440 CH73 (437), Please, Not Again

Many would wonder how I planned to let Mars/Ursaring evolve inside Utopia if his evolution required a visible Solar Flare. That was if they knew of the existence of Utopia as well as the fact that it was a separate space and not really part of the planet.

Well, I solved that problem rather easily. I first went outside and took off into the air. Once I was sufficiently high up and had a free view of the sky/space, I entered Utopia and left the window/gate open. Not only that, but I enlarged it to the max, which was currently 10 by 6 meters.

That was more than double the width as well as the height of a truck gate, so pretty impressive I would say, and definitely enough for my purpose. I set the format of the gate so that any form of radiation could enter as long as it did not exhibit any signs of life or unlife.

I added that rule to avoid a flying type suddenly flying into Utopia through the open gate, and the unlife-bit just to be sure. We were living in a weird world, and Rotom did exist, so being careful seemed appropriate. Since the gate belonged to a space-related ability, anything that did not fit the requirements, simply passed right through the gate as if it did not exist.

This allowed everyone to avoid a situation where flying types crashed into an invisible barrier mid-flight. Anyway, it was currently 2 p.m., and according to the report I had read, the Solar Flare was supposed to happen between 2 and 4 p.m., which was why I was currently waiting for the Solar Flare inside Utopia.

In fact, everyone was currently chilling in an area between Enji/Arcanine and Mars' habitats. I had moved the two habitats beside each other just for the potential evolution of Mars. That way, both an abundance of fire and normal energy were readily available in case we succeeded and the evolution actually happened.

From what I had read, a Solar Flare could last anywhere from minutes to an hour or more, but visible ones were only visible for a few minutes even if the flare itself continued past that. So, in case the solar flare ended up being a rather short one, it was better for me to be done fast with everything I had to apply or feed to Mars.

That was why I had already readied everything I needed, so that it was at hand once the Solar Flare occurred, allowing me to swiftly apply/give the stuff to Mars. I did not apply the stuff in advance since most of them would start losing the effect I wanted them to have on his evolution after some time.

Regardless, everyone was excited and they were happily chatting with each other. If the evolution failed, Mars would simply proceed to break through as he was, so something exciting was going to happen one way or another.

It was 2:46 p.m. when I saw a flash in the sky and felt a change in the energy coming through the open gate/window, which signaled the start of the Solar Flare.

"Mars," I shouted, quickly alerting everyone, "it's starting." "Hurry," I urged while he was heading over so that I could start applying the supplements I had prepared.

"Swallow these," I told him before I gave him the ones that had to be ingested. At the same time Mars was doing that, I was applying the salves and lotions as quickly as possible, while still doing a thorough job.

"Done," I declared after I managed to finish in less than a minute. The solar energy was still coming through, confirming that I was on schedule.

I took a swift look around to make sure everyone had given us space. Once I saw that they did, I looked Mars in the eyes and told him "good luck" before handing him the B-Class Sunlight Bellflower.

I took a few steps back, but unfortunately, the awaited scene of him lighting up did not happen, causing me to curse a bit. It seemed like the Sunlight Bellflower did not work as well.

*exhale*

"Alright, fine," I quietly mumbled to myself before stepping up to Mars to comfort him since he went through another failed evolution attempt. As I was stepping closer, Mars gave me a wry smile, bellflower still in hand.

"Bro, the flower's actually giving me a certain feeling, but something is missing, just like with the Sun Crystal," he shared helplessly. When he said that, I had a eureka moment, and swiftly pulled out the B-Class Sund Crystal he mentioned.

"If one of them was not enough, perhaps using both would be," I declared. 'Besides, if it did not work, I would have to try getting my hands on their A-Class version,' I mentally added. I was really hoping for a miracle.

Anyway, I placed the Sun Crystal in the hand that was still empty before stepping back a bit. He did not light up, and the miracle I was waiting for did not happen, at least not immediately.

Just as I was about to step forward once again, after having counted to four, the two items seemed to have finally done what I wanted them to do since Mars actually began to shine brightly, so I took a few more steps back instead, to give Mars some more space for his evolution.

Everyone began to cheer when he finally lit up, and I saw how the energy from both habitats was being sucked up by his evolution, confirming that he was evolving in the direction we wanted, at least I hoped so. Well, he was absorbing fire energy, which meant that he would have a fire typing, so there was that.

Mars' evolution went on for a bit more than a minute, and after it died down, the heat as well as brightness around him and subsequently us began to increase. Everyone certainly noticed the difference, and Mars noticed our reaction, which led to him noticing the effect he was causing.

