CH78 (442), The Grind Continues

The first week of the new month had a pretty promising start. Horus/Xatu began his limit-breaking on Giratiday, and by the end of Dialday, we managed to reach a new high of 73% with our Arctic Heart project. An increase of 3% within a week, 5 days actually, was pretty good and I was really hoping that we could keep that progress speed up.

Unfortunately, I knew that we would be slowing down at some point since that always happened whenever one came close to the end. Regardless, there was no need to drag down our enthusiasm with such thoughts, and we maintained our enthusiastic work.

Throughout the second week and third weeks, we managed to keep our progress speed pretty steady, so we were pretty happy overall. However, on the personal front, it was rather quiet for me right up until Kyoday of the third week, which was when Bruce officially started his limit-breaking training.

The little bat had managed to catch up with his iron stage senpais, and he did not forget to encourage his big bro Eggy even though he had surpassed him by quite a bit. I could see how moved Eggy was due to Bruce's gesture, and he showed it by training extra seriously during his next training session.

The next week was the last full one for this month, and the same was true for the weekend since the month ended on Mewday the week after this one. So, when I took stock of the situation of my Rattata project on Grouday, it was the last one of the month.

The project group grew by 3 Rattata within the last two months, which was honestly not much. I was however not really surprised by that since it was hard to find any additional Rattata among the ones I had, and I had not bothered searching for/procuring any Rattata from the outside.

The three new additions were among the Rattata that had been born inside Utopia 12-14 months ago and had recently grown out of their baby phase, which qualified them for the supplement test.

They were Utopians, even if they were sub-space ones, so they went through the same optimization process they would have if they had been born in the main space.

Regardless, since they were quite young, I gave them a relatively low dose to ensure that they did not experience any pain or discomfort due to an overdose of energy. I would keep doing that until they were 1 year old, after which the training wheels would come off so to say.

Moving on, aside from the new additions, we had one Rattata that actually gained an affinity. That one belonged to the fire affinity group. It is also the only group that had one of its members with a weak affinity gain a full-fledged one. The other affinity groups had some movement between budding and weak, but none of them attained a standard grade affinity. What can I say, it was a slow two months.

Anyway, the final two days of the month passed as well, and by the time we clocked out on Mewday, we had an Arctic Heart with a fusion rate of 84%, which was our current best. We were closing in on the last 10%, and we were confident that we could make it within the next two or three weeks.

The rest of the week tied up quite nicely, with Kun/Azuraid finishing his second round of limit-breaking. Moreover, his agility was already at SSS, so his first step toward the gold stage was already taken.

Then on Palkiday, around 4 p.m., it actually happened, we managed to break past the 90% milestone for the first time thanks to an Arctic Heart that managed a fusion rate of 91%. Our initial thought of 2 or 3 weeks seemed to be off by a bit since it only took around a week and a half, but it definitely was a welcome surprise.

Honestly, our progress shot from 88% straight to 91% with that one Arctic Heart, so it was a little lucky event for us. The following weeks were not as lucky, but at the end of the fourth week, on Grouday, I saw that Anubis/Riolu actually managed to complete his limit-breaking.

That was great news since it not only meant that he could now break through to the silver stage but also that he could finally evolve. Well, he could theoretically have evolved a long time ago since the usual optimal evolution point for Pokemon with only a single evolution was at the (high) bronze stage.

However, the whole friendship and daytime thing were too "triggery" for us to ignore, and since the optimal evolution point for Pokemon with an actual trigger evolution, as in a physical external trigger, was at the (high) silver stage, we compromised and delayed his evolution until now. As for the friendship requirement, we had met that one long ago.

Even Togepi had met the friendship requirement for her evolution to Togetic by now, but we were still waiting for her to reach the optimal evolution point. Otherwise, she would have already evolved months ago.

