Meanwhile, in the Sinnoh region.
Although she had already finished washing up, after that phone conversation with Lance, Cynthia found herself unable to sleep.
So she got out of bed and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window in her room, sitting down again to quietly observe everything before her.
Her villa was located on a small mountain in the Sinnoh region. From this position, looking out across the view, she could see a vast plain. Under the cover of night, scattered points of light glowed in the darkness, complementing the gentle moonlight above.
Those were the villages and settlements scattered across the plain, each light representing a household that hadn't yet gone to sleep.
Cynthia wasn't particularly fond of bustling crowds, but whenever she stood at this floor-to-ceiling window watching those village lights, a warm feeling would well up in her heart.
But at this moment, looking at those familiar lights, Cynthia's mood was somewhat complicated. The lights flickered one by one in the depths of her pupils, reflecting her somewhat dejected face on the glass before her.
"Garchomp?"
Just then, a voice broke the silent atmosphere in the room. Cynthia didn't turn around, instead continuing to gaze at the scene before her as she spoke softly.
"You're here, Garchomp. How was today's training?"
"Garchomp."
A figure emerged from the darkness of the room, its form gradually revealing itself. It had a shark-like dorsal fin and long tail, but its other features matched those of a Dragon-type Pokémon—this was clearly a Garchomp.
However, unlike other typical Garchomp, this one had a physique as majestic as a mountain, with a body size about twice that of its peers.
The muscles beneath its deep blue armor looked like they contained explosive, terrifying power. Its thick tail and massive fins cut through the ground like blades, combined with the pair of huge scythes behind its arms that gleamed with cold light. The golden glow in its eyes, like molten lava, added an aura of majesty and royal presence.
It could be said that just by standing there, this Pokémon's powerful aura could completely suppress other Dragon-type Pokémon.
If others were present, they would naturally recognize this as Cynthia's ace Pokémon—her strongest and most prideful original partner, Garchomp!
Even among Champion-level circles, this Garchomp was a legendary existence, having achieved countless battle accomplishments. Through countless battles, relying on its own powerful strength to fight and struggle, it had secured victory after victory for Cynthia.
But at this moment, the aura emanating from this Garchomp was deliberately suppressed to its lowest level, replaced instead by careful caution and concern.
Garchomp carefully and clumsily moved its steps, approaching Cynthia's side. Its golden eyes gazed at Cynthia's face as it let out a careful, questioning low growl.
"Growl?"
Cynthia turned to look at Garchomp, showing a bitter smile on her face as she reached out to gently stroke the armor covering its back.
"Sorry, Garchomp. I've made you worry about me again."
"I'm fine, it's just that recent situations… might have put a bit of pressure on me, and I need to adjust."
Garchomp said nothing upon hearing this, simply allowing its trainer to pet it.
It naturally knew that the situation wasn't as relaxed as Cynthia made it sound.
Because having stayed by her side for so long, Garchomp knew that its trainer had always been a strong person with a stable inner core, rarely showing such vulnerability.
At this moment, Cynthia took a deep breath and turned her gaze back to those distant villages.
"Garchomp, do you know why I'm so fascinated by Legendary Pokémon?"
Garchomp was immediately stunned by the question.
As Cynthia's most powerful Pokémon, thinking and analyzing problems had never been its strongest suit, but even so, faced with its trainer's question, it thought seriously for a moment before responding.
It did indeed know that its trainer loved Legendary Pokémon. Wherever they were, whatever the situation, once information or clues about Legendary Pokémon appeared, Cynthia would immediately begin investigating and exploring, hoping to gain something.
Garchomp couldn't even remember how long this had been going on. It seemed to have started before she became Champion, back when it was still a Gible.
As for the specific reasons, although Garchomp was somewhat curious, it had never actively asked.
From beginning to end, its mind had held only one thought: since its trainer loved Legendary Pokémon, it would just work hard to become that strong.
Even today, it hadn't stopped working toward that goal.
This had always been one of its motivations for growing stronger.
But now, faced with Cynthia's question, it was truly stumped.
In the end, it could only shake its head and let out a negative growl.
Cynthia didn't seem surprised by Garchomp's response. She suddenly closed her eyes, as if remembering something.
