CH90 (704), Laugh Tale

I did not interrupt Phantump's interaction with everyone and simply used my psychic energy to trigger the observe function.

'Name: N/A 

Species: Phantump

Gender: Male

Age: 14+ years'

I had to admit that I was surprised by Phantump's age. Considering that the pre-capture status check revealed that Phantump was "only" at the (high) iron stage and taking his initial blue potential into account I had thought that Phantump was just a few years old, so seeing 14 years being displayed in the age section was unexpected.

Honestly, a 14-year-old wild Pokemon with blue potential should have reached the (high) bronze stage at least by living a normal wildlife with the occasional battles that came with having to fend/take care of oneself.  Unless of course, it was part of a larger group and thus did not get exposed to any danger at all. Whether the older group members would allow that was another matter.

Phantump did not have a group, and the only way I could see this situation coming about was if Phantump did not participate in any battles at all while also not doing any training. I would have said that something like that would be impossible, at least for as long as 14 years, but frankly considering the effects of Phantump's talent, and assuming that he had it since his inception, I had to concede that Phantump really could have pulled it off.

If that truly was the case, I would have to ask Phantump if he disliked battling, which would be a shame, or if he had another reason why he avoided battling. Hopefully, it wasn't due to some aversion to battling or training.

'Type: Ghost, Grass

Potential: Light Purple (2.31%)*'

Anyway, age and potential complications aside, I was happy to see that the optimization bonus had been enough to push Phantump's potential to light purple, even if it had been a close thing. I could not help but think that this might be the last time its potential saw such a boost if Phantump really ended up having an aversion to training.

If that happened, I would respect Phantump's wish even if it would be a shame to waste its potential. Nonetheless, I was certainly not going to force any Pokemon through any limit-breaking training if it didn't want to, though I would try to occasionally see if he changed his mind. Damn it, my thoughts ended up getting derailed again.

There was no reason to get hung up on what-if scenarios yet. I had better things to do like checking out what exactly the successful augmentation had done to Phantump's blessing.

'(Genetic) Modifiers: Grand Forest's Blessing*, Ability-variant*'

Well, adding a Grand before Forest's Blessing was not much of a change, but at least the bonus had gotten a decent increase. While some would say that going from 20% to 25% was not much, I'd beg to differ. Grand Forest's Blessing had put the blessing on the same level as that of an entire energy type/group like that of Water or Aura, and while the 5% increase might seem small, it was not bad.

Regardless, any increase was welcome, and I left it at that before moving on to the next bit, namely the ability variation it underwent during the optimization, thanks to its blessing as well as talent. I was certainly looking forward to what Phantump ended up with. Admittedly, I was hoping Harvest was the ability that got replaced since I preferred Natural Cure over it, though it was not impossible that both abilities had been replaced even if I thought that a change like that was highly unlikely.

'Abilities: Natural Cure, Grassy Surge*

Talents: Child of the Woods

Affinities: Ghost, Grass'

Oh, that was interesting. Not only did my wish get fulfilled and Harvest got replaced instead of Natural Cure, but the new ability ended up being Grassy Surge. This was an ability that only the Grookey line was known to possess until now. Well, they along with Tapu Bulu, but that knowledge was based on myths/legends and my canon knowledge rather than the many examples living in Galar in the case of the Grookey line.

I could not argue that Grassy Surge definitely fit Phantump's situation perfectly since it matched his talent quite well. Being able to automatically set up a Grassy Terrain at will without having to expend energy for it or waste time was definitely useful, especially since his Child of the Woods talent allowed him to concentrate the effect of Grassy Terrain purely on himself.

Either way, the change from Harvest to Grassy Surge was very lucky, but that seemed to be a regular thing for this little guy. Actually, could I even call Phantump a little guy when he was likely just a bit younger than me? I mean, ghosts tend to get super old so 14 was still extremely young I guess, so there was probably no problem with calling him a little guy.

Besides, he was pretty weak and his earlier pranking as well as reactions toward his thwarted prank attempts did not indicate any real maturity, so I'd say I was fine. I would stop once he evolved if he evolved in the first place since that depended on whether he was going to properly train or not. I chose to continue looking through the rest of Phantump's status sheet instead of going off-topic again.

Seeing him being labeled as Mischievous came as no surprise at all considering his actions, though I would likely have to see if we could temper that a bit so that he at least knew when to stop and to ensure that he did not go too far. Still, as long as he limited his mischievousness to harmless stuff, I did not mind.

I moved on and eventually looked at his move section, which was both a bit disappointing and not bad at the same time. It was somewhat disappointing because of the relatively low number of moves he knew at his age. However, taking the fact that he was only at the (high) iron stage into account, it was normal for Phantump to have a limited amount of moves.

At least, the mastery he had over the moves he knew was not bad. While I would have hoped for at least one or two mastered moves considering his age and the fact that he "only" knew 10 moves, 3 moves at advanced mastery was okay as well. I mean I had already guessed that Pahntump did not really train before this, so in that light, this was not bad. The reason why those three moves had risen to that level was probably because he used them in his pranks in the first place.

Still, leaving aside the number of his moves and their mastery, I could freely admit that I did not expect to see Jungle Healing among Phantump's moves.

'Masteries: 

Ghost Energy Manipulation (Proficient)

Grass Energy Manipulation (Proficient)

----

Techniques: 

-

Beginner:

Tackle, Horn Leech, Jungle Healing

-

Proficient: 

Leech Seed, Will-O-Wisp, Hex, Growth

-

Advanced:

Astonish, Branch Poke, Confuse Ray'

As far as I knew, Jungle Healing was a Zarude-exclusive move, but considering the effect of the move and Phantump's blessing as well as talent, I should probably not have been as surprised. It even made some degree of sense that he could learn the move, or rather that Phantump would be granted the move since I was pretty sure that he only learned the move thanks to his blessing and modifier.