Anyway, everyone gathered at Anubis' habitat to witness the double event. Such an occasion was rare even for us, so everyone was excited. Regardless, I ignored them to focus on Anubis instead. He was naturally going to evolve to Lucario first before breaking through to the silver stage to ensure that the starting parameters were based on Lucario's much superior racial values.

As always, I applied everything I had prepared for his body while feeding him the supplements that had to be consumed. I then gave him a pat on the head along with a final word of encouragement before I stepped back and joined the others in the circle around Anubis. I gave him the go-ahead, and we all saw him shine with the light of evolution.

Everyone enjoyed the light show and once the light died down, I went up to Anubis, who was checking out his new Lucario body. I saw him inspect the spikes on top of his hand before he poked the spike growing out of his chest.

Furthermore, he had grown quite a bit, and I saw his surprise when he only had to slightly tilt his head upwards to look me in the eyes, instead of having to crane his head up like before. Well, going from 80 cm to 160 cm could do that to someone.

Nonetheless, I just chuckled and pat his head before congratulating him on his successful evolution. The others took that as their sign and rushed up as well. I was already used to that and simply began looking through Anubis' status screen while the others did their thing.

'Name: Anubis

Species: Lucario*

Gender: Male

Age: 10+ years

-

Type: Fighting, Steel*

Potential: Light Purple (66.35%)*

{Light Purple (18.67%) -> (21.58%) -> (66.35%)}

(Genetic) Modifiers: Blessed by Aura

Abilities: Inner Focus, Prankster

Talents: Auralize

Affinities: Fighting, Aura, Steel*

-

Bond: Mikail (weak)

Quirks: None

----

Parameters:

Stage: Bronze Stage (high)

Vitality: SSS

Strength: SSS

Endurance: SSS

Agility: SSS

Energy Capacity: SSS

Energy Density: SSS'

His species obviously changed to Lucario and looking at his type section, I could see that the steel typing had been added. Right below that was his potential, and I saw that the supplements I gave him helped increase his potential by nearly 45%, which was a pretty great increase.

Anubis was really happy when I told him how much his potential had grown, and the others looked just as happy for him. I continued looking and saw that the sections after that remained unchanged, until the type relation section, which went through an extremely dramatic change due to the addition of the steel typing.

'Immunity:

Poison*

-

Resistance:

Bug (Major)*, Rock (Major)*, Dark (Minor), Normal (Minor)*, Grass (Minor)*, Ice (Minor)*, Dragon (Minor)*, Steel (Minor)*

-

Weaknesses:

Fire (Minor)*, Fighting (Minor)*, Ground (Minor)*

-

Standardized:

None {Flying*, Psychic*, Fairy*}

----

Condition: Healthy, Elated, Excited

----

Masteries:

Fighting Energy Manipulation (Proficient) -> (Advanced)

Aura Manipulation (Proficient)

Steel Energy Manipulation (Proficient)*

----

Techniques:

-

(Unofficial) Initial:

N/A

-

Novice:

Final Gambit (new)

-

Beginner:

Quick Guard, Helping Hand (+)

-

Proficient:

Foresight, Quick Attack, Metal Claw, Iron Defense, Rock Smash, Bite, Work Up, Counter, Screech, Crunch, Close Combat (++), Sword Dance (++), Copycat (+), Feint (+), Nasty Plot (+), Reversal (+), Vacuum Wave (new), Low Kick (new), Low Sweep (new), Protect (new)

-

Advanced:

Force Palm (+), Bulk Up (+), Bullet Punch (+), Endure (+)

-

Mastered:

Aura Sphere (+)'

The first change was the immunity to poison, which was quite useful. The resistance subsection had grown considerably, and the only thing that had not changed was his (minor) dark resistance. His bug and rock resistances were upgraded to (major), and he got an additional 5 (minor) resistances. If that was not impressive, I did not know what was.

As for his weaknesses, he still had 3 of them, but all of them had been swapped out. The only reason the standardized subsection was still free, was because natural changes caused by evolution were not considered in there. Otherwise, the flying, psychic, and fairy types would have been listed in the standardized section.

