Meanwhile, in Cerulean City.
After Kairos paid the promotion fees and sent the game advertisement CG he'd just made to the other party, he closed the window.
Given this game's recent popularity online, combined with the promotional video he'd just created using system technology, it should provide a boost and quickly elevate the game's sales to another level within two weeks!
As for whether it could reach 300,000 sales, that would just depend on his luck...
Of course, his instincts told him this shouldn't be a problem.
While thinking, another notification suddenly popped up before his eyes.
[Ding! Host, please note, emotion points from the previous time period have been calculated!]
[Host has received emotion points from Cynthia, Iono, Lance, and Professor Oak, totaling 670 points!]
[Host has received emotion points from game players, totaling 723 points (including 150 point CG bonus)!]
[Current emotion points balance: 2769 points!]
Seeing this, Kairos couldn't help but raise his eyebrows slightly. As game sales increased, the emotion points provided by players were clearly starting to gradually increase.
But...
Lance had started playing Emerald yesterday—he knew about that.
How had Professor Oak started, too?
Hmm... it should be because he'd become interested in some information that Champions or Elite Four members had shared with him from the game, which generated emotion points, right?
After all, at his age, there's no way the old man would personally play Emerald, right?
That must be it.
Kairos tapped his palm, making his conclusion.
Speaking of which, the current emotion points balance has reached as much as 2800 points.
He directly opened the collection module system and chose to purchase the last key module.
[Emotion Rendering Module (Intermediate)]
[Function: Automatically generates corresponding emotional screen tones by reading player heart rate data (red tint when anxious, cold blue when sad), increases music compatibility with slight key changes. When players experience intense emotional fluctuations due to the game plot, emotion points gained increase by 50%]
This module cost Kairos a full 2200 emotion points, but it was worth it.
After all, the upcoming "Standard Mode" would be most important for providing players with tremendous experiential immersion through the game's story content, making them unable to break free.
Looking at the "Emotion Rendering," "Pressure Manifestation," and "Advanced CG" modules in his module area, Kairos rubbed his chin.
Now he only needed one last module—"Soul Music."
Once he'd gathered enough emotion points to purchase this final module, Emerald could add "Standard Difficulty."
In the current Maniac Mode, Kairos had deliberately simplified the game's original story content, focusing instead on the battle experience between players and NPCs.
Standard Mode... had a completely different focus.
Standard Mode's most important aspects were player "experience" and "immersion." Achieving this required quite a few methods.
Moreover, these modules he'd previously collected and was now purchasing could be universally used in other games in the future—definitely not a loss.
As for now, Kairos glanced at his computer screen.
These next few days, he'd focus entirely on updating Maniac Mode, completing the main storyline, then put all his effort into creating Standard Mode!
He took a deep breath, opened the files, and instantly entered a focused state.
——
While Kairos was seriously creating his game, outside Cerulean City.
"Dragonite, use Hyper Beam!"
"BOOM!!"
A searing white light cut through the air, precisely hitting a withered claw extending from a vortex, directly forcing it to retract!
After that deep purple vortex trembled violently, it slowly disappeared into the air along with the black mist beside it.
The dark clouds in the sky instantly dispersed and cleared up. Sunlight poured down, illuminating the earth as if nothing had happened.
"Everyone, good work."
A middle-aged man with a Dragonite beside him turned to look at the group of trainers behind him, sighing slightly as he spoke.
—This was the person who had just given commands to Dragonite.
Anyone could clearly see his face already showed several signs of fatigue.
Having fought here continuously for so long, he was indeed exhausted.
The other people and Pokémon around him also looked quite bad, with many disheveled and wearing tattered clothes.
The Pokémon were all covered in wounds, panting heavily, clearly having just gone through a tough battle.
However, everyone seemed relieved now because this spirit tide had finally ended.
"Little Mar, report—did any escape?"
The middle-aged man turned his head toward a tall, thin woman wearing glasses.
The woman pushed her frames and picked up a notebook.
"There should only be one. It got out during those two strongest spirit tides this morning and at dawn when we were short-handed."
"But its aura wasn't strong. We estimate it should be around Gym Leader level."
"Also, when it was escaping, I saw it get hit by Old Li's Blastoise's Hydro Pump. It should be badly injured."
Upon hearing this, the middle-aged man's expression immediately changed. After a long moment, he sighed softly.
"An injured Gym Leader level... that's still a huge threat to civilians, even Elite level would be..."
"But we've already done our best."
"Report this truthfully to the League and have them strengthen nighttime patrol security. These matters are no longer our concern."
He said this while glancing toward Cerulean City.
"Sigh, I hope no poor soul... runs into that thing."
——
According to the game's flow, after crossing that bridge from Slateport City to reach Mauville City, there would be many places to explore around the city.
For example, the roads and small towns to the left of the Mauville Gym, the beach to the right, and even the old power plant below that could be reached using Surf...
After challenging the Mauville Gym, above the city, there was also a vast desert, a cave filled with high temperatures and flames, and two mountain cable car routes.
In short, there was quite a lot of game content to create around this city.
Fortunately, after several iterations of creation, Kairos had become quite skilled. After several hours of work, he successfully created all this content and uploaded it as an update.
Of course, uploaded along with it were the thousands of random hidden easter eggs brought by the easter egg module...
After finishing all this, Kairos didn't rest but continued hunched over his computer, creating the maps, storylines, and NPC content for Fallarbor Town and Meteor Falls.
By the time he finished, it was already 8 PM.
