A week later, after completely devouring the books he redeemed from the system and combining that knowledge with his week of observations, Ace felt a shred of confidence. Out of a hundred, he felt he had exactly one point of confidence.
Next, Ace's Aerodactyl led its two comrades into Ace's third-floor lab. Watching its kind enter the room, Aerodactyl's eyes showed a flicker of pity, but it quickly vanished. After all, it's every Pokémon for itself. Aerodactyl mourned for its comrades for three seconds before swiftly leaving this place, which had become a forbidden zone among Ace's Pokémon.
The two Aerodactyl simply walked into the room. The door was quickly shut and securely locked by Gengar.
"Heheheh..." Gengar chuckled sinisterly. With the door locked, these two Aerodactyl were now like fish on a cutting board; there was virtually no escape.
"Blissey, Gengar." Ace called his two main assistants for the "surgery." Blissey and Gengar walked towards the two Aerodactyl.
Ten minutes later, a blood-curdling shriek was heard. The sound was so agonizing it would make anyone who heard it weep. Ace's Pokémon all looked up at the third floor of the cabin before lowering their heads, offering their sincerest condolences to the two "warriors."
However, the shriek only lasted for a second before fading away.
On the third floor, Blissey was continuously using Soft-Boiled on the Aerodactyl strapped to the operating table, while Ace, holding a scalpel, glared at Gengar. Gengar scratched its head awkwardly. It had slightly misjudged the duration of its Hypnosis—that was on him.
On the operating table, one Aerodactyl was now completely opened up, its organs and guts scattered messily on the table. Ace used a physical method to pour his prepared potion directly into the Aerodactyl's stomach, then stitched the incision shut. Next, he drew several reagents into syringes and injected them into the Aerodactyl's body one by one. The unconscious Aerodactyl began to convulse violently, and the stitched wound instantly burst open.
"It failed. Speed it up."
Seeing this, Ace immediately put the Aerodactyl's internal organs back and crudely stitched the wound closed. After doing all this, he spent five quest points to return the Aerodactyl to normal.
"Alright, next one."
After unbuckling the straps, Blissey carefully pulled the Aerodactyl down, placing it to the side, then picked up the other Aerodactyl and strapped it onto the operating table.
Soon, the next victim began the process, which was called "research" but was in reality a dissection.
The second experiment, as expected, failed again.
After the two "surgeries," Ace took a break and meticulously recorded every detail, no matter how small, of what had happened during the operations. This was a valuable experience and a guarantee for increasing the success rate.
After an hour of rest, Ace's stamina had recovered, and he began another "surgery." The Aerodactyl that had just woken up was hypnotized again by Gengar and strapped to the operating table by Blissey.
The second round of experiments had begun!
With two rounds of experiments each day, five days passed quickly.
On the sixth day, Ace successfully expelled the Rock-type energy from one of the Aerodactyl's body. After the Rock-type energy was expelled, a large number of black rock spikes formed on the Aerodactyl's skin, somewhat resembling its Mega Evolution form.
"It's pretty much what I guessed. The Mega Evolution mode already shows signs of reversion, but it's not complete yet."
Ace looked at the newly transformed Aerodactyl on the operating table, knowing he had succeeded halfway.
"Next is the type cultivation... If Aerodactyl were a single type, it would be easy, but with dual types, the type cultivation is the key."
Ace felt a headache coming on. He then cut several samples and healed the new-form Aerodactyl. He divided the samples into multiple pieces, placed them in containers, and began observing their reactions to various type energies.
The first to be tested was, of course, the Dragon-type energy he had guessed. But as the Dragon-type energy corroded the sample, it instantly withered and lost all vitality.
Ace's mouth twitched. He tried to reassure himself, "Don't get discouraged. Just because it has 'Dragon' in its name doesn't mean it's a Dragon-type, like Gyarados. Okay, let's try again!"
The second was Flying-type energy. The sample easily absorbed the energy, and its cellular activity increased significantly. Flying-type confirmed!
Ace then sped up the process, consuming one sample after another. Finally, after injecting Dark-type energy, the cells initially shrunk a bit but quickly resisted the corrosion and slowly absorbed the Dark-type energy, enhancing their cellular activity.
"Phew..." Ace exhaled a mouthful of stale air, leaned back in his chair, and breathed a sigh of relief. "Dark/Flying type. This is Aerodactyl's original typing."
Knowing the types, Ace's headache returned. From the samples' reactions, it was clear that while Aerodactyl could absorb Dark-type energy, it had to resist the corrosion first. The sample in the container had no consciousness, and with its small size, it could withstand the corrosion of the Dark-type.
However, in a real-life situation, Aerodactyl has consciousness, and it would be impossible to have enough Dark-type energy for it to absorb. At most, Ace could treat and transplant a Dark-type energy organ into the Aerodactyl. If there wasn't enough Dark-type energy, either the transplant would fail, the body would reject it, and it would simply wither away. Or, if the transplant succeeded, the Dark-type energy organ would inevitably be suppressed by the existing Rock-type energy in the body. Over time, it would either wither, or the Rock-type energy would reclaim the body, and Aerodactyl would revert to its Rock/Flying typing.
"I'll observe it for a while."
Ace rubbed his temples, then stood up and walked to the fossil revival machine in the corner. The embryo in the incubator had already taken shape. The little guy was only the size of a thumbnail, with a vague outline and no special features. The only thing to be glad about was that in the embryo stage, Ace's method easily stripped the Rock-type energy from its body. This was because in the embryonic state, the types hadn't stabilized, and it was easy to strip away a single type.
"System, I'll submit the quest. I need some gold coins to continue the experiment."
Ace chose to submit the side quest, since he had successfully stripped the Rock-type energy from Aerodactyl.
Well... for now.
"Side Quest (Conquer Fossil Pokémon) complete. Quest evaluation: S. Quest reward: 100,000 gold coins, 50 quest points."
"The gift package has been stored for you and can be claimed at any time."