23 The deets

As I saw my father out the door after a long talk that took the morning and stretched into the afternoon, I had a lot to process about the situation, nothing life changing just need to take these things into account from now on

First let's go over Pokémon potential, a topic that was a bit of an earful, let's start off with grades from worst to know best

-Red

-orange

-yellow

-green

-blue

-purple

-???

Now you're probably think fuck red right?, well that would be a mistake because the talent grades while limiting to their upper strength do not make Pokémon less dangerous, red potential while only being able to hit intermediate in strength, compared to humans it's still an animal with super powers..

Now into orange, again it's a Pokémon so don't get cocky, limited to advanced strength, and also the meat and potatoes of pretty much every kingdoms army, but we will get that that

Yellow, pretty much only knights and above can obtain these due to their "rarity" and pricing, can reach elite rank which is strong.

Green is noble only Pokémon, able to reach the king rank, and it's apparently the lowest a Pokémon can learn hyper beam, but also insanely rare.

Blue, pretty much reserved for royalty only, and can reach champion rank, I'm sure some nobles have somehow lucked and and acquired one or two over time, but again needle in a VERY big haystack.

Purple, it's a myth, urban legend to commoners but I don't believe that there are none , I'm sure people have them and just don't advertise it, but according to pops the last know purple grade in the kingdom died in a battle 200 years ago

And ??? Is more of an assumption, legendary exist, and people assume them to be above purple so, yeah.

And talent grade effects a few things….first is learning and growth speed, orange compared to red is a large margin, and it continues like that, and talent CAN be upgraded with the right resources but it's insanely difficult and expensive, so better to be born with it I guess.

But just because your mon has green grade doesn't mean it's stronger than a yellow, no it requires massive amounts of training and resources for them to grow "properly" and as I stated before a lot of people don't know the best ways, just kinda shooting in the dark because people don't share.

Grade talent also increases lifespan, a green grade Pokémon can live for hundreds of years even without training, but reaching their max strength they could potentially live thousands

Now how they check their grades is a special tool created by the karate dog cult, or the aura guardians as they like to call themselves.

Remember me saying 98% of aura users are cool, I'm pretty sure the 2% run that cult, they are established in every kingdom, they are basically this worlds Jedi order, kidnapping kids with aura, brainwashing them into believing they are saving the world

... by doing nothing, they don't help the poor, they don't fight Pokémon waves, they don't. Fight wars, they say "we keep the balance", what balance?, they more or less say "don't go to places with strong Pokémon, you're not aloud to have a karate dog unless you're one of us, now give us money"

Not getting good vibes from the info I got from pops about them, but in this world and people being as dumb as they are see the guardians as some sort of force of good, and they might be, but I don't buy it….

And while on the "religion" topic, only 2 religions are known in this and adjacent kingdoms, Karate dogs cult and the dramatic space lama collective or the arceus church , which actually doesn't sound to bad, they have churches that praise arceus, but unlike the other guys they don't get all flashy and up in your face or ask for money, they merely appreciate the fact of his existence, and for donations they only ask for food, or your time, like taking a day to help them fix things

So they aren't materialistic and they seem happy to help out anyone, they don't get involved in human politics or anything and their Pokémon are pretty much all healers, they don't charge money, just give what you can give and they are stoked.

Ok we got off topic, now onto Pokémon strength which has 3 stages in between of each stage of strength so a sub stag, of low, mid and high. So like low-intermediate strength

-baby

-beginner

-intermediate

-advanced

-elite

-king

-champion

-guardian

Pops went on about strength and what not but it boiled down to the next rank is stronger… again orange grade being able to reach advanced is the bread and butter of any kingdoms fighting force, which is quite strong but still manageable

The problem starts are the elite rank, they become true monsters, attacks that just Devastate and bodys that take majorly reduced damage from anything under them, it has something to do with energy in their body, a bit cultivationy for my tastes but it is what it is, and it basically goes on the same from there…..elite fucking anything below, king fucking elites, champion gutter stomping king and guardian taking a giant dump on everyone else.

The kingdom only has 3 champion ranked Pokémon, a garchomp belonging to the former king who retired called Kane Sinnoh, his brother Jordan Sinnoh with a torterra and the current king Maximus Sinnoh with his infernape, so they are rare.

A fair few nobles have king ranks, my father for one with his Lickilicky, I have only met it once and I can say with confidence it shouldn't exist, ugly as sin that thing. Turns out my father prefers Normal types….. but he has black hair... so by normal standards he should train dark types right?

It turns out that the azumarill he had was a wedding "gift" from jades father, of course it was a marril egg at the time, but he raised it all the same, never bonded with it much though, and after today she is pretty much mine, azumarill seemed thrilled at the news… she's actually elite rank with yellow talent grade

Anyway… the Sinnoh kingdom just like all kingdoms only this continent are coastal bound, I say that but the kingdom extends tens of thousands of kilometres in land but that's not the point, the point is, travelling between kingdoms is not to bad provide you stick to the established routes, because champion Pokémon are rare in human society, not so much in the wilds.

And so the coasts are generally clear of stronger Pokémon, the real monsters are more in land, but anyways we have Johto kingdom to the south, about the same size as Sinnoh, and our relationship isn't great, I would say bad even, we still trade and stuff at the moment but tensions are higher than comfortable, and to the south of Johto, is Kanto kingdom, smaller than Johto but still strong enough, they are at the corner of the coast so they have to expand outwards, we are all on the east coast by the way, no one has seen the west coast because explorers who take the land route and sailors who take the sea route never return.

But To the north is the Unova kingdom, we don't really have beef with them, so we mostly just trade, and yeah those are the important kingdoms to know for us…

War breaking out isn't due to resources or not enough space for the population or anything along those lines, it's due to the ambitions off fucking tosser nobles on both sides having a pissing contest, and it's easier to take land from people than Pokémon, but there is only one land round in between the kingdoms due to a big snorlax family chilling on the coast, normally they would deal with that, but rumour is a Guardian level snorlax is watching over the place so, it would come at HUGE sacrifice that's even if they win.

Anyway a war would just be stupid according to dad, with one land route attacking on land would just be a bloody slog on who ever was pushing, and they can't make a big sea campaign because they might attract swarms of gyarados.

So I'm a little more learned now, still got some time so I'll go visit the herb shop and see what goodies I can find and actually cook something good tonight.

Always liked cooking...hated cleaning up.