We watched as Palossand was drawn into the Ultra Ball, and with each shake of the ball, the suspense grew a bit. Finally, after the fourth wiggle, the Ultra Ball signaled a successful capture. Mothra/Butterfree and Hades/Gengar, who had gotten carried away by the situation causing them to forget that I could simply throw out another Ultra Ball if this one failed, released a sigh of relief once that happened; The rest of us could not help but chuckle at their antics, causing to the duo to "blush" in embarrassment. I told them not to mind us before I levitated the Ultra Ball into my hand. I held it for a moment, thinking how the next few moments would determine Palossand's future, before transferring the Ultra Ball to Utopia.
Just as I was about to release Palossand from its ball to start the optimization process, Mothra spoke up and declared that she wanted to watch, which had Hades quickly join in, followed by the others who also expressed an interest in watching Palossand's initiation to Utopia. I naturally had no reason to disagree, so I transferred all of us to Utopia. I was startled when the first thing that happened upon our arrival was the triggering of Utopia's analysis/optimization process. It took me a moment to realize/remember that this was in fact Sandygast's first entry to Utopia since I had released him back out straight after capture. The whole Palossand situation had me forget that, which was a bit embarrassing.
Nonetheless, I decided to play it cool and officially welcomed Sandygast to Utopia. I definitely enjoyed the startled looks on the faces of the others, with the exception of Tatsumaki/Alakazam and Horus/Xatu who just chuckled at the situation, showing that I was not the only one who had ignored it. Sandygast himself noticed nothing wrong and happily listened to my greeting, bowing in thanks before he abruptly froze in place. There was a very good reason for that seeing how he suddenly shone for a few "long" moments before revealing that he had turned black. The lucky guy ended up unlocking the Shiny modifier during the optimization process.
Hades was the first one to congratulate Sandygast who was curiously checking out his new paint job, and the others, myself included, followed suit. I also took a look at the analysis log, and seeing that the process was over, I took a peek at his status sheet. All in all, Sandygast had become a whole lot more valuable with his potential being elevated to light blue and him unlocking the Shiny modifier. This way I might not just write him off as another ordinary Utopian after all. Still, once the congratulations were out of the way, I brought out the Ultra Ball, drawing everyone's attention, including that of Sandygast, to what was about to happen.
I released the still-frozen Palossand, disabling the thawing feature of Utopia before focusing on the analysis/optimization process since I was actually interested in seeing what would happen.
'Analyzing...., Palossand analyzed.
Begin improving potential...., potential successfully improved.
Begin optimizing genes..., modifier detected; Analyzing modifier….., harmful effect detected; Start in-depth analysis?'
It was not surprising that Utopia detected the Amalgam modifier, but seeing the mention, I remembered that I hadn't checked the description since it was pretty obvious what it symbolized. With this reminder, I quickly rectified that, and aside from the negative impact that I had already known about, I learned that Amalgam was actually a growth-type modifier whose boost rose with the number of ingested souls. It reached its peak at 30% after the addition of 10 souls, though the negatives also increased with each additional case as we had seen while scouring Palossand's memories. As for Palossand, its racial values boost was currently at 26%, which was not far off from the maximum.
I personally felt that the negatives overshadowed that, but it at least showed that an Amalgam Palossand was quite a bit stronger species-wise than a regular one, even if the interference from the negative effects meant that that advantage did not necessarily translate to a higher battle prowess. Anyway, after spending a few seconds learning that interesting tidbit, I gave Utopia the go-ahead for the in-depth analysis.
'Begin in-depth analysis….., in-depth analysis successful. Soul anomaly induced mutation detected; Continue or Abort?'
Utopia's ability to analyze Amalgam's details was not surprising since it had to be better than my Observe ability which was able to detect it, but I was a tad astonished that it chose to give me those options now instead of later, but after choosing to continue with the process I understood why it posed the query. As soon as I told it to proceed, it began its work and I felt the drain on Utopia's energy reserves multiply.
'Deducing possible solutions..., 10 viable solutions extrapolated; List all or present solution no. X?'
Seeing how it had spent nearly 20% of the reserves to get those 10 solutions, I naturally wanted to see all the options.
'Listing all solutions…..; Solution 1, erase all intellects except for main intellect, and nurture the main soul.'
It was pretty easy to understand what this solution involved, and I could see how getting rid of the minds attached to the soul fragments before merging said fragments into Palossand's soul would take care of the problem. Honestly, this description felt a bit simple for the amount of energy Utopia drew on to deduce it, but I swiftly found out that it was because it was a simplification. After I focused on the issue, Utopia informed me in the form of a knowledge pack that it had already deduced all the necessary steps it needed to proceed with the solution if I chose to go with solution 1.
I actually appreciated that it did not list the whole step-by-step method/guide since there were a lot of steps involved and it would been a headache to go through everything if it did that for all 10 solutions. Regardless, I proceeded to look through the rest of the solution summaries Utopia had provided.
