Now that I was done with the Drafthill Gym, I could have left the city to continue my journey toward Fortree City, but I had spent my time in Drafthill City nearly exclusively inside Utopia, and I felt that it would be wrong to leave without having checked out the local specialties even a little bit. Hence, I made my way toward the most popular restaurant and ate a heavy early lunch consisting of all the recommended dishes. The other diners ended up staring at me while I ate the considerable amount of food I had ordered, and I kinda felt like a Mukbang streamer with them watching like that.
Anyway, once I had cleaned out all orders since there was no way I was going to waste any food, I paid the bill and left the restaurant under the impressed gazes of other guests. Well, some of those gazes might have been disturbed or disgusted but there were always people like that, and it was not as if I had shoved the food into my mouth like a barbarian. I maintained proper eating manners after all. Besides, the workers were very happy since I paid a hefty tip so that they could share it between themselves, and two of the servers happily accompanied me to the door before respectfully wishing me a good day.
My next step was to head for the second most popular restaurant since I wanted to go through the best of them today because I was planning to leave the city tomorrow early in the morning. Thankfully I was confident that my stomach would be able to go along with that without rupturing or refusing any further food, especially since I was going to take breaks, though I did not need one yet. Once I made it to the restaurant, I repeated my actions, and I had to honestly say that, in my opinion, the food of this restaurant was slightly better than the food of the number one restaurant, though the service of the other restaurant had been friendlier than this one, so maybe that was the reason they lost out on the number one spot.
Nonetheless, I ate everything and paid my bill along with a hefty tip, though it was lower than before, which was because I was tipping per restaurant worker and not their rank. I also made sure to mention that the tip was for everyone. Regardless, I made my way to the next/third-best rated restaurant on the list and my arrival actually caused some excitement in the restaurant staff, which indicated that they had heard about my visits to the other restaurants. The other guests seemed confused when they saw the staff's enthusiasm toward me, and some probably wondered if I was the owner or a relative of the owner, but that confusion changed to wonder and disbelief once I began to order.
As I actually began to finish each meal that was being delivered to my table their reaction changed once more and it was honestly funny to see/witness their changing emotions/reactions while I was eating my meal. Once I was done here, I put a temporary stop to my food tour and spent two hours inside Utopia with my Pokemon. My stomach dealt with everything I ate during that break, and once I knew I could eat again, I left Utopia to resume my tour. I made my way toward the fourth restaurant, and it seemed they had been waiting for me for quite some time since I noticed some relief coming from all the staff when they saw/noticed my arrival.
Not only the staff, but this time around even the other guests seemed to be excited due to my arrival. After asking someone I found out that my previous visits had gone viral on the local foodie forum, and from there the other local forums/groups caught wind of it as well, making the news spread across Drafthill City. It seemed like I had become a little local celebrity while I was taking it easy inside Utopia. I was surprised that no one had recognized me yet, but I guess that one did not link a prodigy and junior professor with a super foodie who ate as much as a human Munchlax. Still, I was sure that they would notice it at some point and I had to chuckle imagining their reaction.
Anyway, by the time I was done for the day or rather night since it was already 9:30 p.m., I went through the best-rated 13 restaurants and had spent more than 120k in total, tips included. I spent the rest of the night hanging out with my Pokemon before going to bed. The next morning after breakfast, I left Drafthill City and headed in the direction of Fortree City. By referencing the maps, I estimated that it would take me somewhere between 8 and 10 days to reach the city if I went at my usual wandering speed. Considering that we had the first day of the 21st month, marking the start of the fourth month of my journey, I was okay with that.
