I have played a lot of Pokemon Go since I properly started back in the middle of 2022. Since then it's been a rather consistent grind aside from a couple weeks off every now and then. In late 2023, I reached level 44 and I remained at that level until just a couple days ago. You may be wondering how on earth it took me more than a year to level up once while playing consistently - fear not, all will be revealed.
Now before levelling up to level 43, I was already aware of the tasks required to then progress from level 44. These tasks were mostly involved with completing Team Go Rocket related tasks and were mostly ones that would auto-complete naturally through everyday gameplay. One however, was the crux of my entire plan - purify 100 shadow Pokemon. This task was special since I would theoretically be able to complete it whenever I chose fit, providing I had the Pokemon necessary to do so - I did. I had started collecting shadow Pokemon for this task before I had even reached level 44, and that's also while only saving the ones that cost 1,000 stardust to purify.
Now I have a friend of mine who also plays Pokemon Go consistently. I would personally argue that he's more committed than me in some regards when it comes to grinding the game. He visits the main place to play in my city on most event days, while I skip them since I'm usually working on the weekends. He also is able to play the game for much longer single periods than I, I can't stand most events for more than an hour. He also refuses to quick-catch which infuriates me to no end when I play with him. I have however, neglected to say the most important part of him though - his genes. He heralds from the Bulkan sub-continent, and with this comes an intense competitiveness. I realised I had the perfect combination of factors here and decided to exploit them for a laugh.
 |
| My level in December 2023 - I think I previously leveled up in late October |
He was level 42 when I reached 44, and I quickly shot past the XP level requirement to progress to level 45. I realised however, that I could really piss him off if I remained at level 44 and continued to accrue XP while slowly waiting for him to reach my level. It was a fun little 'prank' and I enjoyed slowly giving my friends updates. He eventually reached level 43 around mid 2024 by which point I was about 30-40 million XP. He only needed 11 million XP to level up and join me.
 |
| XP in March 2024 |
Now to subvert your expectations, there wasn't ever a big reveal of my XP amount. One of our other friends actually spoiled the surprise and my Pokemon Go mate was already keeping tabs on me anyways. I did decide to continue to accrue as much XP as possible before he reached level 44 though. I was also still able to wind him up about how much XP I was gaining, and thankfully I had the perfect event to rub it in.
One of the bonuses in Pokemon Go is "Evolve 2x", where in evolving a Pokemon will gain you 2,000XP instead of the usual 1,000. This event usually comes around for an hour once a month, but on extremely rare occasions it's bundled with events that hopefully last a few days. The last time this bonus was around as apart of an event was back before the Hoenn Tour. It finally returned though, with the introduction of the new "Max Out" season and it's first event. Now when I say this method of gaining XP is my main one, I mean it. Every time my storage gets full, I cull enough Pokemon to the point where all that's left is stuff I'll be able to evolve. Given the year and a half since the last proper 2x Evolve event, my storage tagged for evolution had grown to more than 4,000 Pokemon. If I used a lucky egg, I would be able to get 4x Evolve XP - heaven.
This all came to a head with this new event. I spent almost a week slowly spamming evolutions on my two phones whenever I had time. My the end of it, I had gained almost 20 million XP and gone from 50 million overall to 69 - almost double what it required my friend to level up. He understandably was not happy and called me a no-life - an apt description, I can't lie.
 |
| Early September 2024, before the 2x Evolve XP event |
 |
| A single week later! |
It gets lonely at the top however, and started to get quite stale with no goals or tasks to complete. My friend was making progress so slow, I would be dead by the time he reached my level. I couldn't maintain the goal I originally envisioned, it wasn't fun anymore. I instead decided to change my goal to 100 million XP before I levelled up, no easy task but certainly still obtainable.
I have since spent the last few months playing regularly, but almost perfecting my excellent throughs to maximise XP. I also started piling up friendship level up XP, saving them for a cheeky lucky egg to do all of them at once. I also played slightly more during 3 and 4x catch XP events, but nothing I really went out of my way for except Tynamo Community Day, which had 3x XP and I think I played for an hour and a half - significantly more than I usually do on community days. I kept this grind up for several months, and in the past couple weeks we had the Go Tour Unova, in which I used friendship, raid and 3x catch XP to gain over 10 million more XP, planting me solidly at 98 million. That's what I think anyway, but the numbers might be off either way by a few million. I informed my friend who asked which task was taking me so long...
I started completing more and more friendship XP rewards and catching everything I could with an excellent through. Eventually, another 2x Evolve XP hour came by, and my Dad was home to walk the dog - everything had lined up perfectly. I spent that hour clicking at two different screens and by the end of it, peace. The hour had given me the last 800k or so XP necessary to reach 100 million. I gave it a night to settle before I finally purified my Pokemon and reached level 45. Supposedly becoming a shadow Pokemon causes the Pokemon pain, so I had some of them in an eternal torture for years...
 |
| Early March 2025 - My goal finally accomplished! |
How do I feel now that I've accomplished this goal? Absolutely the same to be honest. I think the boredom really creeped in once I reached 60 million... I did it though, and now I can enjoy the relatively smooth sailing over to level 49. I need an additional 20 million now to reach level 50, but I'm sure I'll gain that on the way there. I greatly enjoy finally having tasks to complete though, I had almost ran out of special research to do bahahahah. I would highly recommend everyone not try the same thing I did unless you really hate yourself. Anyways, thanks for reading this huge body of text and I hope to see you again soon. Isn't it crazy that this is the first time I've posted twice in a month in years.
My friend is still 2 million XP away from levelling up to 44...
Extras:
 |
| My stats while level 44! |
 |
| My shadow army may finally rest in purification! |
