CH24 (47), Progress

It has been one month since Mothra's first mock battle and quite a few things have happened during this time.

On Kyoday near the end of the first week, nearly 8 weeks after meeting, *cough* abducting *cough*, the male Caterpie finally reached the (low) iron stage.

But that was not all, the two of them also established their bond after Caterpie advanced, allowing Mikail to finally see Caterpie's complete status screen.

8 weeks was much longer than it took Mikail to form a bond with Mothra, which took only 2 weeks.

'Name: None

Species: Caterpie

Gender: Male

Age: 18 Months

Type: Bug

Potential: Green (62.6%)

Genetic variation: None

Abilities: Shield Dust, Run Away

Talents: None

Affinities: Bug/Growth

Bond: Mikail (weak)

Quirks: Careful

Parameters:

Stage: Iron Stage (low)

Vitality: H

Strength: H

Endurance: H

Agility: H

Energy Capacity: I

Energy Density: I

Resistance: Grass (Minor), Fighting (Minor), Ground (Minor)

Weaknesses: Fire (Minor), Air (Minor), Rock (Minor)

Condition: Healthy, Happy

Masteries: Bug E. Manipulation (Initial)

Techniques: Tackle (Novice), String Shot (Beginner), Bug Bite (Novice), Electroweb (Novice)

Wow, there is quite a difference compared to Mothra's status screen.

First of all, Caterpie seems to be 13 months older than Mothra.

Now, normally, 18 months might not seem to be much but if we compare it to the lifespan a Caterpie at the iron stage possesses it turns into another story.

The average lifespan of a Caterpie at the Iron Stage is 3 years.

While this can be prolonged by evolution as well as advancing to a higher stage or through some special material, it does not change the fact that the average lifespan is 3 years.

Now, back to my Caterpie.

18 months is a sixth of its full lifespan, so it can not be considered insignificant.

Nonetheless, I believe, I can help Caterpie break at least its first limit.

As for the other two limits, I hope Caterpie can break them during that time as well but I am not sure.

Let's move on.

I can also see that he is more than halfway through the Green potential.

Caterpie has two abilities as well, but he possesses no special talent.

The only affinity he has is for the bug-type, which is probably the standard for their species.

His Quirk is Careful, which explains why it took me so long to bond with him, despite spending time with him as well as feeding and training him to the "best" of my abilities.

Let's see.

All of his parameters are at the standard for the Caterpie-line including resistances and weaknesses.

His mastery and techniques categories are much worse than Mothra's.

Caterpie only has Bug E. Manipulation under masteries.

He may have managed to learn Electroweb and Bug Bite thanks to Mothra's tutoring, but except for String Shot, which is at the beginner mastery, all his other moves are at the novice mastery.

Also, despite Mothra trying her best to teach him Confusion he has been unable to learn it.

This was probably because he did not have the affinity for it.'

Mikail fell deep into thought after looking through Caterpies status.

'Training Caterpie is much slower than training Mothra.

Despite feeding him ideal supplements for his stage and nutritious food as well as providing direct tutoring his progress is relatively slow.

Either I have been pampered too much by Mothra's fast progress or I am expecting too much.

If even after everything I have done Caterpie's progress is this slow despite having green potential, then how long does it take for ordinary trainers to strengthen their Pokemon with less than ideal potential?

It is no wonder that most Caterpies can not take advantage of the limit break's potential increasing benefit.

Without the support of supplements and so on, they simply do not have enough time to train for long enough to break the limits.

Since I am sure this difficulty also applies to other Pokemon species, I believe that training takes so much time I wouldn't be surprised if most trainers never reach the Senior-class or take years to do so.'

After that, the next semi-important thing happened at the beginning of the second week.

Mikail began his combing efforts once more, this time focusing on the western area.

He naturally did not forget to keep up his own training.

He did his exercises for a few hours each day.

This included his physical and psychic exercises.

As far as the physical exercise went he had increased the repetitions to 15 and for his psychic exercises, well, by the end of the second week he had made some progress in his telekinesis.

Mikail managed to move around 30 stones in a 30 meters radius for 20 minutes.

He was only missing another 10 minutes before he would up the difficulty of the exercise by changing the stones to piles of sand instead.

He would start with a single pile of sand because keeping a pile of loose sand together while doing the exercise is much harder than simply lifting a stone and doing it.

As far as his telepathy was concerned, it was getting easier for him to read surface thoughts, at least they did not have to be "screamed" anymore for him to hear them, but as far as reading memories or any other advanced skill was concerned there were zero advancements.

Nothing else of importance happened until the end of the 3rd week, at least nothing that had to be mentioned separately.

At the end of the 3rd week, Mikail finished combing through the western area and he managed to find 3 new materials during his search.

'Name: Seaking's Horn

Type: Water

Class: E

Uses: It's the horn of a Seaking, that has been thoroughly soaked in its energy.

