Unfortunately, it took us a whole three weeks to go from 96% to 99%. Yes, an increase of 3% took 3 weeks, but we were finally at the finish line. We were extremely close to producing a "viable" Arctic Heart, and all three of us were really excited.
Still, Dialday went by and we went home empty-handed. The same happened on Arcday after the weekend passed, and on Mewday as well. At least, I got some good news that raised my spirit that day, and from a rather surprising source as well.
Apparently, the training he did after Bruce/Zubat's encouragement helped quite a bit since Eggy/Salandit managed to reach the (high) iron stage an hour before dinner, and I did not know what kind of coincidence this was, but the next day, an hour after our lunch break Sibel began to whoop excitedly.
That was important because it was Sibel's turn to keep an eye on the pressure and testing devices, so hearing her excited shouts Carl and I obviously rushed over. She saw us and pointed at the screen of the testing device with a wide smile. Looking over we saw the words that confirmed that the Arctic Heart that went through the test just now had a 100% fusion rate.
Naturally, Carl and I began to laugh out of happiness as well. James came over, clearly attracted by the ruckus we were making. He undoubtedly knew what was going on the moment he saw our happy faces. If the excited noises we were making were not enough, I mean.
Anyway, he congratulated us before sending Samantha to retrieve an Eevee for the evolution test while we put the Arctic Heart through the preliminary tests. The others were setting up the main table while we were doing that. No one thought that the Arctic Heart would fail to pass the preliminary tests since none of its predecessors did.
Samantha made it back moments before we finished the tests, and had to wait for a moment while Carl brought the Arctic Heart to the center table. He placed the Arctic Heart onto the center of the table and we all, or at least my trio, watched the Eevee head towards the Arctic Heart with bathed breath.
I held my breath when Eevee lifted her paw and placed it on top of the Arctic Heart, and I saw Carl as well as Sibel doing the same. I actually noticed them squeezing each other's hands showing the nervousness they were feeling. I could not help but be curious if they had started something, and if that was the case, when.
Still, I was distracting myself to deal with my own nervousness since Eevee did not immediately light up, or even within the next three seconds. When we passed the 5 seconds I felt the mood shift, showing that the others had started to think that we had failed once again.
It was rather unfortunate and my mind was going at a million miles an hour. I could not help the disappointment that was starting to creep up until everything froze due to the light that suddenly erupted from Eevee. I just felt immense relief, knowing that my/our idea was not wrong and that the Arctic Heart actually worked as an evolution trigger for Eevee.
The first thing I actually did was not to shout out my excitement, or to laugh, but to check my watch. I saw that the ninth second had just passed, so it took 7.5 to 8 seconds for the evolution to trigger. I did that on reflex, but the happy laughter did follow immediately afterward.
I saw Carl and Sibel hug each other out of excitement and when they saw me look over they actually pulled me into their hug. Anyway, since the whole thing was still going down, we forcibly calmed ourselves within a few moments and made sure to observe as well as document the ongoing evolution.
Before long, the light died down and where previously an Eevee had been, a Glaceon was sitting on her haunches. She was pretty excited and released happy yips while checking herself. Samantha actually pulled out a handheld mirror from somewhere and showed Glaceon her reflection.
I saw that the Arctic Heart that had been used for this had broken into little pieces which were all dull, showing that it had become useless after acting as an evolution trigger. I kinda regretted not checking its status screen before the test, seeing how it had crumbled and become useless.
Now, I would have to wait until we managed to produce another Arctic Heart, which could take a day or two if I was unlucky. However, I had reason to be confident in my luck, so I was guessing that I would be able to check the status screen before the day was up.
Another thing that I now kind of regret was not checking Eevee's status screen to look at her potential. If I had done that, then I could have roughly seen if the Arctic Heart gave a large bonus or not.
Obviously, one Eevee would not have been enough to determine that, unless I decided to temporarily catch one before the evolution so that I could track the exact percentage increase the Arctic Heart caused. If my theory of the Arctic Heart being a superior ice-type item was true, it could act like an optimal supplement/trigger, which would provide an exceptional potential boost.
Anyway, the others began to finish up their part and started to congratulate us on our success. James pat me on the back and congratulated me with a smile as well.
He told me/us to make sure that we were thorough with the capability test we would be starting as soon as we managed to produce another Arctic Heart, and that the Professor would be very interested in the information we would gather, just like he would.
Everyone began to disperse after that, and Samantha began to carry Glaceon away now that her role was done. I saw Glaceon giving us a smile and a thankful nod as well as a yip before Samantha vanished behind the door.
