[Ding, ding! You have successfully contracted a Feebas!]
[In today's Pokémon world, Milotic is extremely mysterious and rare, regarded as a legendary Pokémon… No one ever imagined that this beautiful Pokémon actually evolves from the shabby and pitiful Feebas.]
[As someone who understands evolution, it is time for you to prove to the world that an ugly duckling can become a swan!]
[You have received a task: evolve a Feebas into Milotic.]
[Cheat Tip: Milotic is known as a compassionate Pokémon. Besides its most beautiful appearance, it also possesses a beautiful, healing heart.]
[Reward: Technical Machine (Attract), Five-Color Scarf (Blueprint).]
Jiang Xing had long predicted the system's antics. At this moment, he wasn't surprised in the slightest—he even wanted to laugh.
The system was calling a chicken a fish, insisting it could evolve through Beauty, right?
But what if he said it was actually a Buneary (parallel-world regional form), one that had learned the move Return and followed a Friendship-based evolution route?
How would the system respond then?
Joking with the system aside, back to the main topic.
Seeing the contract successfully formed, the remaining Ugly Waterfowl no longer hesitated in the slightest and completely placed their trust in Jiang Xing—
After all, a Beast Tamer's contract could not be undone and had a limit.
Since Jiang Xing was willing to form contracts with Pet Beasts that were so widely despised, it meant he truly had confidence in helping them evolve and complete their transformation.
That alone was enough.
Afterward, to prevent another Pet Beast conflict incident from occurring—
Jiang Xing modified several rooms in the research institute into pools, allowing them to temporarily reside inside.
The Ugly Waterfowl made no noise and caused no trouble. They obediently followed instructions, quietly lining up to enter the rooms and soak in the pools to rest—so well-behaved it was almost heartbreaking.
Meanwhile, Jiang Xing went to the study, opened a document on his computer, and began designing evolution plans.
Since he had promised to help the Ugly Waterfowl evolve, he would definitely follow through.
Not only that—he would design multiple evolution forms.
First, Training Power was very likely equivalent to the move Return, closely tied to Friendship.
Since the Ugly Waterfowl were born with this kind of Friendship-related move, there was a high probability that a Friendship Evolution Form existed.
Jiang Xing needed to design a complete pathway for it.
Second, the system had already hinted that the Ugly Waterfowl possessed potential related to "Beauty."
They might be able to achieve a special evolution by increasing their Beauty and harnessing the power of a beautiful heart.
Jiang Xing also needed to design a Beauty Evolution Form pathway.
Finally—
The information given by the system was merely a hint, not a standard answer.
The Ugly Waterfowl only contained elements related to "Friendship" and "Beauty"—it did not mean they were limited to just these two evolution forms.
Perhaps if both conditions were satisfied simultaneously, the Ugly Waterfowl could reveal an entirely new, truly "perfect evolution form"!
This would be the third evolution route for the Ugly Waterfowl.
The conceptual framework for the evolution routes was already in place; what remained was the specific training methodology.
However, Jiang Xing's energy was limited.
Aside from the Ugly Waterfowl, he still had evolution research topics pending for the Rainbow Dragon Hatchling, the Undead Guardian Hound, and even the Giant Magnet Entity.
Trying to research both Friendship and Beauty simultaneously would be spreading himself too thin.
After some thought, he decided to start with Friendship.
'Before beginning the Friendship Evolution Form project, I first need to propose and prove the existence of Friendship.'
'That is the foundation of Friendship Theory.'
'After all, Training Power being equivalent to Return is still just my hypothesis.'
'And Pet Beast theory cannot be built on speculation—it must be proven through rigorous experimentation before further derivation can begin.'
The most important thing in experimentation was inspiration.
With inspiration in place, Jiang Xing quickly designed a plan.
The experiment would center around the Training Power move possessed by the Ugly Waterfowl, testing how two variables—"training time" and "Friendship"—affected the move's power, while establishing multiple control groups.
One group of Ugly Waterfowl would train independently, consuming resources but without Beast Tamer interference.
One group would consume resources but not train the move.
One group would be raised by a Beast Tamer, consuming resources while also training the move.
One group would build affinity with a Beast Tamer but neither consume resources nor train.
Another group…
At regular intervals, he would measure the move power of all the Ugly Waterfowl and record the changes, using the data to determine what exactly influenced the strength of Training Power.
This experimental design was extremely simple. With enough Pet Beasts, any Beast Tamer could replicate it.
The reason no researcher had attempted it before was because the Beast Taming world contained over a million species of Pet Beasts, each with their own moves—too many to count.
Researchers could barely keep up with studying forms, let alone moves.
In fact, even Jiang Xing himself would not have noticed this otherwise—if the system hadn't pointed it out, he wouldn't have paid attention to such a common move. As long as its power was normal and matched the Pokédex description, he wouldn't have thought to test whether the Pokédex might be wrong.
This was a classic blind spot.
'Come to think of it… does Friendship only exist between Pet Beasts and Beast Tamers?'
'In the Pokémon world, for example, Pichu evolves through Friendship, yet its evolved form, Pikachu, is as common in the wild as stray dogs…'
'Perhaps Friendship between Pet Beasts also influences their evolution and moves.'
With that thought, and considering the mutual dislike among the Ugly Waterfowl, Jiang Xing added the Auspicious Cloud Qilin into the control groups.
Its affinity-based talent was perfectly suited for increasing Friendship.
It could effectively test the impact of Friendship between Pet Beasts.
With that, the experimental plan for his first research topic was complete.
Jiang Xing could now apply for funding from the state based on this project.
However, after some thought, he decided not to apply—
The state's generosity toward research funding varied depending on the subject.
The Rainbow Dragon Hatchling had immense potential and involved personality-based hypotheses, so it would naturally receive serious attention and substantial funding.
Friendship, on the other hand, was different—
At least for now, Jiang Xing's project only involved hypothesizing the existence of Friendship and testing the effects of Training Power.
Such a project wasn't particularly important, nor did it require much money.
He couldn't exactly claim that "the Ugly Waterfowl's daily food expenses are ten million"—that wouldn't convince anyone.
So even if the application were approved, the funding wouldn't be much.
Jiang Xing decided to fund the research himself first. Once he achieved some results and the project's importance and cost increased, he would apply for a large grant.
'But this is only the Ugly Waterfowl project.'
'The other two projects can be submitted for funding right now…'
[The subsequent evolution forms of the Rainbow Dragon Hatchling] and [The death-region form of the Howl Hound].
These two projects clearly had both importance and reasonable cost.
Jiang Xing stayed up for several nights to finish their research proposals and submitted them to Dr. Xu for review.
After reviewing them, Dr. Xu waved his hand.
With a few casual edits—adjusting the budget and adding some content—he increased the funding request from 200 million to 500 million.
And Jiang Xing couldn't spot a single flaw.
The only word for it was perfection.
Experience truly made the difference.
After submitting the funding applications, the first thing Jiang Xing received was not the result of the funding—
But a phone call from a Champion Beast Tamer, Chang Feng.
"Young Jiang Xing, you have a special secret realm that can revive Pet Beasts?!"
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