Since I was done, I finally decided to interrupt the ongoing excited chatter and officially welcomed Phantump to Utopia. As soon as I was done with the greeting, Thor/Raichu directly asked me about the results of the change which had everyone staring at me in curiosity including Phantump.

I shared all the changes with them, and they all congratulated Phantump who seemed very happy with the development. I did hear Thor grumble while I was sharing the various things I noticed, but he still congratulated Phantump like everyone else.

Anyway, I then led a curious Phantump toward his own little haunted forest since he strongly requested to check out the place due to his curiosity after the others told him about everyone getting tailored places for themselves. There were quite a few tag-alongs and we all watched as Phantump began to giggle like crazy once we arrived at his place. He thanked me for bringing him here before rushing into the woods while laughing, which while definitely a happy laugh sounded just a tad bit creepy/crazy.

Hades/Genegar and a few others ran/went after him, but I seriously doubted whether they could find Phantump unless he allowed them to do so. With nothing better to do, we began to talk among ourselves while waiting for Phantump and the rest to come back, which took a bit more than 5 minutes.

Upon his return, Phantump tackle-hugged me and began to gush about how awesome his forest was. He called it the best forest of them all while assuring me that he was an expert on all things forest. I just nodded along and told him that I was happy that he liked it. Once he had calmed down a bit I could not help but ask Phantump whether there was something he wanted to pick up from his old place since we would move on and most likely not return for a long time.

That caused him to shake me wildly while wailing that we had to go get his precious treasures and that he would die without them. He faked a moment of weakness at the last bit which finally caused everyone present to break out in laughter, joining Hades and his friends who had been laughing ever since Phantump had begun shaking me. Phantump perked right back up, any drama forgotten, when I told him that we would be leaving Utopia to head to his place right now.

I had to chuckle when he did that, and after telling everyone aside from Phantump, Thor, Hades, and Mothra/Butterfree to wait at my place I left Utopia with the aforementioned quartet. Once we were back outside, I told Phantump to lead the way and we all followed as he headed deeper into the woods. Phantump seemed overly eager since he was flying/gliding at what I would assume was his top speed, which was somewhere between 35 and 40 km/h. It took us about 40 minutes to arrive at our destination and to be honest, I failed to notice anything special about the place.

Nothing stood out to me as a place where Phantump would stash his stuff, but it wouldn't have been a good hideout if it was easy to spot I guess. Phantump went to one of the many trees and slipped through its trunk down its root into the ground. Hades quickly followed after him and I spread my senses to see what I could find. I noted a space about 10 meters below the tree, at the end of its roots, so I grabbed Thor and Teleported us down there.

The space was not big, merely 15 or so meters in diameter and about 3-4 meters in height, but it was definitely enough to function as Phantump's home/hideout. It was rather dark inside the chamber with some small Luminous Moss clusters providing limited light. Still, through some application of aura on my eyes I was able to see perfectly fine.

Hades greeted us along with Phantump, who was busy stacking/gathering everything he had stashed away into one heap. It seemed like he had collected all kinds of stuff since I saw stones, branches, and even a black cloak among the pile. Wait a minute, was that what I thought it was? 

I took a closer look and holy shit, it seemed like it really was what I thought it was. I observed the cloak, and it appeared that the black cloak was in fact a Reaper Cloth. How in Giratina's name did Phantump manage to get his hands on a Reaper Cloth? Seeing how the cloak had turned out to be something precious I took a closer look at the other stuff as well, and sure enough, all of it seemed unusual.

The cracked stone I saw turned out to be a cracked Odd Keystone, the branch was in fact a (hale) branch belonging to a Decamillennial tree. In addition to that, there was a husk of a decamillennial tree core belonging to the same tree, four Leaf Stones, two Dusk Stones, a Big Root, a Comet Shard, a bunch of Energy Roots, and a freaking Mega Stone that turned out to be a Sceptilite. This was a veritable treasure pile and I could not believe that Phantump had managed to get his hands on a Sceptilite.

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

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

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

'Name: N/A 

Species: Phantump

Gender: Male

Age: 14+ years 

-

Type: Ghost, Grass

Potential: Light Purple (2.31%)

(Genetic) Modifiers: Grand Forest's Blessing

Abilities: Natural Cure, Grassy Surge

Talents: Child of the Woods

Affinities: Ghost, Grass

-

Bond: Mikail (artificial)

Quirks: Mischievous

----

Parameters:

Stage: Iron Stage (High)

Vitality: B

Strength: B

Endurance: C

Agility: C

Energy Capacity: B

Energy Density: B

----

Immunity:

Normal, Fighting

-

Resistance: 

Water (Minor), Electric (Minor), Grass (Minor), Ground (Minor)

-

Weaknesses: 

Fire (Minor), Ice (Minor), Flying (Minor), Ghost (Minor), Dark (Minor)

----

Condition: Healthy, Curious, Excited

----

Masteries: 

Ghost Energy Manipulation (Proficient)

Grass Energy Manipulation (Proficient)

----

Techniques: 

-

Novice:

None

-

Beginner:

Tackle, Horn Leech, Jungle Healing

-

Proficient: 

Leech Seed, Will-O-Wisp, Hex, Growth

-

Advanced:

Astonish, Branch Poke, Confuse Ray

-

Mastered:

None'

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