Chapter 163
In the end, Feebas entered Lorze's Poké Ball without resistance, having finally decided to leave this place.
As the old saying goes, when your life hits rock bottom, there is actually nothing left to care about.
Because no matter how your future days go, at least they won't be worse than now.
Of course, Feebas didn't expect life to get better after leaving with Lorze; she just wanted to find a quieter place to silently live out the rest of her fish life.
Lorze thus obtained his third Pokémon, continuing to take Mawile around the aquarium for the rest of the time, returning home fully satisfied when evening arrived.
On the way, he didn't forget to visit the Pokémon Center to give Feebas a physical check-up, registering her under his owned Pokémon along the way.
After returning home, Lorze placed Feebas in an artificial lake inside the research institute.
The lake water was incredibly clear and the vegetation was lush; the water source came from a nearby river, making it the institute's dedicated area for keeping Water-type Pokémon.
The lake measured 50 meters by 60 meters, reaching a depth of up to 10 meters at its deepest point, which was spacious enough for Water-type Pokémon of all sizes to play and live in.
"Feebas, you'll live here with the Water-type Pokémon for now. I'll bring Pokéblocks to feed you every day, and the caretaker madams will look after you regularly, so you don't need to worry too much," Lorze said to the Feebas who poked half her head out of the water, tossing the freshly made Water-type Pokéblocks down to her.
Feebas looked at this unfamiliar man, originally intending to show that she didn't need his charity.
But before she could open her mouth, the fragrance of the Pokéblocks diffusing in the water deeply enticed her, causing her body to take an involuntary gulp, swallowing the piece right in front of her face.
Instantly, an ultimate deliciousness burst across her mouth; just like countless other Pokémon experiencing Pokéblocks for the first time, Feebas became completely intoxicated with enjoyment.
Did such delicious food actually exist in this world?
Compared to this, the feed the aquarium usually tossed to her was nothing but scraps and leftovers.
Unable to control herself, Feebas swam rapidly through the water, devouring every single Pokéblock one by one; her frantic manner made it look like she hadn't eaten for days.
In reality, it was because she heard movements from the bottom of the lake; the diffusing fragrance of the Pokéblocks had likely drawn other Water-type Pokémon over, and she was terrified of being robbed if she moved too slowly.
Furthermore, she truly hadn't eaten a proper meal in days; the mere thought of spending the rest of her life acting as a laughingstock for the public at the aquarium made her prefer to end it all.
As for now... perhaps she could actually look forward to her future life?
Feebas admitted that she was indeed somewhat conquered by a single meal, primarily because this food was infinitely better than anything she had before.
A Trainer willing to provide her with this kind of treatment could perhaps be trusted?
Feebas originally thought this way, but with Lorze's very next sentence, her heart turned completely cold and heavy again.
"Rest up well here today. Tomorrow I will begin your training, striving to achieve evolution as early as possible so you can make everyone look at you in a completely new light," Lorze encouraged her patiently; the top priority right now was to help Feebas rebuild her self-confidence.
He knew the methods for Feebas's evolution, which totaled two pathways.
The simplest one was to have Feebas hold a Prism Scale, which would naturally trigger her evolution into Milotic.
But the difficulty of this method lay in where to even look for a Prism Scale; that item was essentially like a "reverse scale" on a Milotic. Although this scale naturally molted and replaced itself over time, one still had to track down a Milotic first.
So Lorze could only resort to the second method here: finding every possible way to boost Feebas's Beauty condition.
Yes, the Beauty stat.
As for what exactly this Beauty condition was, Lorze was completely in the dark.
Surely it didn't mean dressing up beautifully; the essence of evolution was a phenomenon of genetic mutation. How could putting on a piece of clothing trigger a genetic mutation? Was the clothing coated in something toxic?
Thus, Lorze leaned heavily toward "inner beauty"—the power of the soul, which referred to Emotional Energy. The birth of Espeon had already proven that Emotional Energy could indeed stimulate genes to trigger a mutation, which lined up perfectly with Lorze's area of expertise.
But the problem still remained: what kind of emotion could actually qualify as "inner beauty"?
Did confidence count?
Did kindness count?
Did aloofness count?
Why should the beauty defined by humans be the only beauty? Could she not think her own cold, detached personality was beautiful?
Therefore, it was incredibly difficult to distinguish clearly. Lorze planned to approach it from the angle of self-confidence first; without helping Feebas regain her confidence, any form of training would be dead on arrival.
In Lorze's eyes, this was the most logical training approach for the current stage.
But Lorze had no idea that when Feebas heard him mention the word "evolution," she fell completely silent.
Evolution and ugliness... it seemed that no matter where she went, she could never escape those two words. It appeared everyone desperately wanted to see her evolve, preferably into the exact form they expected.
Was she so hideously unacceptable without evolution?
Was there truly not a single person willing to accept her current appearance?
Feebas felt her heart sink into bleak despair once again; a deep chill involuntarily radiated from her body as flecks of ice began to coalesce around her.
Humans were all exactly the same; no one would ever truly love her, never.
To actually harbor a shred of expectation over a tiny bit of human charity was the absolute height of stupidity.
Feebas turned around and dove deep into the artificial lake, swimming toward the absolute depths, as if she never wanted to manifest before humans ever again.
Lorze watched the Feebas swim away without saying a word, not overthinking the matter.
After all, he was the one who told her to rest first; he could tell Feebas was currently hostile toward humans, so ignoring him was perfectly normal.
Did anyone really think Feebas was automatically his partner just because she was inside his ball? Wild Pokémon rarely obeyed directly right after being caught; they almost always required a period of emotional bonding.
If you couldn't earn a Pokémon's recognition, cases of ultimately releasing them back into the wild were everywhere.
When Lorze released Feebas into the artificial lake, he had already mentally prepared himself to dive down to track her down.
The bottom of the lake actually featured numerous underwater cameras designed to monitor the Pokémon's aquatic habits, so locating a hiding Feebas in a body of water this massive wasn't an impossibility.
In any case, Lorze had made up his mind to slowly wear down Feebas's walls, aiming to completely break her down within a month.
After all, the Metropolitan Battle was scheduled to launch in a month, and he desperately wanted Milotic to debut during the tournament.
Milotic was hailed across the internet as the world's most beautiful Pokémon, not only because she was gorgeous, but also because she was exceptionally rare—far rarer than Gardevoir.
Gardevoir was at least held by a few female Trainers, but Milotic... currently, no one had ever heard of anyone successfully capturing one. The photos of Milotic circulating online were almost entirely from wild snapshots, and those shooting opportunities were incredibly fleeting because the second a Milotic noticed anyone approaching, she would plunge deep into the water and vanish.
As the Tender Pokémon, Milotic possessed an incredibly peaceful disposition; she would never draw near anyone harboring a heart of conflict.