420 CH53 (417), Side Project

After I returned home, I once more thought about what I was going to do with my free time for the next three weeks, before I would be visiting the lab again. Holy Mew did that make me sound like a workaholic or what? Still, spending time with my parents was fine, but there was something called too much.

Besides, I did have other stuff that I wanted to do as well, so I decided that aside from spending time with my parents and Pokemon, it was finally time for me to spend a few hours, maybe 3-4, each day focusing on one of the projects I had been planning to work on during the vacation. In this case, the Rattata project.

Considering how I spent my mornings with my Pokemon and a great part of the rest of the day with my parents, I decided to schedule the Ratatta project after 9 p.m. each day, aside from Dialday due to movie night. Still, seeing how much time my parent's block still had, I decided that an hour of personal training would not hurt as well.

Seeing how there were still more than 3 hours until dinner I decided to start on the latter right away. I told mom that I would be meditating for an hour before I went to my room and sat down on my bed. I then began using my "main" thought stream to manipulate my aura in all sorts of manners, while using my "second" thought stream to do the same with my psionic energy.

I only stopped when my biological clock told me that an hour had passed. Once that happened I stood up from my bed, stretched a bit, and went downstairs. I simply talked for an hour with mom as well as dad, before I helped mom in the kitchen with dinner. I had to thank Arceus for our common interest in all things Pokemon-related or we would have probably run out of stuff in due time.

Anyway, after dinner, we spend an hour or so playing some classic board games before watching some TV. I had already told them about my evening plans, so I excused myself at 9 pm, and retreated into my room, where I entered Utopia after locking the door.

I didn't bother entering the main space and directly entered the subspace. More specifically, I appeared in the area I set aside for my Rattata experiment. Since I would be focusing on this particular project for a few weeks, I decided to once more take stock of the situation before I began doing anything new.

I currently had a total of 778 Rattata living inside my subspace, of those 216 had joined the Rattata variant project due to having shown a reaction to one of the type-specific food pellets I used to test any Rattata I had inside the space and any that end up joining.

Currently, 107 out of those 216 Rattata had already developed an affinity to one of the 4 types/elements I was aiming for. There were 19 Rattata with a fire affinity, 28 Rattata with a water affinity, 34 Rattata with a grass affinity, and 25 Rattata with an electric affinity.

Honestly, despite the high difference between the number of Rattata with a fire affinity and those with a grass affinity, I did not think that one of them was a better "fit" for the species than the other. The difference in their number was simply due to one type being easier to adapt to than the other, which was due to the nature of the element.

Maybe some actually saw that as a sign of a better "fit", but I didn't. The only way the difference could actually be shown was by documenting the adaptation of the species to a specific natural environment over a long period of time, but I did not have that time, which was why I was using supplements to push along the affinity development.

A big part of the reason for my belief was the progression speed once the affinity had formed and started to develop, at least from what I had seen among the Rattata part of my project. Maybe it would have been different if I tried adding dark-type supplements into the mix.

I mean, it was a fact that the dark-type variant, or alolan-variant as it was known, was the only existing Rattata variant that was present/existed in high numbers within the human territories. Still, the variant did already exist in high numbers, so I had no reason to cultivate more.

Anyway, back to my Rattata. Out of the 19 fire-affinity Rattata, 14 had a budding affinity, 6 had a weak one, and 1 had managed to gain a standard affinity. For the water ones, 21 had a budding affinity, 6 had a weak one, and 1 had a standard affinity. For grass, it was 23 budding, 9 weak, as well as 2 standard affinity, and finally, the electric group included 19 budding, 5 weak, and 1 standard affinity.

The number of Rattata that had managed to reach a full/standard affinity was nearly identical if not for the grass group having 2 instead of 1 like the others. While these 5 Rattata were still regular ones and not type variants, despite having gained a standard affinity, I was absolutely convinced of my ability to turn them into type variant Raticate using supplements during their evolution.

Still, I had to wait until they reached the (high) bronze stage before I could let them evolve, since evolving before then would affect their foundation and I obviously did not want that to happen since they would be turning into variants and I wanted them to produce variant kids.

I hoped that the variant evolution at the optimal point would bring about/allow a shift in their genetic base legacy since they were changing at the fundamental genetic level, allowing their current potential to be used during the determination of the child's potential instead of their original potential.

Well, I would need a variant partner for any breeding anyway to increase the chance for variants kids, but the partners would be coming soon enough, so some planning in preparation was not wrong. Especially when I was going to use these three weeks to produce and hand out supplements that would challenge the limits of the tolerance of the Rattata with a weak affinity to accelerate their rise to the standard affinity.

