Well, apparently dad took my joke somewhat seriously. He first asked me how much I was willing to pay for a decently strong trainer to act as my security, before spending a few hours calling the people he had in mind to ask them if they were interested in acting as security guards for at least half a year starting from the month after the next, with a possibility of extending that period.
Surprisingly, or unsurprisingly quite a few were interested after hearing that they were just the additional human element and that there were security cameras at the corners of the building, the entrance/exit, lobby, kitchen, part of the cafeteria, and storage area/basement. The presence of these cameras made the security job much easier after all.
I'm sure that the weekly rate of 4k Poke for Junior-Class Trainers, and 12k for Senior-Class Trainers was also attractive enough since everyone involved believed that they honestly would not have much to do during their 8 hours shift.
While Junior-Class Trainers and Senior-Class Trainers could easily earn that much money or more within a week by doing missions or challenging others, my job offer presented an opportunity for easy money, and they only had to work for 8 hours each day.
For me, that meant that I would be paying somewhere between 48k and 144k for security since I would need three people to cover the whole day since each shift was 8 hours.
I could have tried to extend the shifts to 12 hours to reduce the number of necessary guards to two, but I decided against it, since the longer the shift, the worse people tended to focus toward the end of the shift.
Anyway, dad told everyone that showed interest to send over a summary of themselves, including their trainer class, number of Pokemon, and general strength.
When I checked my emails after breakfast the next day, I saw that I had received quite a few emails, including one from the construction company with a list of security companies that they recommended.
I naturally checked the security companies first to get an idea of their offers and prices before checking the summaries sent by my dad's acquaintances.
The security companies were no doubt more professional since that was their actual job and surprisingly hiring them would actually be comparatively cheaper than what I offered dad's acquaintances. However, dad's acquaintances were objectively stronger than the guards offered by the company even if they were in the same trainer class.
In the end, I decided to first hire dad's acquaintances since he had already reached out to them. I would switch to the more professional security companies once half a year had passed. For many, that might seem counterintuitive at first, but it wasn't, at least not for me and those that had their priorities straight.
Among dad's acquaintances, I chose two Junior-Class Trainers for the day shifts, and one Senior-Class Trainer for the night shift. I sent them a reply, telling them that they had the job and informing them of the address of my property. I also added that dad would meet them there on 01.32.2181 at 8 a.m. to introduce them to the construction workers in case they are still there and to hand over one of the keys.
I was going to make the janitor's room available to them for the duration of their job so that they had a place to sit while doing their job. That was also the room the security system's displays were placed in right now, and I would probably have to consider creating a dedicated security room once I hired the security company.
Once that security issue was dealt with, the orphanage subject was mostly done until I decided to hire the staff so that I could open it, but I had no such plans for the next year.
I was going to wait until at least the second property was altered to my specifications and maybe even until I had accumulated enough Pokemon to inhabit the new property before I considered opening the orphanage.
The first one could probably be handled in a year or two by the construction company, but the second one would take more time than that, at least the Rattata part would.
The other Pokemon had enough members to reach a high enough number in another year or so, but the same was not true for the Rattata variants.
While I had managed to nurture the elemental affinity in some Rattata after investing a lot of sweat and resources into it, I had yet to see any of the Rattata turning into a variant.
Still, I had expected the project to take a few years, so I was not surprised about that. In fact, I genuinely believed that could obtain my first variants within a year or so, even if it happened with the help/boost of an evolution.
However, one or two variants were useless for my plans. I needed much more than that, and that meant waiting until the number increases through breeding and fresh variations.
I was guessing that it would take me close to 5 years to reach a sustainable number of Rattata Variants, but waiting that long seemed to be a bit much since it would be close to two years after I started my official journey.
I believed that doing the opening right before I began my journey would be better, and if nothing else, doing such a good deed before I set off ought to bring me some good fortune.
Anyway, after handling all that, I spend the rest of Palkiday relaxing with my parents and Pokemon. I only had three more days until I had to return to Pallet City so I was making the best of the days I had left at home.
As for Ignis/Gyarados not having joined his fellow SS members? Well, I was honestly not surprised that it was taking him the longest since he was the one among them that was the most invested in his moves, so the extra time it was taking him was not as surprising.
