After a morning of traveling, Kairos smoothly moved into his new home.
Although he really wanted to visit other regions and enjoy the scenery, he ultimately chose to stay in the Kanto region.
On one hand, he was more familiar with Kanto, and on the other, if you weren't a professional trainer, traveling to other regions required a visa.
While obtaining such documents wasn't particularly difficult, it usually took one to two months for them to be processed.
Even so, Kairos was quite satisfied with his new home in Kanto.
It was a standalone villa beside the Agate River—the largest waterway in Cerulean City.
The surrounding natural environment was excellent, with flowers everywhere and several streams flowing not far from the front door. Rare Water-type Pokémon like Corphish and Wooper could even be spotted in these streams.
Combined with the villa's own exquisite little garden, the scenery was captivating. Even Litwick, visiting for the first time, couldn't help but light up with curiosity, glancing left and right at the beautiful surroundings.
At this moment, Kairos stood in the backyard, admiring the view and letting out a sigh of admiration.
"Having money… is really nice."
"Lit-wick! Lit-wick!"
Although Litwick didn't understand what Kairos was sighing about, it raised its head and called out twice in agreement.
Kairos stretched lazily.
Villas like this came with a full housekeeping team, which had already taken care of everything inside—utilities, internet, and so on.
Back in his study, he reopened his laptop.
Its specs were honestly mediocre. When making small games before, it would freeze constantly, causing data loss and making frustration a daily occurrence.
If not for the system's assistance, completing the past few days' workload on this computer would have been nearly impossible.
"I'll buy a top-spec computer later and replace this old thing," he muttered, opening the web's largest forum—Pokémon Network.
While moving earlier, he'd suddenly received a notification that he'd gained over 600 emotion points from online forums.
He knew there must be new news about Emerald.
Sure enough, posts about Emerald were exploding across the forum.
Discussions about Regirock's CG were everywhere:
[Shocking! Mysterious Legendary Pokémon Appears in Cave?!]
[A game's CG can reach this level?]
[Is a gaming revolution coming??]
These posts naturally included videos from Iono and Cynthia's streams showing the Regirock CG segment.
Kairos had previously asked the system and learned that, when viewed via streaming, Regirock's CG could project its real pressure onto viewers. Downloaded videos, however, would greatly reduce that effect.
Even so, replies under these posts had quickly climbed into the thousands.
[Huh? It's that big—is this really a Pokémon and not a sculpture??]
[Since when do sculptures have glowing eyes and an aura that can scare people to death through screens?]
[This is game CG? Are you sure it's not live footage??]
After briefly scanning the comments, Kairos switched to check his game's backend.
Game sales had reached 50,000 copies and were approaching the 60,000 mark.
Just then, the system's notification popped up:
[Ding! Congratulations, host, you have completed the new S-rank side mission "Wild Sales"! ]
[Mission requirement: Achieve total game sales of 50,000 copies within this week!]
[Mission rewards: Random intermediate module, 1,000 emotion points, special item "Rare Candy Gift Box" ×5! Distributed!]
Following convention, a module draw card appeared before Kairos's eyes.
He skillfully selected and used it; the card instantly vanished.
This time, however, the new module was unprecedented—glowing with colorful light!
Kairos paused slightly as colorful text floated before his eyes:
[Congratulations, host, you have obtained the [Special] intermediate module "Easter Egg Button"!]
[Description: This module can be activated for any game you create. Once activated, it will randomly add thousands of different easter egg contents to the game, and you cannot directly learn their contents.]
[Special module bonus: When any character generates emotion points from game easter eggs, points gained increase by 100%.]
[The rewards provided by these easter eggs have a certain probability of slightly affecting game balance, but will conform to the game's worldview, content, and style, improving the game's entertainment value.]
[Activate this module for the game Pokémon: Emerald?]
Looking at the prompt, Kairos hesitated.
Easter eggs were indispensable for a mature game… but if they couldn't be known in advance and could affect balance, adding them required caution.
