Shen Qi had already opened the Little Sheep's hood to let it cool down. Its temperature was all right now; at least the water tank was no longer bubbling like a hot pot.
Looking down at the ground, he saw thick black fluid leaking from one side of both the front and rear wheels.
"This is really bad. The brake fluid's leaking."
Those were just the visible problems. Heaven only knew how much other wear and tear the Little Sheep had suffered that he couldn't spot at a glance.
Fortunately, the cheap minivan was rugged and durable. He managed to drive it slowly home and arrive safely.
In front of the three-story farmhouse-style building, Shen Qi invited Chansey inside.
[Do you have any other family members?]
"No. My parents went roaming the world to dig up fossils a few years ago. They're basically out of contact."
Fortunately, it was the warm, blossoming season of spring, so there was no need to drag out a full set of thick bedding. Shen Qi made up a bed for Chansey in an unused room, took a cool shower, messaged his homeroom teacher to ask for leave, then flopped down and fell fast asleep.
It was already eight in the morning when he woke again. He still hadn't slept enough, but the next class was Fundamentals of Energy Communication, which he tried not to miss whenever possible.
When Shen Qi went downstairs, Chansey was still sleeping in her room. She had left two eggs for him on the table.
"Do I really need two? They're the size of coconuts. One would stuff me full."
The taste of those eggs stirred a fear from deep within Shen Qi's memories, yet their benefits were impossible to resist.
All or nothing!
Without any top-tier talent, going all out was the only way to soar!
Steeling himself, Shen Qi took huge bites of the egg. Its strange, complicated flavor shot straight into his skull.
It tasted different from the last egg, but its overall character was still just as bizarre and chaotic.
Chansey was lying in her room, and she had helped Shen Qi enormously. He kept reminding himself that he absolutely must not gag. Through sheer strength of will, he curled up on the sofa, twitching as he forced down the entire egg, then dashed out the front door.
Bleurgh-!!!!!!
Only when he reached the vicinity of the school and drank some water did Shen Qi manage to stop the world from spinning.
However, this time it didn't seem to have enhanced his understanding of any type of energy. He merely felt a little more alert.
Apparently, not every one of Chansey's eggs had such powerful effects. Still, the scientific research claiming they were packed with nutrients was certainly true.
Shen Qi listened attentively through Fundamentals of Energy Communication, but his lack of sleep still left his head swimming. He slept straight through the less important Pokédex and literature classes that followed.
During PE that afternoon, Shen Qi finished his eight-hundred-meter run and had no energy left for any other activities, so he rested beneath a tree beside the sports field.
Oh, right. I still hadn't checked what rewards I'd received.
Chansey's ten-percent relationship milestone had rewarded him with a [Script Detector], but he hadn't checked her Emotional Script yet.
Lilligant had given him two thirty-percent rewards. In the early hours of the morning, he simply hadn't been in the mood to check them.
The first set of rewards:
[Skill Proficiency Card 1: Increases skill proficiency by 10%] + [Adaptive Spoiler]
"I'm falling apart."
Shen Qi almost laughed aloud.
Judging by the rewards, he could roughly tell that the second-stage payout would consist of a general-purpose item such as a skill card, plus some items with distinctly recognizable traits of the corresponding Pokémon.
Most of Lilligant's special items were related to racing.
My Little Sheep is a minivan. Putting a spoiler on it... that's like drinking soy milk from a wineglass.
With a wineglass, holding the stem would keep the hot soy milk from burning your hand. It did have some use, but it looked awkward no matter how you viewed it.
A rear wing, or spoiler, could generate downforce to keep a car stable on the track. High-end sports cars in particular had lightweight fiber bodies and traveled so fast that, without a spoiler, airflow could flip them into the air.
Devices like these also required speed. Generally, their effects only became noticeable above a hundred kilometers per hour, and the faster the car went, the stronger the effect.
At seventy or eighty kilometers per hour... it would still have some effect.
He checked the second thirty-percent milestone reward.
[Inspection Card: Inspects the target Pokémon's detailed stats]
"Mm."
It was more or less what Shen Qi had expected. The second-stage rewards included general-purpose game items like this, followed by a distinctive item.
[Racing Energy: Energy with a higher conversion efficiency]
It was something like racing fuel, the specialized gasoline used for racing rather than ordinary gasoline.
Racing Energy could make an engine run more efficiently and unleash greater power.
