CH16 (380), Investigation Successfully Concluded

This was truly interesting. It was the first time I came across the ability called Mycelium Might. It slowed the release of status moves but ensured that they were not affected by the opponent's ability.

I was pretty sure that no one in the known world had heard about the ability since it came up in none of the sites, books, or research I had looked up, both internal as well as external.

However, that was not that much of a surprise, at least for the external research since I had never heard about Toedscool or Toedscruel before this as well, so not finding anything about what I would assume was their signature ability was truly not that surprising.

As for the internal search of my super library, searching for something that one did not know existed was not easy, so I had not come across any mention of Toedscool or Toedscruel there as well.

Still, new ability aside, there was not much else to see, so I moved on to the Gloom and began capturing them. It was a swift process since none of them was resisting and in less than 2 minutes only Vileplume and Toedscruel were left. I was going to move to Vileplume but she stopped.

"My turn will have to wait until all of our children have been settled," she said in PokeSpeech while confirming that there were still Oddish and/or Gloom that had yet to arrive.

"Yes, two Oddish and a Gloom have yet to return, but it shouldn't take too long for them to arrive since I doubt that there is anyone in our forest that has not felt our little stand-off some time ago," Toedscruel clarified and Vileplume nodded along.

"Alright, I don't mind waiting," I replied with a shrug before I pulled out my ocarina to the joy of my Pokemon, who cheered when they saw me take it out.

The duo looked curious at that, and I was ready to admit that I in part took it out to impress them a bit with my music, especially since I was going to augment it with aura. I had at least that part down, even if I still failed to properly infuse the aura into the sound.

Still, I was confident that even augmented music was sufficient to impress them, and I directly began playing a soft but upbeat tune, while radiating appropriate emotions through my aura at certain parts of the tune.

Thanks to all the practice sessions, I knew more than 15 tunes that I could play by heart while perfectly timing the suitable aura that had to be released to enhance the effect of the music.

Even I had to admit that these tunes became really moving as well as captivating/immersive that way and as a certain long-bearded old man used to say, it felt like magic, or at least magical.

I finished playing the tune and looked over to our two guest listeners. I saw them leaning against each other and still being immersed in the lingering feeling left behind by the music. Well, at least until they were startled by the requests for another piece from my bunch.

Nyx/Umbreon ran up to me and acted all cutesy while asking for another tune. Mothra/Butterfree did the same just while flying, and I could see everyone else looking expectant and hopeful as well.

"I have to say that was a most impressive melody and I have to admit that I too would like to hear another such piece if possible," Toedscruel spoke up after being broken out of his immersion.

"It was beautiful," Vileplume simply said while looking at me with her eyes shining similar to those of Nyx and Mothra.

I had certainly managed to impress those two. I knew practicing my music diligently would be beneficial, and this had shown that it was certainly useful to impress others and give them a good impression, at least if it was done correctly.

Regardless, I satisfied everyone's request and played another tune. While I was playing, I noticed an Oddish stepping into the area, and it momentarily froze when it saw us, but recovered quickly. It noticed its parents and walked toward them. After some hushed talking Oddish joined them in listening to my ocarina.

Before I finished the second tune another one joined the family. This time it was the Gloom, meaning only a single Oddish was left before I, or rather we were done here.

I saw everyone's looks and knew what they wanted, so I simply began the third melody. This time going for a classic, the original Pokemon theme. It was one of the favorites of my Pokemon together with the original theme song of Digimon surprisingly, or not, since they gave off a similar sentiment.

Seeing how the last Oddish did not arrive even after I finished the Pokemon theme, I directly moved on to the Digimon theme. Something I and probably everyone else did not expect was for the present Oddish to suddenly start evolving after the first part of the tune as if the tune coming from my ocarina had inspired or roused it enough to trigger its evolution.

It was probably close to evolution and only missing the last bit which somehow happened to be triggered by my music. Still, it was definitely a high form of compliment to me so I was happy and accompanied its evolution by finishing the tune, while it finished its evolution.

Coincidentally, the last Oddish also arrived at the last moment and got to witness the final moments of its brother or sister's evolution to Gloom. I congratulated the newly evolved Gloom and the parents, before putting away my ocarina since the last Oddish had arrived.

"Alright, now that the last one has arrived we should complete the transfer so that I can return to Pallet," I proclaimed and after the newest arrival was apprised of the situation as well, I balled all three of the latecomers.

Once those three were caught, I turned to Vileplume who exchanged a look and a few words with Toedscruel before giving me the go-ahead, so I balled her as well. Seeing how she was the wife of the Toedscruel and practically the sub-boss of the group I used one of my better handcrafted dual poison/grass-type balls on her, instead of one of the generic/practice/warm-up ones.

Something that was a bit embarrassing for me personally was that the ball I pulled out next to capture Toedscruel was not as well fitting as the one I used to capture Vileplume since I had not expected to need a ground/grass dual-type ball, so I had none at hand.

