The next morning right after his breakfast Mikail made his way to the northern area to collect the blood he lacked for his ballcrafting.
He required about 150 ml of blood per Common Ball, which meant that he needed 1800 ml/1.8 l of blood for his 12 apricorns.
This meant his previous thoughts were a bit idealistic because even if he drained a Rattata of its whole blood, he would only gain about 300 to 350 ml.
It would take him 6 Rattata's to accomplish his goal if he did it like that but if he decided to exchange the blood from living Rattatas he would need much more.
Mikail guessed that he could only take 30ml of blood per Pokemon without harming them.
A 10% blood loss should be safe and in this case, he would need to trade with 60 Rattata to accomplish his goal.
In the end, he elected to do both.
He couldn't be sure that he would find enough Rattata carcasses that he could take or trade for, so he decided to exchange as much blood as he could while keeping an eye out for them.
It would be better if he managed to gather more than the required amount, to keep some for the next batch as well.
So began Mikail's career as the blood merchant, just kidding, or was he?
He spent the next 3 hours exchanging blood for berries and taking/trading as many Rattata bodies as he could.
In the end, he had traded with 52 Rattatas and gained 2075 ml of blood from them.
He had started with 30 ml as he had planned to and after 3 trades he noticed that the Rattata's felt nothing from losing 30 ml, so he increased the volume to 35 ml.
Another 3 trades later he noted the same for 35 ml and increased the trade volume to 40 ml.
He did not increase the blood amount even after he saw that the Rattata were still fine, because he felt that he was near the limit of what they could take.
He gave all Rattata 2 oran berries to eat directly to help with the blood loss as well as 1 sitrus, leppa, and lump berries respectively for later.
The tool (needle) he used to draw the blood came from his space and came with his working space.
Aside from the blood, he traded for, he managed to get his hands on 5 Rattata carcasses that he stored for later.
3 of those, he simply waited for the killer to leave, and for the other 2, he traded with the killer.
The cases where he traded for the corpses were when the killer was a Caterpie.
To prevent his tail from seeing him vanishing a corpse he used his telekinesis to take them from a distance.
Mikail now had enough blood for not only this batch of apricorns but also another batch of the same size, so he went home.
Once he was home, he greeted his mother and went to his room, where he asked Natu to be his lookout before he entered his space.
He wanted to prepare the blood mixture he was going to need tomorrow.
He squeezed 12 leppa berries for their juices and mixed them with 12 portions of ground normal gemstone.
Afterward, he added 1800 ml Rattata blood and blend the mixture once more.
He put away the finished product and cleaned his working area.
"Now everything is ready for my first-ever ball crafting session.
As soon as the apricorns finish drying out tomorrow at noon I can begin."
He thought about what he could do until then.
"It has been some time since my first Magikarp experiment and I have gathered some more materials since then.
I could try to see if one of the Magikarp reacts to any of them."
Having made up his mind he took 10 samples of all new materials.
He left 5 of the samples as-is, and 5 were ground up, having decided that these 2 forms were enough.
After he was done with his preparation Mikail went downstairs and settled on the entrance of his house, because he wanted to watch his space while doing his experiment.
He separated the Magikarp inside his marine sub-space.
Once that was done, he released the 2 different sample forms near each Magikarp to see if any of them reacted.
He repeated that process until all Magikarp had been presented with all available samples once.
To his utter surprise, one of the Magikarp reacted to one of the materials.
It was a female with deep yellow potential.
The chances of him finding a Magikarp that possessed a noticeable affinity to an additional element among the 5 Magikarp he had sidelined was extremely unlikely, but it still happened.
The fact that the material that triggered her reaction was the dragon lily, a dragon-type material, put the probability to another dimension.
Unbelievable, right?
Mikail had done this experiment without any expectations, simply because he did not believe that he would gain any results without a respectable specimen size.
Lady Luck seemed to have disagreed with his conclusion, but in this case, being mistaken did not make him feel disappointed at all.
It was like he won the lottery with only the second ticket he bought.
He couldn't control himself and started his duckling dance.
There was no one around to witness it anyway.
He had no idea that his female Caterpie was resting on one of the trees near his house and had witnessed the whole thing.
Once he calmed down sufficiently Mikail began thinking about what this discovery meant for his short-term future.
"Now that this Magikarp turned out to be useful, I can't keep her inside my sub-space anymore.
At least not if I want her to gain sapience, since everything staying inside the sub-space is prevented from gaining sapience.
Her okay-ish potential can be rectified through sufficient supplements and training."
Once he reached that decision he promptly transferred her from his sub-space back to his main space.
He was amused by the collective reaction that followed.
They all seemed surprised by her sudden appearance and she seemed surprised to once again see so many other Magikarps.
"Now it's time to decide what I am going to do with the other 4 Magikarp.
There are still a few elements I have not tested yet but I don't know when I will find a material of that element.
