CH77 (441), Back To The Grind

Upon my return to the lab on Arcday I learned that Carl and Sibel had managed to raise the fusion rate of the Arctic Heart to 52% during the time I was gone, which was not bad at all, considering the increased difficulty of fusing three materials into the Mystic Ice Gem.

I was sure the fusion rate would have been a few percent higher if I had been there, but I had the "tips" I could see in the failed Arctic Heart's status screen, which gave a general idea of what went wrong. Still, the two happily welcomed me back, and we directly began working on the heart.

I nearly fully focused on the project for the next two weeks, only using the evenings and the weekend to do other stuff, such as spending time with my Pokemon, calling my parents, or keeping track of other stuff. It was only on Kyoday of the second week that I decided to slow down a bit, or rather do some other stuff as well since I did not want to over-obsess over completing the lab project.

With that in mind, I decided to take up a mission from the order. I was only missing another 3 missions to fulfill the mission quota of 18 missions necessary to rank up the standard Aura Guardian rank within the order. Still, I actually had to choose the missions from the mission board since the missions I had previously noted down were no longer available.

I had completed more than half of them, and the rest got finished by others while I was busy with other stuff. I ended up picking two missions that could be handled together and went out to get them done. It took me six hours, but I managed to clear the Muk and Grimer-infested area, which was one of the missions.

The mission said nowhere that I had to get rid of them in a lethal fashion, so I knocked them all out. I had to track down all of them and the area was not small, so it took a while. I then transferred them to one of the marsh areas I knew. I made sure to choose one where they would not upset the ecology/balance too much and could hopefully quickly integrate into it.

The other mission was to catch a batch of bronze and silver-stage poison-type Pokemon with 3-star or above potential. No idea why they wanted them or why they set the requirement so "low", but Grimer, as well as Muk, were poison types. Besides, ignoring its look, Muk was actually a pretty strong Pokemon, so I caught 5 bronze stage Grimer and 2 silver stages Muk to clear the mission.

I did not catch any for myself, since none made me think I really had to have them. The fact that I had a few strong poison types also played a role. Anyway, after finishing the mission report and handover, I only had to complete one last mission to rank up, so I came back the next day to do just that.

I actually picked the easiest one I saw when I arrived that morning. The mission was literally picking up flowers. Okay, it might have been picking up D-Class Water Lilies, which usually grew in areas that water types lived in. They treated Water Lilies as a beneficial delicacy, so one normally had to deal with the first, or get the lilies without being noticed.

I could have finished the mission immediately if the mission did not require me to pick the flowers from a certain area, since I actually had some stored in Utopia, and yet I had to ignore the easy way. Still, the whole thing ended up being pretty easy since the intel was right and the Pokemon around the lilies were only at the bronze stage.

I had a really easy time picking up a batch of flowers. The mission only asked for 7, so I only took that much, which was roughly a fourth of the total number that grew there. The Pokemon did not go all kamikaze on me when they saw that I was not planning to take everything. I believe the giant, absolutely stunning Butterfree might have been another reason they decided to let me be.

Anyway, the whole thing only took me two hours, tops, and a big part of that was travel time. After I handed in the mission and the flowers over, I was promoted to Aura Guardian. Moreover, my rank was directly upgraded to 3-star thanks to the strength of my Pokemon/team.

The additional discount and access privilege that came with my new rank was certainly nice, but I was not sure if I would really make use of any of those for the next while since I doubted I would be coming back for some time now that I was a "true" Aura Guardian.

Yoruichi paid me a visit when I made it back to Pallet City and congratulate me on ranking up. It was a bit surprising how quickly she found out, and I teasingly asked her if she was stalking me. She only laughed but did not answer.

Instead, she insisted on testing me as well to see if I had made any progress in my personal abilities. We kept going at it pretty hard for about an hour, working up quite a sweat before we stopped. She first teased/ribbed me for being stuck at Tier 2, before praising me for having improved despite being "stuck" at Tier 2.

