Chapter 50: Career Guidance in the World of Pokémon

After much deliberation, Zhu Suihan finally decided to take a look and see what was so different about the employment and entrepreneurship guidance at Joy Academy. As long as it wasn’t as abysmal as in her past life, she thought she would be able to sit through it. At worst, the teacher could drone on while she focused on her own matters.

After mulling things over outside for a few minutes, Zhu Suihan only found a seat in the last row when class started. Her classmates were truly experts at snagging the front seats. The first row was neatly occupied by a group of outsiders—more precisely, non-Joy members—who had pens in hand, notebooks laid out, faces filled with earnest anticipation as they watched the teacher prepare the lesson plan.

Does my class really have so many non-Joy students? No, that’s not the main point.

Her gaze drifted to the rare few boys in the room, and for some reason, she felt a strange sense of finding her own kind.

Class began, and to her surprise, the teacher’s lecture was packed with practical advice. Simply put, there were no empty academic definitions, nor any talks about employment psychology. As for entrepreneurship, the teacher mentioned at the very start: if you’re not absolutely certain, don’t go down that road. “At least as a leek, you can regrow after being cut; if you fail as an entrepreneur, not even your roots will be left—they’ll dig up the dirt too.”

Right from the start, the teacher laid out the main career paths after graduation. Besides working at Pokémon Centers, even young Joys could take up other jobs, like positions in regular hospitals. Essentially, Pokémon Centers mainly serve trainers and are a project operated in cooperation with the League. They’re not the same as hospitals for ordinary people and their Pokémon companions.

Every year before graduation season, hospitals and organizations from various regions come to Joy Academy to recruit, hoping to snatch up some gems from the student body. In truth, it felt more like a talent grab, and if you’d achieved something remarkable during your studies, the competition was even fiercer.

There was also the path of becoming a doctor in research institutes, with even higher entry requirements. To put it plainly, you never know what wild experiments those tech fanatics might come up with—explosions, electric shocks, or dangerous gas leaks from poison-type Pokémon. There’s no limit to their creativity (or recklessness). In Zhu Suihan’s view, if a research institute was working on something significant, you might even have to worry about being targeted by villains.

Apart from these conventional options, there was also employment with the League, which to Zhu Suihan sounded like landing a government job—reaching the pinnacle in one step. Rangers, nature reserve managers, even positions with the police or Interpol, all needed these fresh-faced new healers.

But if you worked for the League, you wouldn’t have much say in your posting—it would depend on the League’s assignments. At least at the Pokémon Centers, the Joys had more autonomy. That meant no Joy would be perpetually stuck alone at a remote mountain outpost; the rotation system worked more like a temporary assignment.

Both official and unofficial channels existed for Joy Academy graduates, and if you were interested, you could continue your studies in different fields after graduation. This wasn’t the kind of miserable graduate life where you earned a pittance, slaved away at research while also playing nanny to your advisor. These were proper, well-paid positions.

Moreover, when they said “the League,” it didn’t just mean the Indigo League of Johto and Kanto. But truthfully, the talent pool produced was probably never enough, so sending graduates elsewhere was rare.

Zhu Suihan realized this employment guidance session was nothing like what she remembered. It really was guidance, but it also felt like a show of strength—a reassurance for the students. “Come, everyone, take a look at the job prospects Joy Academy has prepared for you. As long as you study diligently and strive for good grades, I’m not going to feed you empty promises of a ‘bright future’.”

No, I’ll slap the job offers right in front of your face—just work hard and you’ll get one!

This session was all about the general positions available and the differences between them. For example, if you wanted to be indispensable at a Pokémon Center, your Warehouse Management grade had to be top-notch—just like how some majors require more than just high test scores to enter, like customs work.

At Joy Academy, different jobs had different academic requirements, depending mainly on your grades and personal interests. The school could only chart out a suggested path based on performance; after that, the choice was yours. As long as you met the standards, what you chose was up to you. Joy Academy’s only responsibility was to train you into a qualified healer.

“But I feel like none of these really suit me,” she thought.

High EQ: a free spirit. Low EQ: a bit of a troublemaker.

Zhu Suihan tucked her pen and paper into her incense burner, thinking she might be better suited as a wandering physician. The only difference was that others used talisman water for healing, while she used actual medicine.

Forget it—she’d only just enrolled, and there was no point overthinking things.

She chatted briefly with the few other oddballs in the front row. Turns out, some weren’t even first-years; they were just auditing the class to prepare for their own futures. But all of them bore the “Rare Seed of Joy Academy” label, and when it came to topics of conversation, they might as well have been pouring out their hearts to each other.

