"W-what? What's going on?"
Oak was still half-asleep when the commotion reached him. But the moment he recognized the group standing at the door, his drowsiness vanished instantly. His eyes sharpened, and his tone turned stern.
"Didn't I tell you to get results within five days? It's already been seven—"
"Collecting information on those Pokémon took too much time!" one of the researchers quickly replied.
"Hmm…"
Oak's gaze swept over them, taking in their disheveled state. Their white lab coats were wrinkled and stained with dirt and grass, clearly unchanged for days. It was obvious they had pushed themselves to the limit to complete the task.
He didn't press further about the delay. Instead, he let them enter the lab.
Sitting down, he did not jump to conclusions about whether the friendship theory was correct. As a veteran researcher, staying neutral before seeing the results was the most basic principle.
He looked at them and asked directly, "The results should be out, right? Tell me."
"Mm!" The lead researcher stepped forward, unable to hide his excitement. His hands trembled slightly as he held the documents. "Based on our experiments over the past few days…"
He paused, realizing his opening words were meaningless, and skipped straight to the key points.
"We used a total of twenty Swadloon and hired fifteen experienced breeders to build bonds with them. In addition, we included Woobat and Buneary in the experiment. Each of us also raised three Pokémon ourselves. On the third day, one of the Swadloon evolved—"
Before he could continue, Oak interrupted. "Was there any influence from level?"
"No! Absolutely none!" the researcher denied firmly. "We followed your instructions exactly. The Swadloon that evolved had just reached level 21. It had only recently evolved from Sewaddle."
"And according to the evolution data we collected, the average level for Swadloon evolving into Leavanny is around 29. The earliest recorded case we found was level 24."
Oak fell silent for a moment before saying, "Continue."
The researcher set down the documents and reported the data and process he now knew by heart.
"Over the next five days, we focused entirely on building bonds. Out of the twenty Swadloon, nineteen successfully evolved into Leavanny. Only one failed."
He handed over a document. "These are the data for those nineteen cases."
"Mm…" Oak only glanced at it briefly before confirming there were no issues. "What about the other Pokémon?"
"Seventeen Woobat evolved, while three failed. For Buneary, eighteen evolved, and only two did not."
After reporting, the researcher added, "We also studied the ones that failed to evolve and found that their bond with their trainers, the so-called friendship level, was not high. And despite our best efforts in training them, I believe those Pokémon may have some psychological issues…"
Hearing this, Oak waved his hand dismissively. "Alright, alright. Anything unrelated to the paper isn't necessary. So the paper has been proven, right?"
"Yes." The researcher nodded in agreement, then couldn't help saying, "We also searched for more evolution data. We are confident we can develop a way to measure friendship—"
"I only asked you to verify the paper!"
Oak cut him off sharply. The sudden shift in tone made the group stiffen, lowering their heads instinctively.
After a brief pause, his expression softened. "Wait until after the conference. If you get permission from Corviknight, then I'll allow you to continue the research."
"Yes!"
The researchers straightened at once, their earlier tension replaced with excitement.
"Thank you, Professor Oak!"
They quickly withdrew, their spirits lifted as they left the lab.
Once the room was quiet again, Oak picked up the documents they had left behind and began reviewing them carefully.
"So he really didn't have time to run proper experiments…"
He turned and switched on the computer.
* * *
Only three days remained before the Academic Summit began.
Rowan had already bought the tickets. That afternoon, he would set off with the other researchers and Shiro.
At eight in the morning, Shiro sat on the sofa in his room, chatting with Elm on his laptop about the details of the report.
Elm: "There's no need to underestimate yourself. Since you were able to summarize the Egg Group theory, you are definitely a master breeder."
"I really don't understand breeding at all!" Shiro couldn't help but sigh.
"Right!" Elm suddenly seemed to recall something. "It might be that Galar's breeding system is quite different from ours, which caused you to feel like you don't understand it."
"Exactly, exactly! That's it. So…" Shiro had just typed half the reply when, before he could finish it and send it, Elm suddenly sent over a file.
Elm said, "But this subject isn't difficult. It's mostly knowledge that needs to be memorized. I'll send you all the basic points. Just skim through them when you have time."
Ding!
Shiro received a file with an enormous size.
"A 5GB file… all text?"
Before he could even open it, Elm logged off at lightning speed, saying he was about to depart.
"Ah?" Shro hadn't even opened the file when the notification panel on his academic site account started ringing nonstop.
When he checked, most of the messages were congratulations from familiar names.
Ice Lapras: "Dr. Corviknight! Go check it out! Your friendship paper has been verified by Professor Oak!"
Stone-Collecting Metagross: "I knew you wouldn't publish a paper without reason."
SquirtleSquirtle: "Sent friend request."
"…"
Seeing the message from SquirtleSquirtle, Shiro suddenly remembered that before, he had only accepted friend requests from people he could recognize at a glance, like Steven, Lorelei, or Cynthia.
But who exactly was this SquirtleSquirtle?
He wasn't sure. However, judging from how casually this person interacted with Professor Oak, and considering the help he had provided this time, Shiro decided not to overthink it and accepted the request.
Returning to the homepage, the first thing he saw was a new post from Professor Oak. All of Oak's updates were bolded and pinned at the top, making them impossible to miss.
[The Oak Research Institute has confirmed the results of Corviknight's friendship paper.]
Shiro clicked into it and found it filled with dense data.
Each Pokémon used in the experiments had at least twenty samples, and every detail for each one was recorded thoroughly.
"So fast…" He was genuinely surprised by the speed of the Oak Research Institute.
Of course, the result was exactly as expected. Friendship had always existed.
Scrolling to the bottom, several professors had left their comments.
Professor Rowan: "I knew this had to be correct."
Professor Elm: "Same here."
Professor Sycamore: "It seems evolution studies has just expanded into a new branch. I'm looking forward to it."
"…"
**
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