CH163 (777), Difficult Choice (2)

Mere moments after the integration of those soul fragments was complete and Palossand's soul had been nourished beyond the level it had been after it had become an Amalgam, Palossand began to grow. The living sandcastle started to expand to slightly more than double its previous size, and interestingly enough, once it stopped growing, banners materialized on its towers. The banner that hung from the right tower had the objects that were absorbed from there printed on it, and the same was true for the banner hanging from the left tower. Honestly, the banners gave me the impression that they were mementos of the souls that were integrated into Palossand, and I was not sure if their appearance was because of Utopia's meddling or related to whatever caused Palossand to double in size.

Either way, I noted that the log showed new activity as soon as those banners appeared, hinting that the process was officially over, so while the others marveled at the change Palossand had undergone, I focused on the log.

'Execution successful. Initial Modifier lost in the process; New modifier stimulated during the process.'

That pretty much confirmed it, and I had already expected the Amalgam modifier to get lost since the soul fragments were what caused its appearance anyway; With the integration of the soul fragments into Palossand, there was only a single soul left inside its body, which voided Amalgam's conditions. I was honestly more curious about which modifier Palossand had ended up unlocking. Given that its size had doubled, I was guessing that it was either the Alpha modifier or considering the additional banners maybe the royal modifier or even an advanced version of it. Seeing the log continue, I chose to shelve my curiosity until Utopia was done since there was a chance that further changes could occur.

'Begin optimizing abilities...., two abilities detected…., optimize abilities….., optimization failed.

Begin unlocking talents...., present talents detected, analyze talent 1…., incompatibility with host detected. Sacrifice talent or ignore incompatibility?'

I was momentarily surprised when the log mentioned talents and that Utopia was analyzing talent 1 since Palossand was supposed to have only one talent, but then I understood what had caused the discrepancy. It seemed I had gotten the answer to my earlier question without having to take a look at Palossand's status sheet. I concluded that Palossand must have unlocked the Alpha modifier since said modifier came with its own talent. With Palossand gaining Natural Leader thanks to its new Alpha status, the number of its talents naturally grew to 2, which explained the wording used in the log.

With that cleared up I focused on the problem presented by Utopia. Considering the issue Utopia had detected with talent one, there was no doubt in my mind that the talent in question was Cannibalize, and that the incompatibility in question was due to Palossand's ghost typing which caused the soul-related problems that Palossand had to endure. Now I had to ponder whether I should let Utopia get rid of the talent, or if I should let it ignore the issue altogether to keep Cannibalize since it was a broken talent despite its drawbacks. 

It was also interesting to be presented confirmation that Utopia could apparently remove talents without affecting the Pokemon in question, aside from the obvious loss of the talent, obviously. That Utopia did not seem to care about the opinion of the Pokemon in question was honestly not surprising since it did not have a real artificial intelligence guiding anyway, which was why in any given situation only my input mattered. More important than that was the question that sprung to my mind at that new information. If Utopia could remove talents without negatively affecting the Pokemon, then could it do the same for modifiers? I meant proper modifiers not negative ones like Amalgam.

The reason that was important was because it was one of the main reasons I was so resistant to the idea of bringing in unrelated Pokemon to Utopia. While I had already learned that one of Utopia's upgrades allowed me to block most of the optimization process for a Pokemon if I wanted, that required active input from me for each individual case. If Utopia could remove modifiers as well, even beneficial ones since it obviously could get rid of negative ones like Amalgam, then I could just chuck in a bunch of unconscious/sleeping Pokemon and have Utopia remove any talents and/or modifiers they were lucky enough to unlock without anyone knowing about it.

This would theoretically allow me to offer potential-increasing services to those I wanted to help without having to worry about anything else. The only issue was how I was going to confirm it since I would obviously not just remove the modifier belonging to any of my Pokemon or that of Utopians since I had no idea if they could be returned, which I honestly doubted. I obviously tried to see if Utopia could provide an answer, but it didn't, so I would have to wait until I, at some point, tested it using foreign Pokemon that I could not keep.

Anyway, I started to digress again; Back to the question of what to do with Cannibalize. I thought about the pros and cons as well as what kind of impact its continued existence would have on Palossand, and while considering those I came to my answer. Cannibalize's continued existence would impact my plans to have my Pokemon counsel Palossand to help it with the psychological damage that the whole soul fragment situation had caused, so I chose to let Utopia remove it even if Cannibalize would have allowed Palossand to advance at speeds surpassing even Kimura/Hitmonform by far if used extensively.