The training of my individual abilities was not for nothing, and I had improved in my usage as well as application of them since that was all I could currently do with my aura and psychic abilities. We quickly went to shower before going out to eat together, and before she left, Yoruichi put her rarely-used serious face on and told me that I did not have to rush things concerning my tier.

According to her I only had to keep doing what I had been doing, and I would reach the next tier at some point. I had been planning to do that anyway, but it was nice to hear someone confirm my idea/plan.

Regardless, the next day started off a new week, and I once more resumed my work on the Arctic Heart with Carl as well as Sibel. The days flowed by, and the only small interlude that week was Pangoro officially starting his limit-breaking on Palkiday.

I decided to visit my parents during the weekend since it had been nearly a month since I last dropped by. We actually ended up fighting during my stay. Well, not the quarreling kind of fight, but the Pokemon sort of fight. Dad was the one that brought up the idea and mom thought it was a great one as well.

I was actually against it since I was worried about their feelings in case they lost, which was a valid concern by now. Still, they managed to persuade me, so we went out to a clearing in the wild, to avoid destroying our property, and went through a six-on-six battle. In the end, my feelings ended up being somewhat right on the matter.

I ended up beating mom in a rather solid fashion, despite her fielding 2 (low) dark gold stage Pokemon along with 4 (high) gold stage ones. Mothra/Butterfree and Horus/Xatu took care of one of the dark gold stage Pokemon each, and I let my gold stage Pokemon draw lots to decide who got to face her other 4 Pokemon.

The battle against dad actually ended up with my loss. Moka/Crobat and Manami/Lapras actually managed to beat dad's two (high) gold-stage Pokemon, while Horus/Xatu and Stan/Gyarados managed to draw against Duke/Crobat and Skye/Pidgeot respectively, even though both were at the (low) dark gold stage.

Then Mothra managed to somehow eke out a win over Agni/Arcanine, who was also at the (low) dark gold stage. Yet, the battle was decided when dad called out Titan/Nidoking, who had apparently reached the (mid) dark gold stage since I last saw him.

Mothra did her best, but still ended up losing to Titan, and even though she managed to hurt him a bit, he had no problem with beating both Moka and Manami. I still sent out Gwen/Gardevoir since she had the best chances against him, but she ended up losing as well, though Titan was somewhat exhausted as well by that point. Well, I did not mind losing against dad and the battles were a pretty good workout for my Pokemon.

Thankfully mom seemed to not mind losing against me too much. She only pouted for a few minutes but seemed to have completely let it go by dinner time. Anyway, I went back to Pallet City at around 11 p.m. and was back at the lab on Arcday morning.

Our work on the Arctic Heart continued, and we were making good progress too. I entered the zone which went on until Palkiday when my flow was interrupted by some big news. Roughly an hour after lunch, Parvati/Beedrill asked me to come over and check her status screen. I assured her that I would do it as soon as I was back in my dorm room.

I had a hunch what that was about, and I could not help but have that in the back of my mind until I clocked out at 6:30 p.m. As soon I was back at my dorm, I locked the door and entered Utopia to check Parvati's status as she requested. It turned out my hunch and her feeling was spot on since I saw that she had completed her limit breaking.

We moved to her habitat and I quickly called everyone over so that they could stand witness to her breakthrough to the gold stage. I gave her a little pep talk and joined the others that were encircling her. Parvati initiated her breakthrough, which took longer than usual.

However, I was not surprised since I knew that she was supposed to reach aurora potential during this breakthrough unless she managed to unlock another modifier, or upgraded her current one. Still, seeing how her breakthrough took less than a minute and was less flashy than Mothra's had been, I doubted that to be the case.

Regardless, I naturally went up to her as soon as her breakthrough was over, and congratulated her on reaching the gold stage and reducing the gap between Mothra and her. I could see that she was really happy with that, especially when I mentioned the closing gap between her and Mothra.

