CH30 (260), The Improvements Keep Coming

Well, we ended up buying her 3 pairs of jeans and 3 skirts, the kind that goes until the middle of the shin, from Moon's Design, the store we bought the hoodies last year.

Mom said that one of each pair of jeans and skirt for one of the hoodies, so she could match them. Dad and I chose to trust her on this and just nodded.

The rest of the day was spent strolling around. I did occasionally get approached because got recognized, and some even asked me if I was planning to become a rotan citizen. I answered them as diplomatically as I answered the host, and thankfully nobody insisted on getting a straight answer.

The funny thing was that even the RDCI, which was the Rota Department of Citizenship and Immigration, send me a message asking if I wanted to apply for citizenship and that they would be willing to expedite the process for me by a lot.

Well, actually they added that they could get it done by Arcday, which was the day after tomorrow. I was even suspecting that they would have gotten it done within a day if tomorrow had not been Grouday, which was a day that most government services were closed.

Heh, looks like I was not important enough to work on their day off. Anyway, I wrote back that I was still thinking about it, not planning to let anyone pressure me into anything.

That evening I saw that Abzu/Milotic and Tiamat/Milotic's Strength had reached A on the same day, which meant that the two could officially start their limit breaking.

That they improved on the same day did not surprise me as much. While Abzu had a small head start when I got the two, on top of having a better potential than Tiamat, the overall bonus she received due to her shiny gene made up for that difference.

In fact, she was a bit ahead of him parameter-wise right now. Still, Abzu was somewhat keeping up thanks to his higher potential, for now. I was hoping he would unlock a gene within the next two stages, or that difference was only going to grow.

Still, taking a look at their status screens made me happy since I got to see how far they had come since joining me as Feebas.

'Name: Abzu

Species: Milotic

Gender: Male

Age: 9+ Years

-

Type: Water

Potential: Purple (0.42%)

Genetic variation: None

Abilities: Marvel Scale, Competitive

Talents: None

Affinities: Water

-

Bond: Mikail (strong)

Quirks: None

----

Parameters:

Stage: Silver Stage (high)

Vitality: A

Strength: A

Endurance: A

Agility: A

Energy Capacity: A

Energy Density: S

----

Resistance: Fire (Minor), Water (Minor), Ice (Minor), Steel (Minor)

-

Weaknesses: Electric (Minor), Grass (Minor)

-

Standardized:

Electric (in-progress)

----

Condition: Healthy, Happy

----

Masteries:

Water Energy Manipulation (Proficient) -> (Advanced)

----

Techniques:

-

(Unofficial) Initial:

N/A

-

Novice:

Attract (new), Captivate (new)

-

Beginner:

Flail, Wrap (new, +), Disarming Voice (new, +), Recover (new, +), Water Sport (new, +)

-

Proficient:

Splash, Tackle, Life Dew (+), Aqua Ring (+), Safeguard (+), Dragon Tail (+), Twister (+), Surf (new, ++), Hydro Pump (new, ++), Refresh (new, ++)

-

Advanced:

Water Pulse, Ice Beam, Scald, Endure, Coil, Rain Dance (+), Protect (+), Iron Tail (+), Aqua Tail (+)

-

Mastered:

Water Gun'

Abzu's potential had recently reached purple, so that was impressive, but both his gene as well as talent section were empty. To be honest, I was occasionally contemplating if I should really bank my hopes on the probability that he could unlock something during his breakthroughs to either the gold or the dark gold stage.

There was the possibility of inducing a gene change by myself, kinda like I did for my Magikarp, and I had looked into my super library regarding that to look up any research on the Milotic line. It was certainly possible but the consequences in case I failed were quite serious.

In the worst case, Abzu could die, and if he survived it was highly probable that he would lose some of his strength and potential due to the failure. The risk of such "treatments" was higher on evolved Pokemon than it was on unevolved Pokemon.

Furthermore, the stronger the Pokemon was the harder it was to effectively use such treatments since they were more resistant to external change. There were many such examples stored inside the super library.

Still, I did find documents regarding research on variant Milotic along with theories on how to induce those variations artificially. Yet, the success rate was not that high and I did not want to risk it with one of my main members.