It sounded good, but for now, this item was less useful than the spoiler.
At least the spoiler would be somewhat useful, and it had no side effects.
The Little Sheep's engine was just an ordinary cheap model. Raising its Special Attack and Attack to level three already required Defense Curl to boost its Defense so it could hold together.
If he fed it [Racing Energy] on top of that, it might fall apart on the spot.
[Racing Energy] was equivalent to a secondary energy pool that could replenish the vehicle's energy expenditure.
Once this game item's durability ran out, it required both Grass- and Rock-type energy to restore it, making its requirements higher than those of the [Adaptive Tire].
The game items were all good, but the same point still stood: the system's gifts merely added flowers to the brocade. As long as Shen Qi was still driving the Little Sheep just to scrape together a living, these game items had no everyday use.
Repairing the car tonight would cost him another chunk of money, and the meager rewards from amateur races would hardly cover it.
Putting away the game items, he checked on Chansey's situation.
Emotional Script: "Crazy Quack." Current relationship progress: 16%.
"Mm... huh?!"
Shen Qi let out a grunt like a water buffalo.
"That storyline title doesn't sound right."
Being a doctor fit Chansey. She was already one of the principal Pokémon widely used in medical care.
But why did it have words like "crazy" and "quack" attached...?
Chapter 18: Crazy Quack
[Emotional Script: "Crazy Quack"] [Difficulty: Hard] [Keywords: Tendon-Splitting Bone-Dislocating Technique, unique dietary therapy, Ascetic Training]
"Th... th-this!"
In Shen Qi's eyes, Chansey matched his impression of the Pokémon perfectly: the gentle, innocent, hardworking character from the anime and games. Her eggs tasted awful but were nutritious. There was nothing particularly wrong with that.
Yet everything about her Emotional Script, from its title to its keywords, felt off.
The storyline title was already outrageous, and then there were keywords like Tendon-Splitting Bone-Dislocating Technique...
"Unique dietary therapy" might refer to those awful-tasting eggs.
As for what exactly Chansey did that qualified as "Ascetic Training," he had no way of knowing yet.
The difficulty of the "Crazy Quack" storyline was: Hard.
"It doesn't seem hard. I've only met Chansey twice, and I haven't even done anything for her. It's already at sixteen percent."
When he first encountered Lilligant, her relationship progress reached fourteen percent because he had helped her avoid being accidentally surrounded by the patrol staff that night. The opportunity triggered by the romance game had given Shen Qi a setting where he could get up close and personal with her.
The romance game hadn't even created an opportunity for him to interact with Chansey. She had already been in Shen Qi's car at the time, so there had been no need.
If that was enough for sixteen-percent relationship progress... how could it qualify as hard?
"Shen Qi." Xiao Chun approached, drenched in sweat from exercising. "You've been really listless today. You were resting the whole time during Pokémon Communication this afternoon, too."
More contact with Pokémon helped students sense and control energy, so all the major schools offered related classes.
Once students formed a bond and passed the school's assessment, they could take a Pokémon home. As a result, students were incredibly enthusiastic about this class.
"I'm exhausted. I really don't have the energy."
The mental strain of racing, coupled with barely any rest, still left Shen Qi sleepy.
With both Lilligant's and Chansey's storylines in progress, what he ought to worry about was being unable to support them once he won them over.
The Pokémon world's school schedule was similar to Japan's. Classes ended at three or four in the afternoon, followed by club activities. Students without a club could go straight home.
Although he was very curious about Chansey's story, Shen Qi still wanted to go home and sleep first. He had arranged to take her back to Ruins Valley that night.
"I'm home."
"Jili!"
The well-behaved pink ball was sitting in the living room.
Without Shen Qi's permission, Chansey had stayed on the first floor.
He looked Chansey up and down. She still had that innocent smile and adorable appearance.
"I'm exhausted. I need to get some rest. Can't let myself get sick from overwork."
[Sick!]
Suddenly, that short yet emotionally charged word popped up in a text prompt.
"Wh... what's wrong?"
"Jili..."
The Chansey in front of him still wore that same innocent smile, yet Shen Qi vaguely felt shadows hanging over her eyes and face, like the visual effect used when an anime villain carried out a scheme to convey sinister, vicious intent.
"What are you going to do?"
"Jili!"
Chansey suddenly lunged forward and pinned Shen Qi onto the sofa.
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