While he was trying and succeeding in reigning in what I was suspecting to be the effects of the ability Drought, I along with probably everyone else was taking in Mars' new look, and he certainly did look different.

Well, actually, while the differences were definitely there, it was quite apparent what he had evolved from since the basic physique of an Ursaring was certainly present in his current one.

In fact, the shape of his body looked pretty much like that of an Ursaring, he was just quite a bit larger, and his upper body was a lot broader. Mars looked like one of those people that were living in the gym to bulk up, and now that I looked at it, I noticed that his arms were also bulkier than before.

While that was the first thing I noticed, it was certainly not the most apparent change. That honor went to the ring he used to have on his belly. The ring had turned into a full circle and the fur in that place was reddish-orange.

It actually looked like a sun, and after taking a closer look at it, I noticed that there were four red spots at the edge of the sun. One red blotch at the southwest, southeast, northwest, and northeast each. I also noticed that he had a strip of red fur going around his neck, and his claws, both at the hands and legs.

Moreover, he actually had flaming eyebrows and an orange circle on his forehead, which I assumed was supposed to be a sun as well. The sun and flaming eyebrows were not the only addition/change to his face. He gained fur extensions to his cheeks that looked like the ones he had on his shoulders, and the extensions in both locations had reddish parts as well.

The last difference I noticed on his face was his eyes. Not only were they rounder, but they were orange. The shade was pretty close to the orange sun on his forehead, even if the orange of his eyes was a bit lighter.

Speaking of the sun on his forehead, it actually lit up in flames when Mars released a shout of happiness at having finally completely reigned in the heat and light he was causing. That was not the only thing that lit up, not at all.

All those red fur areas began spurting flames, and I actually noticed that even his tail had caught fire. From the part I could see, I was sure that it was still spherical in shape, which probably meant, that now with it being on fire, it was probably the most sun-looking part of his body.

Also, the fire released from all areas aside from the orange sun on his belly was of the yellow-orange-red kind, but the fire coming out from the four spots on his belly was red.

Naturally, there were a lot of exclamations of surprise when Mars suddenly began to spurt flames all over his body, and he quickly reigned in the flames while looking sheepish. Once all fires, aside from his still flaming eyebrows were out, I went up to him.

"Congratulations, big guy. You did it," I told him before I tried to pat his head. I changed my target to his belly when I noticed that his shoulders and head were currently out of my reach.

It made sense since he had gone from 193 cm to about 250ish cm, so his shoulders and head were a bit higher than they used to be. Mars noticed my predicament and chuckled a bit before sitting down, which brought his head down to shoulder height.

Seeing his action for what it was, I switched to his head and began to scratch his favorite spot, which was at the base of his right ear. He released a happy purr, which stopped when I had to quickly pull back my hand due to his forehead, or rather the sun on his forehead, lighting up. He gave me an apologetic and bashful look while quickly putting the flame back out.

"Sorry," he said rather sheepishly but I waved him off. "It's fine. You've just evolved, so stuff like that is normal," I told him before extending my hand out once again. I began to scratch his favorite spot once more and the other also came over at that moment.

When they began to congratulate him, I stopped my ministrations, which actually made him throw puppy eyes my way. While it looked a bit funny on a big, strong bear such as Mars, it was still rather effective, especially now that his eyes were rounder.

His light orange irises were also increasing the lethal factor of his puppy eyes, the way they were glistening. Still, I managed to resist those eyes thanks to all the weapons of mass cuteness I had to resist on a regular basis.

"Later," I promised him while giving him a final pat on the head. After that, I let the others do their thing. Still, this time I did not directly take a look at the status screen, since I still had to take a look at Mars' backside. This was the first time I had seen the species Mars had evolved into after all, so I was curious if there was anything new/different on his backside.

I circled the sitting Mars, moving to his backside, and after taking a good look at it, I failed to see any real difference. His back was certainly wider, but I had already noted that his upper body had broadened, so that was due to that as well.

He still had his rather big spherical tail, which I had seen light up, so there was that, but even then, there was no visual change to his tail compared to before. It seemed his back was as spotless as it could be, so I just shrugged and let it be. Honestly, the reason I even thought that there might have been something was that I remembered Ursaluna having spikes on its back.

Anyway, after having confirmed that Mars' back was change-free, I went ahead and checked his new status screen to see what kind of changes his evolution had caused.

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