The ice field did not stop expanding over the weekend, and it was still going when we returned to the lab on Arcday, so we kept an eye on it while we began working on the Mystic Frost Yache Gem. That was the tentative name we gave the object we were planning to produce.
We naturally had to first build up the 3 main components we needed to create the Mystic Frost Yache Gem, so we spent the next three days producing and amassing a lot of Mystic Ice Gems, Frost Extract, and Yache Berry Essence.
Only then did we start on the first attempt to produce a Mystic Frost Yache Gem by simultaneously infusing the Frost Extract and Yache Berry Essence into the Mystic Ice Gem. Even the previous Mystic Cryo Gem test concluded before that, so it was kinda nice that the previous chapter of our project closed before we officially began the new chapter so to say.
Yeah, the expansion test concluded sometime after lunch on Mewday, and by the end of it the ice "domain/zone" had expanded to 160 meters. That was the maximum range a D-Class Mystic Cryo Gem's energy conversion ability apparently applied to, and once we confirmed that the zone was no longer actively expanding, we put the gem away.
However, we left the camera set up as it was since we wanted to track for how long the "ice zone" would hold on without the Mystic Cryo Gem there to provide a steady stream of ice energy. It was something we decided to just track while working on the Mystic Frost Yache Gem.
Surprisingly, by the time we left the lab for our weekend break on Dialday evening, the ice field had only shrunk to 99 meters. It was hanging in there even after 2 days, thanks to the ice energy still present in the area. The energy was ensuring that the ice was not melting as quickly as it would have otherwise.
As for our Mystic Frost Yache Gem project, we managed to achieve a maximum fusion rate of 67% with one of the attempts, and the lowest fusion rate of the last batch of the week was 61%, so I'd say that we were doing pretty good on that front for now. Unfortunately, only about half of the objects managed to properly form, so we had to work on that aspect a bit more.
5 out of 10 breaking during the production was still too high, but that was mostly because we were infusing two different things into the Mystic Ice Gem. Still, that was definitely something we wanted and needed to improve since each broken piece was a "waste" of resources.
Anyway, after we came back to the lab on Arcday, we noted that the ice field had shrunk to 57 meters over the weekend. It was a bit surprising that it had shrunk less over the weekend than it did during the previous 2 days. It seemed that the closer it was to the location the Mystic Cryo Gem used to be, the slower it was returning to its previous state.
That honestly made me wonder what would happen if a Mystic Cryo Gem was left at a certain spot for a year, a decade, or even more. Would that area after some point become a permanent ice zone?
Two days later, by the end of Giratiday, the zone had been reduced to 29 meters, and by the time we had to leave for our weekend break, another two days later, the area had shrunk to 14 meters. That was also our last working day of the month since Kyoday happened to be the last day of the 5th month of 2182.
We ended up finishing the month with a maximum fusion rate of 73%, so I'd say it was a productive work month. Well, actually, it was not only a productive work month but one in general, at least after what happened that Kyoday.
I somehow managed to reach Tier 1 First-Class as an Earth Elementalist on the last day of the month. I was back home for the weekend, and I was out in our backyard with dad after lunch. Dad decided that it would be great if we did an earth training session together, and I went along with his idea since he was so enthused.
I somehow managed to just advance to First-Class while "training" with dad. We were just messing with our Minor Geokinesis, playing in/with the mud as they say, when it sorta just happened. I naturally unlocked Minor Earth Generation upon reaching Tier 1 First-Class. I had to admit that the combination of Minor Geokinesis and Minor Earth Generation was definitely fun, and quite useful.
There was naturally a limit to the amount of earth I could produce, not only because it was a minor earth generation, but also because I just unlocked it. The maximum I could produce from the get-go was about 0.04 m³, or about 80% of the size of a football, a real one, not the kind that gets thrown around. That alone was enough to do a lot of things with minor geokinesis.
Moreover, I could produce that amount in less than 5 seconds, and considering that it took 10 seconds at the start, I was sure that I could bring that down to a second or two with enough practice. I just had to make sure that I kept training the production speed while I kept increasing the amount I could produce at once.
My dad was definitely interested when he saw me produce earth. He actually asked if he could try to use his geokinesis on my earth, and after some testing, we learned that he could do it if I was not stopping him. If I used just my earth generation, he could overpower my energy and work with the earth I produced, even if he had to burn more of his energy to do so.
However, if I used my own geokinesis to resist his geokinesis, I had the absolute advantage. We tested the resistance part using regular ground, and while I had the advantage there as well since I simply was the stronger/better Elementalist, it was not as exaggerated as with my own earth.
