CH47 (411), Final Days Of 2181

The following week proved to be relatively productive at the lab, but mostly monotone. The only exception was when I paid Jessie a visit on Palkiday, after clocking off from work.

I met her at the PokeCenter, and we strolled around the city a bit before we went to the local Aldini's for dinner. We spent the time before and during dinner talking, and her PoryTom account came up.

After we uploaded her first video together, she uploaded another one, before we did a third together, and it seemed that she had uploaded a fourth one just yesterday evening. Evidently, I missed it despite having enabled the notification button after subscribing to her channel.

I mean, as one of her best friends, I obviously had to support her by subscribing. I knew most of her choreographies and performances since I had helped her either design or practice nearly all of them.

"So, which performance did you choose for your fourth video?" I asked curiously, and she gave me a smile in return. "See for yourself," she declared, so I pulled out my phone and opened the PoryTom app to watch her video.

It seemed to be one of the few I did not know. Who knew, maybe it was even a recent addition to her repertoire. Jessie's Blissey was the star of the video, and it was interesting to see a Pokemon like that gracefully dance around while using moves to create sparks and light effects. I took a look and saw that the video already had gained over 100k views within less than 24 hours.

"Congratulations," I began with a nod. "The performance is a great one, and Blissey did a splendid job. Please pass my compliment to her," I affirmed, which earned me a bright smile from Jessie.

"Thank you," she happily returned. "I'll make sure to tell Blissy that you praised her. I'm sure she'll be happy to hear that," Jessie shared with me.

I also took a peek at her other videos to see how much the number of views had grown. The last time I checked her first two had passed the first million, while the third one already had over 800k views, and by now, it seemed that her third video had passed the one million as well.

I had no idea how it had been in my previous life with Youtube and the other platforms, but here, one had to either reach 12 videos with at least 100k views, 6 videos with at least 500k views, or 3 videos with at least 1 million views to start earning some money from their videos.

I knew that much since Jessie and I had talked about that before starting her PoryTom account, but I did not know how much she would get per view. Still, I was happy she would earn some extra money on the side while having fun.

"Also, congratulations on becoming eligible to be paid for your videos. I'm sure you're going to become a rich young lady pretty soon since I'm super confident in you and your performances. Make sure to not forget me once you're a Superstar," I teased her while congratulating her.

"Says the person who made it into the global news. Multiple times at that," she fired back with a soft laugh and I had to chuckle as well. "Well, I'm still happy that you can now earn some money on the side while doing something you enjoy," I told her and she nodded happily.

After that, we switched topics and before long we were done eating. I paid the bill citing that it was my invitation to congratulate her on her third video with more than a million views and she could not say no. We walked around the city a bit more to help digest the food, before I accompanied her to her dorm.

The days after that followed the same fashion as before and by Kyoday, my group had raised the fusion rate of the Frost Cap Extract and the Mystic Ice Gem by another 2% to 95%. I decided to stay in Pallet on Grouday and spent the whole day inside Utopia to spend time with my Pokemon.

The time after breakfast until lunch was spent playing games such as red light/green light, tug of war, tag, hide and seek, and guess who with Pokemon instead of the usual. After the lunch break, we went through multiple rounds of castle defense.

First, the ones below the silver stage got to play defenders, while I got a few batches of Pokemon from the subspace to act as the attackers. At first, I made only one species attack, but after the third round, I mixed the species up.

During the fifth as well as final rounds, I even allowed the Butterfree, Beedrill, and Gyarados subordinates to participate as well, as long as they were below the silver stage. Since I did not have enough Pokemon at the silver stage among the non-main team Pokemon, I split the main team in two.

Two-thirds acted as defenders, while one-third commanded the attackers. Only those that had reached at least the (mid) bronze stage were allowed to participate, to avoid tilting the favor too much to the attacker's side. I made sure to swap the attackers and defenders each round.

The final rounds before dinner were among the gold stage Pokemon. 2 of them had to act as commanders, while the rest acted as defenders. Only (mid) silver-stage Pokemon were allowed to act as cannon fodder for the attackers since it was too easy for those weaker to get seriously hurt facing the gold squad.

By the time I declared the castle defense war over, all of my Pokemon had medium to light injuries that were recovering under the tender care of Utopia. I handed out health juice to all of them while applying salves myself to those with bigger wounds.

I made sure that the ones from the subspaces also received the same treatment, and I gave them a lot of tasty as well as extra nutritious food as a reward for participating in the castle defense before placing them back into the subspace.

After everyone had eaten their share of dinner, everyone unanimously requested that I play some music, so I did just that for the next two or so hours. We tied up the evening by watching a movie that I projected by copying the screen of my smartphone.

