273 CH41 (271), About Time/The Choice
I actually found him by the time I was halfway through checking the Riolu of the 4th recreation area.
'Species: Riolu
Gender: Male
Type: Fighting
Potential: Deep Blue
Stage: Iron-stage (high)
Genetic variation: None
Abilities: Inner Focus, Prankster
Talents: Combat Instinct
Affinities: Fighting, Aura'
Like the female, he was at the (high) iron stage, and at deep blue, his potential was even better than hers, even if her Shiny Gene more than made up for that potential difference.
No, the reason I was seriously considering replacing the shiny Riolu as my favorite choice, was his talent Combat Instinct. It gave Riolu heightened combat abilities such as an enhanced reaction, a boost to his aptitude in reading the flow during combat, a knack for strategy, and the mental flexibility to improvise during combat when necessary.
Combat Instinct definitely belonged to the top echelon among combat talents, and even in general it was one of the better talents. Correspondingly, it was a pretty rare talent, and mind you, having a talent was something rare in the first place.
In fact, I had only seen that talent with one Pokemon before this, and that was Aaron's Lucario. Eventually, I decided that the male's talent along with his higher starting potential were good enough for me to choose him as my new temporary favorite.
Having made that decision, I made sure to thoroughly remember all minute details of his look, so that I could recognize him if he remained my favorite when my time ran out. I obviously finished checking the rest of the Riolu since I wanted to see if I would find another positive surprise, but I didn't.
By the time I was done checking all Riolu it was 1:07 p.m, and I finished up our game of tag as well. I told the Riolu to have fun and made my way to the fifth as well as last activity area. It was 2:20 p.m by the time I managed to check all Riolu in this place as well, and unfortunately, none of them managed to shake the position of my current favorite.
The best one here was a Riolu with blue potential, so even the previous female shiny would have retained her position if she had not lost it in the last area. Nonetheless, the number of Riolu with great potential was pretty impressive, not to mention the shiny Riolu and the few Riolu with talents.
All in all, I had come across one Riolu with deep blue potential as well as a talent, which was my current favorite, then there were 4 Riolu with blue potential, with a shiny female among them, and finally 9 Riolu with light blue potential with one having a talent.
Among the Riolu with a green shade potential were actually 7 who had a talent of their own. Actually, the number of Riolu in this place was pretty impressive in itself, so far I had checked 349 Riolu, and I could see that there were still quite a few Riolu that were lounging around the clearing instead of playing in the recreational zones.
Not to mention, the Lucario that I could see around the place, then some were relaxing in their homes or other areas of the habitat. What I was trying to say was that there was a truly large number of Riolu as well as Lucario in this place, and that was pretty impressive since the line was considered pretty rare.
Anyway, it was already 2:20 p.m, so it was high time for lunch. I used dependable Utopia to distribute everyone inside their lunch, while I decided to go all out and prepare lunch for the Riolu and Lucario at the habitat as well.
I mean, it was probably a good idea to earn some browny points with them all by feeding them some tasty food. Besides, I would probably manage to lure in some of the Riolu I had yet to check this way, so it was a win-win kind of deal for me.
I pulled out 5 of my super large pots and everything else I needed to make curry. My actions attracted the attention of all the Riolu as Lucario around me and some of those a bit further away as well. I told the curious onlookers that I was cooking an open lunch, but after taking another look at their numbers, I took out another 5 super large pots.
Each pot was enough for 80-100 servings, so I should hopefully have enough for everyone. Still, I decided that I would be handing out self-baked bread rolls/buns along with the curry to hopefully avoid anyone ending up empty-handed.
I used my stock of precut ingredients that I had amassed for our celebrations, but considering the amount of curry I was planning to cook, I would be using up my complete stock, so I would have to spend quite a few hours replenishing that later on. Obviously, that was a small price to pay for some goodwill from the habitat inhabitants.
I was handling 10 pots at once and doing that without resorting to help or special abilities was extremely hard, so I directly used my psychic abilities, or rather my telekinesis and parallel thoughts to help me with cooking. I was not afraid of showing my psychic talent to the Riolu or Lucario, so I did not shy away from making full use of them to cook.
Ingredients were flying through the air into pots, ladles were stirring the curry without me having to do it by hand. Yes, telekinesis was really useful if one had to cook a lot or if one was grilling. Being able to flip any meat without having to use utensils was awesome. No poking the meat or accidentally getting burned.
The show I was putting on, along with the great smell that was starting to spread out from the pots gathered quite the large audience that was still growing. Thanks to using precut ingredients it only took 40 minutes for the curry to be ready to be served.
I acted as if I was pulling out stacks of one-use, throw-away plates, and spoons from my bag while taking them out of Utopia. Then I pulled out three boxes filled with my self-baked bread rolls/buns to hand out with the curry.
I was considering if I should ask them to get their drinks themselves, but then I thought 'what the hell, in for a penny, in for a pound', before pulling out one-use cups and two barrels that were filled with juice I made with berries grown in Utopia along with water from Utopia, so practically super-premium stuff.
"Alright, everyone that wants to eat please form a line I will be handing out the curry now. There are five flavors, those two are a tad sweet, those two are slightly sour, those are spicy, those are a bit bitter, and those two are mild, so just say which one you want and I'll give you a serving from that one," I said while pointing out which pot contained which flavor.
They swiftly and more importantly without any conflict formed a perfect line, and the first one directly said that it wanted to eat sweet curry. I used my telekinesis to take a plate and a spoon from the stack, then I moved to the pot and put a serving of curry on the plate before moving back in front of the Riolu.
It was at that moment that my genius mind noticed that none of them could carry so many things at once, so I pulled out another table and moved the barrels there. Then, I placed the cups on that table as well, before announcing that the drinks were self-serving. Satisfied with my solution I placed the bun beside the curry before handing over the pate to the waiting Riolu.
