When I woke up this morning I had a notification on my phone saying that Nurse Joy's capture had completed, earning me two credits. Which woke me up instantly, because that meant today was the day the Pokemon world Captures completed, and we'd finally get to spend those Credits.

I felt like a kid waking up on Christmas. Not counting the twelve from VV and Tinks, we had 62 Credits on the way, and with my purchases that meant we would have a total of 70 Credits by the end of the day. And there was a lot you could get for 70 Credits.

Not wanting our hands to remain idle, after a simple breakfast of fruit we started making clay pots while discussing what we were going to spend the Credits on. We'd need a ton of pots going forward, so they were a good investment.

"First and foremost, we should spend these Credits on things that will help us get more Credits," I said. "There are plenty of things I want that will make me stronger or make our life here more comfortable, but investing into earning Credits will pay off quickly. We'll have three more worlds to visit before they start getting more dangerous, and even then the increase is small."

Levy nodded as she kneaded some clay into shape. "That makes sense to me. So Bindings, Lures, and other Perks?"

"I guess," I said. "I'm not sure we need to think too hard on Binding though. The Stamp works pretty well."

"Let's go over the other options, just in case," Levy insisted.

"Well, let me eliminate some right off the bat," I said. "Symbiote is right out. Not my fetish." Levy nodded, accepting that. "Tantric Arts is very useful, but it requires too much work for us to reliably make Captures in the short time the portal is open."

"Hmm. That's fair. What about the others?"

"In its base form, the Hypnosis App has the same issue," I said. "But if we drop 50 Credits on it, we can send the app to other people, disguised, and come up with a means to disguise it. If we then also embed commands to spread it to others, theoretically we could capture an entire world, given enough time."

"That sounds pretty good. But from the lack of enthusiasm in your voice and the use of the word 'theoretically', I'm assuming there are some downsides?"

"Well, for one, it's restricted to worlds with smartphones," I said. "That alone makes me not want to use it. Many worlds we'll see at first will have smartphones, sure. But the more dangerous the worlds get, the less likely they are to have smart phones. It wouldn't work in your world, for example. It might work in some sci-fi worlds, but just having good tech doesn't mean it will have means to distribute apps."

"So each time the portal opens it would be a dice roll if we could even capture the people there," Levy mused.

"If it was just that, I might be willing to consider it as a trade off," I said. "But I don't like the idea of leaving the propagation of it unsupervised. There's no guarantee that it will find its way to the main cast without us being there to guide it." I shook my head. "A dice roll on top of a dice roll is not something I want to rely on. It could be powerful, but it's a gamble."

"I can agree with that," Levy said. "That leaves Tempest Jewelry and Shroud of Power, right?"

"We can't get Shroud of Power right now either way," I said. "It's way too expensive. But if we do get enough credits, it's a good option. Three-Piece Suit would allow for slow but subtle captures, and several of the Elemental shrouds would be useful for us. Especially the Jungle one. I could do a lot with that." I shook my head. "But that would require roughly three hundred credits to get the Shroud, unlimited Three-Piece Suit purchases so I'm not limited in how many I can have active at once, and the Elemental upgrade. It wouldn't be more effective than the Stamp either, not when it comes to how many captures we can get per world."

"But we could get instant captures, if we tried for them," Levy said.

"I'd rather not be that forceful if I can help it," I said. "It's not subtle either."

Levy shrugged, but didn't push. "Alright, then Tempest Jewelry?"

"Cheap, but not subtle, and limited in number," I said. "Like, it could work, but there's nothing that appeals to me about them over the Stamp."

"Apportation would be nice, wouldn't it?" Levy pointed out. "We could teleport people we captured to us whenever the portal opens again."

"Not sure that's useful," I countered. "Anyone I'd want here I'd want them to agree to it first, and if they agree they can just come with us."

Levy frowned. "That's a nice sentiment but… do you think it'll work?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, how many people are going to agree to abandon their lives and join us?"

I paused. "There are a few I can think of."

"And how many have skills useful enough that we'd target them? Or that you'd want to pick up?"

"...A few of those few," I admitted.

"The chances of it happening are very small then?" she pressed.

"So?" I shrugged. "We can still make purchases that won't have that problem. It's a little more pricey, but it's fine." I set my finished clay pot aside and started making another one. "So we'll stick with Stamp for now. I don't think we need any Lures either. Most of them are too slow to work in the time we'd have."

"Which ones aren't?" Levy asked.

I gave it a moment of thought. "Alluring Whisper and maybe Love Spot, depending on how strong that is in practice," I answered. "Both are 20 Credits."

"Those both sound useful to me," Levy said. "They'd make it much easier for you to convince them to join us. Especially if you get both, which we can afford." She flashed me a grin. "And even though I'm already yours, I think I'd enjoy you using Alluring Whisper on me."

"You'd probably enjoy Sticky Fingers even more," I quipped. "But I'll put both of those on the maybe list. It's the other miscellaneous perks that I think we'll find what we really want."