If he had at least had an affinity besides water, then I could have used that as a basis to increase the success rate of the undertaking. However, since that was not the case I had to wait.

I actually had an idea how to help a bit despite that but that was a pretty long-term undertaking so he would probably break through to the gold stage before I would see any effect of the alternative.

Nonetheless, I was going to do it since it might increase the chances of something good happening during his breakthrough to the gold stage. I mean it did not hurt Abzu and could not be considered as wasting time, so there was no harm in doing it.

Well, aside from all that, his parameters showed that he was ready to start limit breaking and his Energy Density was already at S, so he had done the first step right from the start.

His type relation section had not changed and he was still working on that electric resistance. Still, like many others that have been working on their resistance training, Abzu had made some good progress. I was sure that he would be done within the next two years, at least I hoped so.

Abzu had learned some good new moves, keeping a balance between utility moves and offensive ones. He even kept that balance with the moves he raised to advanced mastery. Still, raising Rain Dance and Aqua Tail to advanced mastery was enough to finally raise his water energy manipulation to advanced mastery as well.

There was actually a pretty big difference in the training direction of their moves between Abzu and Tiamat, that had to do with the difference in ability and talent. Unlike Abzu, Tiamat was much less offensive-oriented in the moves she focused on.

While their current move pool was practically identical, the mastery of certain moves was completely different between the two.

'Name: Tiamat

Species: Milotic

Gender: Female

Age: 9+ Years

-

Type: Water

Potential: Light Purple (69.42%) -> (76.07%)

Genetic variation: Shiny

Abilities: Marvel Scale, Cute Charm

Talents: Universal

Affinities: Water

-

Bond: Mikail (strong)

Quirks: None

----

Parameters:

Stage: Silver Stage (high)

Vitality: A

Strength: A

Endurance: A

Agility: A

Energy Capacity: S

Energy Density: S

----

Resistance: Fire (Minor), Water (Minor), Ice (Minor), Steel (Minor)

-

Weaknesses: Electric (Minor), Grass (Minor)

-

Standardized:

Electric (in-progress)

----

Condition: Healthy, Happy

----

Masteries:

Water Energy Manipulation (Proficient) -> (Advanced)

----

Techniques:

-

(Unofficial) Initial:

N/A

-

Novice:

N/A

-

Beginner:

Flail, Safeguard, Dragon Tail, Water Sport (new, +)

-

Proficient:

Splash, Tackle, Iron Tail, Aqua Tail, Coil, Wrap (new, ++), Disarming Voice (new, ++), Recover (new, ++), Refresh (new, ++), Aqua Ring (++), Twister (+), Surf (new, ++), Hydro Pump (new, ++),

-

Advanced:

Water Pulse, Ice Beam, Scald, Endure, Life Dew (++), Attract (new, +++), Captivate (new, +++), Rain Dance (+), Protect (+)

-

Mastered:

Water Gun'

For example, Tiamat had completely forgone raising another offensive move to advanced mastery and focused completely on utility moves, especially ones that could make use of her ability and talent like Attract and Captivate, which Abzu had directly ignored after learning.

Yes, Tiamat's talent Universal did not only affect her Cute Charm ability, but all her moves as well, so moves like Attract and Captivate worked on Pokemon of the same gender as well, and even Oblivious Pokemon were affected. There was simply no escape from Tiamat's charm.

Still, even if her focus had been more on raising those utility moves, she had enough offensive moves that she was proficient in, along with the moves she had raised to advanced mastery before I started going to the academy, and in the worst case, she had her trusted mastered Water Gun.

Tiamat also had raised her water energy manipulation to advanced mastery, just like Abzu, and her resistance training was also still ongoing. However, unlike Abzu, Tiamat already had two parameters at S-value, her Energy Capacity, and Energy Density, which was why she was a bit ahead of Abzu, at least parameter-wise.

The rest of her status screen had not changed if we disregarded the increase of her potential by a bit more than 6.5%, which was pretty good progress for roughly two years taking into account that her potential was light purple.

