That night, Professor Harris came by again.
After checking Sandshrew's condition, he took Ethan Black to a dormitory room so he could stay there, and also gave him an access card.
With that card, Ethan Black could freely enter the university's research buildings, and even enjoy certain benefits as if he were a student.
Not long after Professor Harris left, Alex Baxter also showed up, saying he wanted to show him around the university campus.
"Alex, you came just in time. Where's the university library?" Ethan Black suddenly asked as they walked along one of the campus paths.
"The library? What do you want to go there for? Our University library is a bit special: everything inside is related to knowledge about Pokémon, so outsiders can't go in," replied Alex Baxter, somewhat puzzled.
Ethan Black was thoughtful for a moment, then pulled out the access card Professor Harris had given him and asked hesitantly: "This is the card Professor Harris gave me. He said it lets me enjoy some student benefits... could I enter the library with it?"
"Eh...?"
"Wha—That's Professor Harris' secondary card!?!" Alex Baxter exclaimed in shock.
"And what does that mean?" Ethan Black asked, confused.
"What does it mean? It's huge!"
"That secondary card is only given to Professor Harris' assistants! Every year tons of people fight for that position, and now you, this lucky guy, have it in your hands..."
"If others found out, they'd probably want to kill you!" Alex Baxter growled, his eyes full of envy.
"So... does that mean I can enter the library?" Ethan Black asked, his eyes shining with excitement.
"With that card, you get privileges equivalent to a graduate student. Unless it's a very restricted area, practically no doors will be closed to you on campus," Alex Baxter sighed. "This academic donkey... how did he suddenly become a grad student!?"
"Then what are we waiting for?! Take me to the library already!" Ethan Black exclaimed impatiently.
In his head were loads of knowledge about the Pokémon world, but he knew almost nothing about how to raise them properly. If he could study that, and combine it with what he already had in his mind, he'd be able to create a much stronger training plan!
Faced with his insistence, Alex Baxter had no choice but to take him, though he did so with a look of resignation. However, upon reaching the library, he stopped, with no intention of going in.
"You're not going in?" Ethan Black asked, confused.
Alex Baxter rolled his eyes and shrugged: "Of course I want to, but you have to pay with academic credits. I already spent all mine writing the report on the moves Rollout and Defense Curl, so for now I have no way to get in."
"And I can?" Ethan Black frowned.
"You've got Professor Harris' card... who would dare stop you?"
"Relax, with that card everything inside the University is free for you," Alex Baxter said, then shouted in frustration: "Aaaghhh, I envy you so much!"
Without waiting for a reply, Alex Baxter left, leaving Ethan Black alone.
"Looks like this is the third benefit Professor Harris has given me," Ethan Black said, looking at the card in his hand. Nervously, he walked toward the library, fearing someone might stop him.
But since it was already night, the library was empty. Not a single person was there.
"Please scan..." a mechanical voice sounded just as Ethan Black reached the entrance.
He quickly pulled out his card and passed it through the scanner.
"Scan successful. Begin facial recognition..."
Ethan Black tensed up, but approached firmly to have his face scanned.
"Recognition successful. Professor Harris' assistant, welcome," the artificial voice said.
That sentence lifted his heart. Apparently, Professor Harris had registered his personal information when linking the card.
"So meticulous!" Ethan Black thought, mentally praising the professor as he entered the building. Only when the doors closed behind him could he breathe a sigh of relief.
Now he finally had time to calmly look around the library. It was full of shelves with books of all kinds related to Pokémon.
He didn't rush to check anything blindly. Instead, he went to the library's catalog computer. From there, he could see the full collection and the exact location of each book.
Upon opening the system, the first thing that appeared was a large index. According to the category panel, the library had more than a hundred thousand volumes!
Ethan Black was quietly astonished. Then he filtered by energy type and chose "Ground type."
Even after narrowing it down, there were still more than ten thousand books! So he decided to filter by Pokémon species.
Without hesitation, he selected Sandshrew.
At that moment, the number of books dropped drastically... only three remained!
"Eh? There are only three books about Sandshrew?" Ethan Black was surprised.
He went back and chose Geodude. Immediately, more than a hundred books appeared.
Three versus a hundred.
Geodude wins by a landslide!
He then tried Rhyhorn, and again, more than a hundred titles appeared.
"Seems humanity still hasn't had time to study every Pokémon thoroughly," Ethan Black reflected.
"Popular Pokémon like Geodude, Rhyhorn, or Onix get more attention because they're powerful and easy to train. That's why most researchers focus on them."
He tried several more times with other Pokémon, but the results were always similar. Finally, he sighed in resignation. His hope of finding a complete training manual for Sandshrew was fading away.
Even so, he took a deep breath and went back to Sandshrew's section. He decided to open the three books one by one:
"Sandshrew's Life Habits"
"Sandshrew's Body Structure"
"Differences Between Sandshrew and Sandslash"
As expected, none were training manuals. Still, Ethan Black resolved to study them carefully. The more he understood about his partner, the better.
After all, his knowledge so far came from anime and video games. Knowing how Pokémon were in the real world was something very different.
(End of chapter)