Besides, it had been a week since Jade/Gyarados' breakthrough and Ignis had been throwing himself into training his endurance since then. In fact, he kept increasing the gravity bit by bit, challenging the limits of what he could withstand each time.
I was certain that he would have crushed himself under too much gravity if he had it his way due to his fervor of completing his limit-breaking. Thankfully, he had to rely on others for the increase in gravity so he had to train under the gravity I approved of.
Then Dialday came and we received some guests. Rose, as well as her parents, came for a visit and we went out to the town center to stroll around before returning home around 6 p.m. since Uncle Thorn and dad wanted some self-made barbecue for dinner.
The Fields left close to 10 p.m., so dad's evening training session got delayed by quite a bit. We usually did the energy-sensing session a bit after dinner for half an hour or so.
Dad had reached the point where I had to do nearly no augmentation at all and after the current session, I declared that he could now try to sense the ground energy without my help.
Thankfully, dad managed to reach this point before I had to leave, so he could continue doing the exercise even if it took him more than two days to sense the ground energy.
After his morning session the next day, dad actually claimed that he managed to get a glimpse of the energy once, which meant that it would be easier to duplicate his success.
I was happy to hear that, especially since I was leaving tomorrow evening, so his success meant I had done an exemplary job as dad's teacher during this vacation.
Mom also went ahead and indirectly teased dad by telling me that I had done a great job teaching him. I simply laughed a bit, knowing she was having some harmless fun. Besides, it was the truth, and even dad simply chuckled good-naturedly since he knew that my help was a big part of the reason why he made such quick progress.
I confidently could say that I felt pretty happy with how the vacation had gone so far. Now, if Ignis managed to break through to the gold stage before I left for Pallet, it would be the perfect end for my vacation. I obviously did not mention anything like that to Ignis or anyone else since the poor guy was already training excessively right now.
If not for me and the others serving as a pseudo-brake, keeping him from going too far, he would probably be doing some self-harm in the name of training. However, thankfully, it seemed his efforts finally bore fruit, and/or some deities felt sympathy towards poor Ignis since he released an exhilarated roar sometime after dinner.
After expressing his joy while letting out some steam and frustration, he happily announced that he felt the sensation of wholeness the others mentioned, so I entered Utopia and confirmed that his final parameter had indeed risen to SSS.
Once I confirmed that Ignis was done with his limit-breaking, I called the others over, even if that seemed to be unnecessary since they were already coming over due to Ignis's roar.
After the last one made it, I gave Ignis the go-ahead and he initiated his breakthrough. The process went perfectly smoothly, and once it was over, I went up to him to congratulate him for reaching the gold stage.
Ignis was really happy, and like the others before him, he also leaned down asking for a good rub, so I scratched him along his jaw since that was his favorite area.
The others decided that they had given us enough time and rushed up as well to congratulate Ignis on his breakthrough. Some like Mothra/Butterfree, Horus/Xatu, and Stan/Gyarados did some backhand admonishing, telling him that he was not allowed to keep doing his current crazy workload, and Ignis just accepted their concern for him with joy.
Though he did end up having to promise to slow down, especially since I joined the trio by stating that I agreed with what they said. After that, I let the others talk to him while I took a look at his new status screen.
