65 CH4 (65), Relatively Big Jump (4) And Conversation About The Future
The most obvious notable events were probably the birthdays that happened during this time.
He himself only had a single birthday, but the birthday of both of his parents came around twice during this time.
His own birthday party was more of a dinner with Rose's family since she was actually the only friend he had right now, so there wasn't anyone else to invite.
Still, it was a nice little celebration, and the gifts he received were certainly great as well.
His parents gifted him an aura stone, a stone that could store a certain amount of aura for later use.
By the wide eyes, Rose's parents made when they saw the stone, he could infer that the stone was either quite rare or expensive and most likely both.
The aura stone/battery he received had been 'E'-Class and was able to store about as much aura as the reserves of Tier 1 First-Class aura users.
After his space managed to improve the stone to 'D'-Class, its storage capacity increased 5 fold.
Mikail also received a gift from Rose and her parents.
They gave him a new grooming kit for his Pokemon, which was pretty useful.
Mikail and his parents naturally went to Rose's birthday parties as well.
She had her 5th and 6th birthdays.
During her 5th birthday, they gave her a school bag, since she would start going to school soon after, and for her 6th birthday, they gave her a grooming kit for her Vulpix and Eevee.
Anyway, back to his own family.
His parents invited their friends to their birthday parties, since most of them were active trainers, they were mostly too busy to visit otherwise, so nearly all of them used those occasions to meet each other.
As he had mentioned all of them, except for the Field family, were active trainers, so they had no children of their own.
Nevertheless, the parties were not boring for Mikail, because he used them to gather some information from their guests.
He had already learned the age groups of pupils beforehand, as well as the duration of the schools.
Elementary School took 3 years, from the age of 5-8, depending on the starting age.
Secondary School took 3 years as well, from the age of 8-11, also depending on the starting age.
Finally, Tertiary School took 3 years too, from the age of 11-14, depending on the starting age.
Now came the part he learned from their guests.
Students from tertiary schools that chose the Pokemon-centric education were allowed to roam around their home settlements, and train as well as battle with their Pokemon.
They were allowed to use the battlefield and market, but they did not gain any access to Pokeballs.
They were also not supposed to catch any Pokemon by themselves without supervision, hence the lack of Pokeball access.
Since they were not official trainers, they also had to pay a token sum for healing at the PokeCenter as well, but the price was greatly reduced since they were young.
Nonetheless, this meant that there were children from the age group of 11-14 running around in settlements, that were participating in Pokemon battles, especially during holidays.
Since most children in that age group looked like 10-11 years old, just as he did, Mikail could blend in with them and participate in battles as well without standing out too much.
So besides hiding his identity and randomly challenging others, he had another venue to participate in battles.
But that was not all, he also learned about the Battle Club.
The Battle Club was an establishment sponsored by the Pokemon Alliance, that aspiring trainers and official trainers could join to battle against each other.
There were ranks that the members were sorted into depending on their strength and number of wins.
The best part was that one could choose to register anonymously as well, but this had the disadvantage that the benefits one would receive were greatly reduced, which was acceptable in his opinion.
This meant that Mikail could go all out without being afraid of exposing his face.
He would naturally still be cautious, and do his best to hide his identity, but this gave him a venue to fight against strong trainers, without having to show his identity.
Not only that he could register with different identities/personas that used different Pokemon to train all his Pokemon.
There was naturally more that he learned during their conversations, but those two points were the most important ones in his opinion, especially the Battle Club.
Besides the birthday parties that were held other important events were the evolutions and advancements of his parent's Pokemon.
Yes, his parents had deemed some of their Pokemon to be ready for evolution and had prepared the necessary materials for those that needed them.
From his mother's Pokemon only Titania, her Nidorina, and Rivers, her Poliwhirl, evolved.
Not only that but they also improved their strength and potential.
'Name: Titania
Species: Nidorina -> Nidoqueen
Gender: Female
Type: Poison -> Poison, Ground
Potential: Light Blue -> Blue
Stage: Silver-stage (mid) -> Silver-stage (high)
---
Name: Rivers
Species: Poliwhirl -> Poliwrath
Gender: Male
Type: Water -> Water, Fighting
Potential: Deep Green -> Light Blue
Stage: Silver-stage (low) -> Silver-stage (mid)'
While their potential stayed the same as far as he could tell, the strength of her Butterfree, Staryu, and Gloom increased a bit.
'Name: Emerald
Species: Butterfree
Gender: Female
Type: Bug, Flying
Potential: Light Green
Stage: Silver-stage (low) -> Silver-stage (mid)
---
Name: Sunny
Species: Gloom
Gender: Male
Type: Grass, Poison
Potential: Light Yellow
Stage: Bronze-stage (mid) -> Bronze-stage (high)
---
Name: Star
Species: Staryu
Gender: Genderless
Type: Water
Potential: Deep Yellow
Stage: Bronze-stage (mid) -> Bronze-stage (high)'
This overall improvement should have made her strength equal to some of the experienced Senior-Class trainers in his opinion, at least.
Now there was much more to go over on his father's side.
First of all, thanks to the improvement in his battle prowess, he could see the stage of Pokemon up to the (low) gold stage.
This allowed him to finally see the strength of all of his father's Pokemon and he was impressed with what he saw, especially after they improved.
Let's start with the Pokemon that evolved.