He saved the game content and let out a long sigh of relief.
After working so long, he was really tired.
He'd reward himself with a day off tomorrow—it was Saturday anyway.
If he crossed over to another world and still worked on games every day without even weekends, how would that be different from having a regular job?
Oh, wait, regular jobs might even have two-day weekends...
He patted Litwick's back on the desk.
"Good night, Litwick."
—Bath time, then sleep!
——
Fifteen minutes later.
After washing up, Kairos had already collapsed on his bedroom bed and was fast asleep. Litwick sat beside his bed, staring blankly at Kairos.
It had been less than two days since meeting this human, but its life had completely changed.
Endless delicious food, comfortable and spacious living quarters...
It didn't need to venture out fearfully to forage, nor constantly watch for attacks from other Pokémon...
All of this had been brought by this human.
No, as his Pokémon, it couldn't just enjoy all this for nothing!
It had to do something.
For instance, become stronger so that when danger came, he could protect him!
With this thought, Litwick's eyes showed determination. It jumped down from the bed and walked outside the house.
Under the moonlight, a small figure began gathering purple energy in front of itself.
——
Let's turn back time 10 hours.
Cynthia was sitting in front of her screen, watching a movie called "Pikachu and Chikorita" with her stream audience, when her phone suddenly rang.
It was a reply from Lance.
[Dragon Types Are The Best: Finally finished that damn mission... Cynthia, you should have reached the 3rd Gym by now, right? Give me some strategy tips? (Mini Dragonite tearfully begging.jpg)]
Cynthia paused for a moment before picking up her phone to reply:
[Ice Cream Lover: The third Gym's city isn't open yet. Let me challenge it first... Speaking of which, are you really okay staying up this long without sleep?]
[Dragon Types Are The Best: Of course! I don't have many talents, but I'm especially good at staying up all night. (Charizard smug.jpg)]
[Ice Cream Lover: Alright then. Since that's the case, I have another matter I want to discuss with you. Do you know about Team Aqua?]
Upon reading this, Lance's emoji-laden messages suddenly stopped.
[Dragon Types Are The Best: I know about them. Why are you suddenly asking about this?]
Before becoming an Elite Four member, he'd actually already been a secret League enforcer.
Being a secret enforcer was an extremely special identity, also a secret unknown to the general public—he often represented the League in carrying out secret enforcement missions.
In the League's judicial domain, Lance's identity and prestige were quite high.
Now, after bringing up Team Aqua, Lance had obviously immediately become serious.
[Ice Cream Lover: It's like this—today, I encountered Team Aqua's leader.]
[Dragon Types Are The Best: ???]
[Ice Cream Lover: Don't panic, I met him in the game.]
[Dragon Types Are The Best: ?????]
Several minutes later, Cynthia barely managed to explain the game storyline she'd experienced today to Lance.
[Ice Cream Lover: Given this game's previous performance, I think you might need to report this to those old folks and have them investigate.]
Although Cynthia, as Champion, held a significant position in the League, investigative tasks related to dark organizations were obviously better left to professionals like Lance.
However, at this moment, Lance seemed somewhat skeptical.
[Dragon Types Are The Best: Cynthia, I don't think you need to be so nervous. Maybe this is just a storyline the game created itself, not necessarily real.]
Cynthia's response was very firm:
[Ice Cream Lover: No, Lance, this isn't just a game.]
[On the first day I encountered this game, I had Emma help me investigate the creator's identity, only to discover his identity was in a classified information database that even he couldn't access.]
[Besides that, this game recreated everything about fossil Pokémon that even Professor Oak's team couldn't restore, demonstrated new Pokémon abilities that the research community hadn't discovered, and even placed ancient texts that the Hoenn archaeological team had been stumped by for ten years as puzzle games in caves...]
[The submarine blueprints I saw in the game today... Honestly, that was an ingenious design I'd never imagined.]
[Additionally, as you've seen, he also knows about legendary Pokémon like Regirock and even Rayquaza.]
[Even Steven's performance in the game is identical to the real person.]
[So, even though I find it hard to believe... I think these things might all be real.]
[Because everything in this game... seems real.]
Faced with Cynthia's series of explanations, Lance fell silent.
Even someone as carefree as him, carefully recalling the details Cynthia mentioned and his own gameplay experience, realized where the problem lay.
—It seemed like this game... had indeed never made anything up.
After a moment, Lance spoke again:
[Dragon Types Are The Best: I understand. I'll report this immediately.]
[If there's new information, I'll contact you first.]
After sending this message, Lance directly picked up his phone and made a call.
"Haruka, help me look up someone's information."
"This person is called Archie, male... should be a middle-aged man."
A female voice came through the phone.
"Okay, boss, I'll search right away. Please wait a moment."
"...Found him. Excluding two females with the same name, there is indeed such a person."
"But this person's identity records are from thirty years ago..."
"I've sent you the file, boss. You can look at it yourself."
A notification sound rang, and a file immediately appeared on Lance's phone.
He opened it to see a handsome, refined young man's face in the file.
From appearance alone, nothing stood out.
After all, decades could completely change someone's appearance.
But the two lines at the bottom of the file made Lance freeze completely!—
[Pokémon Calendar Year 1277, September 3rd: Went missing after boarding a cruise ship from Mauville City in the Hoenn region. Status remains unknown to this day.]
[Birthplace—Hoenn Region]
Going live tomorrow afternoon at 6 PM!
۞۞۞۞
~ Push the story forward with your Power Stones