Bonus Chapter - for reaching 1500 power stones
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To be honest, similar situations had happened many times before, but Cynthia still couldn't help feeling a little surprised this time.
After all, the Gracidea flower had been extinct for so long that even she, a native of the Sinnoh region, hadn't known it ever existed.
Yet this game clearly listed all the conditions needed to cultivate Gracidea flowers.
But Cynthia quickly snapped back to reality, feeling a mix of regret and disappointment.
Even knowing the cultivation conditions now, it was already too late.
The flowers on Mount Coronet had long since disappeared.
She might as well see if she could replant this flower in the game. Being able to witness an extinct plant bloom—even virtually—would still be worthwhile.
With this thought, Cynthia turned her focus back to the planting conditions for Gracidea flowers.
Extremely cold regions, soft soil, and nutrient-rich earth—all of these were easy enough to manage.
But how was she supposed to obtain that shell powder from shell Pokémon the lady had mentioned?
"Is there a special place that sells this powder?"
Cynthia pressed the interact button to ask the flower-growing lady.
The lady only covered her mouth and laughed, shaking her head slightly.
"Oh no, of course there's no special place selling this powder. But collecting it is actually quite simple."
"You just need to go to the beach and fish up those shell Pokémon. Communicate with them a bit, and they'll happily let you scrape off some of their excess shell growth."
"After all, their shells grow extra parts every so often... if they had to deal with it themselves, it would actually be troublesome."
Hearing this explanation, Cynthia's expression suddenly changed.
What?
Fishing??
Recalling her previous fishing experiences, she immediately shook her head at the screen.
No way—she'd rather dive into the ocean herself than go fishing again!
Whenever she fished in rivers, she always ended up pulling up Gyarados far above the level cap.
If she tried fishing in the ocean... who knew what kind of monster she'd hook next...
Thinking about this, she sighed.
Whatever. Planting Gracidea flowers wasn't urgent anyway.
Besides, none of the cities she'd visited in the game so far had been suitable for growing this flower.
—She hadn't seen any cold places, only hot ones.
She'd deal with it later.
After learning all this, Cynthia thanked the lady.
At the same time, another thought came to mind.
Both the Gracidea flower seed and that strange hedgehog-like Pokémon had been discovered in this lady's flower garden.
In that case... might she know something about that Pokémon?
Cynthia pressed the interact button again:
"Um, I'd like to ask—have you ever seen a green Pokémon?"
But as soon as she spoke, a red exclamation mark appeared above the lady's head.
The moment Cynthia saw it, she realized she had triggered another story event!
Sure enough, the next moment, a look of reminiscence appeared on the lady's face as she spoke softly.
"A green Pokémon? I have indeed seen one... but that was many years ago."
"Sorry, I don't want to talk much about that matter."
"How about this—if you can successfully cultivate Gracidea flowers someday, bring one to me, and I'll tell you about that Pokémon."
Hearing this, Cynthia was stunned. She hadn't expected that triggering a story event would give her a quest instead of information—to successfully plant Gracidea flowers!
But Cynthia wasn't worried. Since she had confirmed there was a connection between that green Pokémon and this lady... and she now had a specific goal, things would be much easier.
After all, she had planned on planting the flower anyway.
At this moment, the lady turned and walked away, returning to a small wooden house nearby.
Cynthia carefully guided her game character to put away the Gracidea flower seed.
Although this plant had been extinct in the real world for so long that learning its cultivation method now seemed meaningless, Cynthia knew the Professor would still be very interested in the information.
With that thought, she opened the in-game player rankings and quickly found Professor Oak's registered account.
His avatar was a young man wearing a straw hat, and his game ID was straightforward—[Samuel Oak], which was simply his real name.
It fit the style of an older man not used to playing games.
What surprised Cynthia was that this account's current ranking was actually fourth among all players!
First place was naturally her.
Second was Lance, who had also reached Lavaridge Town and begun challenging the Lavaridge Gym.
Third was that gym leader called "Iono," whose progress was still stuck at Meteor Falls.
And in fourth place, Professor Oak's progress showed he'd reached Slateport Beach.
