374 CH7 (371), Introduction Phase (1)

Well, it can be said that quite a few things happened during the next five months, but that was more in the general sense. As far as my internship was concerned nothing big or great had happened. In fact, I had spent the last 5 months following assistants around, taking notes, and following orders such as refill this, or hand/carry that over.

I was also taught how to write a proper report and had to observe various parts of some experiments and studies before I was asked to write a detailed report of what I had witnessed.

Apparently, that was compulsory for everyone since the aim was to get another perspective and because details one person missed could be mentioned by another.

I did learn quite a bit, but my experience during these few months at the lab was more like a mix between lackey and aid. Still, there was not much I could have done since I had been straight-up told at the beginning that the first term period would be like this.

The goal of these few months was supposed to have me become familiar with the lab, the paperwork, the instruments, the proper workflow, and the others in the lab.

The person I saw the most was still James, followed by another two assistants, Sarah and Hiro. I had at most exchanged a few sentences with nearly everyone else, but that was normal considering how many people were working at the lab in some capacity.

As for Professor Oak, I only got to see him 8 times during these five months, with the last time being today, when he told me that my introduction phase was over and that I could officially take part in one of the research projects after the break.

It only took the whole first term to reach this point. That pretty much summed up my experience of the last months as far as the lab was concerned. However, I obviously did not only spend my time at the lab. Just as we had agreed upon I returned home to Hope Town during most of the weekends.

My parents had adopted a similar schedule to mine and went out to do their thing as trainers during the week and came back home to spend time with me during the weekend.

Occasionally they could not make it during the weekends either, or something came up on my front, which is why I said most weekends. Naturally, we informed each other in case that happened.

On their side, the most significant thing that happened was mom getting her first dark gold-stage Pokemon thanks to Titania/Nidoqueen breaking through. The rest were minor improvements among their other Pokemon, but nothing big like an evolution or reaching the gold stage, much less the dark gold stage.

Well, aside from spending time with my parents, I also paid attention to the orphanage that was being built, and they had made good progress. The basic structure of the cellar and first three floors was complete, and the fourth floor was nearly done as well.

After that, only the fifth floor had to be finished for the basic structure to be completed. Still, that would only mean that they had reached the halfway point since quite a few things had to be done after that, such as the cable laying, plaster, tiles, parquet, and so on.

The team/project manager was hopeful that they might be able to keep the original timetable, but he ascertained that any delay would be limited to three months at most unless any accidents happened.

I did not mind that since I had seen with my own eyes that they were doing a good job. The walls they were raising were made with good materials and according to a certain procedure that resulted in them being really robust and receptive to "warding".

Warding was practically using pictograms and the unknown alphabet to create certain effects such as blocking teleportation. Specially prepared ink had to be used during the process, otherwise, they did not work. I used the same or a similar approach in my ballcrafting, so I knew a thing or two on that topic as well.

Preparing giant walls for such a step took time, which was why the construction took this much time despite this being the magical world of Pokemon.

If all they wanted to do was slap a basic/mundane building on the property, they probably could have been done by now. However, I wanted the best to ensure the safety and comfort of the kids as well as the caretakers, and such quality took time.

Anyway, that was how I spent my time in Hope Town. Obviously, I also met up with my friends, but most of these meetings happened in Pallet City, with me occasionally using a weekend to visit them in their city.

Rose for example was someone that I visited and not the other way around. Well, we talked and "saw" each other over the phone most of the time, but I visited her twice during this period. She like Ace and Weiss was in her final academic year, so all three were pretty busy.

I had only met up thrice with those two as well. They came over to Pallet City the first two times, and I visited them in Coral City as well as Seafoam Island respectively during the third time. We met up together during their visits, but my visits were done individually.

Aside from these three, I only got to personally meet up with most of the others once, except for Yu and Aaron who were on the eastern continent, which meant I only conversed with them over the phone.

The other exception were Kinji, Yoruichi, and Jessica, whom I met up with the most out of my friends. Kinji came over to Pallet once a month since it was close enough to his usual hang-out place, which obviously was the Viridian Forest.

Yoruichi had transferred close to Pallet City just as she had said she would, and she showed up once a month or so as well to drag me around the city or to spar with me to keep me from turning rusty. Her words, not mine.