With the neutral ground/earth, dad could at least put up a struggle, but with my own earth, there was no struggle at all. He simply stood no chance, period. That meant that using the earth generated by someone against him or her, was practically impossible for other Earth Elementalists unless one was miles stronger/better than the individual.
At least, I was assuming that one could overpower the other party if the difference between the two was big enough. I had no way to prove that right now, so that part was just an assumption of mine. Anyway, at the end of the day, dad had fun messing around like that, sorry I meant testing our abilities like that, so that was what we did.
Grouday was the first day of the new month, and funnily, the 6th month of 2182 had six weeks with the first and sixth having only one day respectively. So, when I came back to the lab on Arcday to resume our work, the second week of the month had actually begun, despite this being the second day of the month.
What a coincidence right? Some might say "so what", which was the reaction Carl gave me when I pointed it out to him and Sibel, but I actually found it funny/interesting. Well, not everyone could have a sophisticated sense of humor as I did, so I did not mind their attitude.
Anyway, we checked up on the ice field and saw that there was only a small area with a diameter of around 5 meters left. According to our estimations, this last bit could take anywhere between 2 to 4 days to vanish. That meant that it would actually take longer for the ice zone to vanish than it had taken for the Mystic Cryo Gem to produce it.
The question was by how much, and three days later, on Palkiday we knew the answer. Coincidentally, that was also the day that Tatsumaki/Alakazam completed the second round of her limit-breaking, which was pretty much the most interesting thing that happened that week, at least for me as an individual.
The week after that was a bit more active on a personal front. Not only did Mienfoo starts limit-breaking on Mewday, but Luna/Clefable finished her first round of limit-breaking on Grouday. Furthermore, she already had two parameters that had reached SS, so a third of the second round was already complete from the get-go.
Naturally, my group did not stop working hard on our Mystic Frost Yache Gem project. By Dialday of the new week, which happened to be the fourth one of this month, we managed to break past the 90% fusion rate milestone, thanks to one of our last attempts of the day producing an object with a 92% fusion rate.
It took us only around 4 weeks to go from a best of 67% to 92%, which was incredible, considering that it took us around two-and-a-half months to achieve comparable progress with the Mystic Cryo Gem. Our experience with the separate frost and yache gems was proving fairly helpful in this and was no doubt one of the main reasons why we had made such quick progress with the Mystic Frost Yache Gem.
Another week quickly passed, and raising the maximum fusion rate to 96% was not the best news I heard that Dialday. Neither was the fact, that we had managed to raise the minimum fusion rate to 88%, or that the output rate had risen to 8 out of 10, or rather about 8.5 out of 10.
No, that honor went to the news Mars/Ursaring gave me an hour before I clocked out of the lab, or rather, it reached that position once I confirmed the news after I returned to my dorm room and entered Utopia. Still, I did confirm that Mars officially completed his limit-breaking, which meant that he was ready to break through to the gold stage.
Yet, I did not call everyone over so that he could break through while they were watching. No, instead I told Mars to wait for a bit while I checked the net to see when the next visible Solar Flare was. Yes, I wanted to go through the latest evolution attempt to Ursasol first. Or maybe we should call it Solaring? Nah, I was sticking to Ursasol.
Regardless of what I was going to call the new species, it remained a fact that I wanted to go through another evolution attempt before he broke through to gold since the, no doubt, improved racial value/base stat of the new species would be a great boon for his starting point at the gold stage.
Thankfully, I was quite lucky since I read that the next visible solar flare was this Grouday. The report said that they were expecting it to happen sometime between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m., so I did not have to wait too long to go through the evolution test.
Well, and since I wanted to do that, I not only had to prepare the items I believed would trigger the evolution, but also the supplements I wanted to use to raise his potential while he was evolving.
I had the items I was hoping would act as evolution triggers, but there were still a few supplements I was missing since I had to use them during each attempt in case the attempt was successful, which meant they were consumed each time regardless of whether it worked or not. Some of the supplements got used up during the last attempt, which was why I had to create a new batch of those.
As for the new evolution trigger I had settled on, it was a B-Class Sunlight Bellflower. The Sunlight Bellflower was a fire-type flower/item that only grew in fire-type energy-dense and rich environments. Its petals were a bright red, most likely due to the dense fire energy it contained, and it got its name because it radiated a bright light during the night.
Places where one might, and I was saying might find Sunlight Bellflower were sites such as the core areas of a Fire Stone mine, or beside the mouth of a large active volcano. Consequently, the Sunlight Flower was really rare and expensive.
Anyhow, I was really hopeful that it would work as a trigger, so after sharing the news with Mars, I directly went to my lab and began working on the supplements that had to be produced.
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