-105- A Surprise in the Courtyard (Please Subscribe!) (4/10)

A week passed swiftly.

After the placement tests for other departments concluded, all the new students at the university began their military training.

The week-long training left Toji nearly exhausted.

He hadn’t expected the school to be so harsh.

Special training for Pokémon was one thing, but the trainers had to join in on practical drills as well?

According to the principal, the rationale was that if you ever encountered a bad person in the wilderness, aside from battling with your Pokémon, you should at least possess some self-defense skills.

Indeed, the entire cohort of freshmen was taught a set of military boxing techniques.

At the same time, considering that many freshmen would soon embark on travel-based learning after the semester began, it was necessary to enhance the trainers’ physical fitness first.

After all, how else would they travel?

Would they always hitch rides on Charizards?

Or on Rapidashes?

Or perhaps on Dodrios?

Unless they came from wealthy families, most would probably choose to walk.

That is, until they captured their own rideable Pokémon.

But even after capturing such Pokémon, trainers couldn’t just hop on and ride freely.

They had to obtain certification; without a riding license or an aerial license, they couldn’t use their Pokémon for travel at will.

If caught by the Pokémon patrol, fines were the least of their worries; serious offenses could land them in a detention and education program for days.

Thus, unlicensed riding was absolutely prohibited in this world.

After the military training ended, Jia Hua University generously gave all its teachers and students a three-day break.

After lying around at home for a day, Toji decided to visit the Golden Week Club.

Occasionally, greedy squirrels would sneak into his yard to steal oranges.

That was hardly acceptable.

The fruit trees had grown tall, and soon they would bear fruit.

Toji certainly did not want to miss out on a single one.

“Lotad, I’m taking you to—”

Just as Toji arrived in the backyard, ready to take his high-quality Lotad to the Golden Week Club for Pokémon battles, he unexpectedly spotted something by the pond—a Pokémon egg?

“???”

Eevee pointed at the Pokémon egg, as if asking if it was edible.

Shelmet was already preparing to crack the egg open.

Zapdos, with one arm, grabbed both of them and pulled them aside.

“What’s going on? Why is there a Pokémon egg here?” Toji looked utterly bewildered.

Activating his scanning eye for a closer look, Toji discovered that the egg was of a Mudskipper with ordinary potential.

“Mudskipper…”

Toji watched the diligent Pokémon digging holes in the pond and realized it was female!

“Wait!”

Even if the Mudskipper was female, it was still just a solitary fish.

“Magikarp!”

“Magikarp…”

Nearby, two Magikarps splashed vigorously, as if trying to prove their vitality.

“Water Group 2!”

Toji struck his right fist against his left palm, suddenly enlightened.

“One of you two did this!”

Pointing at the two Magikarps, Toji, though unsure which was the culprit, was certain it was one of the two clumsy fish.

Both Magikarps were male and belonged to the same egg group as the Mudskipper.

The evidence was clear: both Magikarps were suspects.

As for the Lotad?

Impossible. Lotad belonged to Water Group 1 and the Plant Group, not sharing the same egg group as the Mudskipper, so it couldn’t have laid eggs.

“Good grief, you two managed to produce an egg while I wasn’t watching for just a few days.”

Toji held the Mudskipper’s egg with a grimace.

For a moment, he was at a loss for words.

Through the data panel, he saw that the Pokémon inside the egg was of ordinary potential.

Both Magikarps had ordinary potential, but the female Mudskipper was of high quality.

When two Pokémon with different potentials breed, the egg’s potential is randomly inherited from one of the parents.

It could be higher or lower, depending purely on the quality of the lower-potential parent.

If the lower-quality parent is high-grade, there’s a chance the egg inherits high potential; if low, then the egg inherits low potential.

If both parents are generally mediocre, even two high-quality Pokémon might produce an egg with common potential.

It’s all probabilistic.

Judging from the current situation, the two clumsy Magikarps likely had mediocre quality.

Hence, the Mudskipper laid an egg of ordinary potential.

“Luckily, it’s a Mudskipper. If it hatched another Magikarp…”

Toji’s mind involuntarily conjured up that image and he frantically tried to erase it.

As for cross-species breeding within the same egg group, this world differed from the games.

The offspring would randomly be one of the parents’ species, not necessarily the mother's as in the games.

Otherwise, if unscrupulous institutions caught a female Dragonair, wouldn’t they keep forcing a tool Pokémon like Magikarp to breed with it, producing more Dragonairs endlessly?

In reality, due to the special nature of the Dragon egg group—low reproduction rate and low purebred rate—even if a Dragonair mated with a Magikarp, the resulting egg would most likely be Magikarp’s.

Even if the mother was a Dragonair.

More often than not, the result was infertility.

(Magikarp trying to climb the dragon ladder? What a joke!)

Holding the Mudskipper egg, Toji watched as the two Magikarps frantically splashed around, making it impossible to determine whose offspring it truly was.

“Could it be…”

Toji imagined yet another scenario in his mind, then quickly dismissed it.

Too horrifying!

Returning the Mudskipper egg to the breeding room, Toji placed it in an incubator.

Newly laid Pokémon eggs were not suitable for immediate hatching; it was better to wait a while before incubating.

Since this was the first Pokémon egg to appear in the backyard, Toji decided not to sell it.

However, this incident sparked a new idea.

Besides restocking, perhaps he could produce and sell Pokémon on his own?

If he, like Grandpa Chu in the countryside, opened a Pokémon ranch himself, wouldn’t that save a lot of money?

But for now, Toji shelved the idea.

Opening a ranch required substantial funds and a lot of effort.

Financially, Toji was not short on cash, but he needed space and manpower.

That was a big problem.

“First, let’s take Lotad to the Golden Week Club!”

Toji decided to grind some experience points first.

When he returned to the yard, he instinctively scanned the genders of the Pokémon there.

Who knew? Maybe there’d be another surprise in a few days.

Toji was surprised to find that among the five Woobats, aside from the high-quality, combative male, the other four were all female.

“There’s hope!”

Toji looked at the lone male Woobat.

The important task of expanding the Woobat family was entrusted to you!

The high-quality male Woobat tilted its head in confusion, completely unaware of Toji’s meaning.

…(To be continued)