CH87 (701), Back On The Road

The next morning, after the morning training session, I left Utopia and made my way to the western exit of Hardfort City with Mothra/Butterfree nesting on my head. The next step of my journey was Brightwick City, which was home to a Gym with a fire specialization. According to what I read on the map while planning the route, the distance between Hardfort City and Brightwick City was 670 km, but that was in a straight line, which I sometimes strayed from, though I did not go off course by much.

Still, it was safe to say that it would likely take me closer to 700 km to arrive in Brightwick City. I was reckoning that arriving in Brightwick City should take me/us between 12 to 14 days if we traveled at the same pace we used to travel to Hardfort City. Anyway, I briefly stopped once I made it to the periphery of the city. I then brought out the map and took another look at it before putting it away.

Afterward, I checked if I had my compass in my pocket since I was pretty sure that I was going to need it to stay on course. It was nearly guaranteed that we would not be able to travel in a straight line since I had promised the Eevee Squad that I would let them join me today and as nice as it was for them to be as energetic as they were, I was pretty sure that expecting to be able to walk in a straight line with them would be delusional.

Nonetheless, as long as I checked the compass every 30 minutes or so and ensured that we were going in the right direction we should be golden right? No, I had to be more confident. There was no need for negative thoughts, I was sure that nothing would go wrong. Besides, even if we ended up going a bit off course, an extra day or two was not the end of the world.

Mothra patting me on the head and asking me to stop daydreaming snapped me out of my musing. I just smiled at her eagerness to get going and brought the whole Eevee Squad out of Utopia. I also brought out Thor/Raichu and Hades/Gengar. Hades gave everyone a happy greeting before directly diving into my shadow head first with a cheerful laugh. After he did that I cleared my throat to attract everyone's attention.

"Alright, please don't forget what we agreed on," I began once I had everyone's attention. "You can roam around but only as long as you are within easy detection distance, so make sure you don't move more than 800 meters away from me," I reminded them and they all nodded enthusiastically. 

I could detect them even further away than that, but that was if I focused only in one direction. 800 meters was close to my comfortable detection limit if I spread my senses in all directions. This was naturally only because I could discern them thanks to our bond. Without that, I would have a hard time telling them apart from the other signs that were most likely going to appear on my "radar".

Anyway, we set out after that. I had no plans to capture any Pokemon unless something really interesting showed up, so I ignored most wild Pokemon. Only on occasion did I stop to battle one of the wild Pokemon, mostly to give Squirtle, Beldum, Vendrak/Salandit, and the iron as well as bronze stage reserve members a chance to battle. They were also the ones who got the most chances to battle against the trainers that we came across. Well, at least when I accepted a challenge, since I refused whenever I did not feel like battling.

Actually, those were only the battles I was actively involved with. I knew for a fact that the Eevee Squad, aside from Nyx/Umbreon who chose to act as the supervisor of her siblings, went ahead and battled some wild Pokemon while they were roaming around. I knew that because they excitedly ran back to me to tell me about it each time they beat a Pokemon, obviously wanting to be praised which I naturally did, though I made sure to tell them to avoid those below the silver stage if possible, unless a suicidal weakling insisted on courting death.

Jokes aside, I told them to not leave their opponents in a critical condition if possible since that would likely not end well for the Pokemon in question considering that we were currently in the wild. That could naturally be ignored if the other side insistently tries to cripple or kill them during their battle. My older Pokemon already knew all this but the Eevee Squad aside from Nyx didn't since they had not been in this situation before, which was why I made sure they knew how to handle these situations.

The first day went by just like that, and by the time I moved us all to Utopia for dinner at 8:30 p.m., we had covered roughly 65 km which honestly was more than I expected to cover, but the Eevee Squad's enthusiasm meant that I occasionally had to speed up my walking pace for one reason or the other. After dinner, I finally started on fulfilling a promise I gave roughly a month ago.

Under the watch of everyone, I let Stan/Gyarados (royal) take any posture he wanted before I began to make a sand sculpture of him to add to the giant sand sculpture I made for the Beach/Sand Art Contest back in Lilycove City. Despite there being no rules against it now, I still did the sand sculpture mostly by hand except for the compacting part which was necessary to ensure the sculpture's durability.

While using my psychic and ground abilities would no doubt have been faster, it was a matter of fairness for me. Since I had made the sculpture I made for the contest by hand, I had to do so for the rest as well to show that I was willing to put in the same amount of effort for them as well. While I was sure that none of my Pokemon would complain even if I did speed things up using psychic and ground abilities, it just wouldn't feel right to me, so the time-consuming way it was.

