The Pokédex and the Pokémon Eggs

Although Ye Ling's house was right across from theirs, she rarely stayed there. She spent most of her time at Xiao Ran's home, where she even had a pink room all to herself. Naturally, Qiao Yan had chosen the decor.

Ye Ling had suggested several times that they connect the two houses and use them together, but Qiao Yan had refused. To her, that house was one of the things Ye Ling's parents had left her, and it deserved to be preserved. Besides, Ye Ling would still have a home of her own after she married. Everyone thought she and Xiao Ran would end up together, but nothing in life was certain. Who could really say? Read novels on Taiwan Novel Network for a smooth experience.

That was also why Qiao Yan had considered getting the two engaged. Ye Ling had lived with their family for over a decade, and Qiao Yan could not bear the thought of marrying her off to someone else one day. They might as well settle things early and spare themselves all sorts of complications later.

The two had visited Qiao Yan's laboratory countless times. Xiao Ran was practically her assistant, after all, and often helped with Support work. He had also made enormous contributions to many of her projects, especially the research into the New Three Types and Eevee's multiple evolutions. In those areas, even Qiao Yan and his grandfather, a Senior Researcher, fell far short of him.

Today, however, something about the laboratory seemed very different. The moment Xiao Ran and Ye Ling entered, their eyes were drawn to two large incubators on the workbench. Each held a black-and-Bai-striped Pokémon Egg, waiting to hatch.

"Are these...?" Xiao Ran exclaimed. Although he had helped Qiao Yan with plenty of research, he could count the number of times he had seen Pokémon Eggs on one hand. And with two eggs incubating at home at a time like this, the implication was obvious.

"These are presents from your dad. They're his Leafeon's offspring," Qiao Yan said with a broad smile as she watched their excitement.

Xiao Ran's father, Xiao Lan, was a Pokémon Trainer at the Gym Leader Class specializing in Grass-type Pokémon, so most of his team were Grass-types. He had lost quite a few Pokémon while saving Ye Ling years ago, causing his overall strength to plummet. Otherwise, he would have long since reached the peak of the Gym Leader Class and been ready to make a push for the Elite Four, instead of still struggling at the middle Gym Leader Class.

With some of his Pokémon dead and others injured, Xiao Ran's father had naturally needed to rebuild his team. Leafeon was one of the later additions. He had picked up the little Pokémon in the wild when it was still an Eevee. Both its parents had died in a fight, leaving only the little one for him to find and bring home.

At the time, however, Eevee's only known evolutions were the Electric, Fire, and Water Types. Since Dad Xiao specialized in Grass-types, he had not intended to raise it. He had only kept it at Xiao Ran's insistence, then tried every possible method until it evolved into the rare Leafeon. By now, it had become one of his main Pokémon.

It was Leafeon's discovery that prompted the research institute to revisit Eevee's multiple evolutions. Glaceon was discovered next, followed by Espeon, which evolved through a close bond. Yet Umbreon and Sylveon were never announced. That was how Xiao Ran had learned that the League did not want Dark-types and Fairy-type revealed to the world. From then on, he had been much more cautious about researching the new three types. He had even abandoned that research entirely for a long time to avoid attracting the British Family's attention.

Fortunately, the discovery of Leafeon and Glaceon had brought them enormous financial rewards. Although they could not submit the findings under Xiao Ran's name, there was no problem using Qiao Yan's. Not only Leafeon, but every subsequent study of Eevee's evolutions had earned Xiao Ran's family a substantial royalty payment. They might look like an ordinary household, but their wealth was almost enough to put them in the same league as Jiang Cheng's family.

"Well, look at Little Leaf! Already having offspring—nice, very nice!" Xiao Ran said, gazing at the incubators in delighted surprise. He had never imagined that the tiny Pokémon from back then would have offspring of its own so soon.

"Exactly. Shouldn't you two pick up the pace too? Your combined ages are much higher than Little Leaf's!" Qiao Yan did not miss the chance to tease them.

"Mom..." Xiao Ran protested, his excitement dampened. At the same time, he stole a glance at Ye Ling. Seeing that she merely blushed without saying anything, he felt a little relieved.

"Heh..." Naturally, none of that escaped his sharp-eyed mother. Qiao Yan chuckled to herself but did not call him out.

"How much longer until they hatch?" Ye Ling asked at just the right moment to ease the awkwardness.

"About a month. They should hatch before you start school. Have you thought about which type you want them to evolve into, though? The conditions for the different evolutions vary quite a bit," Qiao Yan asked.

"Umbreon," Ye Ling said firmly, without a moment's hesitation. This was the path she had chosen from the very beginning.

"Hmm... a Dark-type? You'll have to spend quite a lot of time building a close bond and mutual understanding, then," Qiao Yan said with a frown. With her Power of Life, she had a natural aversion to the darker types, but she respected Ye Ling's choice.