Most of the time, every time really, I ended up bruised as well as cut after our spars, and she would bandage me up personally every time while teasingly telling me that I had to do better if I did not want to end up in her tender care.

The fact that she used an ointment which sped up the healing process quite a bit while causing the wound to itch and burn was probably her way of spurning me on.

As for Jessie, she moved to Pallet City for her new job as a nurse in one of the Pallet City PokeCenters a few days after my visit to the trainer school, so I saw her the most out of all of my friends. I made sure to pay her a visit at the PokeCenter or her dorm at least once a week.

Since she was living in Pallet City now, I had no reason to not visit her without feeling like a jackass, especially when she mostly chose to move to Pallet City due to my stay here.

Three months ago Jessie shared with me that she had developed an interest in Pokemon performances, so during some of our meetings, we occasionally worked/brainstormed over possible performances that her Pokemon could perform.

Her Arbok, Lickilicky, and Yanmega showed no particular interest in performances, so we based them around Blissey, Persian, and/or Wobbuffet. We had not recorded nor uploaded any of our choreographies, but Jessie began practicing them after we finished devising one for each of her three willing Pokemon.

Oh, and something that I noticed during my strolls around the city and during my visit to the PokeCenter was that my fame had finally died down. The number of times I got recognized during the last three months had gone down a lot, and I had not been recognized by any strangers during the last three weeks.

I was really happy about that and I was starting to genuinely worry about the time I became a champion or a full-fledged professor. The fame linked to those positions would mean that I would get recognized a lot, and unless I had a certain reputation, that also meant that I would get approached a lot by random strangers due to various reasons.

Honestly, I was pretty sure that I would work out some form of "Notice Me Not Field" when that happens just to avoid such a situation. I was sure that aura and psychic abilities would come in especially handy for something like that.

Speaking of abilities, something else that had made good progress during these 5 months was my ground ability. By now, I had successfully opened my energyscape and absorbed ground energy, officially reaching Tier 1 Third-Class.

That allowed me to unlock Minor Geokinesis, which was also known as minor ground/earth manipulation. Once I reached Tier 1, I worked on my geokinesis while I up my nightly meditation to absorb ground energy to reach the second class of Tier 1.

I already knew that I would unlock a Minor Seismic Sense once I did that, and it was a pretty good ability. With my current progress, I estimated that it would take me another few months to reach the second class, and I was satisfied with that since it was really good progress according to my online and offline research on the topic.

Now, while we were on the topic of my abilities, I had obviously not stopped improving my aura or psychic tier. Thanks to my second thought stream I could absorb one of them as well during my nightly meditation, so I kept making progress in both during these months.

I had in fact managed to reach my personal ceiling/peak of Tier 2 in both aura and psionics just a few days ago. At this point, I was unable to increase my capacity any further and I had to reach Tier 3 if I wanted to keep improving in this aspect.

There was zero doubt in my mind that I would be able to reach Tier 3, but I had no idea how long it would take me to overcome this "bottleneck". To be honest, I doubted that it would take more than a few months, and I could still work on my aura and psychic abilities during this time, so I did not mind it at all.

Especially since I would gain a third thought stream when I reached Tier 3 as a psychic. That one was probably the one I was anticipating the most among the abilities I would gain upon breakthrough.

Anyway, aside from my personal progress, the most significant events that happened during these five months were related to my Pokemon, which frankly was not that surprising.

Anubis/Riolu and Saphira/Swablu had both completed their second round of limit-breaking, with Saphira even having raised her Energy Density to SSS. They were knocking on the door of the silver stage, and I was seriously contemplating whether I should wait for them to complete their limit-breaking, or if I should just let them evolve already since both had been ready for quite some time now.

The two were not the only ones that had come closer to breaking through to the silver stage. Hades/Haunter was pretty close to completing his second round of limit-breaking as well, which made me consider if I should have him work on the conditions for his evolution to Gengar or not.

However, fulfilling the conditions was time-consuming, so after talking with Hades, we decided that we would wait until he reached the (high) silver stage before he began working on their conditions.

The last one among my bronze-stage Pokemon to make some good progress was Mienfoo, who was pretty close to reaching the (high) bronze stage. She only had to raise another one of her parameters to C, and she would be done.

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