Professor Oak accepted his application for him to work individually with a few Poliwhirl He even gave him access to the storage, permission to issue missions on the Correlation app, and free reign of the laboratory.
Alex thought that the degree of freedom he was given was ridiculous. Not that he would do anything, but he has basically left the entire lab at the mercy of a small not even 11 years old boy. This was on top of the fact that he would be visiting some island where Politoed was spotted a few years ago, and be out of contact for a week.
Alex felt that Professor Oak was going out of his way to make him happy. The free access to ingredients, information, and knowledge from before was too invaluable to give expecting nothing in return.
Not to mention the Shiny Charmander, and by now basically, the Shiny Beldum as it was inseparable from him by now.
Alex thought that there was something that Professor Oak wanted him for, or some reason to win him over, but he couldn't be sure. So he decided to ignore it and go ahead with his plans
"Hello, Nidoking!" greeted Alex as he entered the ranch.
Since Poliwhirl wouldn't really listen to him and cooperate with his experiments, Professor Oak assigned the Nidoking to be the muscle. Alex would do what was needed and Nidoking would ensure that he was safe meanwhile.
Nidoking huffed back in greeting. It then proceeded to turn away and ignore him. Knowing Nidoking would react if he was in danger, he decided to go ahead with his experiment.
"Hello Poliwhirl. My name is Alex and I will be seeing if you can evolve into the Frog King Politoed" said Alex.
It was a well know fact that Pokemon could perceive human speech after being around humans for a while. So, it was always better to treat them as intelligent beings and tell them what was going to happen if you are performing experiments.
"Poli!" acknowledged the Pokemon.
Alex opened the research logs of Professor Oak on his Pokedex, to see what the Professor had tried so far.
"The Professor is concentrating on Trade evolution and its predecessor, the succession trials," thought Alex. The King's Rock was not even considered, so he had to come up with a good excuse for why he thought of it.
He had decided on an idea, whose particulars he had to work out. It was confirmed that Poliwag and most Poliwhirl had unconditional awe for Politoed. The function of the King's Rock was also to make others feel awe towards its wearer. He thought of giving that as the reason for why he associated the two together.
He had already withdrawn a couple of King's Rock from storage, and had Poliwhirl wear it. He then had a group of Poliwag scatter around the Poliwhirl, and recorded their behaviours.
He then took all the Poliwag, and scattered them around a Politoed, and recorded their behaviour again.
Alex happily noted that both the times their behaviour pattern was the same, just that the Poliwag had less awe for the Poliwhirl wearing the King's Rock than for the Politoed.
He then repeated the experiment with a few other weaker, newly evolved Poliwhirl scattered around the two.
Again the same result was obtained.
Alex noted down each of his observations and arranged all the data, and wrote all of it down in a report, after which he concluded that the King's Rock was the reason for evolution.
He also included supplementary reasons, like the Politoed being referred to as the Frog King, the Politoed frequently scratching its head and liking to put on crowns to support this reasoning.
"Now is the time to see if this actually works" thought Alex, as he had the Poliwhirl wearing the King's Rock stand under the trade machine.
He took long deep breaths, and thought, "Here goes!" as he switched the machine on.
The machine started emitting rays, that covered the Poliwhirl. It gave a yell, "Poliwhirl!" as it was enveloped by a white light. Alex waited with bated breath as he could see the light of evolution shaping the Poliwhirl. Its stubby arms and legs got longer. Its round body became more elongated. After a few seconds, the light faded, and a mostly green and partially yellow Pokemon stood before him.
"Politoed!" it greeted.
"Ohhhh Yeeaaaahhhhhhh!" cheered Alex at the result. He had just put the knowledge of his previous life to practical use for the first time. Now he was confident in slowly 'discovering' the evolutions like Slowking, Electivire, Magmotar and the remaining Eveelutions.
He did not have nearly enough money to buy a large amount of the soon to skyrocket in price King's Rock, so he needed Professor Oak to help him. To convince him, he needed to give him a little more assurance.
Thinking so, he logged into the admin page of the Correlation app and gave a mission for 5 Slowpoke and 5 Shellder.
Regular Chapter 2 for the day