My beast taming system has absolutely no problems!

Ye Nannan nodded and took out her phone to contact the cafeteria staff.

Xia Yu, Gu Weizhong, and Xu Yuanchuan then took the Beautiful Cube and went to the water tank.

Time was still on, and there were only a few people scattered around in the lab.

The tamers of the other gray-striped loaches were not present; they probably hadn't gotten up yet.

Zhao Xin, however, had arrived at some point.

He was sitting by the water tank, keeping his ugly companion company.

Seeing Xia Yu approach, she stood up energetically and greeted him, "Good morning, Brother Xia Yu, Uncle Xu, Grandpa Gu."

Gu Weizhong nodded with a smile.

Xu Yuanchuan was speechless.

No, I'm not that much older than Xia Yu, am I?

Why do you call him "brother" but I'm "uncle"?

He subconsciously touched his slightly receding hairline.

She glanced again at Xia Yu's handsome face, which was in its early twenties and full of collagen.

It's probably because staying up too late makes you look older...

After all, although his scientific research level is not as good as Xia Yu's, his appearance is just as good.

Xu Yuanchuan, who had no sense of propriety, thought to himself.

Good morning, Xiaoxin.

Xia Yu greeted them and said with a smile, "Since you're the only one here now, could you please have your Ugly Ugly cooperate?"

Zhao Xin replied crisply, "Okay."

She turned around and leaned over the edge of the water tank, calling softly to the murky mud at the bottom, "Ugly, come here for a moment, Brother Xia Yu needs to talk to you."

Chou Chou, who had been hiding from Xia Yu and the others, emerged from the mud and timidly swam over.

Xia Yu took out a beautiful cube from the box, handed it to Zhao Xin, and said, "Feed this to it."

Zhao Xin took it without hesitation, curiously held it up to her eyes to examine it, and asked, "What is this?"

Xia Yu laughed and said, "I call it 'Beautiful Cube,' a kind of psionic supplement that makes gray-striped loach look better after eating it."

How to make gray-striped loach look better?

Zhao Xin and Chou Chou in the water tank were both stunned.

Both the person and the loach were completely new to them; they had never heard of these two words being combined together.

"Is this really possible?"

Zhao Xin said somewhat insecurely.

Xia Yu laughed and said, "You said yesterday that you would trust me this once."

Zhao Xin was an honest girl and didn't realize at all that Xia Yu was joking.

She hurriedly apologized, "I'm sorry, Brother Xia Yu, I didn't mean to distrust you, it's just..."

"Okay, I was just kidding."

Xia Yu said, "Feed it to Chou Chou; it's key to evolution."

Zhao Xin finally breathed a sigh of relief.

She was worried that throwing the Beauty Cube directly into the water would cause it to dissolve and waste its energy, so she deliberately had Ugly stick its head out of the water.

Only then did I feed the beautiful cube into its mouth.

Ugly swallowed the cube and smacked its lips twice.

"Is it tasty?"

Zhao Xin leaned over the edge of the vat, asking expectantly.

Ugly honestly shook his head.

Although it hadn't eaten anything particularly good, this thing tasted astringent and was hardly delicious.

However, I'm not sure if it's just my imagination.

After swallowing it, Chou Chou felt a warm, comfortable energy slowly flowing from her stomach to her body.

Xia Yu opened the Pokédex and scanned it.

To his surprise, it was just like when Lady Snow Spirit ate the aptitude cube.

Sure enough, a brand new entry appeared in the status bar on the information panel.

[Status: Beauty Improved (0→1)]

worked.

"Would you like a second one, Brother Xia Yu?"

Seeing that he was staring at Chou Chou, Zhao Xin assumed he was thinking about something and asked him.

Xia Yu shook his head. "Not for now. Let's wait and see how it goes."

He turned to Xu Yuanchuan and said, "From now on, take a picture every ten minutes to record your ugly appearance."

His tone was so natural, it was no different from a doctoral supervisor instructing his doctoral students to do their work.

But Xu Yuanchuan didn't feel awkward at all, and even subconsciously replied, "Okay, Director Xia."

Xia Yu: "......"

Why did I get a new title again?

Oh well, one more won't make a difference.

Ignoring these minor details, Xia Yu began to observe from the side.

Every ten minutes, he would scan it with the Pokédex.

Finally, after half an hour, the beauty score on the panel rose from "0" to "1".

Xia Yu secretly memorized this time point in his mind.

The first time was half an hour.

As long as there is no diminishing marginal returns, the time it takes for the gray loach to consume one beautiful cube is one and a half hours.

Similar to the qualification block.

The Beautiful Cube also did not exhibit diminishing marginal returns.

An hour and a half later, ChouChou's [Beauty] score successfully rose to 3 points.

But to the naked eye... there's almost no change.

Ugly naturally had no idea whether she had changed or not.

It circled in the water a few times, then swam up to Zhao Xin.

He tilted his head back, his eyes filled with anticipation.

"grumble?"

Master, do you think I look any better?

Zhao Xin nodded without hesitation and said, "Of course! Ugly, you look much better than before!"

Xia Yu stared at the little girl for a while.

I couldn't see any insincerity or attempt to comfort her.

Uh... can beauty be in the eye of the beholder?

Xia Yu silently withdrew his gaze and said, "Now let's feed Chou Chou the second one."

"Ok!"

Zhao Xin nodded and fed the second Beautiful Cube.

Xu Yuanchuan, the "tool man," naturally prepared to continue taking photos.

Xia Yu and Gu Weizhong were studying the nine photos that Chou Chou had just taken.

"It seems... there's still no difference?"

Just like with direct visual observation, Xia Yu did not notice any changes in the photos of the gray-striped loach.

Gu Weizhong was more patient than Xia Yu. "No rush, let's take another look."

I spent most of the day feeding the beautiful cubes.

During this time, several other beast tamers of the gray-striped loach also came to the laboratory.

Xia Yu then had them join the experiment.

Xu Yuanchuan, as a mere assistant, is definitely not enough to photograph five fish.

Fortunately, research institutes have no shortage of people who can be useful.

Rather than saying they were eager to be the tools in Xia Yu's personally led "Grey-striped Loach Evolution Experiment," they learned that they had the opportunity to participate.

In short, people come and go in the lab.

Even Gu Weizhong couldn't hold on any longer and had to take a nap in the middle of the day.

Xia Yu was the only one who never left except to go to the toilet.

They even ate lunch in the lab.

The first half hour after Chou Chou ate the sixth beautiful cube.

When the [Beauty Level] on the panel no longer jumps from "15" to "16".

Xia Yu knew that the threshold for the number of beautiful cubes that the gray-striped loach could digest in a day had been reached.