Still, she was missing nearly 24% to reach purple potential, so if not for the limit-breaking bonus she was going to receive, I'd have to wait 4 more years for her to reach that point through supplements. Maybe even more than 4 years, due to the generally diminishing effect of supplements after too much use.

Anyway, I congratulated the two on their success and we had a small celebration. We were having a lot of celebrations, but I did not mind that since it kept everyone happy and motivated, which was pretty important in my humble opinion.

Grouday was spent relaxing with my parents and answering phone calls from acquaintances that had seen or heard one of the shows I participated in. Well, most called after listening to "Good morning, Rota!" since most of my acquaintances were from Rota.

This was actually the second or even the third time some of them were calling me, but I remained polite since they were just excited that one they knew had repeatedly appeared on TV and radio.

Once Arcday came around I decided to go out from some good old pressure training, but the only one that remained on my list was Saphira/Swablu. Well, I could add Horus/Xatu due to a technicality since he only had to finish the final round of limit breaking, even if that was something that would probably take close to a year.

In that same vein, Mothra/Butterfree could be added as well since she only had to increase two parameters once to reach the (high) gold stage. However, since she had just gone through her breakthrough, her stock of excesses/residues from supplements should be pretty low.

Hmm, I could add Ali/Kirlia to the list as well, since he had begun his limit-breaking training after his Strength had reached A two weeks ago. Still, just like with Horus, I was expecting it to take 1 year for him to be done with his limit breaking. Actually, it might take him longer than a year, since he had yet to have a single parameter at S-value.

Nonetheless, the list was pretty empty, so I just added him in as well. I decided to add Nyx/Umbreon in too since she only needed her Energy Capacity to reach A before he could start her limit breaking as well. I was hoping some good old pressure would expedite that process.

I decided to stop at that point for now. I would add others as they progressed and qualified for the pressure list. Once I had refreshed my pressure list I moved to the Viridian Forest to kill two birds with one stone. I challenged wild Pokemon for some pressure training while scouting out the area where supposedly Leafeon appeared.

I wouldn't have dared to do it before since it was in the inner area, but since Mothra had reached the gold stage I decided to carefully start scouting out the place.

Unfortunately, I had not found the trigger for the Leafeon evolution yet, and I did not know if it was a Moss Rock or something else, so my best bet was to search for places with either an extremely high concentration of grass energy or traces of unusual grass energy.

Still, I was not in a hurry to find it since I was planning to bring Rose to this place for Ivy/Eevee's evolution as a gift before she began her official journey. Rose still had to go through 2 years of tertiary school and a practical year, so I had 3 years to find the trigger, which was more than enough.

Naturally, I prepared a birthday gift for this year as well, besides the one my parents bought. I designed two choreographies, one for Princess/Vulpix, and one for Ivy, that Rose could use during contests and performances in the future.

Each choreography contained explicit explanations on how to act, position oneself, and which moves to use at which times. In short, they were detailed step-to-step guides that would guarantee that she could teach them to her Pokemon.

I did a quick research and choreographies like this were extremely expensive at least the professional ones, and I was confident that mine were not inferior to those, so I was confident that my gift was a great one, even if it was a self-made one instead of being something I bought.

Well, I still made sure that each choreography looked like a "book" so that it looked presentable, before wrapping them up. Before I knew it, it was Palkiday and our family made our way to Orchid City for Rose's birthday party.

It was a nice affair and Rose loved our gifts. She was happy when she saw the clothes mom chose, gushing about matching them with her favorite hoodies. When she saw my personal gifts to her, she performed a tackle hug.

I told her that she had more than three years to get those two choreographies down and that she could ask me if she had any questions at any point during their training.

Our parents were pretty surprised by my gifts as well, even my parents since I had kept it a secret surprise from them as well. They knew the worth of my gifts, so Aunt Lily and Uncle Thorn looked a bit uneasy, but I gave them a big smile and told them not to mind it since I made those myself.

I had to brag a bit about my status as a Pokemon expert, exaggerating by a bit to make the whole thing a bit funny to loosen them up, but it worked and they just thanked me for going to such length for their daughter.

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

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