After a brief thought, he decided to activate it. The module promised only a slight effect on balance, and given Emerald's difficulty, it shouldn't be a major issue—especially with doubled emotion points from easter eggs.
A rainbow data stream appeared over the game folder, forming a hidden document that quickly vanished.
Kairos didn't search for it. The system had said he couldn't know about it, so it likely couldn't be found.
Players would naturally share any easter eggs they discovered.
He then turned to the other mission reward: ten small pink gift boxes, each holding five blue candies—half dark blue, half light blue.
These were the legendary "Rare Candy."
Picking up a box with dark blue candies, a prompt appeared:
[Please select the character you wish to gift to]
Kairos planned to distribute these as rewards to top-ranking players during the weekend's leaderboard settlement. At the current pace, first place would be either Lance or Cynthia.
He was curious to see how much these candies could improve Champions' and Elite Four members' Pokémon.
Half of the gift boxes could only be given to others; the rest he could keep.
As he put away the last box, Litwick waddled over, eyes fixed on it, drool at the corner of its mouth.
"Lit-wick? Lit-wick!"
[What's this? It smells so good!]
Kairos was surprised—he hadn't expected Litwick to like sweets. He thought Ghost-types only cared for special foods and souls.
Patting its head, he explained, "These are candies, but they have another use—they can make you much stronger all at once. But using them now would be wasteful. Let's wait until you've grown more for maximum benefit. If you want candy, I'll buy you some."
Litwick reluctantly nodded.
Kairos kept his word, ordering several Pokémon-specific candies online.
Just after paying, another notification appeared:
[Ding! Congratulations, host, you have received a new side mission!]
[S-rank side mission: Sales King]
[Mission requirement: Within 15 days, achieve 300,000 sales for any game you've created!]
[Mission rewards: A-rank special item box ×1, Invitation Card ×1, 2,000 emotion points]
His gaze fixed on the black "Invitation Card."
[Special system item: Invitation Card]
[Allows you to invite any existence to play your games through mental projection.]
[Note: Consumable; duration unlimited after use, but the invited must still purchase the games.]
Any existence?
Pokémon too?
Kairos quickly asked the system if Pokémon could generate emotion points by playing games. The system confirmed, noting that special Pokémon would produce far more points than normal ones.
Special people included top trainers like Cynthia and Lance, research giants like Professor Oak, and celebrity Gym Leaders like Iono. Special Pokémon… could that mean Legendary Pokémon?
The thought made his palms sweat.
Finding them was one thing; convincing them to play was another. Some were notoriously unfriendly toward humans. Asking them casually to "try his new game" might get him vaporized.
Better to take it slow. Champions' Pokémon and Mythical Pokémon might also count as special.
Still, with only one card, he couldn't experiment much.
The mission itself was simply a more difficult version of the previous one: 300,000 sales in two weeks. Even with Emerald's strong reputation, natural traffic likely wouldn't be enough. He'd need a promotion.
Fortunately, money wasn't an issue. With nearly 60,000 copies sold, he had over 10 million yen on hand. The villa had cost only about 4 million.
Opening his browser, Kairos searched for reputable game-promotion companies, found one, and opened the chat:
Wind: Hello, I have a pixel game that needs promotion.
The response was quick:
Morning Promotion: Hello, what type of game is it? Is it currently a test version or an official release?
Wind: Battle-type, test version.
The other party seemed hesitant:
Morning Promotion: If it's a test version, promotion costs will be higher… and pixel games don't promote as effectively. Are you sure?
Wind: Sure.
Morning Promotion: We have a 3,091,995 package, or 4,122,660 and 6,183,990 options.
The representative sighed inwardly. Pixel game clients usually had small budgets. Still, money was money. He began typing about a cheaper 2,061,330 yen package—
—when a massive transfer notification appeared:
Wind: Transferred 41,226,600 yen. Promotion budget isn't a problem—the more people see it, the better. I've already created the ad; feel free to use it.
A video file followed.
The man clicked, and a magnetic, almost enchanting male voice filled his speakers, accompanied by stunning visuals:
"Have you ever thought about becoming a Pokémon trainer?"