These guys genuinely wanted to become doctors; there were no cases of accidental enrollments or people there just for the sake of Joy Academy.

Zhu Suihan strolled down to the lakeside, called out casually, and sat on the grass to wait quietly for Lapras to return. It had only been a couple of days, but she already felt completely at home at Joy Academy. It wasn’t exactly a slow-paced life, but there wasn’t any of that frantic scrambling, where being late meant not just losing your pay, but your job entirely.

And the so-called “late” didn’t mean shirking your responsibilities—it just meant someone else thought you were late.

Now that she had both time and money, she could finally think about things like reusable potions. Otherwise, who had the energy for that? Just sticking to the basics would be enough.

“Wuu wuu!” Lapras’s call and silhouette grew clearer, but Zhu Suihan paused, pushing at the imaginary glasses on her nose out of habit.

Tactical goggles, on.

Behind Lapras trailed a whole crowd of water-type Pokémon, including the Gyarados who had been yelling and screeching in the sky last time.

What on earth?

“What’s going on here?” she asked.

Lapras came ashore proudly, nudging Zhu Suihan forward with her head. Look, everyone! This is my human!

The chorus of Pokémon chatter made Zhu Suihan’s lips twitch involuntarily. She glanced at the energy cube bottle hanging from Lapras’s neck. It was completely empty.

The white-haired monkey sighed deeply. It was like watching your own child take food on a field trip, only to realize that among all the students, none of the food could compare in quantity or quality.

After school, all the other Pokémon naturally gathered around to see Lapras’s “parent.”

Thus began what could only be called “energy cube diplomacy.”

The sense of déjà vu was overwhelming.

At least she hadn’t been forced to feed Lapras’s classmates, which just proved that both Lapras and the lake-dwelling Pokémon had excellent self-control—in other words, they were well-behaved.

But this also proved her skills were improving; otherwise, these upperclass Pokémon wouldn’t bother joining in. Clearly, her efforts to outdo herself and hone her craft were paying off.

At least Lapras was happy, giving Zhu Suihan a little more pride in herself.

“Say goodbye to your friends—we’re off to dinner,” she said, shaking her head as she recalled Lapras into the Beiming Ball. She’d make more energy cubes for Lapras tonight—it’s good to make new friends, after all.

With only one partner for now, she couldn’t always make time to play with Lapras if she got busy.

So what if it cost a little more money?

She could always withdraw more. If she ate well, Lapras deserved to eat even better.

Zhu Suihan stroked her chin. “If the value of my reusable potion paid for both mine and Lapras’s meals, the headmaster probably wouldn’t even hesitate.”

Or rather, meal costs and potion bottles weren’t even comparable. Small change—just small change.

A week of campus life passed uneventfully, and Zhu Suihan had already earned a reputation as the top overachiever in her class. It shouldn’t have happened so quickly, but after just a week as a transfer student, the monthly assessment was held.

She had no idea how many students were in her grade, but that white-haired monkey soared to twentieth place on her first exam—the only reason she didn’t place higher was the sheer amount of material she’d missed.

She could out-study anyone!

“You did remarkably well on the written test. I hope you can maintain this in the upcoming practicals,” Joy Jing, the headmaster, praised her when she visited the office.

Twentieth place was just on the cusp of “outstanding graduate,” but considering this living fossil had only attended a week of classes, the future looked promising.

“I’ve assigned you a lab. Here are the guidelines. All standard resources used within one week are covered by the academy. If you go over budget, you’ll have to pay for the excess yourself—after all, you don’t have any sponsors.”

“Thank you, Headmaster. I like this policy.”

Joy Academy didn’t have evening classes—or at least, first-years didn’t. Evening self-study was entirely optional.

Soon, the laboratory was ablaze with light. Zhu Suihan, fully equipped, placed the Beiming Ball in its special holder and activated the soundproof cover.

After a day of frolicking in the lake, Lapras was already asleep, while Zhu Suihan, a mere human, was brimming with energy for her research.

She examined the holder. “It looks a bit like those old phone charging stations.”

Joy Jing wasn’t stingy—though it was a private lab, all the key equipment was present.

Zhu Suihan took some time to get familiar with the equipment she hadn’t seen before, skipping what she wouldn’t need.

The “attribute energy extractor” she’d always dreamed of was right there in the lab.

Without hesitation, she pulled her stash from the incense burner, loaded it into the extractor, and started juicing.

Excellent—Lapras’s meals would be taken up another notch.