CH188 (802), Leaving The Oasis/Desert (1)

Well, it actually should have been 12 even if we added the two Drapion leaders, but when they saw their new habitat after I transferred them there and Utopia's upgrade was done, the three strongest Skorupi declared that they would finally be evolving. They wasted not a moment before all three lit up, and seeing how my attention was still on them at the time I decided to help them a it considering how their group had just joined in.

Unfortunately for them, it was too late for me to give them any supplements since they had already triggered their evolution, so all I could do was manipulate Utopia/their habitat to infuse more of the ambient energy into them than they would passively be able to absorb during their evolution. Luckily for the trio of fresh Drapion, that was enough for the three fortunate Pokemon to push their potential to light green after Utopia had elevated their potential to deep yellow, which had been below the propagation allowance boundary.

Seeing how they had managed to tip-toe beyond the limit, I used Utopia to remove the artificial sterilization I had ordered it to place on all Pokemon below light green potential at the end of the optimization process. That was how the number of Skorupi/Drapion capable of breeding rose to 15 instead of 12, while the number of Drapion went from 2 to 5. I was naturally curious why they had delayed their evolution since I doubted it was the optimal evolution point seeing how they had long passed that one as members of a single evolution species at the (high) silver stage. Not that I thought they knew the optimal point, but I doubted that it was something along those lines.

My curiosity won the best of me and I manifested an earth clone beside them to ask them directly. The group was obviously startled by my sudden appearance and they even took defensive stances, though they calmed down a bit when they heard my voice. They settled entirely when I told them what I was and they noticed that I looked exactly like myself except for being brown since the clone was made of earth. After that initial bit of panic, I got straight to the issue, and the Drapion answered nearly just as swiftly since according to them it was no secret why they did it. The answer was pretty simple, food, or rather food consumption.

According to their explanation, if the Skorupi had evolved before moving to Utopia, their food requirement would have tripled at least which would have strained their resources in the long run since they already had to spread out to meet their previous demand which had begun to strain the acceptance of the other species living around them. Unfortunately, evolving to Drapion would not have solved the issue since it would not have given them enough power to tilt the odds decisively in their favor. That made sense and I had a slight inkling that it might be something along those lines when I posed the question.

The next bit however was completely out of my expectations since the Drapion shared that this was also the reason two of them held back their breakthrough to the gold stage. It would have increased their food intake as well, though not nearly as much as evolving. Yet, they chose to not risk it because according to them, they would have had a harder time suppressing their evolution after reaching the gold stage. That was not something I had heard before, though admittedly, I had also not come across any Pokemon that prevented its sole evolution from taking place even after reaching the gold stage.

They told me that it was the female gold stage Drapion who shared that information with them since she was the first one to attempt to do exactly that. The attempt had obviously failed, leading to the rest of them deciding against breaking through once they reached the point where they could. It was honestly surprising to hear Skorupi and Drapion act so considerate, putting the needs of their swarm above their personal needs. Most wouldn't be surprised to see something like that among the Weedle, Combee, or Caterpie lines; Species like Scyther, Pinsir, and Skorupi however were not among those where such considerate/social behavior would be envisioned.

That was doubly true with the Skorupi line due to Drapion being a dark type, which usually had some selfish connotations or at least was associated with them. Hence, I decided to document this information so that I could add it to the information I gathered before, and I also made a note to make a video of the evolution that happened before along with their behavior before they evolved to highlight that they only triggered the evolution after confirming the conditions of their new habitat.

I was not worried about revealing Utopia in the video since no one would be able to discern that the habitat was in an alternate space. Whoever saw the video would assume the Skorupi had been relocated or had relocated to a new habitat themselves. As for league personnel or others like Professor Oak who had an inkling about my "personal mirage island", they would assume that the video had been taken there. Either way, I had my earth clone directly start making the video while I along with the exploration squad continued circling the oasis.

The next two hours were less fortunate with no stand-out encounters except for two more trainer battles, which was surprising in itself since I was not used to seeing so many other people in the desert. That I was willing to call 3 encounters in a day a lot said enough about the encounter rate. Regardless, I naturally battled both trainers, and similarly to the battle against Lisa, both battles were 3 vs 3 since neither trainer was willing to not leave some Pokemon as backup until their battlers recovered. I was genuinely happy to see that they all had the proper desert travel awareness and properly followed the ranger guidelines.