It had only been 3 months since my journey had started. During this relatively short period, I already had caught a lot of rare Pokemon, discovered multiple so far undiscovered species, gone through more than one interesting adventure/event, had a few of my Pokemon breakthrough to the next stage, and won 1 S-rank, 1 A-rank, as well as 2 B-rank Badges. Honestly, with the amount of stuff I had done, it felt longer than just a mere 3 months, but I was just awesome like that I guess. Still, little introspection aside, I began my march towards Fortree City with Mothra/Butterfree lounging on my head in her chibi form, Hades/Gengar chilling inside my shadow, and Nyx/Umbreon strolling by my side.
Usually, Thor/Raichu would have been accompanying us as well, but he chose to stay inside Utopia this time around because he wanted to train since he was close to completing his limit-breaking phase and he wanted to do so as quickly as possible. Yet, it was not him who asked for my attention during our lunch break, but Luna/Clefable. Apparently, the Gym Challenge managed to give her the push she needed and she ended up taking the final step during the training session this morning. I naturally made the announcement over UtopiaFM, following which we headed to Luna's place for her breakthrough.
Once those interested had arrived I asked everyone to form the circle while Fortuna/Togekiss as well as I hugged Luna and wished her good luck. Luna initiated her breakthrough the moment I gave her the go-ahead, and not long after she began her breakthrough I noted an unusual increase in the energy drain coming from Luna. Moments after that I noticed that Luna had begun to shimmer, which indicated that something significant was taking place, though I was not sure if she was unlocking a modifier or a second talent. Either was possible from what I could tell, though I had to admit that I was hoping for a good modifier since Luna could definitely benefit from one, especially now when her starting parameters depended on her racial value.
Everyone got excited when Luna began to shimmer like that, and there were enthusiastic discussions taking place while everyone waited for the process to end. Once that happened, everyone scrutinized Luna to see if they could notice a visual difference, but they all failed to find any, just like me. I also noted that she was releasing (mid) dark gold undulations, though that only meant that she had not unlocked any level 2 modifiers since even the royal gene would have only pushed her to the limit of the (mid) dark gold stage so that alone did not exclude the possibility of her unlocking a modifier.
That we failed to see any visual difference was a bigger point against the modifier option, but seeing how I would not get the answer by staying here, I stopped checking her out from afar and made my way to her side. Once I made it to her side, I congratulated Luna on her successful breakthrough before hugging her. Having failed to note any difference from close up as well, I stopped trying; Instead, I went ahead and checked her new/updated status sheet while the others approached to congratulate Luna as well. My curiosity got the best of me and I jumped straight to the modifier section, but it ended up being unchanged, which meant no modifier after all. Consequently, the same was true for the ability section as well.
'Genetic variation: None
Abilities: Cute Charm, Magic Guard
Talents: Bond Guard, Battle Bond*'
Accordingly, it was no surprise that the cause of the anomaly was in her talent section, and when I saw Battle Bond displayed right beside Bond Guard, I had to take a second look to ensure that I was not seeing things. I naturally had to confirm that the Battle Bond here was the same one I was thinking of, and it turned out that it truly was the Battle Bond that allowed Ash's Greninja to bond-evolve to Ash-Greninja or rather Mega Greninja.
According to Battle Bond's description, it allowed its holder, in this case, Luna, to undergo a Mega Evolution without requiring a Mega Stone or Key Stone. The only necessity was the bond between us, though said bond had to be at the deep grade at the least, which was no problem since I had felt the bond deepen moments after her successful breakthrough. Now it was only a question of whether Luna's body was capable of enduring a Mega Evolution since Battle Bond would not allow her to trigger itself if her body was not ready, which was actually good since I would not want Luna to cripple/hurt herself by attempting something she couldn't handle.
Still, it would be a lie if I said that I was not super curious about what a Mega Clefable looked like since I had never seen one before. In fact, I had never heard of one before, and as far as I knew nor had everyone else. Nonetheless, asking Luna to try triggering her new talent would have to wait until I was done looking through the rest of her status sheet. I went back to the start of the status and began looking through it from there.
