Well, the final month was turning out to be both great and not-so-great at the same time. On one hand, Melinda/Mienshao had advanced to the (high) silver stage on Palkiday of week two, which was definitely something to be happy about.
On the other hand, the fifth and final week was about to begin and I had only managed to raise the efficacy of the four formulas close to the smaller goal of 150%. Just as I had suspected at the beginning of the month, pushing the increase to 200% appeared impossible while still trying to maintain the facade of logic.
It appeared that if I wanted to raise the potency increase of the external supplements to 200% before leaving back to Oak Labs, I would have to stay beyond the end of the fourth term. Obviously, that did not mean that I would be staying for another full term, but it seemed that I would be forced to return for another month once the upcoming break was over.
At least I would be able to use the previously mentioned break to "push" my research close to the 200% goal and use most of the month to settle the last kinks in the accompanying exercises and massage routines.
I was actually looking forward to going back to Oak Labs and considering that I'd be in the middle of the fifth term, along with the sixth term being only 3 months long I did not believe I would be doing another collaboration project.
Not to mention that the sixth term was the final one of my internship, hence not something the professor should let me spend outside/at another lab. Even if I was pretty sure that the number of collaboration offers that had been sent to the lab had gone through the roof after the stunt I pulled with the Ursaring papers.
I had made sure to refer anyone mentioning anything in that direction toward Oak Labs and the professor himself had promised me that he would ensure that I would be left alone until I was back at the lab. Considering how no one had bothered me after the initial phone call marathon, Professor Oak had kept his word.
Hell, even the hubbub online and the science community had been suppressed to a certain extent. At least the reaction that could be found was much more mute than one would expect from the discovery of a new evolution as well as the "rediscovery" of an older one.
Honestly, the whole thing was a testament to the influence Professor Oak held in our world, and I certainly appreciated it. It allowed me to finish my work at Varon Labs without being swarmed with the consequences of my actions.
In hindsight, I probably should have waited for the release of the papers until I was back at the lab, and I now understood why Professor Oak seemed amused when I asked him to publish them for me. He helped/shielded me from the consequences of my less-than-thought-out actions, instead of stopping me from doing them in the first place.
Considering that I would probably still have to deal with them once I was back at the lab, I would have preferred that he had stopped me, but the professor likely knew that and was using this as a lesson for me to consider the impact of my action before doing something.
Well, all this was just conjecture on my part, but I was reasonably sure that I was right in my assumption. Not that I could have delayed the release of my paper without risking the exposure of the Ursaluna and Ursasol at the Mt.Moon Mountain Range.
I would have had to go back to capture those if I had wanted to keep the secret, which I didn't. I should have probably taken them in regardless for their safety since they had been exposed due to my papers, but the professor had taken care of that as well.
I knew that those two were currently under protection/observation by people organized by Professor Oak, so there was no need to worry about someone trying to snatch them up. Well, at least not counting the professor since I doubted the "protectors" hired by Professor Oak would stop him if he wanted to relocate the two to Oak Labs.
Honestly, it took a while for me to realize the consequences of my action despite the high/improved intelligence I was sporting along with the three thought streams I had running in my head. It was frankly a bit embarrassing, but I was blaming the fact that I was too busy with everything I had going on.
In fact, it was probably because I had still been affected by the aftermath of my order mission. Yep, there were various excuses, I meant reasons I could list, but I wouldn't. It happened, and I would deal with the consequences.
Why did I start going down this rabbit hole again? Oh, yes, my eventual return to Oak Labs once I was done with project "Bunny Upgrade". Naturally, the fact that my departure from Varon Labs got delayed by two months did not stop me from doing my best during the last week before the break.
I was doing my best to make up for the last bit necessary to at least push all formulas past the 150% line before the week was up, and while I was doing that, my Pokemon were obviously not slacking off either. On Giratiday, I ended up getting a pretty big reason to be happy, and the one that caused that happy occasion was my big fluff dragon.
Saphira/Altaria managed to complete her limit-breaking that evening and as soon as she got that feeling of fullness, she asked me to check her out, which I did. Once I had confirmed that she was in fact done, we gathered everyone else at her home area so that she could break through to the gold stage.
I naturally did not neglect the new addition to our breakthrough and evolution tradition, which was letting Togetic hug the one going through with the breakthrough and/or evolution while wishing them good luck. It did not count as superstition because we all knew that Togetic was Heaven's Favorite.
Anyway, Saphira successfully broke through and I went up to congratulate her as soon as the process was complete. "Little" Mothra was not far behind me and landed on top of Saphira to hug the fluffy cloud while congratulating her. Mothra/Butterfree certainly enjoyed making use of her "tiny" mode since it allowed her to hang onto the body of nearly all of the other Pokemon in our family.
Togetic was not far behind Mothra and the others followed after her as well, so while they were all congratulating Saphira, I checked out her new/updated status screen.
