How can I infuse both Pack Mentality and Strength +35% into my red chocobo?

Question

I'm trying to infuse my red chocobo with both Pack Mentality and Strength +35%, but I infused it with Pack Mentality before infusing it with Strength +35% from a Tonberry. Here's my red chocobo's current abilities (RL = red locked, YL = yellow locked):

• RL: Stagger Maintenance II *
• YL: Feral Speed II *
• Role Resonance *
• Item Collector
• Resist Deshell: +66%
• Resist Ice: +45%
• Resist Fire: +45%
• Critical: Bravery
• Resist Deprotect: +44%
• Pack Mentality *

I marked those I do want to stick with an asterisk, the rest are totally negotiable, as long as I can get the Strength +35% ability on the list. Did I screw up my red chocobo?

Answer 1

Every passive ability has a hidden rank: putting aside red-locked abilities, abilities with higher ranks take precedence over abilities with lower ranks. sakurayule's Monster FAQ has a list of all the ranks in the game, but the list you see in game corresponds to this precedence:

1. Red-locked Stagger Maintenance II
2. Yellow-locked Feral Speed II (rank 16)
3. Role Resonance (rank 7)
4. Item Collector (rank 6)
5. Resist Deshell +66% (rank 6)
6. Resist Ice +45% (rank 5)
7. Resist Fire +45% (rank 5)
8. Critical: Bravery (rank 5)
9. Resist Deprotect +44% (rank 4)
10. Pack Mentality (rank 4)

Strength +35% has a rank of 7, which means it would take precedence over everything except Role Resonance and the yellow-locked Feral Speed II. If you infused your Red Chocobo with it right now, you will lose Pack Mentality.

The only way to prevent this would be to yellow-lock Pack Mentality so it gains a higher precedence. Unfortunately, there are only two monsters in the game that have an infusable Pack Mentality—Chichu and Nanochu—and both are unique crystals.¹ If you've already used both crystals, or you were hoping to use the crystals on different monsters, you are indeed out of luck.

Notes

^{Note 1:} Unless you purchase the Perpetual Battlefield DLC, which allows you to fight Valfodr. The drops for defeating Valfodr at level 70 include monster crystals for both Nanochu and Chichu.