[Name: Corviknight
Type: Flying/Steel
Level: 44 (Gym)
Ability: Mirror Armor
Held Item: None
Moves: Leer, Peck, Screech, Metal Sound, Iron Defense, Hone Claws, Power Trip, Fury Attack, Pluck, Taunt, Scary Face, Drill Peck, Swagger, Steel Wing, Take Down, Aerial Ace, Metal Claw, Swift, Air Cutter]
Shiro carefully read through the data, then rubbing his chin, he tried observing again and realized that the only new thing he could sense was the Pokémon's move set. Nothing else had changed.
"That's it?"
He looked at Unown A suspiciously.
Wasn't his weak psychic power supposed to have grown a lot after all that intense training? And yet, all he gained was a better detection ability?
'Psychic power needs time and effort to refine,' Unown A said calmly. 'And you've barely reached the level where you can start training seriously. Did you think this was something you could master overnight?'
"But... this progress is way too small..." Shiro muttered, a little disappointed.
This was far from what he imagined—like teleporting, hypnotizing, or reading thoughts. In his mind, psychic powers were supposed to be almost all-powerful, even capable of changing the form of other living beings.
Just like that crazy stuff Sabrina could do... turning people and Pokémon into dolls. That was insane.
At the very least, he thought he'd be able to teleport half a meter or so by now…
'Turning creatures into dolls? And you want to teleport already?' Unown A, having read his thoughts, shook with speechless disbelief. Then, with a shimmer, it vanished from sight. 'Try training for a few years first before dreaming about teleportation.'
"Sigh~" Shiro scratched his head.
The worst part was that psychic power couldn't even be trained nonstop. There was a daily limit. Just like working out, it was a slow grind. And since his natural talent was weak, it would take a long time to make up for it. He'd probably never catch up to someone like Sabrina.
But then again, nothing in this world let you rocket to the top in an instant. Slow progress was still progress. Even the faintest psychic ability could improve his possibility of surviving dangerous situations in the future.
As he was thinking, the communicator in his pocket buzzed.
Bzzzt!
He pulled it out and saw a message from Oleana. A new assignment.
"Track down the fugitives Dalton and Felix... and uncover the Hunters Guild's true reason for coming to Galar?" Shiro murmured, then he tapped the screen to turn it off and slipped the device back into his pocket.
Based on the message, it seemed Rose still didn't know the full picture. The company hadn't managed to capture any hunter who could provide solid intel.
However, since they'd sent the order, teams must already be on the move. Their mission now was likely to round up every escaping hunter and force the information out of them.
Regarding the two Wild Area trainers... they weren't part of the Hunters Guild. Chances were low that they knew anything important. That's probably why he was tasked with chasing them.
"So... is it that they failed to catch them, or caught them but didn't get anything useful?" Shiro wondered aloud, then shook his head with a quiet laugh.
Everything was already wrapping up. There was no need for him to stress about it. He could just spend time in the wilds and take things easy. If he bumped into a hunter, he'd catch them. Just enough to look like he was doing his job.
As for Dalton and Felix, those guys were sharp. They'd definitely lay low.
All they had to do was throw some cash around, vanish into one of the big cities centered around a gym, and change their appearance. Once they did that, the company's reach would have a hard time finding them.
The worst-case scenario… was that those two would get caught and rat him out. If that happened, and Rose started getting ideas—asking him to hand over the Unown—then it'd be time to start thinking about running.
After all, he had both strength and money now. As long as he could sneak onto the right ship, leaving this cursed Galar region wouldn't be a problem.
With that thought, Shiro casually tossed the mission to the back of his mind. He pulled out his lounge chair and stretched out by the shores of the Lake of Outrage, going over his route and plans for the next few days.
Including his daily training schedule.
After settling on a rough outline, he pulled out his long-unused laptop.
He connected it to the company's portable solar-powered tech, activated the boosted signal receiver, and smoothly logged into his favorite researcher site.
"Professor Oak's... backyard!"
With a twitch of his fingers, Shiro clicked into the Oak Lab's web portal and began casually scrolling through.
He had been pretty busy lately and hadn't had time to check the site. Now he wanted to see if Professor Rowan had released anything new, and maybe find out if any other regions had developed devices like move tutors or TM equivalents.
He tapped on the notifications tab and saw a bright red dot blinking nonstop at the top.
'It's only been half a month, and Professor Rowan already flooded me with messages... must've made a lot of progress with those experiments.'
Shiro opened the chat thread with Rowan, which was overflowing with unread messages.
The screen immediately jumped to the bottom, where over twenty new messages waited. He scrolled all the way back up so he could read from the beginning.
"Mr. Corviknight, are you there?"
A day later.
"Mr. Corviknight, are you there?"
Another day.
"Mr. Corviknight, may I ask…"
Scrolling down, all twenty-something messages were more or less the same: just asking if he was around, then ending without any follow-up.
Strangely enough, they had all been sent at exactly 7:00 a.m. every morning. It made Shiro wonder if Rowan had set up an auto-message to fish for replies.
"Hmm..." He looked at the latest message from that morning and hesitated for a moment, then typed: "I'm free now."
After hitting send, he stretched out his arms for a nice long yawn. But before he could even finish, a reply popped up on the screen.
"Fantastic! Mr. Corviknight, I have a few questions about the paper. Is this a good time?"
Shiro typed back quickly, "No problem. Go ahead."
"We've already run tests on nearly all known Pokémon that evolve using magnetic fields. Now the paper's been submitted to the League's central research division, meaning it's now under review at Professor Oak's lab. The thing is, the League already approved the research budget, which is allocated specifically to you… what do you think?"
Shiro paused, scratching the back of his head. Truth be told, he didn't really need any Pokédollars right now. And regions like Kanto were so far away that even if he wanted the money, he probably couldn't access or spend it.
Still, out of habit, he typed back: "How much are we talking?"
The response came almost immediately.
"Two batches. The first batch is 50 million Pokédollars, which can be transferred to you at any time. The second batch is 80 million and should be approved soon. Since you don't have a research lab and this is your first published paper, the funding is a bit limited. What would you like to do?"
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