Looking through the rest of his status screen, I saw that the only other change caused by his evolution was the addition of the steel energy manipulation, which started at (proficient) mastery right off the bat thanks to the steel-type moves Anubis already knew.

Once I was done going over the status screen, I gave the others another 2 to 3 minutes before I told them to step back once more. While they were doing that, I gave Anubis another pat, but this time on his shoulder since he had grown a lot before I joined the rest.

Meanwhile, Anubis initiated his breakthrough as soon as I joined the others in the circle. The whole thing did not take too long and as soon as it was over I went up to him once more. I congratulated him on reaching the silver stage and directly began checking his new status screen. The others were just rushing up while I was looking at Anubis' potential.

'Name: Anubis

Species: Lucario

Gender: Male

Age: 10+ years

-

Type: Fighting, Steel

Potential: Deep Purple (26.35%)*

{Light Purple (66.35%) -> Deep Purple (26.35%)}

(Genetic) Modifiers: Blessed by Aura

Abilities: Inner Focus, Prankster

Talents: Auralize

Affinities: Fighting, Aura, Steel

-

Bond: Mikail (weak)

Quirks: None

----

Parameters:

Stage: Silver Stage (high)

Vitality: D

Strength: B

Endurance: D

Agility: C

Energy Capacity: B

Energy Density: D

----

Immunity:

Poison

-

Resistance:

Bug (Major), Rock (Major), Dark (Minor), Normal (Minor), Grass (Minor), Ice (Minor), Dragon (Minor), Steel (Minor)

-

Weaknesses:

Fire (Minor), Fighting (Minor), Ground (Minor)

-

Standardized:

None

----

Condition: Healthy, Happy, Excited

----

Masteries:

Fighting Energy Manipulation (Advanced)

Aura Manipulation (Proficient)

Steel Energy Manipulation (Proficient)

----

Techniques:

-

(Unofficial) Initial:

N/A

-

Novice:

Final Gambit

-

Beginner:

Quick Guard, Helping Hand

-

Proficient:

Foresight, Quick Attack, Metal Claw, Iron Defense, Rock Smash, Bite, Work Up, Counter, Screech, Crunch, Close Combat, Sword Dance, Copycat, Feint, Nasty Plot, Reversal, Vacuum Wave, Low Kick, Low Sweep, Protect

-

Advanced:

Force Palm, Bulk Up, Bullet Punch, Endure

-

Mastered:

Aura Sphere'

My boy now had deep purple potential and was already slightly more than a fourth of the way to light aurora. Still, with his current potential, it was a given that he would attain light aurora potential upon breaking through to the gold stage.

So, Anubis was another guaranteed member of the aurora club, and honestly, there were already quite a lot of members. These were supposed to be super duper ultra-rare, but I already had six of them, with a lot more on the way. Utopia and my observe function were obscenely unfair to the rest of the world, but I liked it.

Anyway, he had not unlocked anything new during his breakthrough, but he was already quite literally blessed in that regard, and his blessing played a significant role in his starting parameters. It was thanks to the 25% bonus from his aura blessing and the limit-breaking bonus that Anubis got to start directly at the (high) silver stage. He had two parameters starting at B, which was rather impressive.

The rest of his status screen was literally no different from before, so after telling him the changes, we directly moved on to everyone's favorite part, the celebration.

The next few days after that passed by rather quickly. Before I knew it, it was Palkiday and the next month was at the door. Sadly we did not manage to produce a viable Arctic Heart, but we managed to create an Arctic Heart with a fusion rate of 96%.

The output was currently somewhere between 6 and 7 out of 10, and the fusion rate average of a batch of Arctic Hearts was at 87%, with the lowest ones not being below 83%. That was honestly not bad, considering that we were more focused on getting a "successful" Arctic Heart first, before focusing more on the other two, no doubt, important factors.

-----------------------------

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