I went to Orchid City the next day to meet up with Rose and met up with Weiss as well as Ace the week after that. We talked about their first term and the differences between the trainer school to the previous school/academy.
They tried to surprise me with the progress of their Pokemon and I congratulated them but did not tell them too much about mine since I did not want their achievement to look small. I also praised Rose for her hard work since her demeanor screamed praise me.
After those meetings, the second term began, and it brought some information regarding my work with it. According to Mr. Burns, my file had passed the initial screening and was now under review.
While I was waiting I was beginning to consider the second project that would help me increase my renown in the academic community. I needed some clout for my plans regarding my tertiary education.
The second project was actually the same as the first one, just for a different location. I already had the perfect location for the project and I also knew the perfect person to help me complete the job.
I was going to put together a list for the Viridian Forest, and who could help me better in this than my good buddy Kinji, who practically counted as a resident there.
Still, I was going to wait for my first project to pass before working on the second one. While Kinji had already been brought up, it was worth mentioning that he had refused my offer to catch him a Trapinch. He said that he would only accept bug types and not some look-alike.
Still, he said that if I ever came across the bug-type variant he would be really grateful if I could catch it for him. The days went by and turned into weeks, and during the end of the second month of the second term, I received word from Mr. Cameron that the review stage had been completed.
He told me the alliance rewarded me with 100 contribution points and 1200 merit points. Mr. Cameron blatantly told me that my work was not worth that many points but that the alliance handed out more to encourage me. In the same vein, the academy awarded me with academy points.
Now, that the authenticity of my work had been more or less confirmed, it was time to decide where to publish it, and how to handle its distribution. Mr. Cameron asked if I was willing to listen to his advice, and I obviously agreed.
After listening to his suggestion I approved since it kinda resembled what I had planned. In the end, my project got mentioned in 3 papers/magazines and printed in a journal.
The Kanto Weekly, an alliance-owned newspaper that contained important events, mostly within the Kanto borders, that happened during the week mentioned my work and called me an aspiring young genius with a bright future.
The fact that I was currently a student at the (Secondary) Aaron Aura Academy got also mentioned, which boosted my image as a genius quite a bit since it showed that I was not only smart but also talented with aura.
Still, my Pokemon were not mentioned anywhere, so my potential as a trainer was not public knowledge yet. I felt that it was better that way since showing off too much at once would be too showy.
The Mountains and Caves Magazine, which was a monthly magazine targeted at hikers and explorers that went around mountains and cave systems mentioned my work and that everyone visiting Mt.Moon should take a look at it if they are searching for specific Pokemon.
The last paper/magazine was the Mt.Moon, a weekly paper dedicated to important news concerning Mt. Moon which had a similar article, both praised me a lot and directly mentioned where my work could be found.
The Pokemon Ecology Journal contained articles on ecology and Pokemon distribution. It was released monthly and was an academic journal. The journal was well-known and the one that printed my work.
The journal put aside 6 pages for my work. 3 pages were dedicated to my files and another 3 pages contained some of the reviews that validated the legitimacy of my lists. They probably added those to show that my work was thorough despite my age.
I could understand their move since they were a pretty reputable second-tier journal that had to safeguard its reputation. I honestly thought my work would be published in a third-tier journal, so seeing it being published in The Pokemon Ecology Journal was a big surprise to me.
I did not doubt that the influence of the academy played a huge role in this. As for being published in a first-tier journal like those top journals, I had no delusions that my work was important enough to deserve to be published there.
Maybe, if I had managed to incorporate which species lived in which area/region and what the strength distribution in all areas across the map was, then it would have deserved a place in a first-tier journal, but a project like that would take years if not decades to complete.
At the start of the academic third month of the second term, which was the 28th month on the calendar, I received a heads-up from Mr. Burns that I had been invited to a few radio and TV shows for an interview.
He told me that the decision of whether to accept or not was completely left to me. I looked through all offers before deciding to decline all TV shows since none of them were the serious or even semi-serious kind.
I finally decided to accept two of the invitations coming from the radio shows. The first one was "Good morning, Kanto!", the morning program of Kanto's most popular radio channel, and the second one was "Good morning, Rota!", the morning program of Rota's most popular radio channel.
I set the appointment for "Good morning, Rota!" to Kyoday this week, while setting the one with "Good morning, Kanto!" to the Arcday in two weeks, and I received the permission to take that day off from lessons.
The reason I chose that day for the second show was that it was the 16.28.2179 which was mom's birthday. I was going to wish her a happy birthday live on the radio.
Both interviews were not too long just 15 minutes, and apparently, Mr. Burns was going to be present for the first interview as the academy representative, while Mr. Cameron himself would take the representative role for the second one.
The first interview went pretty well. The host asked questions regarding my age, what motivated me to work on my project, or how I managed to fit in all that work while going to the academy.
He also directed the question regarding how much support I received from the academy for my project, which Mr. Burns directly answered with none. He emphasized that the whole project was my own work and that the academy merely helped one of their promising students with publishing their works since they did not want my hard work to get buried.
The final question was what my goals for the future were and I mentioned that I was considering starting a second similar project. The two weeks until the second exam passed relatively calmly after the hubbub coming from my classmates died down.
They had apparently all listened to my interview on the radio, so they were pretty excited about the whole thing and swarmed me on Arcday. Even the other academy students threw out some congratulatory words in the passing, but thankfully no one asked for autographs.
Once the date of the second interview came around, my parents and I, along with Mr. Cameron traveled to Saffron City where the radio station was located. Mr. Cameron's Alakazam teleported us there and I had to say that the Alakazam felt mightily familiar for some reason.