'Name: Ignis
Species: Gyarados
Gender: Male
Age: 8+ years
-
Type: Water, Fire
Potential: Light Purple (73.8%) -> (81.17%) -> Deep Purple (41.17%)
(Genetic) Modifiers: Fire-variant
Abilities: Intimidate, White Smoke
Talents: None
Affinities: Water, Fire
-
Bond: Mikail (strong)
Quirks: Slightly Passionate
----
Parameters:
Stage: Gold Stage (mid)
Vitality: D
Strength: C
Endurance: D
Agility: D
Energy Capacity: C
Energy Density: D
--
Resistance:
Fire (Major), Ice (Major), Steel (Major), Bug (Minor), Fairy (Minor)
-
Weaknesses:
Electric (Minor), Ground (Minor), Rock (Minor)
-
Standardized:
Electric (in progress)
----
Condition: Healthy, Elated
--
Masteries:
Water Energy Manipulation (Advanced)
Fire Energy Manipulation (Proficient) -> (Advanced)
----
Techniques:
-
(Unofficial) Initial:
Scorch Pump (C)
-
Novice:
N/A
-
Beginner:
Thrash (new, +), Ice Beam (new, +)
-
Proficient:
Tackle, Flail, Bounce, Bite, Dragon Rage, Whirlpool, Twister, Ice Fang, Scary Face, Brine, Crunch, Aqua Tail, Flare Blitz (++), Endure (new, ++), Dragon Pulse (new, ++), Surf (new, ++), Hyper Beam (new, ++), Fire Blast (new, ++), Thunderbolt (new, ++), Dark Pulse (new, ++), Iron Tail (new, ++), Iron Head (new, ++), Muddy Water (new, ++), Solar Beam (new, ++), Summer Rain (C)
-
Advanced:
Splash, Swift, Aqua Jet, Water Pulse, Waterfall, Dragon Dance, Flamethrower (+), Heat Wave (++), Rain Dance (+), Sunny Day (new, +++), Fire Spin (new, +++), Lava Plume (new, +++)
-
Mastered:
Water Gun, Scald (+), Hydro Pump (+)
-
Combo/Custom Move:
Summer Rain (Proficient), Scorch Pump (In-progress)'
Seeing his potential increase to deep purple was great, and like Abyss/Gyarados before him, Ignis' potential was still a bit away from the halfway mark at slightly more than 41%.
That he did not unlock any modifiers or talents was no surprise seeing how smooth and relatively swift the breakthrough went. His parameters on the other hand were pretty good. Just like Aby/Gyarados, Ignis also had two of them already at C-value, with the rest of them being Ds across the board.
He only had to raise two more of his parameters to officially reach the (high) gold stage, which automatically put him to the forefront among all my Pokemon that had reached the gold stage and were trying to reach the (high) gold stage.
Ignis might have been the last of the Slythering Six to reach the gold stage, but it seemed likely that he had a good chance of being the first after Stan to reach the (high) gold stage. Especially if he kept up even just a part of his current training intensity.
Well, that was if I could have him neglect his move training for a while since he was the most enthusiastic about that aspect among his group, and he had shown that he could get a bit stubborn/passionate about things once he had settled on doing something.
His interest in his moves had ultimately been the reason why it took him the longest to break through, so let's not mention his resistance training. That one definitely needed more attention as well if Ignis wanted to deal with his electric weakness.
Still, Ignis did have something to show for the work he invested in his moves. Not only was his move pool as impressive as that of the others, if not more so, but he also had a truly marvelous combo/custom move that he had raised to proficiency.
Furthermore, he was also working on another combo/custom move that was based on his two "new" mastered moves. Truly, I could see Scorch Pump becoming one of the strongest and most dangerous water-type moves once he managed to develop it.
As for Summer Rain, that one was quite the awesome move, now that he had become proficient with it. Well, awesome for him, less so for others since they were affected differently by the move than Ignis.
Summer Rain was obviously a move that combined Rain Dance and Sunny Day, but as far as others were concerned it generally brought them neither advantages nor disadvantages.
For everyone except Ignis, the usual boosts or reduction for fire and water moves were negated by the effects of the two moves Summer Rain was based on. Unlike them, Ignis got to enjoy the advantage of both without the usual drawbacks since the Summer Rain was generated by his energy. This meant his fire and water moves were boosted.
However, unlike the situation with the moves, abilities that were affected by Rain Dance or Sunny Day still worked during Summer Rain, so that one was pretty good for everyone that had one of those abilities.
Anyway, as I said I would have to persuade Ignis to leave Scorch Pump aside until he reached the (high) gold stage, but I had a feeling that would be easier now that Ignis knew what it felt like having to play catch-up. At least, I hoped that to be the case.
Regardless, I once more congratulated him on his breakthrough before I announced that the celebration would commence right now. Since it was already past 9 p.m., the celebrations went on until close to midnight.
I spent the next day completely by the side of my parent since it was my last day at Hope Town. We chilled at home, and at some point, we even began speculating as to what kind of project Professor Oak would assign me. All of us agreed that it probably had to do with research on variants. We would have to see if that turned out to be true or not.
The day went by, and before I knew it I was out eating dinner with my parents, after which I wished them goodbye and left after giving both a farewell hug. On the way back to Pallet City I could not help but feel eager since I really wanted to know what kind of project I would be joining.
Regardless, of what the project was, it would have to wait until tomorrow. Yet, I could not help but feel curious.
-----------------------------
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