Considering he had started much later, his pace was even faster than Lance's earlier speed!
That alone showed why he'd once been Champion in his youth.
His understanding of Pokémon battles, built on years of research, far exceeded most trainers—it wouldn't be surprising if he even surpassed some current Elite Four members and Champions.
Cynthia quickly found the add friend button and sent him a request.
The next second, the request was instantly approved, and Professor Oak's message popped up.
[Samuel Oak: (Pikachu smiling face) Little Cynthia, I knew I was right—this game... is simply flawless, incredible.]
When viewers in the livestream saw this message, they froze for a moment before exploding in the chat.
[Samuel Oak?? Is this the Oak I'm thinking of??]
[Holy crap, could this be Professor Oak from the Kanto region?]
[Who else could it be? His progress suddenly jumped, and he's calling the host Little Cynthia? It's definitely him!]
[Awesome, Professor Oak is playing Emerald too!!]
...
At the same time, Cynthia typed a message in the window.
[Strawberry Ice Cream: Indeed, Professor. Your progress is really quite fast.]
[Strawberry Ice Cream: So you've seen Regirock too, Professor?]
Professor Oak's reply came quickly, not at all like the slow typing speed of an elderly man—probably thanks to years of working with research equipment.
[Samuel Oak: Of course. Honestly, even though I'd already watched the video you sent and was mentally prepared, witnessing it firsthand was still quite shocking.]
Cynthia didn't reply directly, but she nodded slightly in front of the screen.
That presence... that overwhelming aura.
It really was too intense.
She thought for a moment, then began typing again, sharing her detailed discoveries about Regirock.
[Strawberry Ice Cream: Professor, based on my speculation and discoveries, to awaken Regirock you need to place some energy-rich minerals or items into that magic circle.]
[Strawberry Ice Cream: But even a decent-quality evolution stone can only barely fill a small portion of the first circle's energy.]
This time, the other end went silent for a moment before another message appeared.
[Samuel Oak: Little Cynthia, look—how about this... You focus on advancing through the game, I'll slow down and try to collect more minerals and items to fill the energy you mentioned.]
[I'll share item collection information with you, and you send me your experiences and strategies for challenging gyms and important NPCs.]
Cynthia's eyes lit up.
Professor Oak's idea was actually quite clever—it was essentially the two of them cooperating to play this game!
At that moment, she suddenly realized something new. That's right, at its core, this was a game!
If she posted her gameplay experiences online as guides, she might gain insights from others too—hidden rewards, secret side quests, techniques she hadn't discovered.
The more she thought about it, the more she felt she had opened the door to a new world. She immediately decided: after finishing today's session, she'd start a discussion thread.
But before that, there was something important to do.
Cynthia began typing again.
[Strawberry Ice Cream: Professor, I'm contacting you about two important matters actually.]
[The first is that I just learned the reason why Gracidea flowers went extinct.]
Professor Oak immediately seemed intrigued, replying with a surprised Pikachu emoji.
Cynthia then told him everything she had just learned from the flower-growing lady.
After hearing it all, Professor Oak seemed to have a moment of realization.
[If that's the case... then it's not surprising that Gracidea flowers went extinct.]
[Mount Coronet's temperature has been steadily rising for the past century due to human activity... As time passed, it became unsuitable for Gracidea flowers.]
[Sigh, I didn't expect that to be the reason. What a shame.]
[Hmm... also, what's the second matter? Go ahead and tell me that too.]
...
[Strawberry Ice Cream: I met an NPC named Bill in the game who says he can help me revive fossils.]
[I just took an active fossil to him, and it's currently being revived.]
[Samuel Oak: Oh, reviving fossils.]
At first, Professor Oak seemed calm.
But one second later—
[Samuel Oak: ??????]
[What did you say?? Say that again?? Reviving fossils??]
He suddenly realized that everything in this game so far hadn't been randomly made up—it all corresponded to reality!
Which meant... working backwards.
In the real world, wouldn't there also be the possibility of reviving ancient Pokémon from fossils??
For a researcher who had devoted years to studying them, this was earth-shattering news.