'Name: Luna
Species: Clefable
Gender: Female
Age: 14+ years
-
Type: Fairy
Potential: Deep Purple (50.58%)*
{Purple (68.96%) -> (70.58%) -> Deep Purple (50.58%)}'
It was nice to see Luna getting closer to joining the Aurora Club, and as things stood, she would be able to join them during/after her next breakthrough. I was still praying that the breakthrough to the platinum stage did not hide another boost reduction; Not only for Luna's sake since a second stage-related reduction would result in her falling short, but for everyone else's sake as well because the current reductions were already hurting us enough.
Anyway, I resumed looking through the rest of the status sheet and flew past the next few sections until I saw the confirmation that our bond had become Deep. I also got the confirmation that she was at the (mid) dark gold stage, though I had already known that.
'Bond: Mikail (Deep)*
Quirks: Positive
----
Parameters:
Stage: Dark Gold Stage (mid)*
Vitality: D
Strength: E
Endurance: E
Agility: E
Energy Capacity: D
Energy Density: D'
Luna's starting parameters were why I had been hoping that she would unlock a royal or ancient gene; A Lustrous gene would have worked as well I guess since that one gave a 25% boost as well. That boost would have pushed all of Luna's starting parameters up by a value, and while that would still not have allowed her to start at the high dark gold stage, it would have pushed her right to the precipice of it.
Anyway, I looked through the rest of her status sheet, and once I had confirmed that nothing else had changed due to her breakthrough I focused back on Luna and the others.
'Techniques:
-
Beginner:
Safeguard (new)
-
Proficient:
Gravity Crush (+), Hyper Beam (++), Thunder Wave (+), Misty Terrain (+), Thunderbolt (+), Magical Leaf (+), Water Pulse (+), Shadow Ball (+)
-
Advanced:
Sing (+), Minimize (+)
-
Combos/Custom:
Gravity Crush (Proficient)'
Curious as I was about whether Battle Bond would work right now, I swiftly shared the good news with everyone before asking Luna to give it a try.
---------------------
---------------------
This part is purely to display Luna's status screen in one piece and does not count toward the word count.
'Name: Luna
Species: Clefable
Gender: Female
Age: 14+ years
-
Type: Fairy
Potential: Deep Purple (50.58%)
Modifier: None
Abilities: Cute Charm, Magic Guard
Talents: Bond Guard, Battle Bond
Affinities: Fairy
-
Bond: Mikail (deep)
Quirks: Positive
----
Parameters:
Stage: Dark Gold Stage (mid)
Vitality: D
Strength: E
Endurance: E
Agility: E
Energy Capacity: D
Energy Density: D
----
Immunity:
Dragon
-
Resistance:
Fighting (Minor), Bug (Minor), Dark (Minor)
-
Weaknesses:
Steel (Minor)
-
Standardized:
Poison, Steel (in progress)
----
Condition: Healthy, Happy, Relaxed
----
Masteries:
Fairy Energy Manipulation (Proficient)
----
Techniques:
-
(Unofficial) Initial:
N/A
-
Novice:
N/A
-
Beginner:
Pound, Follow Me, Charm, Growl, Double-Edge, Ice Beam, Iron Tail, Flamethrower, Safeguard
-
Proficient:
Disarming Voice, After You, Meteor Mash, Cosmic Power, Calm Mind, Teleport, Defense Curl, Brick Break, Healing Wish, Fairy Wind, Body Slam, Encore, Baby-Doll Eyes, Protect, Double Slap, Wake-up Slap, Play Rough, Gravity Crush, Hyper Beam, Thunder Wave, Misty Terrain, Thunderbolt, Magical Leaf, Water Pulse, Shadow Ball
-
Advanced:
Copycat, Stored Power, Moonlight, Moonblast, Psychic, Dazzling Gleam, Life Dew, Sing, Minimize
-
Mastered:
Metronome, Gravity
-
Combos/Custom:
Gravity Crush (Proficient)'
-----------------------------
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