Once we made it back to the entrance I began collecting the carcasses there as well, before praising everyone for their efforts. I told everyone that I would be placing them inside Utopia so that they could recover and rest there.
Well, nearly everyone, I kept Thor/Raichu, Nyx/Umbreon, Ali/Kirlia, and Tatsumaki/Kadabra out to keep me company while I scoured the cave for any survivors and valuables. Additionally, I did not feel like being alone right now.
While I knew that it had to happen, and I actually agreed with the decision as well as our actions, I still felt a bit solemn after collecting all those bodies. To be completely honest, I felt nearly nothing when dealing with the ones at or above the bronze stage, but the iron stage Zubat did sadden me a bit, and the stageless Zubat somewhat enlarged that sadness.
Such a high number of lives that had been snuffed out because of my orders and actions made it such that I could not be happy despite having perfectly finished my mission. Don't get me wrong, I did not regret what I did and I would do it again. That was what I concluded after some pondering.
I knew what the tribe had done and that they would have kept doing it if I had not taken them out, so the sadness I felt gave way to determination pretty quickly. Largely because I had been preparing myself mentally for over 8 years for situations like this since I had always known that I would be experiencing and most likely causing a lot of deaths during my time in this universe.
However, no matter how much I prepared myself, I could not help feeling down for a while, and even if I managed to deal with that pretty smoothly, I could still not bring myself to celebrate the success of my mission. This showed that on some level I had not completely managed to deal with the sadness I felt.
Anyway, psychological mumbo jumbo aside, Mothra insisted on staying by my side as well, she had most likely noticed that I was feeling a bit down. All my Pokemon did on some level, but she decide that she would be helping me with the sheer presence of her cute self.
When I mentioned that she was a bit hurt and that it would be better for her to recover inside Utopia she just used Roost while asking Ali to use Heal Pulse on her. After two rounds she looked to be in good condition, and threw me a smug look that said "there, problem solved".
I just smiled at her and let her do what he wanted. Still, her antics did raise my mood a bit which she noticed as she began flying around me cheerfully. Unlike me, my Pokemon seemed to have no problem with the aftermath of our little war.
It seemed they were much better at rationalizing our actions, or they simply thought it was part of life. Regardless of which one it was, I was glad that I did not have to deal with cheering them up.
We began scouring the cave, everyone looking by themselves, with one of them always staying close to me. We started from the entrance and went all the way to the end, which surprisingly took us the rest of the day, which amounted to roughly 8 hours.
The result of our search was both pretty good as well as somewhat disappointing. It was disappointing in the sense that I already had an example of nearly all of the materials we found, which meant that Utopia could already replicate them as long as they were not C-class materials or higher.
Nonetheless, our harvest was abundant which was why I said it was pretty good. We found 3 C-class materials, of which 1 was new, and we also found 4 new materials at a lower class than that. Everyone also managed to discover a few egg clusters hidden in nests all around the cave.
The total number of eggs we gathered was 34, but I was only interested in 3 of them. Two were found in random nests, but the final one was found in what I believed to be the best belonging to the Crobat and his or her deputy since we found the C-class materials in that area.
The two eggs managed to rouse my interest because their potential was not bad.
'Species: Zubat
Gender: Female
Type: Poison, Flying
Potential: Green
Stage: None, PokeEgg
Genetic variation: None
Abilities: Inner Focus, Infiltrator
Talents: None
Affinities: Poison, Flying'
A female with green potential, while not enough for me to raise her myself, she was good enough for me to take her in as Moka's subordinate or I could give her to my mom or a friend.
'Species: Zubat
Gender: Male
Type: Poison, Flying
Potential: Green
Stage: None, PokeEgg
Genetic variation: None
Abilities: Inner Focus, Infiltrator
Talents: None
Affinities: Poison, Flying'
The same was true for the male, green potential as an egg was good enough that I did not want to lose it but not good enough that I would want to raise another Zubat/Crobat for my team. All in all, I would keep these two and decide what to do with them later on.
The egg I found in the boss's nest on the other hand turned out to be a bit special.
'Species: Zubat
Gender: Male
Type: Poison, Flying
Potential: Deep Green
Stage: None, PokeEgg
Genetic variation: Deviant Gene
Abilities: Inner Focus, Huge Power
Talents: None
Affinities: Poison, Flying'
Its potential was deep green, which while pretty good, would not have been enough for me to classify it as special. No, that honor belonged to two factors. The first was the Deviant Gene it seemed to possess. I actually had to look that one up in my super library since I had not come across it before this.
It turned out to be somewhat of a precursor to the Mutant Gene. Well, calling it a precursor was not right, it was more like if the change in the Pokemon did not fulfill all criteria for the Mutant Gene, it turned into the Deviant Gene.
Unlike the Mutant Gene which gave a 100% bonus, the Deviant Gene gave an overall 50% boost to the Pokemon, which placed it among the level 2 genes such as the king/queen gene.
The second factor was something I assumed happened due to the Deviant Gene. Zubat's second ability changed from Infiltrator to Huge Power, which was something that Zubat was not supposed to have.