Faced with Professor Oak's barrage of question marks, Cynthia sighed slightly—she knew he would react this way.
[Strawberry Ice Cream: I'll call you later to explain the specific situation. I just found another fossil in a desert area in the game.]
[Strawberry Ice Cream: I've already sent you the image, you can take a look.]
[Samuel Oak: Alright, I'll go look right now.]
[If he really succeeded in reviving fossil Pokémon... I might need to investigate this first. Regirock will have to wait.]
[After all, as you know, this matter is simply too big.]
...
Cynthia and Professor Oak exchanged a few more messages before closing the chat. Only then did she notice the livestream comments were flying wildly.
[So is this person really Professor Oak? Doesn't seem like it—it's just reviving fossil Pokémon in a game, what's there to be surprised about?]
[Even if elderly people don't play games much, Professor Oak shouldn't be this... easily fooled, right?]
[Exactly, it's just a game after all, you can't take it seriously.]
[Right, if reviving fossils could actually be achieved in real life, that would be incredible!]
...
Watching the chat scroll, Cynthia suddenly realized she had forgotten to hide the in-game chat window.
But thinking it over, nothing they had discussed was really unsuitable for sharing.
At most, the fossil revival matter might cause a stir.
But judging from the viewers' reactions, they clearly hadn't grasped its seriousness.
Yes, before this game appeared, reviving fossil Pokémon had only been a bold but impossible theory.
But once fossil revival appeared here...
Then the method had to be hidden in the game!
—Which meant it could become reality!
Cynthia glanced through the comments but didn't switch back to the game interface. Instead, she reopened the rankings and clicked on another account.
This account belonged to Lance, who was currently second in progress.
When her friend request was quickly approved, a chat window popped up.
This time, she dragged it to a spot where the livestream viewers couldn't see.
Because... what they were about to discuss truly couldn't be shared.
Lance didn't seem surprised by her arrival.
[Dragons Rule: You're here to talk about that matter, right? I've been waiting for you.]
[Strawberry Ice Cream: Yes, you already know everything?]
[Dragons Rule: ...That's right. Ultra Wormholes—that's what those things are called.]
[And those strange Pokémon—they're called Ultra Beasts.]
[But so what if we know? There's still too little information... it doesn't help much.]
Cynthia's fingers hovered over the keyboard without replying.
The appearance of Ultra Wormholes had happened ten years ago.
And the first place they appeared was in Lance's Kanto region.
Although in recent years Ultra Wormholes had only opened in outskirts and deserted places, what no one knew was that the very first appearance had been in the center of a village in Kanto.
That night, countless Ultra Beasts poured out, reducing the entire village to rubble.
When Lance arrived on his Dragonite...
All that remained were burning ruins.
No survivors. Which meant no one else knew this incident had ever happened.
This tragedy became an unhealable scar in Lance's heart.
Although he seemed no different to outsiders, every night he would stand on the League's rooftop smoking, one cigarette after another, until he finished the whole pack.
After that, Lance joined the special investigation team for Ultra Wormholes.
Whenever one appeared in Kanto, he would always lead from the front, rushing to the scene at full speed to prevent that night from repeating.
But recently, the Ultra Wormhole situation had grown more dangerous. The strange Pokémon emerging from them were becoming difficult even for Champions to handle.
Several times, to protect fellow trainers, Lance's main Pokémon had suffered serious injuries. The League had temporarily arranged for him to rest, avoiding Wormhole-related missions.
Even for ordinary tasks, they only assigned him less critical, low-risk ones so his Pokémon could recover.
That was actually why Lance now had so much free time to stay home playing games.
Among all his Pokémon, only one Dragonite was still battle-ready while the others were healing.
But Cynthia knew that even so, the matter of Ultra Wormholes weighed on Lance's heart like a boulder.
And that boulder was only getting heavier.
Regarding Ultra Wormholes, Cynthia herself had no solution and naturally couldn't help Lance much.
But now...
The situation finally seemed to have a turning point.
And the key to that turning point—
—Was this game called Emerald!
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~ Push the story forward with your Power Stones