Ray kept his secret quietly.
He didn't tell Kira. He didn't tell his parents. He didn't ask questions in class.
But day after day, week after week, he watched. Studied. Analyzed.
The moment his Statsight began showing Combat Levels, something in his brain had clicked. It was like seeing numbers behind reality—numbers that didn't exist for anyone else.
He began cataloguing them.
At first, casually. When walking through the academy grounds or heading to class, he'd glance at the Pokémon around him and let the familiar interface slide into view.
Sentret – Aptitude: Orange (Core) | Combat Level: 15Azurill – Aptitude: Yellow (Light) | Combat Level: 21Growlithe – Aptitude: Green (Core) | Combat Level: 36
At first, the numbers seemed scattered.
But then he started to see the pattern.
The first rule became obvious.
Higher Aptitude = Higher Potential Combat Level.
Pokémon with red aptitude? Their levels never exceeded 9.
Orange Pokémon? They capped around level 19.
Yellows stalled at 29.
Greens hovered between the 30s and 40s—and his own father's Arcanine, a Deep Green, had plateaued at Level 49 for over a year.
It clicked.
The Aptitude wasn't just a measure of talent or training difficulty.It was a literal limiter. A ceiling.
It wasn't that weaker-aptitude Pokémon couldn't grow. They just had a lower maximum ceiling. No matter how much you trained a Red-rated Rattata, it would never match the power of a Green-rated Luxio.
And it wasn't just about species. Ray had seen two Lotads of the same age. One was Orange and level 13. The other? Green and already level 26.
The theory expanded further when he asked Kira about her father's Machamp—casually, pretending it was out of curiosity.
She told him that her dad had said Machamp hadn't grown in months.
And then, a few weeks after Ray had suggested improving its flexibility training, everything changed.
"Machamp just exploded in strength," Kira had said. "Dad says it finally broke past its wall. He said it was like the air around it got heavier."
Ray had nodded slowly, running Statsight over Machamp the next time they saw it.
Machamp – Aptitude: Light Purple | Combat Level: 60
That was when everything clicked.
It had likely hit its Blue Aptitude ceiling at Level 59. And once it broke through—became Purple—its ceiling was extended. To what limit? Ray didn't know.
But evolution, power scaling, maybe even move potential…It was all tethered to this invisible Aptitude-Leveled Cap system.
And only he could see it.
He began logging his observations in a secret notebook:
RED – Max Level Observed: 9 ORANGE – Max Level Observed: 19 YELLOW – Max Level Observed: 29 GREEN – Max Level Observed: 49 (Deep Green) BLUE – Max Level Observed: 59 PURPLE – Current Max: 60+ (Unknown ceiling) AURORA – [No data] – Theoretical only
He even added small notes:
"Pidgey is Level 17, Aptitude: Deep Green. Still climbing steadily.""Machamp's jump from Level 59 to 60 occurred after Aptitude breakthrough. Could be related to training optimization?""No combat-capable Red Aptitude Pokémon found above Level 9.""Important: Subdivisions (Light/Core/Deep) seem to correlate with acceleration speed but not ceiling height."
This last note was important. A Deep Green Pokémon might reach Level 49 faster and more efficiently than a Light Green—but both would hit the same ceiling.
One night, sitting in his room with Pidgey asleep on the window ledge, Ray stared down at the chart he'd drawn in his notebook. Numbers. Colors. Patterns.
It was beginning to make sense.
Statsight wasn't just a quirk.
It was a lens into the true framework behind Pokémon growth in this world—something that even guild researchers might not fully understand.
And yet…
Ray said nothing.
Because the moment he revealed this, everything would change.
Not just for him.
But for Pokémon, for Trainers, for the balance of how things worked.
And he still didn't know why he had this power in the first place.
As the moon cast a pale light across his desk, Ray gently closed the notebook and whispered to himself:
"One step at a time."
He had time.
Time to observe. Time to grow.
And soon… time to test what happened when a Pokémon hit its maximum level—and refused to stop.