'Name: Saphira
Species: Altaria
Gender: Female
Age: 8+ years
-
Type: Dragon, Flying
Potential: Light Aurora (99.71%)*
{Light Aurora (19.42%) -> (19.71%) -> (99.71%))
(Genetic) Modifiers: None
Abilities: [Keen Eye], Natural Cure, Cloud Nine, Serene Grace
Talents: Climate Control Deluxe
Affinities: Normal, Flying, Fairy, Dragon
-
Bond: Mikail (strong)
Quirks: None
----
Parameters:
Stage: Gold Stage (mid)*
Vitality: E
Strength: E
Endurance: D
Agility: D
Energy Capacity: E
Energy Density: C
----
Immune:
N/A
-
Resistance:
Grass (Major), Bug (Minor), Fighting (Minor), Water (Minor, in progress), Fire (Minor, in progress)
-
Weaknesses:
Ice (Minor), Rock (Minor), Dragon (Minor)
-
Standardized:
Fairy*
----
Condition: Healthy, Happy, Delighted
----
Masteries:
Normal Energy Manipulation (Proficient)
Flying Energy Manipulation (Proficient)
Dragon Energy Manipulation (Proficient)
Fairy Energy Manipulation (Proficient)
----
Techniques:
-
(Unofficial) Initial:
N/A
-
Novice:
Solar Beam (new)
-
Beginner:
Growl, Take Down, Astonish, Dragon Claw (new), Flamethrower (new), Roost (new), Sky Attack (new), Steel Wing (new)
-
Proficient:
Mist, Round, Play Rough, Sing, Cotton Guard, Fury Attack, Refresh, Safeguard, Peck, Aerial Ace, Swift, Endure, Rest, Ice Beam, Mirror Move, Perish Song, Defog, Dazzling Gleam (new), Protect (new), Sandstorm (new), Blistering Sandstorm (C)
-
Advanced:
Dragon Breath, Hurricane, Heat Wave, Natural Gift, Summer Rain (C), Disarming Voice (+), Slush Rain (C), Dragon Pulse (+), Moonblast (+), Tailwind (+), Blizzard (+), Weather Ball (+3)
-
Mastered:
Sunny Day, Rain Dance, Hail
-
Combo moves/Custom moves:
Summer Rain (Advanced, new), Slush Rain (Advanced, new), Blistering Sandstorm (Proficient, new)'
It was unbelievable how close Saphira's potential was to advancing to aurora. Yet, I knew that bridging that minuscule gap would probably take me another two years.
Still, if not for Mothra, who was pretty close to breaking through to the dark gold stage, I would have said that Saphira would be the first to reach aurora potential among my Pokemon.
Regardless, I shared the good news with Saphira as well as the others and even though they were a bit disappointed that she missed the aurora grade by a hair's breadth, they still congratulated her for arriving at the literal doorstep of the grade. None of them doubted for a moment that I would help her reach that point in a year or two.
After smiling at everyone's optimism and confidence in me, I resumed looking through Saphira's status screen. The next few sections remained unchanged right up until the parameter section.
That part confirmed that Saphira was starting out at the (mid) gold stage, and looking at her individual parameters, I'd wager a guess that she would advance to the (high) gold stage within a year or so. I felt that was a good reason to be happy and the others agreed with me.
Moving on, I looked at the type relation section, not expecting to see any changes. Yet, I ended up being quite surprised when I saw that Saphira's fairy-type weakness had been standardized during her breakthrough.
She had been working on that one ever since she evolved, and it had gone pretty well, which was not that surprising since I called her a fairy dragon for a reason. Namely, because she was one in all but actual typing. You know, with her having a full fairy affinity and the complementary manipulation mastery.
Anyway, it was definitely a pleasant surprise and everyone was happy for Saphira when I shared the good news with them. With this, she had become an even better fairy dragon as she had lost her weakness to fairy moves and energy. All she had to do was repeat the same with her dragon weakness and she would be the perfect fairy dragon.
Well, she would still have her ice and rock type weakness, but I really did not like her, or any dragon for that matter having a weakness to their own type. In some way, it made sense if one thought about it as some kind of "only a dragon could beat the dragon" thing, but then again, we had the ice and fairy-type weakness, so there was that.
Nonetheless, type-related weirdness aside, I continued looking through the rest of Saphira's status screen and saw that there were no further changes that happened due to her breakthrough. This meant that we could move on to the next step, which was naturally celebrating Saphira's breakthrough to the gold stage.
The following day and the day after that I was pretty happy, and I even ended up dragging out my working schedule a bit by pushing my break to Grouday, by working an extra day on Kyoday to ensure that the last formula passed 150% as well.
Before I left the lab that evening, I told Professor Varon that I would be working on the formulas throughout my break and that I was planning to finish my part of the project by the end of the first month of the next term. I felt it was necessary to inform her that I was planning to go back to Oak Labs once that happened so that she did not get caught off guard.
Professor Varon simply smiled and confided that she had already assumed as much. She thanked me for my contributions so far and for my willingness to work throughout even my breaks. I was slightly caught off guard by her genuineness, and could not help but feel a bit shy at being thanked as well as praised by one of the "prominent" professors of our time.