October 15th: Farther Than I've Gotten Before

- Started leveling up Ramelia from 31 to 35.
- Took a picture at Blackthorn
- I wouldn't have won Claire's gym without a lot of items used. Sync III got one-shot and Peep fainted twice. Gorb needed to use a Curse on the Kingdra and Ramelia barely got by with some potions and a paralysis heal. Super! had to tank two hits with around 15 levels of disadvantage after the Curse, which he managed to do with 1hp, finishing off the Kingdra with a mud bomb.
- Attempted to reach the Dragon Shrine only to realize I needed a Pokemon with Whirlpool. Got Maroon from the PC and taught it Whirlpool.
- Passed the test and got the last Johto badge.
- Realized I never went to Kurt for the custom Pokeball. Headed back to Azalea town for that.
- Went to New Bark to talk to Professor Elm.
- Dropped off Gemini and Codex at the daycare center in Goldenrod.
- Peep was able to take care of the last Kimono girl with the Vaporeon. Sync III took care of the rest.
- Went to the Whirl Islands and realized I needed a Pokemon with Flash. Got Tuebor from the PC and taught him the move.
- Egg generated at the daycare center
- Found the Kimono Girls and summoned Lugia.
- Accidentally knocked out the Lugia using Curse. Reset to last save... which was before the Kimono Girl fights.
- Basically did everything the same. Saved before the Lugia fight
- Tried catching it with Ultra Balls, but that wasn't doing anything. Used Master Ball instead. Peep did a great job with this fight.
> Caught: SOULWEAVER
- At exactly 27 hours on the save, started heading towards Kanto
- Taught Waterfall to Maroon out of necessity
- Found out the hard way that Kanto isn't accessible until some point after beating the Elite Four. Luckily, there's a Fly-to spot at the gate.

I have now passed the point where I went the farthest in the past. Now, I'm seeing new things in this game that I originally got 13 and a half years ago. Part of me wants to beat the Elite Four in a clean fight, and another wants to swap in Lugia to brute-force my way through them. I'll need to get some extra levels on Peep and Ramelia before I'd feel comfortable taking the fight. I should also put enough work into Super! to get him to at least level 38 or so. I've already put so much time into this save and I still have a long way to go. I started a save in the fall of 2019 and probably stopped sometime shortly after Claire's gym. How much more time can I really put into grinding before I just burn out? People speedrun these games, right? Maybe I'm missing something that would help this go faster. This is probably why I never got farther than this before.

Levels at current: Sync III (46), Peep (40), Ramelia (38), Super! (30), Gemini (28), Gorb (27). Lugia is level 45, so I should probably target 40 as a solid point to get to. With one half of my team hovering around 30, I think I may very well resort to using Lugia as a crutch to make the Elite Four less of a time-sink.