Friendship Quest

After observing Houndoom, the surrounding Pokémon gradually dispersed, and Yuga decided to return to continue making his Pokéblocks. However, he suddenly noticed a little tail following behind him.

Turning around, Yuga saw it was a Budew.

Seeing Yuga looking back at her, Budew hopped around joyfully, making little "Budew... Budew..." sounds.

Yuga bent down and picked up Budew, patting its two petal-like heads, and asked, "What's the matter, little cutie? Why are you following me?"

Just as Yuga finished asking this, the voice of the system rang in his mind.

...

[ Congratulations, host, on triggering the quest: Pokémon's Friendship. ]

[ Explanation: As the owner of a Day Care, how can you not have the friendship of the Pokémon in the Ecopark? As proof of gaining friendship, let your partners evolve. ]

[ Content: ① Budew evolves into Roselia. ]

[ Reward: Grass-type Universal PokéBlock formula and Poison-type Universal PokéBlock formula. ]

[ ② Eevee evolves into Umbreon. ]

[ Reward: Dark-type Universal PokéBlock formula. ]

[ ③ Eevee evolves into Espeon. ]

[ Reward: Psychic-type Universal PokéBlock formula. ]

[ ④ Eevee evolves into Sylveon. ]

[ Reward: Fairy-type Universal PokéBlock formula. ]

[ Completion of all rewards: Soothing Bell. ]

[ Note: The quest has no time limit, please cultivate on your own. ]

...

After reading the quest details, Yuga realized that his "golden finger" had a certain advantage – each task and its rewards were tailored to his needs, which was quite considerate.

However, the final completion reward seemed a bit perplexing. With his friendship tasks already completed, what purpose could an Soothing Bell serve?

Yuga looked at the Budew in his arms and realized he might have to spend more time with this group of little ones during this period.

After leaving the Ecopark and preparing in his room, Yuga returned. He called all seven of his Eevees over and as he looked at them, he couldn't help but wonder if the system was intentionally guiding him to cultivate seven different Eevee evolutions.

But considering there were eight different Eevee evolutions in total, he was certain there was at least one he couldn't cultivate. So, Yuga decided to leave this choice to the Eevees themselves.

He placed images of the eight Eevee evolutions he had found on the ground and said to the Eevees, "You siblings total seven, yet there are eight different evolutions for you. Now, you need to choose the form you want to evolve into.

Remember, each Eevee can only choose one form, no repeats allowed. Begin."

The seven Eevees looked at each other and then walked over to examine the images on the ground.

Seeing their hesitation, Yuga encouraged them, "When you're decided, stand on the image of the form you want to evolve into."

After some contemplation, the seven Eevees made their choices. Yuga walked over to look and noticed that the only image left unchosen was the one depicting the Fire-type evolution.

For any evolution form not being selected, Yuga wouldn't find it strange. After all, every Pokémon had unique preferences and aesthetics, so there was nothing to be surprised about.

Once the Eevees were done choosing, Yuga took out seven ribbons of different colors and tied them around the neck of each Eevee.

The deep blue ribbon for those who wanted to evolve into a Water-type Eeveelution, the yellow ribbon for those choosing Electric-type, the green ribbon for Grass-type, the light blue ribbon for Ice-type, the black ribbon for Psychic-type, the purple ribbon for Dark-type, and the pink ribbon for Fairy-type.

Tied with these colorful ribbons, the Eevees looked quite charming. They also seemed to really like them, playfully interacting with each other.

Yuga's Rainbow Squad was officially formed.

Since there was no time limit for this quest, Yuga didn't plan to rush things. Instead, he felt it was better to gradually cultivate stronger bonds with his Pokémon partners during his daily interactions with them.

These little Pokémon babies were already very attached to Yuga. He was the only person they had seen since birth, so Yuga felt that this friendship task would just require a bit more time; its difficulty wasn't high.

Thus, Yuga quickly decided on a simple completion plan for this intimacy quest triggered by Budew.

Yuga made up his mind that he would take on these intimacy tasks one by one. He decided to start with Budew. So, from that day on, Yuga would carry Budew with him everywhere, even if people gave him odd looks.

During his free time, he would also play with the Eevees, holding onto the thought of gradually improving their affection towards him. He aimed to complete the tasks as soon as possible.

Of course, these are things to come; it's not worth mentioning now.

While things were happening here, discussions on the YoYo Day Care's website were in a frenzy.

Apparently, after buying a Trapinch, Taro uploaded a picture of himself with the Trapinch to the discussion area of the YoYo Day Care website.

The moment this picture appeared, it caused an uproar.

"It's really a Trapinch! Someone actually bought one."

"Could it be a hoax? There are quite a few scammers these days."

"The guy upstairs thinks highly of himself. Didn't you see that they required the buyer to go to the shop in person? Can't you tell if it's a scam?"

"That's right, the person upstairs is right. It should be real."

"Everyone, go take a look! The picture of the Trapinch in the homepage was indeed taken down, and it's labeled as 'Sold'!"

"What are you waiting for? Go buy it now!"

...

When Yuga returned to the shop, Windy reported the commotion on the website to him. Yuga casually skimmed through a few comments and said with a smile, "Taro here really knows what he's doing. He's given us quite a bit of free publicity. It looks like we won't have any trouble with our sales goal this month."

Indeed, just as Yuga suspected, the YoYo Day Care was confirmed to indeed have a Trapinch. Trainers started clamoring to make reservations, only to be told that the Pokémon for this month had already been sold out, asking them to come back next month.

After Taro actually bought the Trapinch, he shared the news with his two trainer friends. He had met these friends while traveling, and they had known each other for over five years.

Upon hearing the news, the two trainer friends didn't hesitate and reserved the remaining two Pokémon immediately. The uploading of the photo on the website happened after this.

Countless trainers lamented their bad luck, regretting their decisions.

Everyone felt that this was a strange little shop. Selling only three Pokémon a month, and not a single one more. Despite having money to make, they weren't doing so. It was truly baffling.

However, there were people who understood this.

The Pokémon industry had always been highly profitable, especially with high-quality Pokémon. There was a saying that went, "Close shop for half a year, then open for the other half," indicating that a shop could earn enough money in just six months of operation. Selling three rare Pokémon of green quality every month, the shop wouldn't make a small profit.

And that's just for green-quality Pokémon. If it were blue-quality Pokémon, even if only one were sold in a year, it would undoubtedly be a profitable endeavor.

This is what's known as a seller's market.

Trainers in the Pokémon world are all in need of high-quality Pokémon. Not to mention Yuga's rare three Pokémon per month, even if he sold thirty a month, it wouldn't make much of a splash in the trainer community.

As for Indigo-quality Pokémon, there still haven't been any reports of Day Cares selling them. Purple-quality Pokémon are more of a legend than anything at this point.