After taking several deep breaths, Lu Li finally calmed the excitement in his heart.
When people got too worked up, it was easy for them to lose their rationality.
Lu Li solemnly placed the three Poké Balls to the side, then began checking the three Berries.
Among them, one red Berry was the brightest and most eye-catching in color, but its shell was exceptionally hard. To the touch, it was even thicker and more difficult to crack than the shell of an ordinary nut.
Lu Li picked up the red Apricorn and gave it a sniff.
An unusually pungent smell instantly rushed into his brain.
That was it. This was the smell!
Lu Li grew excited again.
A Red Apricorn, the raw material used to make Poké Balls!
In the anime, Master Kurt was able to make Poké Balls by hand. That meant the manufacturing process for Poké Balls did not actually place especially high demands on industrial capability or precision machinery.
The most important thing was having the right professional expertise!
After transmigrating into this world, he had deliberately chosen Classical Forging as his major. His original intention had simply been to avoid getting dragged into the rat race, find some obscure but stable secure job, and coast through life.
But never in his wildest dreams had he expected that this heaven-sent fortune would finally fall into his lap.
Computer programming might have been the meta before, but now, Classical Forging was the true king of professions!
Apricorns definitely have seeds. As long as he could grow Apricorn trees during this period, he might genuinely be able to save the world and become a pioneer of the new era.
After setting the Red Apricorn aside, Lu Li turned to inspect the other two Berries.
Those two Berries were identical, clearly the same kind of Berry.
They looked somewhat like blackberries.
“Barring any surprises, these should be Bluk Berries,” Lu Li murmured softly.
In the games, Bluk Berries were one of the main ingredients used to make Pokéblocks for Beauty. If this were the real world, then Bluk Berries should be the “main medicinal ingredient” for making Beauty Pokéblocks.
Moreover, Bluk Berries themselves might even possess the ability to increase Beauty. Unfortunately, there were only two Bluk Berries. Even if both of them were made entirely into Pokéblocks, there was no way it would be enough for Feebas to evolve.
But where there was fruit, there were seeds. Still, whether it was the Apricorn or the Bluk Berries, both were far too important to him. Lu Li did not dare use the seeds from these two Berries for experiments.
So for now, Lu Li could only place his hopes on the Berry seeds Jun Shutong had given him earlier successfully sprouting and surviving. That way, he would have some experience and a point of reference for cultivating Berries.
After sealing the two Berries away for safekeeping, Lu Li put away the two standard red-and-white Poké Balls, then held the Premier Ball and looked toward Feebas beside him.
“Little Beauty, are you willing to become my Pokémon?” Lu Li asked with a solemn and sincere expression.
Hearing this, Feebas gently blew a bubble.
Lu Li was speechless at the sight, because he had no idea what Feebas was trying to express.
But it did not matter.
Lu Li scooped Feebas out of the fish tank, then placed the Premier Ball in front of it.
If Feebas was willing, it only needed to nudge forward a little to trigger the Poké Ball’s switch and be caught.
If it was unwilling, then Feebas would definitely retreat backward.
Lu Li did not dare waste the Poké Ball, because Poké Balls were far too precious and might even be completely irreplaceable.
In the games, a Poké Ball could only be used once. If the capture failed, it would be destroyed. Lu Li was also afraid that a failed capture would waste a Premier Ball.
Feebas stared at the Poké Ball in front of it as the description and introduction about Poké Balls from its inherited memories surfaced in its mind.
Although Lu Li was only a fake human, it too was a gloomy little clown living in Li’s pond. Lu Li did not dislike it, so how could it, a mere Feebas, possibly dislike such a wonderful Lu Li?
So Feebas resolutely rammed its head into the Poké Ball’s switch.
Seeing this, Lu Li let out a heavy sigh of relief, and his anxious heart finally settled.
Lu Li cupped the Poké Ball in both hands and shouted happily, “I caught Feebas?”
At this moment, one of his childhood dreams could be considered fulfilled.
So now, Lu Li was smiling like a 1.8-meter-tall child. As he kept smiling, tears began to fall from his eyes.
Crying tears of joy, Lu Li gently rubbed the Poké Ball in his hands and murmured, “Little Beauty, please take good care of me from now on.”
The Poké Ball gently shook twice, as if responding to him.
Pokémon were creatures heavily influenced by the heart and mind, and at this moment, Lu Li gained an even deeper understanding of that statement.
Because he could clearly feel that he and Feebas were firmly connected by an invisible, intangible, yet undeniably real chain.
“Is this what a bond is? It actually exists?” Lu Li murmured in disbelief.
After all, he was not someone from the Pokémon world, yet at this moment, he could clearly feel the bond between himself and Feebas.
“So… I really am a Trainer now.” Lu Li looked somewhat dazed. At this moment, he almost felt as if he were dreaming.
But all of this was simply too beautiful. In this devastated apocalypse, such beauty felt as ethereal as a dream that would shatter at the slightest touch.
It really was dreamlike.
Lu Li released Feebas again, pointed at the Poké Ball, then at the fish tank beside it, and asked, “Little Beauty, do you prefer staying inside the Poké Ball, or staying in the fish tank?”
Feebas decisively chose the Poké Ball.
The environment inside the Poké Ball was a hundred times better than that lousy fish tank. If it had a choice, only an idiot would pick the fish tank.
Back when it had curled up inside a trash can, that had purely been because it had no choice. It did not actually like that dirty, stinky place.
The same was true of the fish tank.
It did not truly like that tiny, cramped fish tank either. It had simply had no other option before.
Seeing this, Lu Li directly recalled Feebas.
Perhaps it was just his imagination, but Lu Li felt that communication between himself and Feebas had become much smoother.
“So… Little Beauty, let’s happily practice Tackle together.” Lu Li decided to immediately test his guess.
Once Little Beauty became proficient with Tackle, he would have an additional reliable safeguard whenever he went out searching for supplies in the future.
As long as Tackle was used well, perhaps it could produce unexpected results.
Lu Li did not expect Feebas to evolve within a short period of time. After all, even in the Pokémon world, evolving a Feebas was extremely difficult, let alone in this unfamiliar world.
What Lu Li was curious about now was whether he could persuade Pokémon.
The main reason he had been able to persuade Little Beauty was because of the bond they had built up beforehand. Little Beauty had willingly allowed itself to be caught by him.
But with other Pokémon, that might not necessarily be the case.
Just as humans could never accept being ridden on the head by their food, perhaps Pokémon viewed humans in much the same way.
So Lu Li quickly decided what to do with the other two Poké Balls. He planned to use one of them to catch a new Pokémon, preferably by defeating it through force first.
For one thing, this would allow him to test the exact effects of a Poké Ball in the real world. For another, it would let him quickly become a Trainer with genuine combat capability.
As for the other Poké Ball, Lu Li decided to take it apart and see whether he could reverse-engineer the method for manufacturing Poké Balls.
At present, within the entire Federation, the only people capable of doing something like that were probably him and his teacher.
You can read ahead upto 20 chapters on my patreon and I’ve also activated (date to date) subscription model on my patreon.