'Talent sacrificed; Begin attempt to unlock second talent….., unlocking second talent succeeded.'

An unexpected but still pleasant surprise really since I had not thought that Palossand would gain a new talent after losing Cannibalize. Who knew? Maybe it would be just as broken as its predecessor.

'Begin attempt to unlock a third talent….., unlocking a third talent failed.

Checking energy storage....., energy storage can support activity.

Suitable tailored habitat detected, expanding habitat...., habitat successfully expanded.'

With the process finally over, I turned my focus back to Palossand, who was, unlike what one might expect from it, cautiously eyeing my Pokemon. It seemed that the fresh memory of getting beaten by them before leading to its capture had it not acted out despite its increased power and size. The fact that it had gotten captured, and possessed a bond with me even if it was an artificial one, along with the reality that it had undergone all these changes after I brought it here might have also been a factor in its current calm behavior.

Either way, I stepped forward and congratulated Palossand on effectively being reborn and healed of the mutation as well as the suffering it had to endure while radiating my aura. Maybe it got affected by my sincerity or maybe it was just relieved and realized that the voices were truly gone but Palossand actually began to cry when I finished speaking. At first, it was silent, with tear drops falling from the windows serving as its eyes before it became loud wailing with water flooding out of its eyes. I was able to feel the relief and happiness it was feeling, so I calmed my Pokemon who had gotten flustered by Palossand's sudden crying by telling them why it was crying.

I then released more of my aura and effectively blanketed Palossand in it, while radiating feelings of assurance, safety, and serenity. I also reached out to Gwen/Gardevoir and asked her to Teleport over. Gwen's attention was immediately drawn to Palossand, and I used Telepathy to give her a rundown of what happened in a matter of seconds. There was a reason the Gardevoir line was associated with emotions and feelings, and Gwen as a talent holder with a talent befitting that theme was really the best-suited one among us to deal with Palossand, so I let her take the lead.

As I let Gwen do her thing while staying by her side watching as she did her work, I also finally took a look at Palossand's new/updated status sheet, and boy were there a lot of differences.

'Name: None

Species: Palossand 

Gender: Female*

Age: 287+ years'

It was nice to see that Utopia had gone out of its way to clear out Palossand's gender issue as well. I guess that happened while it took care of Palossand's Amalgam status.

'Type: Ghost, Ground

Potential: Light Purple (13.11%)*

Modifier: Desert-variant, Alpha*'

I had trouble believing what I was seeing, but there was no doubt that Palossand's potential had somehow grown from deep green to light purple when I had expected it to rise to either light blue or blue if she was lucky. Yet, here we were with Palossand somehow having beaten my expectations by not just one subgrade but two. I pondered how that could have happened, and after a few moments, I had a tentative idea of what transpired. After scouring Palossand's memories we had concluded that she had started out with deep orange potential due to her getting stuck at the (mid) silver stage the first time it happened, and we had witnessed how the limit rose as she devoured her fellows, indicating that her potential rose along with the number of her victims.

The deep green potential she had when I captured her supported that. Hence, my conclusion on the current matter was a rather simple deduction based on those events. I believed that the integration of the soul fragments had given Palossand's potential a final push since the process finally completed the integration of the victim's body and soul into Palossand. While it was a fortunate thing, it was something that would never happen again since Cannibalize was gone and I would not touch something related to the destruction of a soul with a 50-meter pole. The only reason I could think of why Palossand was able to get away with it was that it was a matter of unfortunate but natural circumstances that had led her to mess with those souls along with the fact that the talent was limited to her line only.

I did not want to test if I would be able to get away with doing the same without triggering some form of divine retaliation. Not that I was remotely interested in destroying souls since the negative karma such an action would cause was probably enormous because unlike killing the body, a destroyed soul was infinitely worse since it meant a true end to the being/soul's existence. Anyway, I decided to just be happy for Palossand and ignore anything that had led to the abnormal increase, though her new potential made her much more pleasing in my eyes as a trainer compared to before when she had just been a curiosity.

That was especially the case, seeing how the confirmation that my earlier guess was right and that Palossand was now an Alpha of her species was before my eyes. The Alpha modifier granted her a 35% boost to her racial values, pushing her species level to that of an apex species. In fact, it pushed her beyond the entry level for apex species since she now had an impressive total racial value of 648. Honestly, I had initially been thinking of just letting her live in Utopia, but now with all these changes, I felt it would be a waste if I did not add her at least to the reserve team.

