Today was the first Arcday of the 20th month, which was the first day of the new academic year. My parents left after our early breakfast, there were only 2 weeks of dad's access left, so they were trying to gather the last bit of points necessary for their next purchase.
Once they were gone I made my way to the academy. I moved to the second-year classrooms and found the one labeled S2-A. I went inside and saw that nearly everyone was already inside and that they had taken up the seats according to the first come first serve principle.
I gave a general greeting to everyone before choosing one of the open seats beside the windows. The rest of our class trickled in and Mr. Burns showed up a minute before 8:30 a.m.
"Alright, welcome back everyone for your second year. Since today is the first day I won't keep you here for too long. I'll hand out your timetable and we'll go pick up your course books. After that, you can go home and enjoy the rest of the day.
You can see it as a chance to say goodbye to the vacation," Mr. Burns joked before began handing a stack of papers to the student on the far right of the first row, who took a paper from the stack before handing the stack to the next student.
"Sorrel and Mikail don't need to take a timetable from the stack since theirs is a bit different from the rest," he added after the second student took a paper as well.
While the stack was being passed around Mr. Burns personally came up to Sorrel and handed over his new timetable to him. He did the same for me as well, and a look at my timetable for this year showed that I was going to have a lot of free time.
"Chemistry II", "Physics II", "Music II", "Art II", "Ethics II", and "Language II" classes took place once a week. "Math II", "Geography II", "History II", "Material Science II", "Biology II", "Pokemon Knowledge II", and "Physical Education II" happened two times a week.
All in all, I only had less than 4 hours of lessons each day. Still, since some lessons took place after aura-centric lessons. I had free time during those periods, which meant I sometimes had longer academy days than strictly necessary.
Each day began at 8 a.m, as for the end of my academy days? Well, Arcday ended at 11:25 a.m, Mewday at 12:15 p.m, Giratiday ended at 2:55 p.m, Palkiday ended at 2:00 p.m, and Dialday also ended at 11:25 a.m.
Except for Giratiday and Palkiday, where I had 4 and 3 free periods respectively. The other days were pretty short, so I could use those days for some good old pressure training. The VIPs on my priority list were waiting to advance after all.
Giratiday and Palkiday afternoon would be used for my other projects, such as learning weapon handling, ball crafting, experimenting with recipes, creating supplements, research, and the many other things I had on my plate.
As for the free periods, those could be used for my personal training, be it physical, aura, or psychic. That and some reading/research. I had to find ways to trigger/achieve an alternate evolution for Mars/Ursaring, Eggy/Salandit, and Osiris/Marowak after all.
Moreover, the specific evolution conditions for Tyson/Machoke, Tatsumaki/Kadabra, and Gastly that I wanted to use had to be determined as well, since each had a different set of requirements.
Anyway, once everyone had his timetable we went to pick up our course books, after which Mr. Burns dismissed everyone except for me. He told me to follow him to his office, so I did.
"Alright, take a seat Mikail," He said while motioning to one of the seats across his own.
"As you have no doubt noticed, your timetable gives you a lot of free time. You knew that you were going to have fewer lessons, so do you have any plans on what you are going to do, now that you have seen your actual schedule?" He asked seriously.
"Yes, I've made some plans beforehand. Now, that I know my academy schedule I'm certain that I can realize those plans," I responded and Mr. Burns nodded.
"I expected as much, but I'm happy that I was right, and that you don't plan to waste your time. If possible could you tell me what you're planning to do?" He inquired before he swiftly followed up with an explanation.
"It's not that I want to tell you what to do or what you can't do, but if you at least roughly tell us your plans we may be able to help you. We wouldn't want someone of your talent to stagnate just because he had no guidance, after all."
I honestly had no problem with telling them parts of my plan since it was true that they could make certain aspects easier for me. I would simply keep the more secretive parts to myself, such as my research.
"Sure, I don't mind. I've got multiple plans on how to use that time. I plan to use a few days to train my Pokemon. Then there is my personal training and I want to learn how to use a weapon. I also plan to read up on a lot of topics such as nutrition and lore." I gave him an honest if incomplete reply.
"That's good, and I'm happy that you not planning on neglecting your own training. That you're hoping to expand your knowledge by reading up on different topics is a great idea as well, and I fully support your decision," he responded before he cleared his throat.
"Now, I have a few suggestions for you if you are willing to listen," he paused and waited for an answer after he said that.
"Sure, I'm ready to listen to any advice or suggestions you're willing to offer. I'll have to see if I would accept them, but I certainly have no problem listening to them." I gave him the go-ahead.
