Ceruledge had actually fallen to the (low) platinum stage, which was a decrease of 2 substages. I mean, Dusknoir said that the stronger ones had to endure a stronger drain, but going from (high) platinum to (low) platinum was still pretty bad, especially since so many others were sharing the burden. Well, at least he stayed at the platinum stage, so I still got a Stage 6 Pokemon for practically free. I also noted that Ceruledge had deep blue potential, which was definitely nice. I had known that the boss trio would have at least blue potential since reaching the (high) platinum stage would have otherwise been nearly impossible, but Ceruledge had surpassed the minimum, which was nice.
Still, I had no idea what the draining did to the Pokemon besides the power drain, but I doubted that it was all that healthy, so it might have damaged/reduced the target's potential as well along with a multitude of other possible negative repercussions. If that was true, then Ceruledge might have used to have light purple or even purple potential at some point in the past depending on how often they got drained like this.
I would freely admit that I was interested in learning more about this whole draining business since I saw a potential exploit if we coupled it with limit-breaking. If it worked, one could theoretically have a silver-stage or lower Pokemon go through a breakthrough with the full limit breaking course for a 160% potential boost or even simply finish the first round for a 40% potential boost, before using the power drain to fall back to the previous stage to go through another round of LB. It certainly sounded extremely broken, but the whole thing depended on the fact that the draining had no drawbacks that made the idea not worth implementing.
Usually, if things appeared too good to be true they usually were, but I was definitely going to look into it even if I was not sure how long it would take me to work things out as far as a draining seal or an equivalent was concerned. Dusknoir had made clear that I would not be allowed to study the present seal so I would have to look it up in my private super library. I somehow doubted I would be able to find anything on draining Pokemon of their life/power in the alliance domain and looking for it would likely trigger some flags I would rather avoid.
Speaking of which, that could actually be another consequence of the draining, a loss of life force/vitality, which meant a potential lifespan reduction. Honestly, if that was an actual drawback of the drain seal, then whoever made the seal did think things through pretty well since ghost types were pretty much the only Pokemon with a virtual endless lifespan, at least as far as everyone else myself included was concerned, surpassing the lifespan of any other group by far. Hence, if lifespan was the only major drawback, using this for ghosts was definitely an option, though I would still have to see if that was actually true; I also needed to find out the entirety of the consequences of this process.
Regardless, back to studying the seal; Anything the alliance, a previous government, or any organization from the past or present has noted down on the topic was stored somewhere in my library. I would just have to look it up and make sure that I was able to access it. It would be quite fortunate if my high ball-crafter rank would allow me access to the information since it involved sealing, but if that did not work, my best guess was that I would be able to find something on the topic in the exorcist/spiritualist section. I was assuming that the seal used here involved their area of expertise since they were involved in the ghost/spirit business.
Anyway, using my psychic abilities I confirmed that Ceruledge was in a full-blown coma, which was understandable considering what he had just gone through, so I simply used a handcrafted Ghost Ball to capture him. The capture process went without a hitch, and I was looking forward to speaking with Ceruledge. Dusknoir's words had hinted that these ghosts had suffered through this draining procedure more than once, and I wanted to hear from Ceruledge about the details of his situation after the event. I was also really hoping that Utopia's optimization and general passive healing effect would help Ceruledge and the others recover from this ordeal. I was pretty sure that it would aid in making them more amiable towards me if that happened.
Once the capture was complete I could not help but smile and the others cheered a bit as well. I did not move on to the next boss but began to capture the rest of the ghosts on the pile instead. The first one was actually one of the (sub)bosses; It was one of the 2 (low) platinum-stage Cofagrigus, or at least it was supposed to be like that. Yet, when I checked the status sheet of the Cofagrigus it displayed (high) dark gold instead.
My first reaction was that I may have checked the wrong one since there were two more Cofagrigus beside/around the one I was checking out, but a quick check showed that one of those was at (mid) dark gold stage, while the other one was only at the (low) dark gold stage. This meant that the Cofagrigus I checked first was in fact the (sub)boss and that his strength had fallen from the (low) platinum stage to the (high) dark gold stage, proving that the drain by the seal could indeed cause a stage regression. Well, at least his potential was light blue, though that was somewhat of a given due to his pre-drain stage.
I had to be honest, seeing Cofagrigus' state put a slight damper on my mood since I was now worried that the other (sub)bosses had followed the same fate, which put my Utopia upgrade plan at risk. While there was a good chance that the two Aegislash bosses would like the Ceruledge boss to retain their Stage 6 prowess, I was not sure if 3 Stage 6 Pokemon was enough to fulfill Utopia's condition.
The last update had involved 3 Pokemon of the dark gold stage, and I was not sure if the condition for this upgrade had grown again; That said, bonds had played a role there as well, so it was possible that the bond requirement alone would serve as a roadblock to my plan, but I had hoped to maybe circumvent that using sheer numbers.
Nonetheless, it was too soon to assume the worst, so I simply proceeded to capture Cofagrigus and put his ball beside Ceruldge's ball before I went on to capture every single ghost making up the pile. Once I was done with the first pile I made my way to the pile that had Boss Aegislash (B) on the top. I prayed to Mew that Aegislash had retained its Stage 6 prowess as well, which caused my Pokemon to chuckle/giggle since they apparently ended up hearing my prayer over the telepathic channel.