"Everyone in the world knows very little about Legendary Pokémon. They seem to have disappeared into the river of time. Everyone says they're sleeping, gone, or have vanished."
"But I know that's not the case."
"One night when I was six years old, I saw with my own eyes a Legend."
Cynthia began to slowly narrate, past scenes flowing like a tide through her mind, reassembling before her eyes.
It was a summer night from who knows how many years ago. Young Cynthia was on a small mountain in the Sinnoh region, searching for wild Pokémon.
Although such behavior was indeed somewhat risky for a child that age, driven by her innate love and curiosity for Pokémon, the little girl had quietly climbed to the top of a mountain to look out over the view.
She saw the lights lit up in the villages and towns across the plain. That day, people seemed to be celebrating some annual festival with lanterns and decorations, creating a particularly lively atmosphere.
However, beautiful things are often the prelude to tragedy.
In the midst of this celebratory atmosphere, the beautiful night sky shrouded in silver moonlight was suddenly torn apart. A burning red star blocked out the moonlight, carrying an aura of destruction as it plummeted straight toward the plain.
Seeing all this and feeling that terrifying presence, the little girl felt her blood freeze for a moment. The height where she stood was above the cloud layer, so she witnessed everything firsthand.
However, the people below the clouds were celebrating their once-a-year, hard-earned festival, all immersed in joy, so naturally, no one noticed this scene.
Young Cynthia felt fear grip her heart, as if foreseeing an apocalyptic scene. She ran frantically down the mountain, trying to warn those people who were about to be destroyed by the meteor.
But obviously, the naive girl didn't realize that even if she could make it down the mountain in time, there wouldn't be enough time, and probably no one would believe the words of such a young girl anyway.
While running frantically, the girl stumbled and rolled all the way down, crashing into a tree among the dust and dirt. Bright red blood flowed from her ankle—she couldn't even stand up anymore, and could only watch in despair as that red star in the sky carried its world-destroying light and silently fell.
But just as her heart was filled with despair, a scene that would remain unforgettable for the rest of her life appeared before her eyes.
A cyan-golden light more brilliant than a meteor tore through the heavens!
The next instant, that massive figure didn't descend slowly, but like an angry divine punishment from heaven and earth, arrived in a flash from the depths of the firmament!
It was clearly a giant dragon!
The giant dragon became a streak of cyan-green light, spiraling around the crimson meteor in rapid flight, moving so fast that only a shadow could be seen, bursting forth with vast and brilliant power.
There was no earth-shattering collision, only pure, ultimate torrents of light.
The green light instantly swallowed that world-ending star… like using an eraser to remove wrong words from paper, quietly and completely annihilating it before it could arrive.
When the light faded, the night sky returned to silence, as if nothing had happened.
Below the clouds, people continued their celebrations and toasts.
Only the green starlight scattered across the sky above the clouds, and the trailing ozone burns, proved that a miracle had once descended here.
That night, only one girl witnessed it all.
And only she saw with her own eyes that massive figure that saved all lives and annihilated disaster.
As her narration ended, Cynthia's thoughts returned from the distant past to the present moment.
She withdrew her gaze and looked toward the sky outside the window, her golden eyes sparkling with determined light.
"Later, I secretly asked my parents about it, but they just laughed and told me such a thing was impossible, because such powerful Pokémon had long since disappeared."
"And at that moment, I understood… the legends everyone spoke of weren't fictional stories—they were right beside us, protecting this land, possessing the power to rewrite destiny."
"That night, when a streak of cyan light cut across the sky, it planted the seed in my heart to chase legends and uncover the source of that protective power. It was then that I was truly set on the path of becoming a trainer, driven to seek the truth hidden within the myths."
At this point, Cynthia's black eyes suddenly became somewhat unfocused, looking downward.
But after pursuing this for so many years, even though she had reached the Champion position,
Even though she had become the youngest mythology scholar in history…
Her closest encounter with witnessing and exploring Legendary Pokémon still remained at that summer night from her youth, never advancing a single step further.
All of this even made her wonder whether everything in her memory might have been just a childhood dream.
Meanwhile, in the Kanto region, Cerulean City, in a luxurious villa.
