CH58 (580), Orphanage(s) (2)
Due to Utopia's existence, sharing a room with others was not an option, at least not for me, so I told the matron that I would settle the accommodation issue myself. The matron asked if I was sure since finding a place to stay on such short notice would be hard unless I was willing to spend a lot more money than usual. When I told her that that would be no problem she did not insist.
Afterward, she informed me that I would be working from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. 6 times a week with only Grouday being my day off. As for my exact job during that time, I was supposed to follow the lead of the caretakers, but it appeared that I would also be asked to fill in any other job if necessary.
Anyway, after clearing those things up, I left the orphanage and began to stroll around Lavender City. I decided to pay a visit to a few letting/rental agencies first, but after looking at the option of three of them, I decided to stop and simply stay inside Utopia instead. I would "teleport" away whenever I wanted to "go home", and simply enter Utopia.
Following that decision, I made sure to locate the local KFP as well as KFC branches. I also looked into whether Aldini's and the other famous restaurant "brands" had a branch here as well. Naturally, I did not forget to mark the famous local restaurants as well so that I could visit them at some point to see if they were worthy of their reputation.
I then went ahead and ate lunch at one of these local restaurants, and I had to say their noodles were pretty good. I ordered one of each noodle meal on the menu, and by the time I was done with all 24 servings, everyone at the restaurant, from workers to other guests, was staring at me in disbelief. It appeared I had beaten the in-house record of 12 servings by a bit.
While everyone was staring at me in disbelief, I briefly considered whether I should order some dessert, but I decided to spare their poor hearts from any further shock. The owner actually asked me if they could take a photo of me to hang it on the wall, but I declined that dubious honor, and simply left after paying the bill.
I headed to one of the parks close by and entered Utopia from there. The rest of the day was spent with my Pokemon, and the next morning I officially began the single-month-long orphanage phase of my practical year.
If I had to sum up the experience of my first week, I would use the words, loud, active, busy, and child supervisor. The only time during my 12 hours at the orphanage I was not shrouded by loud children's noises was during nap time, thank Mew as well as Arceus for nap time, and whenever I had to help out in the kitchen or one of the older kids with their homework.
Oh, and I also noticed that none of the other non-live-in caretakers were working as long as I was. They were working only 9 hours per day, but it appeared that 12 hours during this phase was the norm, so I was not the only aspiring trainer who had to do this.
Anyway, tomorrow was my first day off, and I was planning to spend the whole day inside Utopia to spend time with my Pokemon. Not only did we have our routine Grouday check-up, but I was also planning to personally supervise their training since I had been unable to do so during the last 6 days.
Come Grouday morning I prepared everyone's breakfast with the help of the volunteers, and after we were done with breakfast, I had them start on a morning training session. I went around checking up on their execution as well as their progress.
Three hours later I called for a stop and told them to gather around for the routine check-up. I examined their bodies as well as their status sheets to ensure that they were in good condition and to see if anything had changed on "paper".
When it was Kimura/Hitmonform's turn, I saw that he had completed his limit-breaking. Just last week he had still been missing half the necessary SSS parameters, and thanks to his buggy balance talent, all three did the last step sometime during this week.
The fact that Kimura wrapped up the silver stage within a single year, even though we had opted for a rather heavy focus on his moves due to how fast he was progressing, showed just how buggy his talent was.
Honestly, despite the steps we had taken, his combat prowess was not able to keep up with his stage progress. If we had not chosen to focus on his moves, combat/sparring experience, and energy manipulation, he might have completed his LB phase within just half a year, but then everything else aside from his stage would have been abysmal.
As it stood now, Kimura had a decent move pool and a goodish grasp of combat, but he was definitely behind compared to other members of our family who were at the same stage as him, simply because they had to spend more time to reach that point. Kimura was literally the embodiment of the phrase "suffering from success", and his talent placed him on the other extreme opposite of Mothra/Butterfree, whose move pool was abnormal.
Still, dealing with that and ensuring that his prowess did not get left behind was my responsibility. Besides, the higher stages would allow him to spend more time on his moves even if he was progressing rather rapidly stage-wise, and he would probably keep doing that since I had no plans to slow him down any more than I was already doing, at least not for now.