Those were the thoughts that swirled inside my mind as I resumed looking through Palossand's status sheet.

'Abilities: Storm Drain, Sand Veil

Talents: Natural Leader*, Iron Will*

Affinities: Ghost, Ground'

As soon as I saw the Alpha modifier I knew that she would have the Natural Leader talent, which was a bit ironic considering what her earlier relation to her fellow species members had been. Nonetheless, it was her second talent that was more attention-grabbing to me. I naturally looked through the talent's description and what Iron Will did was grant her abnormal status immunity though said immunity was limited to only mental ones like confusion, attraction, flinching, or mental control.

It was a pretty useful talent and kinda fitting considering the struggle I had witnessed in her memories. Still, I had trouble believing the next part of her status considering the name of her talent, but then I remembered that it was just a title and that the talent just did what it mentioned in the description and nothing else. Iron Will had no impact on the numerous entries I saw in her quirk section.

'Bond: Mikail (artificial)

Quirks: Moderate Anxiety, Mild Depression (Guilt), Post-Dissociative Identity Disorder-Trauma, Budding Shizophreniaphobia'

Honestly, considering her past I could understand where these came from, but there was no way we could let things stay like that and we would definitely have to help her overcome these, especially if I wanted Palossand to join any of my teams in a serious fashion; Any team entry would have to wait until she was truly mentally healthy. This realization put a slight damper on my excitement as I checked the rest of her status even as I saw her impressive parameter sheet.

'Parameters:

Stage: Dark Gold Stage (High)*

Vitality: A

Strength: B

Endurance: A

Agility: C

Energy Capacity: S

Energy Density: B'

Funnily enough, it was what I saw in the condition section that raised my mood again.

'Condition: Healthy (Physically), Psychological Trauma, Somewhat Apprehensive, Happy, Relieved, Hopeful, Slightly Overwhelmed'

Seeing her feelings which were nearly entirely happy/positive raised my mood as well, so I swiftly skimmed through her move section before telling Palossand how impressive she was, which I could sense through my aura actually made her happy. The others also finally began to talk to Palossand after that, though I made sure that they knew to talk in an orderly fashion to avoid overwhelming Palossand. While they did that, I dragged Gwen, Horus/Xatu, and Tatsumaki/Alakazam into a telepathic conversation, so that I could tell them about the psychological issues I had detected since they would be the ones that would help Palossand hopefully overcome those.

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

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

This part is purely to display the various Palossand's status screens in one piece and does not count toward the word count.

'Name: None

Species: Palossand 

Gender: Female

Age: 287+ years

-

Type: Ghost, Ground

Potential: Light Purple (13.11%)

Modifier: Desert-variant, Alpha

Abilities: Storm Drain, Sand Veil

Talents: Natural Leader, Iron Will

Affinities: Ghost, Ground

-

Bond: Mikail (artificial)

Quirks: Moderate Anxiety, Mild Depression (Guilt), Post-Dissociative Identity Disorder-Trauma, Budding Shizophreniaphobia

-

Parameters:

Stage: Dark Gold Stage (High)

Vitality: A

Strength: B

Endurance: A

Agility: C

Energy Capacity: S

Energy Density: B

----

Immunity:

Normal, Fighting, Electric, Water

-

Resistance: 

Poison (Major), Rock (Minor), Bug (Minor)

-

Weaknesses: 

Ghost (Minor), Grass (Minor), Ice (Minor), Dark (Minor)

-

Standardized:

None

----

Condition: Healthy (Physically), Psychological Trauma, Happy, Relieved, Hopeful, Somewhat Apprehensive, Slightly Overwhelmed

----

Masteries: 

Ghost Energy Manipulation (Advanced)

Ground Energy Manipulation (Proficient)

----

Techniques: 

-

(Unofficial) Initial:

N/A

-

Novice:

N/A

-

Beginner:

Shore Up

-

Proficient: 

Absorb, Mega Drain, Sand Attack, Harden, Bulldoze, Iron Defense, Earth Power, Sandstorm, Hex

-

Advanced:

Astonish, Sand Tomb, Giga Drain, Hypnosis, Shadow Ball

-

Mastered:

Dig

-

Combo/Custom:

None'

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