So I either wait for an undetermined amount of time or I use them for another experiment.
Since I have found one specimen that fulfilled the requirement for my experiment I can use the others as a comparative value.
I will choose 4 elements and feed supplements of those types to the 4 Magikarps.
Then I will observe what kind of influence they have when taken by Pokemon without a corresponding affinity and compare the results with the Magikarp that has a dragon-type affinity.
Absorption speed, speed, and degree of change, as well as all other consequences, will be observed, documented, and compared."
Mikail began pondering on which 4 types to choose for his experiment.
"The 4 types I could test that I am the most interested in are Fire, Poison, Grass, and Ghost, but I don't believe that anything good will happen if one tries to use a ghost-type material without a corresponding affinity.
The aim of my experiment is not to simply kill or torture the specimen, so I will substitute Ghost with Air.
Wait a minute, if I want to do a comparison it would be better if I fed one of the 4 Magikarp with the dragon lily as well to see how a Magikarp without an affinity reacts to it.
How did I overlook something so obvious?
So the 4 types are going to be Fire, Poison, Plant, and Dragon.
As for why poison is okay but ghost isn't, the answer is simple.
I believe I can handle the possible consequences of using poison but I have no such confidence about the ghost-type."
Mikail went back inside to prepare the first dose of the supplements he was going to use for his experiment.
He decided to use his working space for this because he did not want to use the kitchen outside of cooking.
"Simply grounding/mashing the material and mixing it with an oran and leppa berry should be enough.
I can use the remains from the squeezed berries for this, at least for the 4 side-specimens.
Let's see.
For the fire-type, I will use the Crimson Flower."
He took 5 of the ground crimson flowers he used during the experiment and put them inside a bowl.
Then he took 5 oran as well as 5 leppa berries from the container that held the squeezed berries and added them to the bowl too.
Afterward, he mashed all of it before he divided the mix into five portions that he placed on a tray.
"Next is poison and for that, I am going to use the Purple Lily."
Mikail duplicated the previous process and placed the resulting 5 portions on the tray as well.
He did the same with the Vibrant Petunia that he chose for the grass-type.
The portions with the Dragon Lily that were going to be fed to a Magikarp without the related affinity were prepared like that as well.
"Now I am going to put the tray into the heater so that they can dry for about 30 minutes.
Once they are dry I will feed 1 portion to a Magikarp every day.
If it turns out that the energy is too potent for them, I will use 'F'-class material instead of the 'E'-class ones I am using right now.
Otherwise, I will make more of the same."
He nodded satisfied with himself
"This leaves, the portion for the Magikarp with dragon-type affinity.
Hmm, that's quite a mouthful, so I'll call it Magidraco for now.
Anyway, for Magidraco I am going to use fresh berries instead of squeezed ones and put them together with the dragon lily into the mixer.
A dragonshake so to say."
Once all supplements were ready, Mikail sent one of the dried bits respectively to one Magikarp.
The one with yellow potential got the poison chip.
After he saw that they had all eaten their chip he took one of the bottles with dragonshake and went down to the lake.
He used his control over his space to create a current that brought Magidraco towards him.
She was "helped" surface for a bit leaving her upper body outside the water near enough for him to reach her.
He used his telepathy to transfer feelings of assurance and calmness towards her to prevent her from further panicking.
Her involuntary swim having frightened her a bit.
"Everything is alright.
You're not going to get hurt.
I only want to feed you something."
He showed her the bottle and she perked up seeing something to eat.
Once he saw that she was calm and that he could feed her, Mikail tipped the bottle towards Magidraco's mouth while using his telekinesis to make sure nothing got wasted.
"There, we're done.
You can go back now."
While he knew that she could not really understand what he was saying, he was sure she got the gist of it.
Mikail saw her swimming away and left his space.
He spent the rest of the day at home, spending time with his parents.
Naturally, he did not forget to keep an eye on the Magikarp while he was keeping his parents company.
All Magikarp showed no visible reaction, be it positive or negative, towards the supplement except for one.
Both the fact that the others showed no reaction for now and that the Magikarp that was fed with the poison chip got poisoned was not unexpected.
Mikail gave the poisoned one a pecha berry after observing him for a while.
He planned to use up the leftover 4 portions and keep giving him pecha berries after some time to see if he would get used to the doses.
While he did not expect the Magikarp to successfully get used to them one could never know.
In case the dose was still too much after 5 days he would make the next batch of poison chips with 'F'-class purple lilies instead of 'E' class ones.
He just needed to plant a batch just in case it was needed, which he promptly did.
They would finish growing before his current supply was used up.
Compared to the 4 'E'-class materials that his space could currently produce per week, its production capacity for the same material at 'F'-class was 10 per week.
He went to bed that night excited to start ballcrafting because Pokeballs would allow him to form artificial bonds with Pokemons that he did not want to invest the time it normally takes to form a real bond.
This way he could still see their full status screen from the get-go.