I ignored them and used my telekinesis to check Aegislash's status sheet. I thanked Mew for answering my prayers when I saw that Aegislash (B) was at the (low) platinum stage, causing the chuckling/giggling to intensify. After Cofagrigus I was just happy to get another platinum-stage Pokemon, which made it easier to disregard the two substage-loss Aegislash suffered. Unlike Ceruledge, Aegislash's potential was "only" blue, but that was still good enough.
Anyway, after Aegislash's ball joined the other two, I checked out the (sub)boss of this pile, which was a Chandelure. Luckily enough, Chandelure actually retained her (low) platinum stage prowess, which had me do another thank-you prayer. I proceeded to capture the rest of the ghosts of this pile before making my way over to the final boss, and Aegislash (S) did not disappoint. He was at the (low) platinum stage as well, and his potential was actually slightly better than that of his female partner at Deep Blue.
Unfortunately, the Ceruledge (sub)boss who shared the pile with him broke the stage retention streak. Her blue potential was little consolation when I saw that she had fallen to the (high) dark gold stage, but there was nothing I could do; It was not like she wanted to lose her Stage 6 prowess, so I simply released a sad sigh before balling her, following which I captured the rest of the ghosts making up this pile as well.
Following that I went through the rest of the piles as well, and while the result was a bit disappointing, it could have been worse, so I was thankful that 5 of the 9 leftover (sub) bosses I captured managed to cling to their Stage 6 prowess. It was a bit unfortunate that Golurk fell from the (mid) platinum stage to the (low) platinum stage, but seeing how the boss trio had it worse, that was acceptable as well.
Ultimately, the tally was still very impressive, and I was pretty sure that their addition had at least quintupled Utopia's overall military might. Well, at least that would be the case once the ghosts were willing to follow my commands, but I was sure that I would definitely manage to have them listen to me even if it took me a few years, though I doubted that it would take me more than one.
As for the quintupled bit, I was not too sure about that, but the difference between the before and after state was definitely immense. A (low) Stage 6 Ceruledge ex-boss, 2 (low) Stage 6 Aegislash ex-bosses, another (low) Stage 6 Ceruledge, a (low) Stage 6 Golurk, another (low) Stage 6 Aegislash, a (low) Stage 6 Runerigus, a (low) Stage 6 Chandelure, and surprisingly a (low) Stage 6 Polteageist; A total of 9 platinum stage Pokemon with a minimum of blue potential was an incredible gain, but the addition of the other ghosts was nearly just as incredible due to the sheer number of very strong ghosts.
I got to add 139 dark gold stage Ceruledge, along with 387 gold stage ones; 96 dark gold stage Aegislash, along with 85 gold stage Aegislash, and 486 gold stage Doublade; The number of Golurk was a bit low, but there were still 48 dark gold stage Golurk, along with 203 gold stage ones. The Cofagrigus were the second most numerous with 254 dark gold stage members and 410 gold stage ones; Funnily enough, the difference between the two stages was the second smallest comparatively.
I had captured 38 dark gold stage Runerigus and 191 gold stage ones; Considering that they belonged to the same family tree as Cofagrigus that was already impressive enough, and it was already good enough that I counted them as distinct species instead of just variants during the count. That left us with the largest and the smallest group. The honor of being the most numerous belonged to the Chandelure with 298 dark gold stage Chandelure and 142 gold stage ones along with 520 gold stage Lampent.
The smallest group belonged to the Polteageist with 19 dark gold stage members and 57 gold stage members, but that made some sense since they had the hardest evolution conditions, at least comparatively. I doubted that they had access to many cracked ancient teapots over at the spirit world.
All in all, I gained 9 platinum stage Pokemon, 892 dark gold stage Pokemon and that was with who knows how many falling to the gold stage, along with 2481 gold stage Pokemon in one stroke. It was the single most impressive addition to Utopia so far, and I doubted that I would get a comparable one within the next few decades. Anyway, once I had stored away the last ball, I turned to Dusknoir and thanked him once more for allowing me to capture all invaders.
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A quick summary of the changes and data for the boss as well as (sub)bosses. This part is obviously not included in the word count.
Boss trio:
Ceruledge (male) (high) Platinum
-> reduced to (low) platinum/deep blue potential
-
Aegislash (Shield Forme/male) (high) Platinum
-> reduced to (low) platinum/deep blue potential
-
Aegislash (Blade Forme/female) (high) Platinum
-> reduced to (low) platinum/blue potential
- - - - -
12 Subbosses:
Golurk (mid) Platinum
-> reduced to (low) platinum/blue potential
-
Ceruledge 2 (low) Platinum
-> 1 female reduced to (high) dark gold/light blue potential
1 female retained (low) platinum/blue potential
-
Aegislash 2 (low) Platinum
-> 1 male reduced to (high) dark gold/light blue potential
1 female retained (low) platinum/blue potential
-
Cofagrigus 2 (low) Platinum
-> 1 male reduced to (high) dark gold/light blue potential
1 male reduced to (high) dark gold/blue potential
-
Runerigus 2 (low) Platinum
-> 1 female reduced to (high) dark gold/light blue potential
1 male retained (low) platinum/blue potential
-
Chandelure 2 (low) Platinum
-> 1 female retained (low) platinum/deep blue potential
1 male reduced to (high) dark gold/blue potential
-
Polteageist (low) Platinum
-> 1 retained (low) platinum/blue potential
-----------------------------
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