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Seven days had passed since the Breeding Center's grand opening, and new employees continued to arrive one after another.
Leon and Fumie handled the recruitment interviews and hiring decisions, while Wayne, Alan, and Claire took responsibility for training the new staff members.
Alan and Claire had quickly gotten the hang of their duties and had already adapted well to life at the center.
Before the start of the day's work, Leon announced some exciting news to everyone gathered in the main hall:
"To help everyone get acquainted quickly, we're hosting a welcome banquet tonight!"
"Don't worry—there won't be any forced performances or awkward self-introductions. We'll just eat to our hearts' content and enjoy ourselves!"
The expansion of the Breeding Center required employees to become familiar with each other and work together seamlessly in order to provide the best possible care for the Pokémon boarded at their facility.
"Woohoo!!!"
"Long live the Boss!" several employees cheered.
Another busy day of work and life at the center began.
"Mr. Haru, here is your Liepard. Thank you for your patience," Kinsley, the front desk receptionist, said with her characteristic sweet smile as she presented the customer with his boarded Pokémon.
Haru checked Liepard's newly learned moves using his Pokédex, nodding with satisfaction.
"Very good. I'm quite satisfied with the results."
[Ding, Haru is satisfied with Liepard's training. Mission progress (36/100)]
In just seven days, Wayne's main mission progress had been very encouraging.
However, Wayne was not particularly happy at this moment—he was still pondering how to help Feebas regain its confidence and overcome its trauma.
The good news was that Feebas was eating regularly.
The bad news was that it absolutely refused to show itself to people.
Wayne and Feebas had already developed an unspoken understanding: he would place the food near the pond and leave immediately.
Feebas would wait until no one was around before emerging to eat.
As more and more people came to the Breeding Center each day, Feebas had fewer and fewer opportunities to come out safely.
"Feebas, you still need to try coming out during the day," Wayne said softly to the pond. "I'll make sure people don't get too close to your area."
Wayne used his authority as the owner's son to ask the staff to give the fish pond a wide berth, but he couldn't always monitor every customer's movements.
Alan offered a suggestion, "Why don't you just put up caution tape around the area?"
Both Claire and Alan had tried to help with Feebas, but nothing had worked so far.
Wayne snapped his fingers. "Good idea. That's actually perfect."
Wayne immediately crafted a wooden sign and set up caution tape around the fish pond's perimeter.
Most people who were willing to bring their Pokémon to a professional Breeding Center genuinely loved Pokémon and respected their needs. After all, this was a paid premium service, and most customers could understand special accommodations.
The Breeding Center's reputation and popularity were steadily increasing throughout the region.
Fumie sat at her desk calculating finances, her calculator keys clattering rapidly.
"I never imagined business would be this good," she remarked with pleasant surprise.
Leon said cheerfully, "Wayne's videos on Eevee Video Network probably contributed significantly to our success. Brother Levin really had incredible foresight!"
Wayne's decision to upload videos on Eevee Video Network had been based on his uncle Levin's suggestion and guidance.
Fumie then reminded Leon, "The business license has been approved by the League. Go to the city center this afternoon to pick it up."
After recruiting the new employees, they had taken time to apply for an official Pokémon food production and sales license.
This certification meant they could now legally sell Pokéblocks, Poffins, and various other Pokémon nutritional foods.
"Perfect!" Leon exclaimed.
Hearing that the license was approved filled Leon with renewed motivation and energy.
Fumie was a decisive person—the berry trees for their cultivation project had already been planted in the designated yard area.
After setting up the caution tape, Wayne temporarily stopped actively approaching Feebas.
He had given Feebas seven full days to adapt to its new environment, but the Pokémon remained completely unresponsive to any attempts at communication.
Wayne had even sent Lucario to try communicating with it, but that proved ineffective as well.
"Should I try the positive reinforcement and praise method?" Wayne wondered aloud.
"Should I try to melt its heart with consistent displays of affection?"
"Or should I contact Yellow from Viridian City for advice?"
Wayne now especially envied the special gift that Yellow of Viridian possessed—the legendary Viridian Forest's healing power that allowed her to communicate with and understand Pokémon on a deeper level.
"Never mind, let's just record a video for now," Wayne decided, shelving the Feebas problem temporarily.
Wayne planned to create the fourth episode of his "Pokémon Trainer Employment Guide" series.