'Name: Titan
Species: Nidorino -> Nidoking
Gender: Male
Type: Poison -> Poison, Ground
Potential: Light Blue -> Blue
Stage: Silver-stage (high) -> Gold-stage (low)
---
Name: Cell
Species: Magneton -> Magnezone
Gender: Genderless
Type: Electric, Steel
Potential: Green -> Deep Green
Stage: Silver-stage (low) -> Silver-stage (mid)
---
Name: Agni
Species: Growlithe -> Arcanine
Gender: Male
Type: Fire
Potential: Light Blue
Stage: Silver-stage (mid) -> Silver-stage (high)'
His father's Nidorino, Magneton, and Growlithe evolved.
Titan and Agni like Titania and Rivers evolved with the help of standard evolutionary stones of good class/quality.
Magneton on the other hand used a chunk of a high purity magnet to evolve.
Luckily, for his father, not only did Titan's potential increase to Blue, just like Titania's potential, but Titan also broke through to the gold stage.
His parents had gotten pretty lucky with the Moon Stones they had procured since they had helped increase the potential of both Pokemon.
The other two Pokemon managed to increase their strength by one grade as well, but only Magnezone succeeded in boosting its potential.
Nonetheless, after Mikail saw Arcanine for the first time he gained a glint in his eyes while thinking that he would definitely have Agni get laid so that he could provide him an egg.
Agni seemed to have noticed the glint in his eyes at that time, because he had gained a vigilant look for a moment, before deciding his eyes to have fooled him.
Next up were the Pokemon that did not evolve.
'Name: Cyan
Species: Butterfree
Gender: Male
Type: Bug, Flying
Potential: Yellow
Stage: Silver-stage (low)
---
Name: Skye
Species: Pidgeot
Gender: Female
Type: Normal, Flying
Potential: Deep Green
Stage: Silver-stage (high)
---
Name: Duke
Species: Crobat
Gender: Male
Type: Poison, Flying
Potential: Light Blue
Stage: Silver-stage (high) -> Gold-stage (low)
---
Name: Azure
Species: Seadra
Gender: Male
Type: Water
Potential: Green -> Deep Green
Stage: Silver-stage (mid) -> Silver-stage (high)
---
Name: Vibra
Species: Rhydon
Gender: Female
Type: Ground, Rock
Potential: Green
Stage: Silver-stage (mid) -> Silver-stage (high)'
Except for Cyan and Skye, who showed no visible improvement, his father's Crobat, Seadra, and Rhydon increased their grade by one, with Azure also increasing his potential.
Cyan, probably because of his potential, started to lag behind his father's other Pokemon.
Duke on the other hand became his father's second gold stage Pokemon.
With the current strength of his Pokemon Mikail's father was nearly qualified for the advancement to the Expert-Class strength-wise and if another one of his father's Pokemon advanced to the gold stage he would fulfill the strength requirement.
These were the most important events he could think of that happened during these ~ 59 months, and now that only 1 month was left until his 4th birthday, Mikail wanted to talk with his parents about his plans for the immediate future.
Now that his body had finished its second growth phase, and his personal strength as well as that of his Pokemon had reached a certain standard, Mikail wanted to go out to truly explore different places.
Besides with Xatu around they could always run/teleport away in case they were confronted with a danger they couldn't deal with, at least as long as they did not come across someone that could lock down the space in the area to prevent Xatu from using Teleport.
He even had already chosen his first target/destination.
He wanted to explore the coastal areas near Cyan City first before venturing out and check the sea as well as one or two uninhabited islands.
Having made up his mind Mikail went up to his parents to tell them about his plan to travel shortly after his birthday.
The first reaction of his parents is to refuse his request, but Mikail does not back down.
They start a discussion that turns into a negotiation really fast.
When Mikail hears his parent's refusal, he tells them that he really wants to go out to explore.
His parents say that is too young and that it would attract too much attention if he traveled alone.
He countered that those that saw him would think that he was someone old enough to go to tertiary school since he had finished his second maturity and was relatively mature.
When they said that it was too dangerous, he argued that he, himself, was stronger than most Rookie- and Junior-Class trainers and that his Pokemon were strong enough to qualify him for the Junior-Class as well.
In any case, Xatu could Teleport them away in case of danger.
After that, they said he had no idea how to camp outside, and since he couldn't really argue against that, he simply said he would learn to do so.
After that, his parents mentioned his education, and Mikail simply pointed out that he was nearly done with the curriculum of the elementary school, so that could hardly be considered a problem.
They kept going back and forth like that, but he could see that the calm and logical answers he was providing were starting to soften his parent's stance.
After a lengthy discussion, they came to an agreement, where all parties compromised a bit.
His parents would allow him to go out to explore on his own IF he agreed to return home every night.
Not only that he had to stay at home with his parents during the weekends.
As for how he would solve the problem of the time it took him to keep returning home from his most recent location and vice versa.
The solution to that one was easy, Xatu would keep teleporting them until they reached his home and he would do the same to return to his furthest/last position.
Thanks to Xatu's teleportation the duration of the return trips would depend on the number of pauses they needed to do, at least it would train Xatu's Teleport on the side.
Other than him returning home every night and staying home during the full weekend, they had no other big demands and Mikail agreed to the compromise.
While this would reduce the sense of adventure of his travels, he still would be able to travel on his own, and there were worse things than having to return home to sleep inside his cozy, danger-free bed.
As for staying at home, during the weekends, that was also no problem for him since he was happy to spend some time with his parents.
After they came to an agreement, they started talking about things that Mikail would need during his travels and things he had to keep in mind, but there was no need to rush since there was still a month until his birthday.
There was also nothing that forced him to start his travels the day after his birthday, so he felt relaxed about the whole thing after getting permission from his parents.
That has been the hardest part of his plan after all.
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