Regardless, the three of us went back to our workstation and checked up on the other Arctic Hearts we had in the works, hoping that one of them would be a viable one. Unfortunately, that was not the case. It took us another two batches to produce another Arctic Heart with a 100% fusion rate, but thankfully we made it a few minutes before our usual out-clock time.
I swiftly took ahold of the Arctic Heart so that I could check its status screen since there was not much else we could do before we had to clock out. James had told us beforehand that we could not stay overtime, even if we managed to produce an Arctic Heart at the last minute. Turns out that James had an inner Natu.
'Name: Arctic Heart
Type: Ice
Class: D
Uses:
The Arctic Heart is a compound item created through the fusion as well as infusion of Cryogonal Ice, Yache Essence, and Frost Extract into a Mystic Ice Gem, and as such can not be found in nature. It is a conditionally self-sustained object containing highly concentrated refined ice energy.
Due to the nature of the materials used in its creation, it is capable of increasing the power of ice-type moves by half. It is further capable of increasing the training speed of ice-type Pokemon and there exists a chance that the Arctic Heart might trigger moments of inspiration, mainly on the ice element.
Additionally, the Arctic Heart is capable of turning any non-clashing ambient and introduced energy into ice energy. It also releases trace amounts of its ice energy into its surroundings, which has a soothing effect on ice-type Pokemon, while prolonged exposure to this energy can cause non-ice-type Pokemon to slowly freeze up.'
Well, I noticed a few changes all across the board. After the composition part, it mentioned that the Arctic Heart was conditionally self-sustained, and I was assuming the conditional part was the necessity of energy that it could convert to ice energy, which it then could absorb to sustain its functions. That encompassed pretty much everywhere except for a few special areas, such as volcanoes or core areas of certain mines.
Next up was its capability to increase the power of ice-type moves by half, which was pretty great. Still, on that note, I've noted during previous tests with our prior products that the full bonus was only applicable up until the stage equivalent of the item's class.
For D-Class items that was the silver stage, so an ice-type up to the silver stage would receive a 50% boost, but those above the silver stage would receive a progressively smaller bonus, which made sense.
The next bit was interesting since there was a small but significant change in the training speed boost. Additionally, the boost used to be more exclusive, but it had now become a general speed boost for ice types, training-wise.
That actually made a lot of sense since the Arctic Heart practically turned the area into a great environment for ice types, and I was sure that the refined ice energy it released helped as well.
Furthermore, the chance of inspiration went up enough for the word "small" to fall away, so while I had no idea how likely it was, the odds were certainly not insignificant. Also, while the focus was still on ice energy, that was no longer all the inspiration/enlightenment could be about. It did not state what exactly the other stuff was, but I guess it could be things like energy conversion.
All that was enough to qualify the Arctic Heart as a great item, but it was the last paragraph that made me think it was one of, if not THE best ice-type item. It really did adopt the functions of the Mystic Cryo Gem, Mystic Yache Gem, and Mystic Frost Gem. The last part was what made the Arctic Heart into an item capable of turning nearly any place into an ice-type habitat/paradise.
I was really curious how big the Arctic Heart's arctic domain could grow, and what effect it would have if multiple are used to create a formation. How long would it take to change a terrain permanently if that was possible? How large was the Arctic Heart and post-Arctic Heart time ratio, if only a temporary change was possible?
These were all things that I was seriously curious about since they were important to know while making the decision regarding the accessibility of the Arctic Heart. As great and monumental as the creation of the Arctic Heart was, we did not want idiots or bad guys and gals causing damage using our Arctic Heart after all.
Unfortunately, this meant that there was a chance that our Arctic Heart might fail to conclude the Glaceon project despite fulfilling the conditions set by the lab to finish the project. I guess you could, in a way, call this suffering from success.
Nonetheless, the decision was ultimately up to the Professor, who would only make the decision after we were done with the capability tests, and since James asked us to be thorough with our tests, I was expecting them to take up to a month, maybe more depending on how the ice domain tests went.
Regardless, those tests would have to wait until tomorrow since our time was up, and James was eyeing us, clearly waiting for us to pack up and leave. We had no plans to refute his unspoken urging since we knew that James could be surprisingly stubborn, so I moved the Arctic Heart in my hands into our lab safe, which was made up of special steel by the way, so the Arctic Heart's environmental effect should not work in there.
That meant that we could store the Arctic Heart there without having to worry about the lab being turned into an ice-covered wonderland overnight.
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