"Oh?"

"Psychic Paper, for one," I said. "We won't have any problems with identification so long as we have that. It wasn't an issue in Pokemon because of how laid back they are, but in most modern worlds it wouldn't be so easy to register like that. Alternatively, we could get Paper Trail for both of us, and we'd have legal documents for every world we'd visit. That's cheaper, but only until we get it for five people and it doesn't let us potentially get into restricted areas."

"I like that, it's a good purchase," Levy agreed. "I'd choose the Psychic Paper purely for the infiltration purposes. If it can act as a short-term identification for us then that's a bonus."

"Downside being that psychics, and idiots, can see past it," I said. "Whereas Paper Trail is backed by the Company and no one will be able to tell it's not above the board. Not definitively at least."

"We can get Paper Trail at any time though, right?" Levy asked. "Even after the portal has already opened? We can go with Psychic Paper for the default, and pick up Paper Trail as needed when it comes up."

I thought about it and then nodded. "Okay, Psychic Paper is high on the list of purchases, especially since it's cheap. Speaking of things that have to be purchased ahead of time though, I wanted to bring up Universal Calibration."

"The one that adjusts genders and ages and other things?"

"Yeah. We had that discussion when going over possible recruits about the one girl who we could bring back, but she's a child and it would mean we have to dress and act appropriately while here? Well, if we pick up Universal Calibration, that won't be a concern. It will be an older version of her that appears in the world."

"That would certainly prevent that issue," Levy agreed. "But that's a specific case. Are there many others?"

"It would just add more people to each world that I'd want to bring back here," I said. "Which in turn increases how many potential targets there are that would agree to come with us. Not just aging up, but the genderbends as well."

"You don't mind adding someone you knew as a male character to your harem?" Levy asked.

"Nah, they'd be girls, and they'd be cute, and that's enough for me," I said. "Maybe I'd be a little hesitant if it wasn't retroactive, but that's mostly dependent on how they react to it. Forced gender bending isn't a fetish of mine, but there are characters who would happily accept it. And some who just wouldn't care. At ten Credits it's not cheap, but it's very affordable. But I'd consider it more useful for getting Credits than the Psychic Paper."

Levy nodded. "Since it needs to be purchased before we get access to a world, it might be worth investing in that sooner rather than later. It would be frustrating to miss a chance because we hesitated."

"The next one… I'm actually very tempted to get it, but it would take all of our budget," I said. "Bounty Tracker. It and its two prerequisite perks cost 70 Credits, all we can afford to spend, but we'd have an accurate map of whatever area we end up in with every single valid target being tracked on it. We wouldn't have to guess or hope to run into them. Depending on the setting, I might even be able to instantly figure out when in the timeline we arrived based on who is where. If we had this in Pokemon we could have flown to the place with the highest concentration of high value targets and focused our efforts there. Considering our lack of information gathering abilities and our time limit, it would be a massive advantage."

"At the cost of not being able to get anything else until the next Portal," Levy added. "Which… might be worth it. We need transportation, lures, and other things to take full advantage of that information, but it would be quite the boon even without those."

I nodded. "I think it's worth it, but we should keep going over our options. Starting with transportation, since you brought it up." I glanced at the catalog. "The Catalog offers plenty of different kinds of vehicles, though I'm not sure there are any I want to get. Most of them would stand out too much in most settings."

"And getting multiple would be an inefficient strain on our budget right now," Levy mused. "Yeah, I think they're something that might be useful later, but it's not a priority right now. Anything else?"

"Talents and Defenses," I said. "Though again, I think we should leave those for now. We managed to get a free Defense from the Pokemon Trainer captures, but we don't need any right now. Probably. And Talents would be nice to have to start training, with Body-Tune Up being especially tempting, but it wouldn't directly help us earn more Credits, not while we're still in the low danger level worlds. Unless I got a Template Stack of something that helped us make captures."

"No Template Stacks," Levy insisted. "If anyone is getting one, it should be me. Whatever you get needs to be special and something that won't overlap with someone you recruit."

"I know, I know," I said. "Using Added Potential to get your world's magic is tempting though. But I'd need to buy Talents as well in order to have a chance to train it in time."

"I think we should start working on making you stronger soon, but not yet," Levy said. "As you said, you'll need Talents as well, and the most important thing is making sure we can earn more credits. We can afford to delay it a bit while things are safe."

I nodded in agreement. "In that case… there's not much else to consider. Heritages are way out of our price range and they might be nice later but they're not a priority. The only other thing we might get is… well, a purchased companion."

"Would any of the ones you want that we can afford help with captures?" Levy asked.

"Maybe?" I said uncertainly. "Not directly though, and not as much as some of the perks we talked about already. The ones I already have in mind are more focused on improving the quality of life here, or combat."

"Then they can probably wait," Levy surmised. "Especially until we get the house completed."