Anyway, I shared the good news with Kimura and told him that we would go through with his breakthrough once I was done checking up on the rest of our family. He gave me a thumbs-up and proceeded to play with an Aura Sphere while I went around and finished checking up on the rest.
It took me another 30 minutes to finish up, and I did not stumble upon any future big news. Once I was done, I announced Kimura's upcoming breakthrough through UtopiaFM, before we made our way to his place. We waited for around 10 minutes for the stragglers to arrive before I went up to Kimura and wished him all the best. Fortuna/Togetic flew over and wished him good luck as well.
We then joined the other in the circle, and I gave Kimura the go-ahead. I had to admit that I was a bit nervous since if nothing went wrong, Kimura was sure to be the first among my Pokemon to attain aurora potential, and I was not talking about the light kind but the standard one.
He initiated his breakthrough, and within seconds energy began to funnel into him, and he began to shine, his silhouette turning brighter with each passing moment. I had no idea if that was something everyone reaching the aurora grade would undergo or if he was unlocking something, but we all watched the event with bated breath.
The whole process took longer than the usual breakthrough, but eventually, Kimura's breakthrough was complete, and he became fully visible once more. Everyone's reaction at that moment was surprise and confusion, due to a change in his look that was immediately apparent but still left one questioning "That's all?".
Whatever happened during his breakthrough, or more like whatever he unlocked, caused some small changes in his appearance. The one that stuck to the eye immediately was that his blue shorts changed to blue GI pants. In essence, it looked like he simply swapped his shorts for pants, which was where everyone's confusion came from.
When I moved towards him, I noticed that he also appeared to be slightly bulkier, though the difference from before was not big, and he also looked a bit taller than before. When I made it to his side, I noticed that he was now actually a tad bit taller than me, at either 184 or 185 cm.
I first pat him on the shoulder before pulling him into a hug, while congratulating him on reaching the gold stage. Everyone could feel that he was at the (mid) gold stage, so whatever he unlocked was not enough to push him to the next substage.
Still, since it was rather obvious that he unlocked something I also congratulated him on that in advance, but I refrained from mentioning his potential since I had no idea if he still managed to attain aurora potential after the cost of whatever he had unlocked.
Nonetheless, the two points I mentioned were already enough to make anyone laugh out of happiness, and Kimura was no exception. The others decided to join us as well and began to congratulate him on his breakthrough as well as his change.
While they did that, I went ahead and checked his new/updated status sheet since I was rather curious about the cause of his change and whether he had attained aurora potential or not.
'Name: Kimura
Species: Hitmonform
Gender: Male
Age: 6+ years
-
Type: Fighting
Potential: Aurora (10.22%)*
{Light Aurora (70.44%) -> (40.44) -> Aurora (10.22%)}'
I could not help my smile when I saw that Kimura had attained Aurora potential after all, though it became apparent that whatever had caused the change to pants as well as his slightly bulkier/taller form had cost him 30% of his potential.
I was extremely grateful that the cost came first before the potential bonus was applied, or we would have suffered quite a loss. However, while I was definitely happy that he reached Aurora, I would have enjoyed it infinitely more if the bonus had not been cut in half once again.
Anyway, I had no idea what kind of impact his new potential had on the rest of his status, so I curiously looked at the sections below, and I stumbled upon the reason for his physical change, though I was not sure if it was his potential increase that triggered the change or if he had been simply lucky.
'(Genetic) Modifiers: Aura-Variant*'
While this was not a regular modifier but a variation, it explained the loss in potential since any variation outside of evolution or Utopia's optimization cost potential.
As for him becoming an aura variant, I had to be honest here, looking at Freyja/Lopunny's situation, I would have frankly expected more if someone had asked me about my expectations on an aura variant Hitmonform before this. A slightly bulkier/taller build, and gi pants instead of shorts were definitely not the biggest visual change.