Hopefully, those that were already somewhat close to that point would reach it by the end of the period since I was not willing to push the limits without being able to supervise the situation and be ready to react at all times. Anyway, I had hung a necklace with a letter and number on each Rattata to help identify them and ease the documentation of the progress for the duration of the project.

This was useful in helping to make sure that each Rattata received the correct supplement/food since the energy concentration between them was quite diverse. So, I made sure I had my notebook at hand to check the current supplement/food each Rattata was receiving before I began handing out a new supplement with a higher energy concentration.

I made sure to update their record so that I could later note whether the dose had to be increased or decreased before moving on to the next Rattata to repeat the process until all of them had consumed their new supplement.

Once that was done, I began doing a short health check on all 107 Rattata before retreating to the main space to work on a few batches of supplements with all energy concentrations I would need for later today and probably tomorrow as well.

I made sure that my "second" thought process kept an eye on the situation in the project habitat, and I also paid them a visit after every hour to check if the dosage was too much for them to bear or not. There was only one case where I had to interfere and suppress the energy level inside the Rattata's body to avoid harming it.

The others were able to endure the new energy concentration, and I saw no problems even after stopping for the day four hours later. I had left the mental gate between that section of the sub-space and my mind open so that I could hear any sounds of pain, but thankfully nothing like that happened.

A quick check after waking up confirmed that none of the Rattata had any critical problems during the night. Some did show certain levels of discomfort, showing that their tolerance level was being stressed to certain degrees, but no one showed any outright pain. Still, I made sure to note down which ones were showing such signs, so that I could decrease the energy concentration a bit, just enough to reduce the level of discomfort to a minimum.

The reason I was not planning to get rid of it completely, was that I was still aiming to stuff them to their limit, and the discomfort was a sign of it, so a minimum amount of discomfort showed that we had reached the point. Feeling pain was a sign of the true limit, and being about to get crippled or die was the absolute limit. I was satisfied with pushing the regular limit.

Anyway, after handling the changes and handing out breakfast, I went out to eat my own with my family before returning to my room to spend time with my Pokemon in Utopia until lunch. It was during our family time after lunch, that Agni/Arcanine called out to us, more specifically my father.

Just like Rivers/Poliwrath nearly a week prior, Agni also felt that it was time to break through to the dark gold stage. We swiftly headed to the terrace and saw the other Pokemon also gathering due to Agni's call. Mom and dad called out the others, and once everyone had settled into position, Agni began his breakthrough.

The process was smooth and he reached the dark gold stage without any problems. Dad went up to congratulate him first and was quickly followed by his Pokmeon before the rest of us also joined in. I made sure to pat Agni's head and scratch his favorite spot while congratulating him. I also made sure to check his status screen and saw that his potential was still deep blue.

Since it had not changed, I had no way of knowing if it increased at all or not. Nonetheless, I was at least sure that he would suffer no disadvantages during his training at the dark gold stage. After that, we threw a little celebration for Agni and I also congratulated dad for gaining his fourth dark gold stage Pokemon.

The next few days were rather calm with me spending time with my Pokemon in the morning, with my parents during the day, and with the Rattata project during the night, and by Kyoday morning, one Rattata with a budding affinity to the fire, electric, and grass type respectively had gained a weak affinity instead. The water affinity group was a bit more fortunate since 2 of them went from budding affinity to a weak one.

However, that was not the only interesting bit of information that morning, no Carl called as well to inform me that they had finished the capability test of the Mystic Frost Gem and that they would be starting with the Cryogonal Ice experiment. He promised to call me at the end of the day to inform me how the first day went, so I could not help but be a bit curious about how it would go for the whole day.

My parents noticed that I occasionally felt a bit distracted and when I told them that I was expecting a call from the lab, they just smiled but did not comment otherwise. Carl did call around 7:30 pm and told me that they managed to go through multiple rounds of pressure fusion with 12 simultaneously working pressure devices and that they managed to get three complete objects out of these tests.

Unfortunately, the 35 other objects broke during the process, but getting three "final" objects during the first day was not bad. Sadly, the best result out of those 3 had only achieved a fusion rate of 54%, while the other two achieved 49% and 43% respectively.

Carl and Sibel obviously saved the parameters that led to the creation of the object with a 54% fusion rate, and they would work with that data starting tomorrow. I wished them success and asked him to inform me if something big happened.

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