Anyway, at this point we had reached the outer area of the oasis where the greenery was starting to mix with the yellow/brown of the desert, so I made sure to raise my attentiveness to the maximum since this would likely be where I would have a higher chance to encounter the species I was looking for as they actually preferred a drier environment like this. An area like this where the environment was dry but prey was still close by was optimal for them. If things got too wet for them they could always retreat into the "dead"/sandy part of the desert after all.

My prediction came true just a few minutes later when I came upon a bunch of Sandile munching on some Diglett. They glared at me when they spotted us, but seeing how we were interrupting their meal I raised my arms to show that I was harmless before I led my group to take a few steps back to let the Sandile finish their meal in peace. Since there were more Sandile than there were Diglett to eat, they had to share which meant that I did not have to wait for long. It was obvious to me that none of the Sandile were full, so I decided to help them out to earn their goodwill.

I took out a bunch of Figy as well as Wiki berries and levitated one of each toward every Sandile. The flying berries naturally caught their attention and they all looked over to me, giving me wary looks before turning to the berries and giving those wary looks. They just collectively stared at the berries in front of them for a few moments before one of them turned to look at its fellow Sandile and growled something at them following which they began to grow/talk. The gist was that one of them had to step forward and do a taste test to prove that the berries were not part of a trap.

I had the urge to tell them that I did not need to trap them with berries if I wanted to capture them. Seb/Nidoking would be enough to take them all down using a fair dose of violence. However, I decided to keep quiet and just let them do their thing. A group that acted like that had likely had a reason to behave like that and were unlikely to listen to reason until they were convinced that I was not trying to trick them. It did not take long for a Sandile to step up. All Sandile watched as the volunteer chewed the two berries a few times before gulping them down, following which everyone kept an eye on Sandile to see if it showed any questionable symptoms.

Around a minute later the volunteer released a growl to share that it felt okay, but the leader returned a growl to tell everyone that they were waiting some more to be sure. I had a feeling it was this Sandile who was responsible for the group's overly cautious/distrustful behavior. Either way, no Sandile refuted their leader's instruction, so we ended up waiting for another two minutes before the leading Sandile seemed to be satisfied. It asked the volunteer how it felt, and after it shared that it felt great, the leader finally told everyone that they could eat.

I noticed that the leader itself along with the Sandile to its right and left did not touch their berries until after the others were done, which was roughly two minutes later. Honestly talk about wary, but even though I felt it was exaggerating I could not help but feel a bit of admiration for its attitude. Yet, that would not stop me from checking them all out and I was sincerely hoping that the leader would not get in the way of that or things would get a bit ugly. To hopefully avoid that, I focused my aura on the leader as well as its deputies after they finally ate before telling them what I wanted.

Thankfully the leading Sandile chose to let me do my thing, so I quickly went around and pat each one of the 18 Sandile, excluding the leader and his deputies, to Observe them. I managed to discover 2 Sandile with deep yellow potential, so I motioned to them and gave them the offer to join me in exchange for planting a Figy and Wiki Berry tree for the group. They themselves would get to live a life of abundance in Utopia so the exchange was for the group/Sandile that got left behind really. The leading Sandile did not agree directly but asked for a Figy as well as a Wiki Berry tree for each Sandile instead to which I easily agreed.

Then, without giving it the chance to regret its decision or rather the "low" counteroffer, I balled the two Sandile I wanted before taking out the berry trees I promised. While our exchange did not include the planting, I still helped the Sandile find a good spot to plant the four trees. After that, I continued circling the outer area, and I was pretty happy with the result since I kept coming across some of the Pokemon on my list every 10 to 15 minutes. By the time I had definitely left the area of the oasis, which was roughly 2 hours after I met the wary Sandile group, I had captured 4 more Sandile, 7 Trapinch, 3 Cancea, and 3 Drilbur.

Honestly, the Cacnea were a spur-of-the-moment decision since they happened to be living together with the Drilbur, so when I Observed those, I also Observed the Cacnea while I was at it. Anyway, among the 4 Sandile, one had green potential while the rest had deep yellow potential. The 7 Trapinch were mostly deep yellow as well, with a light green one being the sole exception. Meanwhile, the Cacnea and Drilbur were a bit better off; Both groups had only a single deep yellow member, with the other two having greenish potential. For the Cacnea that meant two light green Cacnea while the Drilbur had a light green and a deep green member.

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