3 hours later, Alex heard a knock over his door.

He stopped meditating and walked towards Ditto, who was training with his other Pokémon.

Alex put on the Ditto mask again and called back all his Pokémon except Crobat to their Pokéballs.

Then he opened the door and found one of his subordinates standing there, together with a 16 old boy.

Alex looked at the boy and asked with a smile, "So, are you the first one to conquer his Pokémon?"

The boy had messy black hair and an emotionless face.

"Yes, sir."

After saying that, he immediately threw a Pokéball to the ground.

Alex saw a Koffing appeared in a room and levitating with its peculiar expression.

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Pokémon: Koffing

LV: 11

Type: Poison

Abilities: Levitate

Gender: Male

Potential: Silver

Moves:

- Poison Gas, Tackle, Smog, Smokescreen, Clear Smog

- (Innate Talent) Self-Destruct,

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'Is this a joke? Are these Innate Talent move supposed to be good or more like totally useless?' thought Alex when he saw the info about this Pokémon.

Alex set aside his perplexed thoughts and asked, with a dispassionate voice, "What's your name?"

"Simon, sir," said the boy with an expressionless face.

Alex's eyes twitched a bit when he heard that this kid answer again with only two words. He truly felt that almost every genius has several "unique" features that hardly regular people have.

He gave Simon 2000 Pokédollars as a reward and quickly sent him away.

Usually, Team Rocket only gives 1000 Pokédollars for the first rank. But since Alex had doubled the preparation time for the test this time, it would not be proper to leave the reward unchanged.

After just 1 more hour, another participant came with one of his subordinates in front of his door.

When Alex opened the door, he saw a boy with red hair and a weird crazy smile.

"What's your name?" asked Alex with a cold face.

"Ahh~ My name is Jasper, sir. I'm really happy to finally meet you and your handsome Crobat in person. I was really impressed by the bloody performance that you created. I've become a huge fan of yours. As an artist, I hope that we will exchange ideas and can-"

Alex put his index finger near his lips, signaling him to shut up. There was a dominating aura around him.

"What did I say again? Tell me your name, not your shit story. Just keep your mouth shut and show me your Pokémon. Otherwise.."

Jasper, who saw Alex's ice-cold anger, wasn't feeling fear but pleasure instead.

He called out his Pokémon, and Alex received a small surprise when he saw an Ekans come out of the Pokéball.

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Pokémon: Ekans

LV: 12

Type: Poison

Abilities: Intimidate

Gender: Female

Potential: Deep Silver

Moves:

- Leer, Wrap, Poison Sting, Bite, Glare

- (Innate Talent) Toxic

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What surprised Alex slightly wasn't Ekans's details but that Ekans had wrapped herself around Jasper with a love-filled expression.

Jasper and Ekans seemed to have built a very close relationship in an extremely short time. They looked a little bit too close for Alex's comfort when he saw them showing their affection to each other.

'Fck! I hope it is just the case of me having too much imagination, and this crazy guy doesn't really want to build a romantic relationship with this Ekans.' thought Alex

He gave Jasper 1,500 Pokédollars and quickly sent him and his subordinate out of the room.

Alex sat back down and continued his meditation.

He intended to reward the first 3 personally in order to establish contact with the participants with the best potential.

Although there is always a possibility of none of these 3 participants getting first place in the test—which would be taking place in 2 weeks—the probability of that is just too low.

After less than 30 minutes, Alex heard another knock.

Keeping his emotions in check, he opened the door again and saw a young girl following his subordinates.

"Hello, instructor John," Said the girl, who gave a slight smile as she looked at Alex.

This girl had dark blond hair and a kind of charisma that Alex would expect from a charming priest girl. The pleasant voice and her mild face gave Alex this impression.

Despite her looking like a kind girl, Alex knew that she wasn't what she showed. She was gonna work in Team Rocket. And it's not a place where innocent girls come looking for a job.

Someone who enters Team Rocket of their own free will seldom be an upright person. And if she is, she won't be able to survive too long anyway.

Female members of Team Rocket especially are often much more cruel and crazy than the male members. Though Alex believes that one of the reasons for female members to act in such a way is that they have to appear threatening to be able to scare off many men from Team Rocket.

But even then, it doesn't explain the many sick and crazy things that female members of Team Rocket often do. Alex just has to look at Lisa for a perfect example.

Alex went into his "boss" mode and asked with a cold voice, "Tell me your name and show me your Pokémon."

The girl said in a pleasant tone while taking out her Pokéball, "Instructor John, my name is Elise."

She released the Pokémon from the Pokéball.

A Spearow appeared and immediately flew onto Elise's shoulder with watchful eyes as he looked at Alex, who was observing him.

Alex looked at the info and was a bit surprised when he saw the details of this Spearow.

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Pokémon: Spearow

LV: 12

Type: Normal/Flying

Abilities: Sniper (Hidden Ability)

Gender: Male

Potential: Deep Silver

Moves:

- Growl, Peck, Leer, Pursuit, Focus Energy

- (Innate Talent) Feather Dance,

--------------------

This Pokémon was the best Pokémon he had seen from the rookies so far.

[Sniper] + Deep Silver potential is a solid combination, and it should have been really challenging to conquer such a talented Pokémon so quickly.

The more talented and powerful a Pokémon is more difficult it is so difficult to conquer.

Alex didn't talk to Elise for long and quickly gave her her reward and sent her away.

After seeing Elise, he suddenly wanted to see the 4th and 5th ranked rookies himself. Maybe he'll find even more participants with good potential.

Alex was really very satisfied with the quality of the participants who had shown up till now. Especially the fact that all the first 3 took his A-rank Pokémon surprised him a bit.

But when Alex remembered how he and Maria were also the first two in the test, he could understand it a little better.

Talent is hard to hide, especially when they have such a chance to show off their talent.

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[EN]: Sniper increases the power of critical hits by 1.5×. This means a critical hit will deal 2.25× normal damage instead of 1.5×.

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