The next day started off the third week of the month, and the final one I would be at the lab for the year 2181. I would be going to Hope Town after that, and only return sometime after the new year began. I was really hoping to complete the Mystic Frost Gem during this week, so I made sure to stay as long as I could each day, which made Carl and Sibel follow suit.

The three of us stayed until 9 p.m. each day instead of the usual 6:30 p.m. Since that was the most James allowed. He even maintained that it was only because he knew why I was doing this and that I would be missing for more than a month that he allowed this.

Thanks to my/our enthusiasm and the extra hours, we made some visible progress each day, and by Dialday, we had managed to raise the average fusion rate from 95% to 97% and the maximum fusion rate one of our objects accomplished to 98%.

Unfortunately, we were left with only Kyoday, and unless a miracle happened, our chances of finishing the last 2% on the last day were slim to none. Still, I did not allow that to discourage me.

No, I kept doing my best right up until James came over to tell us that we had to finish up since it was time to clock off. Carl and Sibel pat me on the back when that happened to tell me I had done my best even if it ended up falling a bit short.

My last-ditch, ultra-effort work resulted in two objects that had a fusion rate of 99%, with the rest being at either 98% or 97%. Yet, no matter how close I had come, in the end, I had to leave without seeing the finished product.

Well, Carl and Sibel had seen the effort I put in during the last week, and they solemnly promised to call me if they managed to produce an object with a 100% fusion rate, so that I could rush over. They would make sure to wait for the evolution test until I was at the lab, and I thanked them for their consideration.

Anyway, originally, I had been planning to directly head to Hope Town after leaving the lab, but while I was considering whether I should really do that, or if I should visit a fast food restaurant first, both Seb and Gaia told me that they got the feeling of wholeness, so I aborted both plans and headed to my dorm room instead.

There I entered Utopia and appeared at the pair's habitat. I lost no time and checked their status screens after greeting them. Well, both parameter sections showed only SSS values, so they were right. The two had managed to finish their limit-breaking training at virtually the same time.

Once I had confirmed that they were ready to break through to the gold stage, I called everyone else over to their habitat. I praised the two for their effort while we were waiting for the others to come, and I had to admit, that the news of their success had pushed away the disappointment I had felt due to the "failure" at the lab.

Anyway, once everyone had gathered and circled us, I gave Seb and Gaia a pat on the shoulder before I stepped away to join the others. The duo wanted to break through at the same time, and since the energy quantity inside Utopia and their habitat was more than enough to support that, I did not deny their request.

I gave them the go-ahead and they directly initiated their breakthroughs to the gold stage. Due to them doing so together, the amount of energy being dragged toward them was visibly higher than normal. Still, I had expected as much. What I did not expect was for both to light up a bit and for the breakthrough period to extend by close to a minute.

Honestly, I would have never expected that both would unlock a modifier and that was what the phenomenon indicated. I mean, I had hoped that one of them would do so, but both at once caught me a bit off guard. Still, it was definitely happy news, and I made sure to take a good look at both after their breakthrough was complete.

The first thing I noticed, was that they actually seemed a bit smaller. It looked like they compacted a bit. If I had to take a guess, I'd say that they shrunk by about 10 cm, so Seb was now 230 cm tall, while Gaia was 220 cm tall. Well, Pokemon did not compact/shrink for no reason, so that was a point for my modifier theory.

That I could see a symbol on their right breastplate that they previously did not have, was another point to the modifier theory. Interestingly, the symbol was the same for both Seb and Gaia.

Seb's symbol was the first one I saw, and when I saw that it was blue, I thought that the color may be linked to their shiny color, or that it may be because blue was connected to royalty. The last one led me to the conclusion that the modifier they had most likely unlocked, could be the royal gene.

However, both ideas proved to be false after I saw Gaia's symbol, which turned out to be purple. It seemed the symbol took on the color of its counterpart instead and had nothing to do with their respective shiny colors. Nonetheless, I was not the only one that noticed their change, they quickly noticed their change as well.

First their smaller height, and then the symbol on each other's chest. The duo began inspecting one another to see if something else had changed. They tilted their head down in the process, and when they did, all three of us noticed that they had a thorny string in a three-fourths circle around their horns.

Aside from that, no additional changes could be seen even when they spun around so that they could check each other's backs. Anyway, after taking in their appearance, I went up to them and congratulated both for breaking through to the gold stage, and for unlocking something during the process.

I gave both a hug before patting them on the shoulder. Gaia leaned down a bit so that I could scratch her chin the way she liked it and Seb followed suit a moment later. Well, he had to lean down a bit more, so that I could reach his favorite spot, which was right beside either ear.

While I was busy rewarding the duo, the other came up to us as well to congratulate the two, and I chose to stop my ministrations so that they could deal with the rest. Meanwhile, I decided to check their status screens to see what exactly had changed.

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