"That's not right!"
While scrolling through the comments, Rowan suddenly noticed something strange.
A large number of comments were mentioning Corviknight, and it looked like people were arguing.
SquirtleSquirtle: "Dr. Corviknight is definitely the greatest researcher of the past ten years!"
Dragonite Messenger: "Stop exaggerating. He's just average."
Stone-Collecting Metagross: "Is your brain filled with Dratini?"
Ice Lapras: "@Dragonite Messenger If you're so capable, prove it. If not, stop talking nonsense. You're just annoying us."
Dragonite Messenger: "Can he compare to Professor Oak? You're acting like Oak hasn't done anything in the past ten years..."
After just a few lines, the discussion turned heated. Dragonite Messenger and Stone-Collecting Metagross, who already had past grudges, started arguing fiercely, and the thread grew to over a hundred replies in no time.
What was originally a peaceful discussion about Egg Group theory completely collapsed. Professor Elm could not stop it, and Professor Oak did not seem to step in either.
Rowan quickly scrolled up to the author section and saw Shiro's name listed first.
"Shiro is the first author?"
He looked confused.
"When did he write this? Recently, or was it prepared earlier?"
"Sigh..." Carolina took the mouse with a helpless look and clicked on one of Elm's earlier posts. "You're really too focused on your research. You don't even check the website or new papers anymore?"
Only then did Rowan realize that Elm had already mentioned he was helping Shiro with experiments. He scratched his head awkwardly.
He really did not have the habit of checking the website or reading papers often. Most of the time, the content there had nothing to do with him. If he was free, he might take a quick look, but when he was busy with research, he would never waste time looking at others showing off their results.
Even Rowan felt his mindset might be a bit off, but every time he logged in, it just felt like people were showing off.
"Sigh..." Thinking that Elm had produced another result with Shiro's help, he felt a mix of emotions, a little sour inside.
"That's enough. I'll go check on Cynthia and Shiro..."
Carolina waved her hand and walked out of the lab.
* * *
In the grassy field area.
One Bidoof after another lined up in the grass, poking their heads out to look. Turtwig and Venusaur crouched in a corner of the grass, trembling, while a few Marill were much braver and had already moved closer to the humans.
Boom!
The sound of moves colliding in midair shook the grassland, and the strong wind almost flattened the grass.
"Gaaarchooomp!"
Garchomp shook its head in the air and let out a fierce roar. Then it turned into a streak of deep purple light and rushed toward Drakloak.
Dragon Rush!
Drakloak narrowed its eyes and calmly observed. Then a shadow rose over its body, and it vanished instantly.
"It disappeared again!" Cynthia muttered, her eyes scanning the surroundings.
Garchomp was halfway through its Dragon Rush and could not stop instantly. As it began to slow down, a familiar sound came from near its sensing organ.
"Drak-loak!"
Drakloak let out a quick cry and appeared behind it. Its blue-green ghostly tail lashed out fiercely.
"Gaaar..."
Garchomp's yellow eyes shrank. Pain shot through its back and up its body. It fell straight from the air and crashed heavily onto the ground.
It looked like it could not get up.
"Draaak~"
Floating above, Drakloak seemed a little bored. Every time, it hadn't even had the chance to use its fusion move before this little guy had already gone down. There was no fun in the fight at all.
But the Garchomp on the ground didn't think that way.
"Garchooomp..." (Another sneak attack...)
It felt that Drakloak had no sense of fairness. Each time it was sneak attacks, over and over again. It never fought head-on even once. On top of that, Drakloak's level was higher than its own, yet it still refused to face it directly.
Every time it was defeated, it felt frustrated and unwilling.
"Sigh... this Garchomp..." Cynthia lightly tapped her forehead and recalled it into its Poké Ball.
Shiro also recalled Drakloak and comforted her, "It has already improved a lot. Its battle habits just haven't changed yet."
The two continued discussing some battle details when Carolina's voice sounded from not far away.
"Cynthia! Shiro!"
They both turned and walked over to her.
"Shiro, your new paper is out again..." Carolina said with a smile, hands in her pockets.
"New paper?"
Shiro thought for a while and only remembered the previous Dynamax paper.
"You brat, did you forget already?" Carolina tapped his shoulder lightly. "Elm published it."
"Oh!"
Shiro immediately recalled the Egg Group theory he had mentioned to Elm previously.
The man had been reporting progress regularly. He didn't expect it to be completed and published today.
"That Egg Group theory... it's alright, I guess," he commented casually.
After all, it was still Elm's own achievement. In reality, it might have taken years, even a decade, to fully develop. He had simply given the result and saved that time.
All he had asked for was a small credit at the end of the paper.
"You're the first author!" Carolina emphasized.
"Huh?"
Shiro truly didn't expect that, since he had nothing to do with actually writing the paper.
For Rowan's research, he had followed the whole process and even participated in writing. But on Elm's side, everything was done by Elm himself, including research, experiments, writing, and data completion.
He felt his contribution to the Egg Group theory wasn't that important. Elm likely already had similar ideas. The main difficulty was verification, which required breeding different Pokémon and took a lot of time.
In that sense, Shiro felt he hadn't contributed much.
"Professor Elm is giving me too much credit," he said, then hurried back to the lab.
* * *
Shiro quickly arrived at Rowan's lab, turned on the computer, and logged into the website.
Researchers nearby immediately gathered around him.
"I lack talent and knowledge. My contribution to this Egg Group paper is minimal, and I do not deserve to be the first author. I am very grateful to Professor Elm, but compared to me, he has contributed the most and should be the first author. I only provided a small amount of help."
He typed it out word by word and posted it.
"Dr. Corviknight, there's no need to do this," Dale quickly tried to stop him.
From behind, Rei also added, "Since Professor Elm wrote it that way, it means he acknowledges your contribution..."
Shiro waved his hand and still chose to post it.
**
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