While we wait for Sunday’s chapter, I’ve decided to revise the Seekers story to fix some of the story’s awkwardness. I will keep the story the same but will try to make it sound nicer. This isn’t my story, so please make sure you check out the original chapter. Let me know if this is something worth continuing. Make sure you start at chapter 1-1
Eiji barges into Ryusenji’s lab “Professor! Professor Ryusenji”
The professor looks up from his work unphased by Eiji’s sudden appearance. He had become accustomed to frantic people suddenly wanting his attention. “Good morning, Eiji.” It was already afternoon, but the professor often lost his sense of time when conducting his research.
“Good morning” Eiji responds without a thought “What’s with this Digimon?!? It’s not moving.” Eiji shows the professor the Digimon Linker screen where Loogamon naps soundly.
Ryusenji grabs Eiji’s arm and examines the sleeping Digimon and smiles, “He’s probably full of food and dreaming a good dream. You’re doing a great job with the training Eiji. I can’t wait to see what Loogamon digivolves into”
As Digimon grow and gain experience, they evolve and turn into different Digimon. We call this digivolution. Digivolition consists of five stages: baby, child, adult, perfect, and ultimate form. Loogamon is currently in the child stage.
“If you evolve Loogamon to maturity, we will pay you a nice incentive”
“An inscentive? Like more money?”
Ryusenji nods his head. “You’ll get a very generous payout if you can get it to ultimate. I’m curious to see the type of Digimon Loogamon turns into. You guys will probably look super cool together!” The professor can’t hide his excitement as he starts thinking about all the possibilities.
“I’ll do my best” Eiji replies. He was begining to warm up to the eccentric old man. “Oh. Did you see yesterday’s training report? I sent it to your email.”
“I get hundreds of emails a day. I hardly ever open them. I’d lose days of research if I went through all of them,” Ryusenji replies bluntly. Eiji’s heart sinks as he watches the professor move toward his computer. “But I do check any notifications from you”
Eiji hugs himself “That makes me feel important”
“You’re a very important business partner of mine, Eiji”
The Professor seemed sincere in his response. Eiji was slowly learning to trust him. It was a strange sensation having someone as important as the professor value Eiji as much as he did. After all, Professor Ryusenji was the leading authority on the Digital World, and Eiji was just some punk code cracker. But here they stood together, business partners.
Ryusenji opens Eiji’s report on the monitor and plays the attached video file.
It’s a video of Loogamon. He’s eating in his virtual cage. Digimon need to eat, or they stop growing. It may seem strange for an Ai to eat, but food for Digimon is data and information. It’s like how humans grow when they learn new information from reading books or watching videos.
Loogamon continues to eat. In front of him are three other bowls of food. In the corner, Eiji’s three Tyrannomon watch patiently as the dog scarfs down its food. Ryusenji watches the video curiously.
“Even though there’s three Tyrannamon, they aren’t strong enough. Loogamon can beat three champion level digimon on his own.”
“Interesting” Ryusenji replies without looking away from the screen “Loogamon seems to be exhibiting wolf-like traits. See how the Tyrannomon are behaving? It’s like they respect him. They have become his pack and he the pack leader. Fascinating. Because you put them in the same cage, you’ve created this unique dynamic” Ryusenji is beaming as he continues to watch the video.
“That must be why they don’t bother him, even when he eats their food. He even tried to eat one of the Tyrannomon” Eiji points to the one on the left “This guy”
“Oh?! That’s interesting”
“But, Loogamon eats too much. All he does is eat and poop” Eiji begins to complain.
“That’s normal,” Rysenji responds without looking away from the screen.
Eiji takes a deep breath and scrolls to a table on the report, “The following data is the result of a benchmark I conducted. Loogamon seems to be showing an above-average growth score”
“Hmmm,” the professor strokes his chin as he analyzes the data.
“Oh!” Eiji blurts out, suddenly remembering something. He points to the jeweled mask on its forehead “What’s this thing on Loogamon’s forehead? This..” Eiji pauses the video and zooms in so that the faceplate is fully visible. “Sometimes, the jewel even glows”
Ryusenji moves closely so that his forehead is almost touching the screen “I am not sure, but good on you for noticing, Eiji” The professor then turns to Eiji “How do you like Loogamon? Have you been using it for anything exciting?”
“I’ve been having trouble evaluating its performance as an AI tool”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s not that the command tools don’t work, it’s more like Loogamon won’t do what I tell it to do. It won’t work or walk either. It is a very stubborn dog”
“So you don’t think you can raise it?” Ryusenji asks
A panicked Eiji responds “No, I mean yes. I didn’t mean it like that. Raising it is my job and I take all my jobs seriously. I am going to evolve it, I was just pointing out how…different it is from other Digimon I’ve raised”
Ryusnji smiles back at the frantic Eiji “Try hololizing it”
Eiji scrolls through his Digimon Linker before choosing the command. Loogamon, who has been sound asleep, suddenly appears in the room. Loogamon is about the size of an adult husky with soft-looking grey-blue fur. As he wakes, he blinks indifferent red eyes at the two men looking down at it.
“Fascinating!” Rysenji suddenly shouts as he continues to look over Loogamon’s data “We’ve been tracking your vitals along with Loogamons training information. Look at these numbers!” The professor points excitedly at the evaluation report on the screen.
Eiji attempts to understand the information. “DS value…? I’m not sure what that means,” This was a new term for Eiji.
“It’s an indicator I designed to calculate the compatibility between a Digimon and its partner. You and Loogamon are extremely compatible!” Rysenji doesn’t hide his excitement.
“Seriously?!” Eiji looks down at Loogamon who has since gone back to napping on the floor.
“I knew I chose the right person for the job”
“So…Does that mean that Loogamon can evolve right away?”
“I can’t say for sure”
“Why not?”
“The DS value doesn’t measure potential, only the user’s compatibility with a Digimon.”
“So it is possible to train,” Eiji whispers to himself. He had only ever used Tyrannomon and a few other Digimon common in the code cracker circles. The more common the Digimon, the easier it was to train. Loogamon was unique, and it seemed as if it was going to require a lot of work to train.
“Where have you been getting your Digimon up until now? GriMM?”
“Yeah. Since it’s a bit illegal in Japan, I have to get them from other countries. There are no borders in the Digital world”
Ryusenji almost chuckles at Eiji’s final phrase. “Eiji, do you know who you’re quoting?”
Eiji shakes his head no. It was a common phrase on GriMM. A meme everyone repeated. “Do you?”
Ryusenji shrugs his shoulder as an involuntary smile escapes him. “What do you do again Eiji,” the professor asks, changing the subject.
“I’m a code cracker”
“Then you are familiar with the famous code cracking team?”
Illustration illustration: PLEX
Churape's Dungeon and Stuff 