Anyway, the reason that my parents came along was that we decided to celebrate mom's birthday in Saffron City this year. The interview began at 9:30 a.m and the "Good morning, Kanto!" host asked similar questions to the "Good morning, Rota!" host two weeks ago.
When the question regarding the academy's part in the project came up Mr. Cameron got introduced and his high position in the academy got emphasized.
Mr. Cameron underlined the fact that the project was my work alone, but he also stressed that the academy was fully behind me and that it was supporting my work, because, and I'm quoting here:
"It is our duty to help the promising members of the next generation, and we believe that young Mikail here is one of the most promising ones. Our academy is naturally willing to throw in our full support, with everything this entails, behind someone we see as a future pillar of humanity, especially when he is doing something helpful to everyone."
I actually blushed when he praised me like that on live radio, and I was extremely thankful for the fact that this was not a TV show or that would have been shown on TV instead. Still, I couldn't fully escape the embarrassment since I saw a flash of a camera and mom winking in my direction with a smile.
The host and Mr. Cameron actually laughed at the face I made when I saw that mom took a photo of me. The host covered the laughter by saying that they laughed due to my bashful look at Mr. Cameron's high praise.
I immediately understood that Mr. Cameron said all that on live radio to show that I was under the protection of the academy and that he was warning everyone against having any crooked thoughts. Seeing the thankful looks mom and dad were throwing Mr. Cameron they had realized that as well.
This time around the final question was regarding my future plans as well, and I told them that my long term goal was to become a trainer, but that I was planning to work on a second project before then since I still had a lot of time before I could start my journey.
The host asked what the focus of the second project was going to be, but I told him that I was planning to keep it a surprise. Just like agreed on I congratulated mom live on radio right before the end of the show which ended with me getting a bone crushing hug.
After the interview, we thanked Mr. Cameron for his help, but he waved it off simply citing that it was no problem and that it was something he was supposed to do. We separated from him and went around Saffron City letting mom drag us around since it was her birthday and we were planning to do whatever she wanted.
The following two weeks my academy mates entered another hubbub mode, and this time it took a bit longer to die down. Still, time solved all problems, so by the time the second term ended and the vacations began everyone had put my minute of fame behind them.
Still, it wasn't like nothing else had happened during this time, because there was progress among members of the priority list, but nothing significant, at least not among those on the list.
Outside the list, however, Mothra made a great stride toward breaking through to the gold stage. Her Strength finally improved to SS having been the last one to do so, but not only that, nearly simultaneously her Agility elevated to SSS, which was her third one.
She only needed to increase her Vitality, Strength, and Endurance to complete her limit breaking, so I directly added her to the priority list. Still, taking a look at Mothra's move section I had to admit that her talent had gone kinda crazy in combination with her potential.
She had learned so many new moves by observing her friends that it had become hard to keep track of everything. Simply put Mothra had become a beast as far as moves were concerned.
'Name: Mothra
Species: Butterfree
Gender: Female
Age: 7+ years
-
Type: Bug, Flying
Potential: Deep Purple (29.64%) -> (32.17%)
Genetic variation: Royal
Abilities: Compound Eyes, Tinted Lens
Talents: Quick Start V2
Affinities: Bug, Flying, Psychic, Grass (Budding) -> (weak)
-
Bond: Mikail (strong)
Quirks: Likes to eat, Curious
----
Parameters:
Stage: Silver Stage (high)
Vitality: SS
Strength: SS
Endurance: SS
Agility: SSS
Energy Capacity: SSS
Energy Density: SSS
----
Resistance:
Grass (Major), Fighting (Major), Ground (Minor), Bug (Minor)
-
Weaknesses:
Fire (Minor), Ice (Minor), Flying (Minor), Rock (Major)
-
Standardized:
Electric, Fire (in progress)
----
Condition: Healthy, Happy
----
Masteries:
Bug E. Manipulation (Advanced),
Psychic/Psionic Energy Manipulation (Proficient) -> (Advanced)
Flying/Air E. Manipulation (Proficient) -> (Advanced)
----
Techniques:
-
(Unofficial) Initial:
N/A
-
Novice:
Rage Powder, Draining Kiss (new), Flash (new), Supersonic (new), Sweet Scent (new), Headbutt (new), Toxic (new), Mega Drain (new), Twister (new), Round (new), Natural Gift (new),
-
Beginner:
Solar Beam (new, +), Sunny Day (new, +), Rain Dance (new, +), Safeguard (new, +), Hyper Beam (new, +), Swift (new, +), Venoshock (new, +), Shadow Ball (new, +), Double Team (new, +), Roost (new, +), Dream Eater (new, +), Silver Wind (new, +)
-
Proficient:
Bug Bite, Tackle, Sleep Powder, Stun Spore, Poison Powder, Whirlwind, Steel Wing, Hurricane (new, ++), Energy Ball (+), Protect (+), Teleport (new, ++), Giga Drain (new, ++), Endure (new, ++), Aerial Ace (new, ++)
-
Advanced:
Iron Head, Iron Defense, Harden, Psychic Fangs, Thunder Fang, Electroweb, Bug Buzz, Psybeam, Air Slash, Signal Beam, Quiver Dance, Psychic, Gust (+), Air Cutter (new, +++),
-
Mastered:
Confusion, String Shot, Tailwind
-
Combo/Custom:
Powder Bomb (All variants, Beginner), String Variant (All 3, Beginner), Web Variants (All 3, Beginner), Steel Slash (Beginner)'
-----------------------------
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If the second goal gets fulfilled, the lowest number of advanced chapters available will be 6, while the highest number of advanced chapters will be 10.
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