The third episode had been temporarily changed to "Smoked Sitrus Berry Juice" due to Red's persistent requests for more cooking content in the comments.
Wayne wasn't worried about someone learning how to replicate his Smoked Sitrus Berry Juice recipe.
The system had specifically stated that the special beneficial effects of unique dishes were only effective when Wayne himself prepared them.
If others learned and followed the recipe, at most it would simply taste good without the stat-boosting properties.
For that particular video, Wayne had invited Alan, Claire, Incineroar, and several other Pokémon as taste testers.
His parents and Lucario had all sampled it as well, but none of them had experienced any special stat-boosting effects.
This Smoked Sitrus Berry Juice, an improved variation of the specialty berry juice from the Johto region, had received enthusiastic praise from Red and helped Wayne's account surpass ten thousand followers.
Red had highly commended Wayne's method of improving traditional berry juice recipes and teaching them for free to the community.
The two had also made what could be called a mutually beneficial arrangement and added each other as friends on their messaging apps.
Although the two barely chatted or messaged each other.
Red was busy training and battling challengers on Mt. Silver every single day.
Wayne was occupied with the Breeding Center's constant stream of responsibilities and tasks.
Busy, all busy. Being busy was actually a good thing, Wayne thought.
Wayne was honestly just afraid that Red might suddenly challenge him to a serious Pokémon battle. He wasn't ready for that level of competition yet.
Wayne had already received his mission rewards from completing the cooking video task:
Specialty Dish Pokédex × 1 and two Item Lottery Tickets.
[Crispy Apple Pastry (A-rank)]: A refined dessert from ancient culinary traditions, featuring a crispy exterior and soft interior. The puff pastry requires repeated folding and chilling of the dough, plus strict control over baking temperature. After consumption, grants a 'Training Efficiency Boost' buff for 12 hours.
(Click to view detailed video instructions)
Daily production attempts (0/1)
Friendly reminder: Please improve your cooking level before attempting this recipe to avoid wasting ingredients. You may also start practicing with the simplified version.
Undoubtedly, this was a dish that Wayne could not successfully challenge at his current skill level.
The simplified version meant omitting the complex puff pastry technique and simply coating the apples with egg wash and breadcrumbs before frying.
Wayne checked his current cooking skill level.
Cooking (Intermediate): Slight (3,457/10,000)
Now that there were more employees and more mouths to feed, Wayne's cooking skill would level up much faster.
The two Item Lottery Tickets had drawn an Everstone and a Muscle Band.
[Everstone]: When held by a Pokémon, suppresses and prevents evolution.
[Muscle Band]: When held by a Pokémon, increases the power of physical moves.
The Everstone was of no particular use to Wayne personally.
For anyone running a professional Breeding Center, having several Everstones stored in the warehouse was practically standard equipment.
Some Pokémon simply didn't want to evolve, and some Trainers also wished for their Pokémon to remain in their current form for various reasons.
For example, Claire's Glameow didn't want to evolve into Purugly and always carried an Everstone.
Wayne gave the Muscle Band to Metang, carefully tying it to the Pokémon's right arm.
The third mission of [I Really Didn't Want to Be a Content Creator] mainly had two objectives to complete:
100,000 followers (27,589/100,000) Million-view videos (3/5)
Mission Reward: Random Pokémon Item Lottery Ticket × 3, Random Specialty Dish × 1, Random Skill (Intermediate) × 1
Inside his recording room, Wayne set up the camera in front of him and carefully adjusted the shooting angle to capture everything properly.
"Without further ado, let's get straight into today's fourth instructional video. Today, we're learning about Pokéblocks!"
"We'll start with understanding the different colors and categories of Pokéblocks."
Arranged in front of Wayne were five distinct colors of Pokéblocks: red, blue, pink, green, and yellow.
All of them were high-quality grade, glistening under the studio lights.
"These five colors correspond to the five Contest conditions: Cool, Beautiful, Cute, Smart, and Tough, respectively. Everyone should pay careful attention to these distinctions, as they're fundamental to Pokémon Contests."
While Wayne was filming his instructional content, his phone suddenly buzzed with a new message notification.
Grandpa: [Your mentor will arrive tomorrow morning at nine o'clock sharp.]
Wayne's eyes widened slightly as he read the message. His mentor was finally coming to visit.