My parents were waiting for me in front of the Hub, and after mom was done fussing over me, checking my body for any injuries I might have incurred at the military camp, we began strolling around the city.
Dad and Mom were more interested in listening to me talk about all the training and lessons I had to undergo than they were in talking about their own experiences, so I ended up being the one who had spoken the most by the time Jessie joined us around three hours later.
She ended up being just as interested in hearing about my time at the camp, so the next hour went pretty similar to the previous three, simply with Jessie in the picture as an additional listener.
Thankfully, it appeared that I managed to sate most of their curiosity by the time we went to "Aldini's Restaurant" for dinner, so our dinner conversation did no longer revolve around my time at the military camp.
Close to the end of our dinner, the topic of the Magikarp I gifted my parents came up, who, by the way, were doing good according to my parents, and I could not help but think about the pretty huge number of Houndour I had gotten just a few hours ago.
It took me until the end of dinner, but I ultimately went ahead and asked both my parents as well as Jessie whether they would be interested in adding a Houndour or Houndoom to their teams. They did not refuse altogether, but all three said that they wanted to keep their teams as they were for now.
Though they did mention that they might be interested in adding one in a few years if that offer still stood at that point in time. I naturally told them that that would be no problem, which earned me some smiles and "thanks".
Anyway, by the time we were done with dinner, my "free period" was close to up, so I said my goodbyes and made my way back to the border camp. I reported my return merely 5 minutes before the 6-hour limit was up, and once that was handled, I made my way to the barracks, settled on my bed in a relaxed position, before focusing on Utopia.
Since I could not simply vanish, which was what would happen if I entered Utopia, I had to do the next bit without actually entering. I first took a look at Utopia as a whole, or as I liked to call it admin mode view, or god mode view whenever I felt extra humble.
Naturally, the thing I first took a look at was the Houndour habitat, since it was the most recent change/addition to Utopia. I saw that its final size had ended up being 0.64 km². 640000 m² was big enough to give all 1541 of them some space to hang around, and there was more room to run if they simply stepped out of their habitat.
Furthermore, something I noticed was that each side of the cube planet gained an area of the same size as the Houndour habitat, so each side maintained an identical size to the other. I was naturally really happy to see that since this was practically gifting me 6 times the original extra space I was supposed to get, so instead of Utopia growing by 0.64 km², it actually grew by 3.84 km².
After that bit of good news, I "descended", in a manner of speaking, onto Utopia itself, and once my mind/focus appeared in front of my mansion, I used my second as well as third thought streams to create and control my "clone body" so that I could interact with others even without the presence of my actual body.
I did that because I would need the presence of a body for the next part. I believed that a huge pack like this needed a leader or two, not 30, and since they were now living inside Utopia I was sure they would not mind listening to my opinion on the matter.
Speaking of listening to my opinion, I naturally wanted a leader who was willing to fully listen to me, so I was prepared to "capture" one or two of them to actually groom/train them for the role since the leader(s) obviously had to be strong enough as well. To do that, I had to first determine who I wanted to pick for the role, and for that, I needed the "clone" body.
I was sure that for our new arrivals dealing with an earth doll-like body was still better than having to interact with a disembodied voice, and since I wanted to check up on the Houndour/Houndoom pack, this was my solution.
Still, since the pack did not know about my clone, I called Mothra/Butterfree as well as Horus/Xatu over to accompany me, so that they could act as an assurance that I was who I said I was, and not a prank of some of the other inhabitants of Utopia.
Anyway, my "clone body" accompanied by my starting duo headed to the Houndour habitat on the western side of the cube via master teleportation, and once we appeared in front of the pack, and assured them that I was who I was, I began to take a look at them to determine who I would choose for the leader role(s).
I naturally started with the Houndoom, but unfortunately, even after the Utopia special, the best potential that showed up among the 30 Houndoom was blue.
There were 3 Houndoom that had blue potential, but considering that all Houndoom were already at the silver stage and that I was sure that I would find at least one or two Houndour with better potential than that, I decided to choose the future pack leader(s) from among the Houndour instead.
It just seemed like the better option since all Houndour were either at the iron or bronze stage. A Houndour with deep blue or better potential at either of those two stages would definitely be the better choice. Now, I only had to check out 1511 Houndour and I would be good to go.
It took me quite a while to go through all of the Houndour, and while there were a few pleasant surprises among them, the final tally made me cringe a bit. The result was not bad per se, but some, or rather a majority, of the Houndour, would have definitely landed in my sub-space if I had not decided to collectively add them to the main space.