Well, looking at the detailed description, at least he now had a slightly superior racial value like aura variants tended to have. Each of his parameters/stats rose by 5, so Kimura now had an RV/BS of 540 instead of 510. It was a pretty good change, even if it was not the biggest one, but that kind of thinking was probably more due to me being spoiled by all the modifiers and blessings my Pokemon had.
Moving on, I quickly looked at his abilities to see if he had unlocked a fourth ability, but he didn't. It appeared having aurora potential did not add another ability. After confirming that his talent and affinities had not changed as well, I shared the news so far with Kimura and the others.
Freyja and Anubis/Lucario were the first to congratulate him on joining the aura club before the others followed suit. Meanwhile, I continued looking through the rest of his status sheet.
'Bond: Mikail (strong)
Quirks: None
----
Parameters:
Stage: Gold Stage (mid)*
Vitality: D
Strength: D
Endurance: D
Agility: D
Energy Capacity: D
Energy Density: D'
I was not surprised by his stage since we all felt it, and his unified parameter spreadsheet was honestly no surprise as well since his racial values too were uniform. Still, with everything being at D, he only had to focus on routines 1 and 2 to raise four of them to C in a short time, but frankly speeding through the gold stage was not going to be our focus since that would, to a certain degree, happen whether we wanted or not.
Anyway, I continued to look through the rest of his status sheet but saw no further changes caused by his breakthrough. Nonetheless, looking at his move pool I reaffirmed my decision to mainly keep focusing on Kimura's moves during his training aside from the usual/routine training.
'Techniques:
-
(Unofficial) Initial:
Steel Kick (C)
-
Novice:
Poison Jab (new), Bullet Punch (new)
-
Beginner:
Close Combat (+), Thunder Punch (+), Ice Punch (+), Fire Punch (+), Power-Up Punch (+), Blaze Kick (+), Thunder Kick (C, new), Ice Kick (C, new)
-
Proficient:
Drain Punch (+), Agility (+), Aura Sphere (new)
-
Advanced:
Vacuum Wave (+)
-
Combos/Custom:
Thunder Kick (Beginner), Ice Kick (Beginner), Steel Kick (in progress)'
---------------------
---------------------
This part is purely to display Kimura's status screen in one piece and does not count toward the word count.
'Name: Kimura
Species: Hitmonform
Gender: Male
Age: 6+ years
-
Type: Fighting
Potential: Aurora (10.22%)
(Genetic) Modifier: Aura-Variant
Abilities: Technician, Iron Fist, Adaptability
Talents: Perfectly Balanced
Affinities: Fighting, Aura
-
Bond: Mikail (strong)
Quirks: None
----
Parameters:
Stage: Gold Stage (mid)
Vitality: D
Strength: D
Endurance: D
Agility: D
Energy Capacity: D
Energy Density: D
----
Resistance:
Bug (Minor), Rock (Minor), Dark (Minor)
-
Weaknesses:
Flying (Minor), Psychic (Minor), Fairy (Minor)
-
Standardized:
Psychic (in progress)
----
Condition: Healthy, Happy, Proud
----
Masteries:
Fighting Energy Manipulation (Proficient)
Aura Manipulation (Beginner)
----
Techniques:
-
(Unofficial) Initial:
Steel Kick (C)
-
Novice:
Poison Jab, Bullet Punch
-
Beginner:
Earthquake, Headbutt, Body Slam, Triple Kick, Close Combat, Thunder Punch, Ice Punch, Fire Punch, Power-Up Punch, Blaze Kick, Thunder Kick (C), Ice Kick (C)
-
Proficient:
Tackle, Focus Energy, Rock Smash, Helping Hand, Fake Out, Low Kick, Bulk Up, Brick Break, Sweeping Kick (C), Endure, Mega Punch, Mega Kick, Work Up, Protect, Double Team, Swift, Seismic Toss, Drain Punch, Agility, Aura Sphere
-
Advanced:
Detect, Low Sweep, Vacuum Wave
-
Mastered:
N/A
-
Combos/Custom:
Sweeping Kick (Proficient), Thunder Kick (Beginner), Ice Kick (Beginner), Steel Kick (in progress)'
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