Contains water-type energy and can be used as a supplement to help water-type Pokemon.

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

Name: Seadra's Breast Scale

Type: Water

Class: E

Uses: It's the scale of a Seadra, that has been saturated in its energy.

Contains water-type energy and can be used as a supplement to help water-type Pokemon.

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

Name: Metapod's Shed Skin

Type: Bug

Class: F

Uses: It's the shed skin of a Metapod, that has been completely steeped in its energy.

Contains bug-type energy and can be used as a supplement to help bug-type Pokemon, especially useful for the Caterpie-line.'

He found the horn and the scale inside the stream.

The horn was still on top of the skull of a Seaking's skeleton when he found it and he had to separate it from there himself because the skull itself was useless.

The scale on the other hand was found not far from the skeleton as well.

Mikail was pretty sure that the scale was originally from his father's Seadra.

He did not think that there was another Seadra around this place, or if his father's Seadra would accept another Seadra in the area.

Unless the wild Seadra was female, then it would be more plausible.

Anyway, he assumed that Seadra fought against Seaking and finally killed it, then it probably left its skeleton behind after eating it.

As for the scale, Seadra most likely lost that one during the fight against the Seaking.

The one that found the Metapod's shell was actually Mothra, not him.

The thing had been simply lying under one of the trees.

Mikail believed that one of the wild Metapod had dropped its old skin/shell after growing too big, forcing it to shed.

These three materials were the only new things he found in the western area.

At the beginning of the 4th week, Mikail started combing through the southwestern area and he was currently still combing through the area.

The next important event happened during the middle of the 4th week.

He officially finished learning how to write the alphabet.

His joy, however, was short-lived after his parents told him that he should now start writing words to make sure he knew how to spell/write them.

Tomorrow it would be exactly one month and Mikail decided to go over the progress of his Magikarp experiment before turning in for the night.

It had been more than 6 weeks since he started his second experiment and there had been some apparent changes during this last month.

First of all let's focus on the main specimen, Magidraco.

There was finally a visible change that was induced by the dragon-type energy.

One of her scales in the middle of Magidraco's forehead changed to a greenish-purple color instead of the normal brunt orange, but no other visible changes have been noted yet.

Her energetic behavior had not stopped nor had any extra aggression surfaced.

Compared to Magidraco the other specimen that was fed with the dragon-type supplement was not doing good.

It was getting more and more aggressive, irritable, and restless.

It also seemed to experience a persistent itch.

At least he assumed that to be the case because it kept rubbing against the bottom and sides of the pond.

The eyes of the specimen became bloodshot but other than that no other negative consequences on its physical health could be observed.

Nonetheless, he did not have to stop its participation yet, which was good.

The Specimen that was fed the grass-type supplement was the only one besides Magidraco that did not have any noticeable negative impact yet.

The last two specimens were not so fortunate, they could not continue the experiment any longer without most likely dying as a consequence.

The specimen that was fed a fire-type supplement could no longer hang on by the beginning of the 3rd week.

Its blood began to boil and it was starting to get cooked alive so Mikail stopped the experiment, since continuing would have served no purpose besides torturing the poor thing, which was never his aim.

The last specimen was the one that was fed the poison-type supplement.

Despite him reducing the potency of the supplement as well as using pecha berries to counter the poison, the specimen was dying of poisoning and it wasn't the painless version of death either, so Mikail had no other choice but to stop this part of the experiment as early as the middle of the second week.

He could accept discomfort, some pain, and even their death as the price for the sake of advancement but that did not mean he was okay with causing unnecessary pain that served no purpose.

It might seem a bit hypocritical, but he truly thought so.

Causing pain or death for the sake of the greater good was okay but never for fun or serving any purpose.

He was one of the good guys, after all.

If the greater good happened to align with his interests even better, right?

He would have to either use materials that were capable of helping the specimen absorb the supplement or produce some potions/serums that fit the desired type, but both scenarios required materials that he currently did not possess.

Another alternative was finding specimens that possessed the desired affinity but if that had been easy, then he would already have them.

So this method was moot as well.

Currently, he was left with 3 specimens that were still participating in his experiment.

Of those 3, Magidraco, and the plant-type specimen seemed to have no problems, but Mikail did not know for how long the other dragon-type specimen could continue.

He checked up on the other Magikarp inside his pond and he could see that nearly all of them had become sexually mature, which meant that they could soon start to reproduce.

He was planning to wait for all of them to reach their maturity before he actively started to help them reproduce, but until then he would not interfere.

If some of them decided to create some PokeEggs in advance he would be happy, but he wouldn't be disappointed if it did not happen either.

What he was actually considering was if he should request his parents to visit Lake Hope again to invite some more Magikarp into his space.

This way he could gain new blood without having to wait for too long.

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