As it stood, I could allow them to stay in the main space no matter how much that pushed my boundaries, and boy did it feel wrong, even though I knew that it was wrong on my part to feel that way.
Nonetheless, was it a surprise that I felt that way when 264 out of 1511 Houndour did not possess a potential of the yellow shade even after the upgrade? Yet, I was a man of my word, and I would let them all stay inside the main space, even if I was struggling a bit with myself to not throw them into the subspace.
Besides, it was not as if Utopia could not help with the problem, right? It would take a while, but I could leave it to Utopia and hope that the future descendants of these less fortunate Houndour were luckier than their predecessors and that the optimization upon their "birth" would raise their potential enough that their potential average rose within a few generations.
I could have naturally used Utopia to ensure that those less fortunate Houndour were unable to drag down the average potential of the future descendants since that was within Utopia's abilities, but I was not that "evil".
As it stood now, only 369 had light green or better potential, and that was after all of them had gone through Utopia's optimization. Less than 7% of that number had a blue shade, and I was unbelievably happy that there was at least one Houndour with light purple potential. Additionally, there was also a super lucky event that happened to another Houndour that managed to unlock his shiny gene.
Unsurprisingly, I decided to go with those two for my pack leader idea since they were the undisputed best options among all the 1511 Houndour. I brought the two to the forefront of the pack for the next step, but before I shared the news with the rest of the pack and caught the duo, I observed them once more.
'Species: Houndour
Gender: Male
Type: Dark, Fire
Potential: Deep Blue
Stage: Bronze-Stage (high)
(Genetic) Modifier: Shiny*
Abilities: Flash Fire, Unnerve
Talents: None
Affinities: Dark, Fire'
The shiny boy stood out among the pack thanks to his different coloring, and I had to say that I liked his new coloring quite a bit, but that could have been because blue was my favorite color. Still, with the 15% bonus he got to his overall being thanks to his Shiny Gene, along with his deep blue potential, choosing him was a no-brainer.
That he was at the (high) bronze stage and had Unnerve as his second ability instead of Early Bird was just the cherry on top. Though the last bit was more a matter of preference than anything. Both abilities worked a bit differently here than they did in the games, and the change resulted in both being rather decent abilities.
Unnerve no longer "simply" resulted in the other party being unable to eat berries. It changed to Houndour's confrontational actions having a chance to unnerve the opponent, which could either slow down the foe's actions a bit or even outright interrupt them.
This version of Unnerve was a lot more powerful/useful than the game version, and I preferred it over Early Bird, which went through a similar beneficial change. Early Bird did not only allow Pokemon to wake up earlier/faster, but it also raised their "alertness sense", attention to detail, or whatever you wanted to call it, by a bit.
This was a pretty great effect as well, which is why I did not mind that the light purple Houndour had this one instead, but I just preferred Unnerve a bit more. Speaking of the Houndour with light purple potential.
'Species: Houndour
Gender: Female
Type: Dark, Fire
Potential: Light Purple
Stage: Bronze-Stage (mid)
(Genetic) Modifier: None
Abilities: Early Bird, Flash Fire
Talents: None
Affinities: Dark, Fire'
It seemed like a lucky coincidence that the best two Houndour happened to have dissimilar genders since they had a better chance of getting along in their position/capacity as leaders if they partnered up at some point in the future.
Anyway, this Houndour's stage was a bit lower than the shiny males, but she was at the bronze stage as well, and both had the chance to attain light aurora potential upon breaking through to the gold stage as long as they stuck to the limit-breaking training.
At least that was what I was hoping they would agree to do, but considering the nature of all Pokemon, I was not too worried about them declining as long as I promised to support their training to the best of my ability.
Regardless, I presented them with my offer once I was done with my observation, and unsurprisingly the duo agreed. While the Houndoom were not particularly happy with the news since it meant that they would be losing some of their current authority, they did not make a fuss since they knew that this was a boon for their pack,
Besides, they knew that they would not become unimportant as long as they remained strong, and from what they had seen of Utopia, they had everything they needed to get stronger at a faster pace even if they did not have the extra support from me.
At least that was what they told me when I later asked them about their attitude after seeing their reaction to my declaration. It was a surprisingly mature and well-thought-out conclusion, and their reply to that was a bit sad but made a lot of sense.
They said that the harshness of their life in the last few years left them no choice but to think like that. There was nothing I could really say at that, so all I did was promise them that they at least did not have to worry about anything like that in the future, and they all gave happy nods at that.
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