[Bonus Chapter]
When it came to this Krabby, Reiji could only keep observing for now. If he couldn't reverse its death wish, there wasn't much he could do—he'd have no choice but to give up on it.
After settling Krabby in, he brought his fishing rod back to the beach. He glanced at Poliwag's Water Gun training, then found a comfortable spot on the rocks, baited his hook, and cast the line.
Time to begin today's fishing session...
His luck wasn't bad today. A fish bit the line fairly quickly, and it wasn't hard to reel in—it was a Wishiwashi.
He tossed it into a bucket. No need to use a Poké Ball for this one. No need to check its proficiency panel either—it was meaningless.
Wishiwashi had a base stat total of just 175. It didn't have an evolved form, only its School Form. So what could you even do by farming Wishiwashi?
One on its own was useless. A whole school was too resource-intensive to raise. What was he gonna do—use it to bully weaker opponents?
"…Huh?" Reiji immediately reeled in his rod and returned to the treehouse, planning to test each Wishiwashi's potential using Poké Balls.
He wasn't planning to use Wishiwashi to crush weaklings—his goal was to raise a leader. As long as he had a strong enough Wishiwashi leading the way, it could call others to form a School Form.
Wishiwashi's School Form had a total base stat of 600, equivalent to a pseudo-legendary. If he could get it to form the school, it'd actually be a solid force.
He still had six buckets of Wishiwashi left. After filtering through them, he picked out one with 51% potential.
[Wishiwashi]
Type: Water
Gender: Male
Potential: 51%
Level: 2.15%
Ability: Schooling – 0.62%
Moves Known:
(Water Pulse – 0.12%)
(Growl – 0.22%)
(Water Gun – 0.43%)
"Not bad. You're the one, Wishiwashi," Reiji said as he looked at the Pokémon in the ball, deciding this would be the one he'd raise.
It didn't have a Hidden Ability, but it did know an egg move—Water Pulse. For a Wishiwashi, that was already above expectations. Nothing to complain about.
For something with 51% potential, having an egg move was actually impressive.
It was weak—sure—but that was expected. He wasn't planning to send it into battle anyway. It would be the head of the formation, enabling School Form.
Now his team consisted of: Poliwag, Metapod, Magikarp, Krabby, and Wishiwashi.
"Damn... I was just complaining about how small the team was. Now suddenly I've got a bunch of them?" Reiji rubbed his chin, glancing toward the beach where Poliwag continued practicing Water Gun.
Metapod was still sleeping, digesting evolution energy. Magikarp was too useless to count on. Krabby was newly caught and still unusable. And Wishiwashi couldn't even beat Magikarp. It was worse than useless.
The only real breakthrough potential right now was Krabby. He couldn't rely on Magikarp or Wishiwashi—both were bottom-tier.
But Krabby came with a bunch of issues. He wouldn't be able to resolve them anytime soon. Sigh… tough, tough, tough.
Reiji sighed again, returned to his fishing spot on the rocks, and cast his line once more.
Thinking too much wouldn't help. He'd just have to wait and see. If Krabby could be saved, great. If not, at least keep it alive. Letting it die would be a waste.
After all, it was a Krabby with 56% potential and the Hidden Ability Sheer Force—you didn't come across those every day.
It was just like Little Green. Finding another high-potential Pokémon like that wasn't going to be easy.
Wishiwashi, on the other hand? He had entire buckets of them. He could sift through them at will.
Earlier, while checking the Wishiwashi, he'd already found multiple with over 50% and even some with over 40%. One even had 53% potential, but it didn't have any egg moves—so he picked the one that did.
Anyway, with a Pokémon like Wishiwashi, potential didn't matter much. Even with a base stat of 100+, it was already capped out in terms of growth.
Even if one had Elite Four-level potential, it wouldn't be worth the investment. No evolution, low stats—it was fundamentally limited.
Who would pour Elite Four-tier resources into a Wishiwashi? If someone did, well... respect. Reiji wouldn't mess with them.
He definitely wouldn't do it. If he had resources to raise something to Elite Four level, he'd pick Caterpie over Wishiwashi any day.
Putting Wishiwashi aside, Reiji returned to the prime fishing window. He didn't catch anything silly today—just more Wishiwashi. By the end of the afternoon, he had a whole bucket of them.
To be honest, he kind of wanted to catch a Carvanha, just to see if he could get one with high potential. After all, Carvanha can Mega Evolve.
If he could find a high-potential Carvanha, he'd be happy to raise it. Way more useful than those dumb fish.
But the sun began to set, and he still hadn't caught a single Carvanha. So he called Poliwag back from training and returned to the treehouse ahead of him, carrying his fishing rod and the bucket of Wishiwashi to get started on dinner.
"Poliwag, that's enough for today. Time for dinner..."
"Yoh-ho! Yoh-ho!" Poliwag stopped training when it heard Reiji's voice. Panting heavily, it followed him from the sea back to the treehouse.
Today's training had gone smoothly. Another peaceful day had passed, and they hadn't been harassed by Krabby.
Dinner was, once again, boiled and grilled fish. Their only ingredients right now were Wishiwashi.
Half an hour later, dinner was ready. Reiji and Poliwag each had a sip of fish soup first, while the grilled fish cooked slowly over the stove and could be eaten as they roasted.
Before eating, Reiji threw some water plants into the buckets holding Magikarp and Wishiwashi, letting the two of them scramble for it.
He wasn't worried about them eating each other. They were both over 50% potential—if one got eaten, he wouldn't feel bad. He could just fish up another one.
If the two of them could survive together in such a tight space, it meant they had some self-preservation instincts. He'd capture the survivor later if necessary.
After feeding the two fish, he returned to the table and lifted the foam lid off the plastic basin to check on Krabby.
No changes—Krabby was still the same, and hadn't even touched the Wishiwashi inside.
Still, Reiji took it out of the basin and brought it over for dinner with the rest, introducing it to Poliwag.
"Poliwag, this Krabby is our new partner," Reiji said, presenting Krabby as the newest team member. He didn't ask for Krabby's opinion—he knew there'd be no response, so why bother?
He simply placed some boiled fish in front of Krabby. Whether it ate or not didn't matter—as long as there was water, it wouldn't starve.
Whenever Krabby got over its funk and felt like talking, Reiji would be there.
"Yoh-yoh," Poliwag chirped a greeting at its new companion, then quietly went back to its own meal.
It knew Krabby had something on its mind. Even if it didn't say anything, Poliwag didn't mind.
And besides, Reiji was a good person. Given enough time, no matter what Krabby was going through, he'd help it work through it.
(End of Chapter)
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