'Solution 2, erase all intellects except for intellect no. X, nurture soul fragment X.'
It was awe-inspiring to once again see something pretty startling being accomplished by Utopia, or at least be informed that it could do so if necessary. This solution revealed that Utopia could repair/restore a broken soul, even if it seemingly required the assistance of other soul fragments or souls to do so, which I was sure was something that needed a Major Legendary to accomplish in the main universe, or at least someone close to that level. This was not the same as the generation of a new soul for developing eggs inside Utopia since that made use of the rules of the main universe, which was why eggs that formed inside Utopia were treated as regular lifeforms by the universe and not outsiders or invaders. In short, repairing a soul fragment was harder and more impressive than inducing the creation of a new/blank one.
'Solution 3, erase all intellects and generate new basic intellect, nurture the main soul.'
I had to do a double-take when I saw this one. I focused on it to see what Utopia meant by generating a new basic intellect since intellect/minds usually developed with time, but after I saw the details I had to mentally nod. While Utopia planned to erase the individual minds, it preserved the basic knowledge of those minds, such as information on moves, and the world in general, or at least what the souls knew about the world. Frankly, given the knowledge the basic intellect would have it would probably either be something like a "know-it-all" youngling or more likely a robotic one that has to experience life to round out the "mechanical" edges. I frankly did not favor this one at all.
'Solution 4, fuse all intellects, nuture main soul.'
I had to focus on this one as well since I could not help but wonder how the animosity/hate the fragmented minds felt would be dealt with, and Utopia apparently decided to deal with it by not acknowledging it, as in it would take the experience right until ambush and ignore everything after that, practically dumping the animosity.
'Solution 5, fuse part of the intellect collective with the main intellect, nuture main soul. Solution 6, fuse all sub-intellects and erase the main intellect, fuse, and nurture soul fragments.'
These were pretty clear, but the next one stood out because it came with no pros, unlike the others.
'Solution 7, remove soul fragments and allow passing.'
This one was nice for the fragmented souls but was useless for either Palossand or me. At least the 8th one gave me something in return for being nice.
'Solution 8, remove soul fragments and merge them all for repair.'
This way I would get a second Palossand for the price of one, at least the complete soul of one, and since Palossand was a ghost type, I believed that there was a good chance that it would restore its body if I placed it into the desert that got generated for Sandygast. There was a chance that the soul passed on, but I still felt that this solution was not bad and maybe worth a try, especially since a soul made of the fusion of 7 fragments was likely to be stronger than the one even the strongest Palossand among the victims used to have.
'Solution 9, remove soul fragments and merge them for repair as required.'
This was practically the same as 8, simply with Utopia doing just enough to repair a soul which would lead to multiple restored souls, probably 2 or 3, with the drawback that they won't be as strong as the one produced by solution 8. I directly discarded it since solution 8 was just better, though solution 9 was still better than the burning dump truck that was solution 10, at least in my opinion.
'Solution 10, remove soul fragments and repair using Palossand as fuel.'
While this would likely restore all 7 soul fragments, or at least 6 of them excluding the most damaged 2nd one, I directly tossed the proposal into the bin. There was no way I would choose to sacrifice Palossand for these soul fragments since I was impressed with the will Palossand showed during the periods it trained and resisted the chaos caused by its talent and the rent-free "hooligans" lingering in its soul/mind space.
Anyway, after going through all 10 offered solutions, I started to seriously consider which one to go with. I did notice that none of the options would help with Palossand's psychological state even after the matter of its corrupted soul had been dealt with, so I knew that we would have to deal with that ourselves once the optimization process was over. I was likely going to leave that to Gwen/Gardevoir, Tatsumaki, Hypno, Horus, and maybe Mothra. Three of them were already pretty good at that counseling thing and the other two could help.
Still, back to the choices I was presented. My personal favorites were 1 and 8 since one had the potential to make Palossand stronger than it was now, while the other would leave me with a slightly weakened Palossand, but give me a second one at roughly the same level. I eventually decided to go with 1 since I would rather have one super Palossand than two decent ones, especially since I was not that interested in starting a Palossand/Sandygast colony.
'Solution 1 selected..., begin implementation...….,'
Everyone watched as the ice around Palossand melted away, though Palossand still remained immobile even after the ice was gone. We then saw how the objects stuck on top of Palossand's towers got drawn into Palossand's body one by one. With each object that disappeared the malice oozing out of Palossand reduced. There were some surprised exclamations when Palossand's aura rose to (mid) dark gold after the fourth object had vanished, and another one when with the absorption of the final object Palossand's aura grew again right after the last bit of the malice it released vanished. Incredibly enough, Palossand reaching the (high) dark gold stage during this treatment process did not seem to be the end.
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