It took me nearly 20 minutes to make a satisfactory Stan sculpture, but considering Stan's size that was already quite good. "What do you think?" I asked Stan after finishing the last cut on the tail of the sculpture. "{I like it. Thank you for your hard work}," Stan answered with an obvious tinge of happiness in his voice. "{It looks awesome. Do me next, please}," Aby/Gyarados (dark) chimed in full of excitement and eagerness.

"Sure, pose however you want," I told her after the others agreed to let her go first. Aby tried different poses, and I waited for her to finally settle on one before I began working on her sand sculpture. It took me another 20 minutes to finish her sculpture. "{It looks amazing}," Aby cried out as soon as I was done before I could even say anything. All I could do was chuckle at her enthusiasm and move on.

"I'm happy that you like it," I told her before looking at the others. "So, who wants to go next," I asked them and they looked at each other. "{Let Jade go next, followed by Medusa}," Ryujin/Gyarados (dragon) spoke up first. "{I don't mind going last}," Jade/Gyarados (grass) said in return, which had both Ryujin and Ignis/Gyarados (fire) shake their heads. "{Ryu already said his bit and I agree. You girls go first}," Ignis refuted and it was clear that he was not going to budge now that he said it.

"{Sis, just go along with it. These two Mudsdale won't change their minds now that they've said it out loud}," Medusa/Gyarados (poison) spoke up sounding a bit too amused when she essentially called Ryujin and Ignis mules. "{You don't have to insult us}," Ignis grumbled before muttering "{poisonous tongue}" and "{we were just trying to be nice}", which just made Medusa laugh in amusement.

"{Fine, but you go first}," Jade relented before telling Medusa to go first. "Alright, then let's start. Medusa, take the pose you want me to copy," I spoke up before they could continue to debate who should go first. Medusa tried three different positions before she found one she liked, and like Stan and Aby's sculptures, hers took me close to 20 minutes as well.

After that, I quickly moved on to create Jade, Ignis, and Ryujin's sculptures in that order, which took me an additional hour. It was already 11 p.m. at this point, so I decided to stop here for the day. It was honestly a bit surprising that everyone had really spent two hours watching me work on sand sculptures without getting bored, but they did.

Still, I was done sculpting for the night, so I asked them what they wanted to do for the next hour since I was planning to go to bed after that. They asked me to play a few tunes for them, so I made myself comfortable, took out my ocarina, and began to play Scarborough Fair. I continued playing for an hour before stopping and telling everyone to disperse.

The next two days went pretty much the same way as well, with me leaving Utopia after the morning training session at 9 a.m. I then was on the road until 8:30 p.m. after which I had dinner with everyone inside Utopia before I once again began to work on sand sculptures. I eventually stopped at 11 p.m. and then played the ocarina for an hour for my Pokemon.

Arcday began like that as well, but there was a slight deviation during lunch. As usual, my second thought was keeping an eye on our surroundings while we were eating, and my third thought stream kept an eye on Utopia. It was thought stream no.3 that noticed that the latest batch of Pinkan Berries was ripe for harvest. I manipulated Utopia and harvested all berries before planting them to increase the number of Pinkan Berry trees.

I had done so with all Pinkan Berries that had grown so far but after planting the last batch just now, I decided to finally stop replanting all Pikan berries that successfully grew. There was no reason to increase the number of Pinkan Berry trees any further since the number of trees was already sufficient for my plan. Starting today I would stock up for the Pinkan project.

A Pinkan Berry Tree took 30 days to fully mature after which it was capable of growing Pinkan berries, though the tree still continued to grow even after that. During the first decade of the Pinkan Berry tree's life, the growth cycle of the Pinkan Berry was 4-6 days, and each tree could grow 6-9 berries during every growth cycle. Thanks to the initial 20 Pinkan Berries I had planted on the cruise, I currently had another 284 Pinkan Berry trees that were currently growing, though it would take 25 days for the first half to mature and 30 days for the second half.

After that, I would be able to harvest an average of around 2280 Pinkan Berries every 5 or so days. Stocking up for a month would let me amass more than 12k berries, which should be more than enough to support the first round of my Pinkan experiment, though I would first have to wait a month for all trees to mature, so the official start of the Pinkan project would have to wait for approximately 2 more months.

I obviously did not mind waiting a mere two months for something like a potential shiny mine, so I was in a good mood after settling the issue which Mothra and the others naturally noticed. I straightforwardly told them about the reason for my good mood, though I did do it through telepathy to avoid the chance of being overheard by a passing trainer. Coincidences happened and even if one of my thought streams was on the lookout, accidents could still happen, so it was better to be safe than sorry with such information.

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