"Alright, I think you should use the free periods for some aura lessons with a teacher. You have a total of 8 free periods, so using 2 or 3 of them for one on one lessons seems okay. Besides if you want to postpone a session that's not a problem as well, since these sessions are not mandatory after all.
Aura Speech, Emotion Sensing, Aura Sensing, Internal Aura Manipulation, and External Aura Manipulation lessons could be held once a month to check up on your progress and to help/supervise you while you are trying to learn new stuff.
You already know about the first four, but the external one is actually one of the classes taught at the tertiary academy. Since you are already at Tier 2, it's only a matter of time for you to unlock it, so some lessons to prepare you for it, and help you with it, once you do unlock it, would be useful."
I had to agree with him, having someone to keep an eye out for any mishaps or questions would be useful. With the 5 subjects, he mentioned I would have one subject each week, with one week having two subjects.
Using 2 or 3 of my free periods for this was acceptable since I would still have more than enough time to do other stuff with the rest of the free periods.
"That sounds reasonable. Still, I'd like to know if you have an idea who would be responsible for those sessions." He nodded at my inquiry.
"Yes, we've already decided on who to choose in case you decided to go with our suggestion. The supervisors for the four old subjects will be the same as the teachers who taught you last year.
The external manipulation sessions will be supervised by Mr. Koetsuji, so you know that one as well," he replied and I can't say I had not expected this while posing the question.
"Now, about the weapon training. We've actually considered the possibility of you wanting to learn that as well, so we've come up with two methods to train your weapon handling.
Still, first, you'll need to determine which weapon you want to grasp before seeing if you have an affinity with it. You can also try out different weapons to see which one fits you the best. Actually, I'll be the one to help you with that if you agree.
After you have chosen your preferred weapon we will go over their handling and katas. We have come to an agreement with the Knight Academy, so some of your weapon sessions will be held there since that's their specialty.
There, you'll also be able to find sparring partners once you are ready for more than katas," Mr. Burns shared with me, and I was definitely alright with this one.
Besides knife handling, which was part of the cooking knowledge pack, weapon handling was not included in my super-library, so actual training and an instructor would be really helpful in learning how to use a weapon.
As for being able to learn how to wield a weapon, I had not the slightest doubt on that part, since that should have been part of the talent raised to acceptable levels, so I should at least not suck at it, even if I was not a genius in that aspect.
"Sounds good to me. However, I'd like to know the specifics so that I might work these sessions into my timetable. Besides that, I want to be able to contact the supervising teachers directly in case I want to postpone a session," I informed him and he agreed.
"We'll discuss the details among ourselves and see which periods are the most suitable for which teacher. I'll inform you about it once we've set the possible times so that you might choose the ones you prefer," he returned, and after that, we closed the topic and I went home.
Once I was back home, I entered Utopia and checked up on everyone. Since it wasn't even 10 a.m yet, we began our morning training session. While that was happening, I was considering which of the Pokemon currently on the priority list I should focus on first.
Currently, there were 8 Pokemon on that list. 9, if we put Hashirama back in, who was already close to the (high) silver stage after his breakthrough.
I decided to split the 9 into groups of three and then focus on a group for a month before switching to another one. This way they got a month-long pressure training session every three months and could simply do their regular training during the other two months.
Learning new moves, working on existing ones, and focusing on their parameters were easier during their regular training sessions instead of during hard battles after all.
The first group consisted of Enji/Growlithe, Thor/Pikachu, and Luna/Clefairy. The second group consisted of Tyson/Machoke, Tatsumaki/Kadabra, and Gastly. The last group was made up of Hashirama/Venusaur, Shino/Yanmega, and Prime/Beedrill.
For now, I would keep Mt.Moon as the location for our pressure training, but that might change if I decided that another area fits the needs of a certain group better.
The fact that each member of group one would be eligible for evolution once they elevated their substance to (high) silver was such a coincidence, just like the fact that each of them had a trigger evolution generally caused by an evolutionary stone.
That the second group seemed to fit a common theme regarding their evolution was another big coincidence. Still, unlike the first group, their evolution was not immediately possible after their improvement. Well, except for Gastly who could evolve to Haunter anytime.
However, he said that he wanted to reach (high) bronze first before evolving, and I chose to respect his wish just like I did with Ali/Kirlia. After I informed everyone about the new plan, I checked up on Eggy before preparing a really early lunch.
After we ate our lunch, we left for Mt.Moon to start the first round of the new pressure training plan.
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