Ironically, or not, since they were actually pretty great friends, Mothra was the first one among the others to rush over to congratulate Parvati on reaching the gold stage. Prime/Beedrill was not too far behind her, and the others were not far behind him. While they were busy with their thing, I checked Parvati's status screen to see what exactly had changed.

'Name: Parvati

Species: Beedrill

Gender: Female

Age: 7+ years

-

Type: Bug, Poison

Potential: Light Aurora (6.42%)*

(Purple (51.93%) -> (52.84%) -> Light Aurora (6.42%)

Genetic variation: Royal

Abilities: Swarm, Sniper, Adaptability*

Talents: None

Affinities: Bug, Poison

-

Bond: Mikail (strong)

Quirks: Hardworking

----

Parameters:

Stage: Gold Stage (mid)

Vitality: D

Strength: C

Endurance: F

Agility: D

Energy Capacity: E

Energy Density: D

----

Resistance:

Grass (Major), Fighting (Major), Poison (Minor), Bug (Minor), Fairy (Minor)

-

Weaknesses:

Fire (Minor), Flying (Minor), Rock (Minor)

-

Standardized:

Psychic, Fire (in progress)

----

Condition: Healthy, Happy

----

Masteries:

Bug E. Manipulation (Proficient) -> (Advanced)

Poison E. Manipulation (Advanced)

----

Techniques:

-

(Unofficial) Initial:

Lance Dance (C)

-

Novice:

N/A

-

Beginner:

Endeavor

-

Proficient:

Poison Fang, Harden, Bug Bite, Laser Focus, Assurance, Pin Missiles, Focus Energy, Toxic, Toxic Spikes, Mega Drain (+), Brick Break (+), Furious Poison Cutter (C)

-

Advanced:

String Shot, Poison Sting, Toxic Thread, Electroweb, Fury Attack, Fury Cutter, Iron Defense, Agility, Fell Stinger, Furious Cutter (C), Iron Lance (C),

-

Mastered:

Poison Jab, Venoshock

-

Combo moves/Custom moves:

Furious Cutter (Advanced, +), Iron Lance (Advanced, +), Furious Poison Cutter (Proficient, new), Lance Dance (in progress)'

My eyes/mind was directly drawn to her potential and I saw that she had indeed attained light aurora potential. She was pretty close to scraping the bottom of that grade, but as they say, it is what it is.

Since she had managed to reach light aurora, I was not surprised to see that her modifier section remained unchanged, and unlocking a third ability was par the course for any Pokemon that reached any kind of aurora-shade potential.

I was only slightly surprised to see that her third ability was Adaptability. It made sense since I knew that Mega Beedrill gained the ability, so seeing how the ability was in the genetic ability pool of the species, unlocking it as her third ability upon reaching aurora potential was not really surprising. It was a pretty good ability so I was happy with it, and Parvati herself was just as happy when she heard which ability she got.

While they were busy discussing her new ability and how it would help her, I kept looking through her status screen. Looking at her parameter section, I saw what I had already expected. Unfortunately, even the 25% bonus from her royal gene was not enough to push her into the (high) gold stage from the start, so Parvati was starting at the (mid) gold stage.

Still, her parameters were not bad, and I was confident that she could reach the (high) gold stage within a year or two depending on how focused she was on increasing her parameters. Her move section was proof that she tended to get absorbed in training and developing her move. More specifically, her combo moves.

She had actually raised her first two combo moves to advanced mastery before she began working on actually combining the two combo moves into an even stronger combo move. While Lance Dance was still in the works, it seemed feasible and was promising to be a super strong move. Not only was it a super strong move, but it was also something that Mothra could not straight-up copy for obvious reasons.

Still, I would not put it past her to adapt it to her wings or something. However, I chose to keep that part to myself. Anyway, once I was done checking her status screen, I declared the start of her party, which went on until close to midnight.

The rest of the month after that was pretty calm, and my group managed to raise the fusion rate of the Arctic Heart to 70% before clocking out on Dialday, which was two days before the end of the month.

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