This change alone gave me an indicator of what kind of change the Deviant Gene had caused to the Zubat developing inside the egg. Now, this was just a theory with zero proofs, but I was assuming the gene was turning the Zubat line from a speed-focused Pokemon into a strength-focused one. I could naturally be wrong, but that was my current guess.
I was definitely going to keep that one for myself, along with the other two for now. However, the other 31 Zubat eggs were pretty much useless for me since I had no plans on starting a colony/farm of them in Utopia's subspace.
I ultimately decided to hand them over to the academy in exchange for some money. I actually had the option of selling it to Coco and Akame's family since they specialized in poison types, but I had heard about some of the family's training/raising habits from those two, and I did not want the Zubat to go through that since they could die during the process, especially since most of them had orange potential.
I guess I was still feeling a bit bad about the whole thing so I did not want the Zubat inside the eggs to die if I could avoid it. That was why I was planning to hand them over to the academy instead even if I would receive less for the eggs.
Still, I was going to keep all materials since there was nothing wrong to have more of them even if I could already replicate them. After giving the cave one last look I had Mothra open up the entrance for us so that we could leave.
Afterward, we spent the next three days recovering from the short war we had. These three days were spent purely with us relaxing. Well, actually I had to do a bit of "work" since I gave everyone a grooming and massage session to help them relax, but it helped calm my mind. Besides, it made my Pokemon happy, which made me happy, so it was a win-win-win situation.
The rest of the time until the end of the 2-week deadline we spent training and digesting the experience of the confrontation. By the end of our stay, a lot of my Pokemon had made some progress in one form or the other. Mars's Endurance improved to S, and Tiamat's Vitality rose to A as well.
Abzu's Energy Capacity also rose to S, and Ali's Energy Capacity did the same. Hera's Energy Capacity improved to A, and Saphira/Swablu's Energy Density reached C. In short, a lot of my Pokemon experienced an improvement in one of their parameters.
Another good thing that happened by that point was that I had completely dealt with my feelings regarding the mission and what we did during the completion of said mission.
Anyway, bright and early at 7 a.m on Arcday I had Horus/Xatu teleport me in front of the academy gate before I made my way to Mr. Cameron's office.
Thankfully, he was in, so I did not have to ask the secretary to inform Mr. Cameron about my arrival. I gave my mission report including the number of carcasses I had collected as proof of the completion of the mission and Mr. Cameron quietly listened until I was done.
"You've done a good job," he praised me with a sharp nod before he continued.
"Mr. Burns is going to lead you to storage no.3 after our talk, and you will have to take out the bodies there so that he can check them. Once he has confirmed their number, the carcasses will be yours to handle however you want. Have you already thought about what you want to do with them?" He asked and I obviously went with my prepared answer.
"Yes, I only plan to keep the body of the Crobat and the gold stage Golbat. I plan to sell the rest for money."
He did not look surprised by my answer and nodded.
"Good. The academy is willing to buy the carcasses at a price that's slightly above the market price. We'll pay 200 Poke per kg for the stageless Zubat, 600 Poke per kg for any iron-stage Zubat, and 1800 Poke per kg for any bronze-stage Zubat.
Additionally, we'll pay 4000 Poke per kg for each bronze-stage Golbat, and 8000 Poke per kg for the silver-stage Golbat. You said there were 202 stageless, 425 iron stage, and 149 bronze-stage Zubat bodies, along with 71 bronze, and 31 silver-stage Golbat bodies, so that comes up at 35.236.600 Poke in total.
I'll round that up to 36 million Poke, so you can just leave those bodies in that storage and go to the secretariat to complete the payment." I nodded at that and he continued after receiving my acknowledgment.
"What about the eggs and materials you've found inside the cave?" He asked and I went with the truth.
"I'm going to keep the materials and 3 of the eggs. Can I sell the rest of the eggs to the academy as well? However, I want to be upfront I believe they'll end up being mostly 2-star Zubat with a few 1 and 3-star Zubat, so don't complain to me if their potential ends up being like that. I mean most of the Zubat in the cave were pretty unimpressive, so I'm not expecting too much from their eggs," I informed Mr. Cameron and he smiled.
"Don't worry we won't blame you," he said with a short laugh. "We are willing to pay 30.000 Poke per egg, and that makes 930.000 Poke for 31 Zubat eggs. I'll only round that up slightly, so you'll get 950k for them. Just leave the eggs in the storage with the bodies and Mr. Burns will take care of them as well," Mr. Cameron said with a mirthful tone.
"Sure, I'll do that," I agreed before asking how many points I got for the mission.
"You'll receive the standard 200 points and once the number of carcasses has been confirmed you'll receive another 50 bonus points. Regardless of that, you've already gathered enough academic points to redeem the chance to visit the Riolu habitat if you want," he answered and chuckled when he saw how excited I got at that.
"Sure, I want to go through with the visit as soon as possible," I told him and he nodded.
"No problem, you can go there as early as tomorrow. Just come to my office tomorrow at 8 a.m and I'll have Gallade teleport you to the Riolu habitat. Now, with all that out of the way, you can wait for Mr. Burns in front of my office. I already called him over.
He'll lead you to the storage area. Once you're done with him go to the secretariat for your payment, and after that, you can go home. No need to participate in the lesson of the day," he said and I thanked him before leaving the room.
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