Instead, I had to pull out a pure Forest Ball since I had to make do with that one. Thankfully, it was one of the two C-class Forest Balls I possessed.

Crafting those had been quite challenging since surprisingly crafting single-type, or pure balls at the C-class was as hard if not a bit harder than crafting dual-type balls, so I only tried making one or two of each type I could before stopping.

Honestly, I still had not managed to craft one for every type, but that was mostly because I could not invest as much time into ballcrafting as I would have liked.

Regardless, the Forest Ball was more than good enough to serve as Toedscruel's ball until I managed to create a fitting dual ball for him, so I went up to him and pressed the ball onto him, while also checking his status before he got moved inside the ball.

'Species: Toedscruel

Gender: Male

Type: Ground, Grass

Potential: Deep Green

Stage: Dark Gold Stage (low)

Genetic variation: None

Abilities: Mycelium Might, Immunity

Talents: MM Unbound

Affinities: Ground, Grass'

Frankly, I was surprised when I saw that all sections were fully visible since I had expected the last four to be obscure due to him being at a higher stage than any of my Pokemon.

Yet, it seemed that according to my observe function's standard, one of my Pokemon, and I was betting on Mothra, was equal in prowess to Toedscruel. Otherwise, there was no way the full status screen for wild Pokemon would have been displayed.

It was gratifying to see the confirmation that all the hard work that I and my Pokemon had put into their training had truly helped them grasp onto the weight class above their own.

There had been other cases where my Pokemon had fought against those at a higher stage, but this time the other party was at the dark gold stage, and cross-stage fighting became harder and harder the stronger one was.

Well, enough waxing like a proud brother/father. It was time to take a closer look at Toedscruel's status screen. The first thing I did was focus on his species name to take look at his racial value, and I saw that it was equal to that of a Tentacruel, so at least that had not changed.

I had actually forgotten doing that while checking Toedscool's status, but seeing how Toedscruel's racial value had remained the same as Tentacruel's value, I could assume that the same was true for Toedscool and Tentacool as well.

The typing had remained consistent with the one of Toedscool, which meant that the evolution did not change anything type-wise for the species/evolution line.

His potential was not bad, but looking at his (low) dark gold stage, he was close to the (general) limit of his dark green potential. The (high) dark gold stage was by no means weak, at least not in our parts of the world.

However, it was a bit sad to have to struggle against one's biological limits, and while it was not impossible to overcome the limit set by one's potential, the number of Pokemon that manage to do so was truly small.

This was also why limit breaking was such a cheat since it gave a way for hardworking Pokemon to overcome their potential limits by straight up increasing their potential through hard work, without having to rely on resources, even if those helped speed up the process.

Naturally, for most Pokemon limit-breaking was nearly just as hard and time-consuming as it was overcoming the potential limit, but the biggest result of limit-breaking was that it raised the potential limit, which was something overcoming the limit did not do.

Those that "simply" overcame their limit through sheer hard work and grit, could indeed break through to the next stage as long as they had reached the (high) substage, but their potential remained the same, which meant each step they tried to go forward after the potential limit would require overcoming its limits every single time.

This meant that each pokemon that actually went through with it deserved respect. Just the sheer will and perseverance necessary for the act was unbelievable, hence the respect.

Unfortunately, it was not as if a Pokemon that overcame its limits could keep going and start limit-breaking since that was truly impossible for them, at least I could not imagine that happening.

Thankfully I did not have to worry about those since improving the potential of a Pokemon could be considered a specialty of mine. Well, enough about the unfortunate limits set by nature.

Seeing how Toedscruel did not have the Mutant gene, he was definitely not the first of his kind, which meant that there were more Toedscruel and Toedscool out there somewhere. This was truly interesting.

There was a solid chance that he somehow got separated from his actual tribe/home at some point, wherever that was, and I was curious how this guy ended up here.

Seeing how he did not return to that place I was assuming he did not know how to do so. I was definitely going to ask him what he could remember about his past, but that could wait until I was back in Pallet.

Moving on, due to his dark green potential, Toedscruel had a second ability. That the second ability was Immunity was not as surprising since Toedscruel and Toedscool kinda resembled mushrooms, and well, poison immunity kinda fit when looking at it like that.

More interesting than Toedscruel's second ability was the fact that he possessed a talent, and its title showed unmistakably that the talent was linked to Mycelium Might.

MM Unbound was a pretty straightforward talent, that retained Mycelium Might's positive effect while ensuring that the slowed release was negated. It was a good enough talent, even if it was not a great one. Still, it worked for Toedscruel and that was what was important.

Anyway, I pocketed the Forest Ball after the capture was complete and I was done checking his status screen. Everyone cheered after that happened since it signaled that our personal mission was officially complete.

I thanked them all for their help and promised them a party sometime next week before I began calling them back. Once everyone except for Mothra, Horus/Xatu, and Gwen/Gardevoir were stored away, I asked them to bring us back to Pallet City.

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