Toedscruel/Vileplume area, and their addition expanded that place by roughly a third.
Honestly, I considered calling it the Toedswood or something due to its size and because Toedscruel was still considered the boss of that area. I mean over 450 Pokemon were inhabiting that place, and once the last batch of hatchlings was added as well, that number would come close to 480.
Speaking of Toedscruel, I could not help but think about that darn Utopia upgrade I have been waiting for. Toedscruel was already at the dark gold stage, so I theoretically already had two dark gold stage Pokemon. However, since that was apparently not enough, I was hoping Stan/Gyarados would be the tilting point since I was 99.99% sure that 3 had to be the trigger for the upgrade.
If for some reason that did not happen, I could think of only one reason, and that was the existence of another upgrade requirement aside from strength. The only additional condition that I could think of that made somewhat sense was our bond. I had no idea whether the bond had to be deep, or if a strong bond was enough, but regardless of that, Toedscruel currently fulfilled neither.
While our current bond was a genuine one, it was still at the weak grade. Considering that it had been less than 3 years since he and his family had joined me, that was not that surprising. Though, I was sure that the bond would advance to the strong grade within a year or so.
Unfortunately, that would be useless if the second condition was a deep bond. Not that it would matter since I was expecting both Stan as well as Horus/Xatu to advance to the dark gold stage, and I had absolute confidence that our bonds would upgrade as soon as they broke through.
Anyway, Toedscruel and Vileplume had already explained everything about Utopia to the newcomers by the time I made it inside. Considering that we had so many newcomers and that the weekend had arrived, I decided to throw a welcoming party.
Throughout the next two days, I saw how the newcomers got used to Utopia and the happiness of their children. The kids showed them around the whole place and introduced their parents to everyone and anyone. Though Stan and the Slithering Six were present when they tried to do the same with the Gyarados swarm.
The following week, I decided to stay until Dialday even though the new month, and with it my break, began on Palkiday. I would be alone at home during the break anyway, so I decided to work until the end of the week. I naturally had to inform the lab about my plan, but they accepted it, so I was able to go ahead with my idea.
For the final week of my fifth term, I chose to join a rather easy-going project. Well, easygoing in the sense that the team of the project was going at their own pace with their research.
As for the topic of their research, I had to admit that it was an interesting one. The overhead topic was Plusle as well as Minun, and they were asking questions such as how, why, and when the two species sprung up since the connection between both species was undeniable.
Moreover, unlike most of the other paired species, this one was not split according to their gender since both species had an equal likelihood of being male or female.
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