During the handover, I touched the Riolu's paw, which was how I was going to check its status. I mean I had to kill two birds with one stone since the opportunity presented itself. Total coincidence that one, absolutely not planned.
While I was serving the second one in the line, I saw how the first Riolu placed the plate on its preferred eating spot before coming back to the desk with the juice to get something to drink. After that, he moved back to his eating spot where he sat down and began eating his food.
I actually spent the next two hours handing out curry before there were no more Riolu or Lucario in the line, and if I had not been scouting out everyone while doing my job, then this would have been quite the time loss.
However, since I was checking them out, it turned out to be a brilliant idea. Not only did I get to check out the Lucario this way without arousing any suspicion, but I got to check around 90 to 100 Riolu that I had not checked out before this.
The strongest Lucario I got to check was actually at the (high) dark gold stage, while the weakest was at the (high) silver stage. The highest potential had a Lucario at the (high) gold stage with light purple potential.
Impressive right, but not as impressive as one of the new Riolu I came across while handing out the curry. Thinking back to her status screen, I could freely admit that it was pretty impressive.
'Species: Riolu
Gender: Female
Type: Fighting
Potential: Light Purple
Stage: Bronze-stage (mid)
Genetic variation: None
Abilities: Steadfast, Prankster
Talents: Harmonized
Affinities: Fighting, Aura'
She actually had a light purple potential which was really amazing, that only got a bit dragged down by the fact that she was at the bronze stage, thus having lost the chance for the first limit-breaking session. Nonetheless, having an original potential of light purple was pretty impressive.
While she had no genetic modifier, she did have a talent, and it was a pretty good one. Harmonized was passive talent, which meant that it did not need active input to work.
It harmonized Riolu's aura with any offensive moves she used, except those of the ghost-, dark-, and psychic type. This resulted in all moves, except ghost-, dark-, and psychic moves, irrespective of their type being treated as STAB moves.
The reason ghost-, dark-, and psychic moves were not included was that aura did not mesh that well with them, so they were excluded by her talent. Regardless of that, it was still a pretty great talent.
I had to really think about whether I wanted to replace the current favorite with her or not. Potential wise they would be pretty much equal once the male had gone through his limit-breaking training, so it came down to which talent I preferred.
While I was thinking about that I saw the location gathering all disposable stuff together before one levitated them all using a Psychic. He scrunched them together and lifted the resulting big trash ball until it was about 20 meters in the air. Then the strongest Lucario fired an honest to Mew Dragon Pulse at the trash ball and vaporized it.
Over-the-top trash disposal right there, but the Riolu all clapped enjoying the demonstration, so I guess it did it to fascinate the kids. Each Riolu and Lucario had thanked me when I gave them their curry, but after his little performance the same Lucario still came up to me to once more thank me for the lunch in the name of all Riolu and Lucario.
I told him that it was nothing before I began packing away the pots and all the other stuff I had pulled out. I still had close to two hours before my time was up and I was planning to make use of that time to see if I could find anyone better than my current two favorites, even if I was leaning a bit more toward the male with the Combat Instinct talent.
I kept walking around the clearing looking for any Riolu that I had not seen in one of the recreational areas, or during lunch, and I did manage to find a few Riolu like that. Unfortunately, none of them managed to outdo the favorites.
There were only 15 minutes left until 6 p.m and I was pretty sure that I had checked all Riolu in the clearing, or at least the ones I managed to find. It looked as if I would have to choose between the female with Harmonized and the male with Combat Instinct.
While I was contemplating which one I should ultimately choose, I noticed a Riolu approaching me. I was not a 100% sure, but it looked like it was one I had yet to check. Well, turns out I was right. The Riolu had been chilling at home until now, and just came to the clearing where it heard about the awesome curry I handed out, so it approached me to ask if there was still some that it could taste.
There was in fact still a bit left currently waiting for me in Utopia, so told him that I still had some. He was pretty cheerful when he heard that, and I quickly gave him a serving of mild curry, which he happily accepted.
I naturally checked his status during the handover, and I had to say I was pretty impressed. Actually, after a bit of thinking I was more than impressed.
'Species: Riolu
Gender: Male
Type: Fighting
Potential: Blue
Stage: Bronze-stage (mid)
Genetic variation: Blessed by Aura
Abilities: Inner Focus, Prankster
Talents: Auralize
Affinities: Fighting, Aura'
While his potential was "only" blue at the bronze stage, that was acceptable in my eyes due to what he had in his genetic variation, or rather modifiers section.
The Riolu actually had Blessed by Aura modifier, which gave him an overall 25% boost. Unlike genetic modifiers, blessings could not be gained on our own through a bit of luck, since it was up to the elements, concepts, and legends whether they bestowed a blessing or not.
So, I could accept a slightly worse potential in exchange for a blessing, since I could help make up for the lower potential, especially with the help of Utopia, but I had no way of bestowing a blessing.
Furthermore, Riolu also had a talent, which probably had to do with the blessing, since it was something that perfectly fit the blessing. Auralize was an optional/active talent. It turned a move into an aura type one, which led to the move automatically gaining a STAB bonus.
Additionally, it seemed that aura moves had 1.5x the effect of fighting type moves towards other types during damage reaction. That counted for both positive (super effective) and negative (not effective) reactions, which made the talent being an active one even greater since it allowed Riolu to avoid turning moves in situations where it would be detrimental.
As if that was not enough, his talent actually stacked with the ability he would gain as a Mega Lucario. Adaptability worked with Auralize since the moves gained the STAB bonus by adapting to Riolu's aura, so the future potential of this Riolu was actually the best out of all Riolu I had seen so far, which was a bit funny since he currently did not have the best potential out of all Riolu.
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