"Yes. That's fine. I'm in no hurry." Ye Ling nodded, then stroked the Sneasel beside her. Having Sneasel with her was enough.

"Being in a hurry wouldn't help anyway. You can only take this sort of thing one step at a time. Dark-types aren't about evil. They're about protection," Xiao Ran said.

For Eevee to evolve into the Dark-type Umbreon, it needed a sufficiently deep bond, then a moment when that bond erupted out of a desire to protect the other party. That was also why Umbreon had never been discovered in human society. Although relations between humans and Pokémon had improved, most people still viewed Pokémon as strange beasts or tools. Very few truly treated them as friends or family.

At Xiao Ran's words, Ye Ling pressed her lips together and said nothing. She understood the difficulty all too well, but this was still the path she intended to follow.

"What about you? What sort of Pokémon do you plan to raise?" Qiao Yan asked Xiao Ran, breaking the brief silence that had settled over the Laboratory.

The greatest joy of raising an Eevee lay in choosing between its many forms. The known Eevee family had a full nine forms, enough to satisfy almost anyone's preferences. Of course, it was still best to respect the Pokémon's own wishes.

For all their enthusiastic discussion now, it would be awkward if the Eevee hatched and refused to evolve in the directions they wanted. Fortunately, with egg-born creatures, Xiao Ran had quite a few ways to make slight artificial adjustments to the balance of their internal type energies during incubation. That naturally inclined the newborn Pokémon toward the type their Pokémon Trainer had chosen. This was also one reason Qiao Yan had called them over today: she could adjust the two Eevee's type energies according to their preferences.

"Mom, you made me this beautiful, so obviously I have to pick the most outrageously gorgeous Pokémon. Nothing else could match my peerless looks!" Xiao Ran said with a grin.

Xiao Ran had awakened the Power of the Moon. If any types could make the most of that power, they were undoubtedly the still-unannounced Fairy and Dark types. For him, the Fairy-type was therefore the best choice.

"Heh, since I already look like this, I might as well go all the way," Xiao Ran said, throwing caution to the wind.

In truth, he had always felt that his ability to awaken the Power of the Moon was probably connected to the lunar eclipse he had watched in his previous life. That Red Lunar Eclipse, a once-in-a-thousand-years event, might have bestowed some mysterious power upon him. And that was not all. He sensed that his Power of the Moon held some other ability as well; he simply had not uncovered it yet.

"Oh, right. These are presents from your grandfather—the latest Pokédex models!" Qiao Yan walked over to a drawer and took out two Pokédexes. They were a benefit reserved for new Pokémon Trainers recognized by the League. Ordinary people could not get them.

In this world, a Pokédex served as a person's identification. Everyone, from the League's highest officials to homeless beggars, had to carry one. For ordinary people, however, a Pokédex really did nothing beyond proving their identity.

A Pokémon Trainer's Pokédex, on the other hand, combined a whole range of functions, including looking up information, recording identity details, browsing the internet, and making calls. Calling it an incredibly powerful phone would not have been an exaggeration.

"The latest Pokédex?" Xiao Ran looked over excitedly. It was a palm-sized metal box with a raised Poké Ball design on top. Although it differed from the Pokédex he remembered, it looked even more finely crafted.

"That's right. Besides the existing functions, it can now measure Energy Levels and energy grades, though only up to level fifty. It also includes newly compiled information on another 134 Pokémon. You can't buy this model in stores!" Qiao Yan said.

"Another 134 Pokémon? So this Pokédex has information on 386 Pokémon in total?" Xiao Ran quickly did the math. In his previous life, 386 had been the number of Pokémon in the third generation of Pokémon. That did not mean the League had only discovered that many, though. Some had yet to be fully researched, while others had not been officially announced for various reasons.

"Exactly. You can also compile Pokémon information yourselves and store it in there. Older Pokédexes didn't have that feature," Qiao Yan said. She knew Xiao Ran's knowledge of Pokémon was nothing like that of an ordinary boy his age. A mere 386 Pokémon would never satisfy him, so the ability to compile and add information himself would undoubtedly be enormously appealing.

"Really? That's fantastic! Lingling, I'll compile more Pokémon information for you over the next few days. Then you won't have to search everywhere whenever you run into a Pokémon you haven't seen before!" Xiao Ran said excitedly. Information on other Pokémon occasionally appeared on online forums and message boards, but collecting it was a real hassle. Having to search every time they encountered a new Pokémon was terribly inconvenient. Being able to store that information permanently themselves would undoubtedly save them a great deal of trouble.

"Okay!" Ye Ling nodded. She paid no further attention to the Pokédex, instead stroking Sneasel's head as she quietly watched the Pokémon Eggs in the incubators. One of them would become her second companion...