"We could get another block, increase how much space we have," I said. "But I don't think we need to expand yet, no. Maybe once we get someone who can grow things, we can get another one and turn it into a farm or something."

"That sounds like a good plan to me," Levy said with a smile. "So I guess that means we have to make a decision, huh? Spend all our Credits on Bounty Tracker, or get some of the other perks, like Universal Calibration and Psychic Paper."

"Let me mull it over for a bit," I said before closing my eyes and laying back on the ground, ignoring my half-finished clay pot for a moment.

I spent a good few minutes thinking. A decision like this was really important, and it would shape our effectiveness going forward. I imagined different scenarios, going through every world that might be next that I could think of and picturing which purchases I would want the most for each one.

And as I did, one thing kept standing out.

"I think we have to purchase Universal Calibration," I said eventually, sitting back up and looking at Levy.

"Why is that? I don't disagree that it's a good early choice, but I'm not sure I see what makes it a 'have to'."

"Bounty Tracker is definitely by far the most useful perk we can get in terms of the number of Credits it can earn us in return," I explained. "I won't deny that at all, and it should be our second priority. It provides an insanely useful level of information. If we had it in Pokemon we could have potentially earned far far more Credits."

I raised a finger. "But if we don't get it, the worst case scenario is that we get a trip that doesn't earn us any credits. That's a setback for sure, but a temporary one. However, the consequences of not getting Universal Calibration could be permanent. If the next time the portal opens and there's a recruitment candidate in that world that we'd want if they were older or a different gender? Then that's it, too bad, we've been to that world and buying Universal Calibration after the fact won't change that. Our only option would be to buy that version of them, recruiting would forever be off the table. Well. Unless we spent a lot of credits on Meta Shift and Blank Slate so we could create a new version of that world, but at that point purchasing is easier."

Levy crossed her arms(which pushed up her boobs in a very distracting manner) and her brow furrowed as she thought. "That is… a good point."

"And honestly? I say we spend the remaining Credits on the prerequisite perks for Bounty Tracker, Mapper and Target Tracker. They're only moderately useful for their price, but then we can save the remaining 40 Credits and in the next world we might get lucky and get a confession capture. Or maybe a local capture like for VV and Tinks. Or even just get a 10 Credit loan we'll know we can pay back instantly. Then we can get Bounty Tracker while we're still there and reap the benefits."

"And even if we somehow fail to capture any next world, we'd have at least three more portal openings to get ten Credits," Levy continued my thought for me, a smile growing on her face. "With Bounty Tracker that shouldn't be a problem at all!"

"Not unless we really fuck it up," I agreed. "Psychic Paper should be gotten soon after that, and some power or vehicle for transportation would be nice, but after that we can focus on increasing my strength and improving our lives here."

After that all that was left was to wait until the evening, when the final Credits came in, and I could make the purchases. We made a few more pots and left them out to sun dry as we waited. It was the only really productive thing we could do at this point, since we were waiting for our next world visit before making the house. But simple pots for storage would always be needed.

I also finally made the pipe segments so we won't have to use a pot to drain the bath. They were pretty rough, and they were also too small for how fast the water would flow, since the hole in the bottom of the bath was much larger than the pipe's volume, so I made a funnel that would fit into the drain and hopefully restrict how fast it would flow out.

Those are drying overnight, and we'll fire them tomorrow, and hopefully the bath we took this evening will be the last time we have to worry about draining the water the slow way.

Shortly after we ate dinner(sandwiches again) my phone buzzed, giving me the 30 Credits for Katy the Gym Leader. So, feeling like I was making a big online purchase, I opened the Catalog and Purchased Universal Calibration, Mapper, and Target Tracker. That left me with 40 Credits, 10 short of Bounty Tracker, but it would come.

That was just a few minutes ago. Or I guess a few minutes before I started writing this journal entry. It wasn't a crazy day, but those purchases made it a big one. I can't help but to be excited for the next time the portal opens. Making steady progress at home is satisfying work, but it has kind of stalled, and the excursions into other worlds are a lot of fun.

Until next time… I should figure out a way to end these more consistently. Some kind of signature. Something to think about I guess.

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AN: Sometimes I worry that chapters like this are boring, but writing out the dialogue is how I organize my thoughts. I didn't decide what they were going to get until I wrote this chapter. Also, even if I do include chapters like this, I'll still get comments wondering why I picked this instead of that. So I like to think that chapters like this help reduce those comments and help the readers understand both mine and the characters' reasoning for their decisions.

I also explored Roland's current mindset a bit. To lay it out flat, he's a pretty normal dude. He's not morally upstanding, but he also doesn't like seeing dark or messed up things directly in front of him. It's a little hypocritical, actually, but very normal.

If you don't like his attitude here, let me say that it will change. How Roland changes and grows is going to be a big focus. Please give me a bit of faith that he's not going to be the super annoying "wah the Company is evil and I don't wanna capture girls". He does want to capture them, but he's uncomfortable admitting that, even to himself, when faced with it in person, not just in theory.