Kairos looked at the notification window that had popped up before him, falling into contemplation.
Without realizing it, a full week had passed since he started creating this game.
No, to be precise... it should be six days.
Because this game's progress leaderboard settled according to the last day of each week, which was Sunday.
And now it was past midnight on Sunday, entering Monday morning, so naturally it was settlement time, just as the system had indicated.
However, Kairos really hadn't expected that for the first settlement, the system would give him an additional reward item.
Probably worried that he wouldn't have any decent rewards to give out during the first settlement.
While thinking, Kairos noticed that a golden stone had somehow appeared in his left hand.
The stone was only half the size of his palm, but its surface was constantly shooting out prominent golden electrical currents, and the crystal surface was smooth and lustrous - clearly this was indeed a high-quality Thunder Stone.
According to the memories in Kairos's mind, just this one Thunder Stone could probably sell for five or six hundred thousand Poké Dollars on the market, and it would likely be in a situation where demand exceeded supply, since this kind of thing couldn't just be bought with money and was quite rare in nature.
However, for the current Kairos, he had long stopped caring about such small amounts of money.
His Pokémon also didn't need Electric-type resources - he didn't have any now, and probably wouldn't in the future either.
Because Electric-type Pokémon near Cerulean City were frighteningly scarce, practically nonexistent.
Geographically speaking, the Electric-type Pokémon in the Kanto region were basically all concentrated in the northern areas.
So, might as well treat this as a reward and give it to a player.
But speaking of which, this was his first in-game progress leaderboard reward settlement, so he had to handle it properly.
According to the in-game announcement, the top three players on the progress leaderboard would all receive rewards.
Currently, he had five boxes of Rare Candy gift boxes for distribution, plus one high-quality Thunder Stone.
So, how should he reasonably distribute these among those players?
While thinking, Kairos opened the game system on his phone to check the current leaderboard data.
As he expected, the top three players from first to third were Cynthia, Iono, and Lance, respectively.
Soon, Kairos had a plan in mind. Players with higher rankings should naturally receive more generous rewards - as a professional game developer, he understood this basic principle.
In that case, as first place, Cynthia would get two boxes of Rare Candy, while Iono and Lance would each get one box.
As second place, Iono would additionally receive that high-quality Thunder Stone. After all, she was an Electric-type Gym Leader, and even if she didn't have Pokémon that needed Thunder Stones to evolve, the abundant Electric-type energy contained in this Thunder Stone should be enough to provide some improvement for her Pokémon.
This way, he could differentiate the reward levels for the top three places, and the last remaining box of Rare Candy would serve as a lucky prize, randomly distributed to one of the remaining tens of thousands of players.
This would both motivate players to compete for rankings while also taking care of ordinary players.
After making these arrangements, Kairos directly communicated his ideas to the system and clicked the confirm button.
The next moment, the Thunder Stone in his hand and the five Rare Candy gift boxes in the cabinet instantly disappeared, obviously sent by the system to the corresponding players' locations.
The next moment, a notification also popped up before Kairos's eyes:
[Ding! Congratulations, Host! You have completed the achievement task: First distribution of player leaderboard rewards in the real world.]
[Task reward: Emotion Point Exchange Function (Player Side)]
With the system's notification sound, a completely new panel appeared before Kairos.
Looking closely, Kairos discovered this was actually something like a game store function.
By using emotion points, he could exchange for corresponding real-world items here.
And the prices looked quite reasonable. For example, the high-quality Thunder Stone he had just obtained only required 200 points in the store.
Not only that, besides common items like evolution stones, Poké Balls, and healing medicines, there were special items that didn't exist in the real world and only existed in games, such as Exp. Share, Rare Candy, and even TMs.
Kairos knew that any of these items would probably cause a sensation if brought to the real world, just like those Rare Candy gift boxes he had just sent out.
But for Kairos, there was one somewhat regrettable point - in the lower left corner of the store was a line of text that clearly explained why there were three red words "Player Side" behind this exchange panel.
[Please note, Host, that items currently exchanged using emotion points can only be given to in-game players as legitimate rewards for leaderboards, missions, events, etc.]
[The Host cannot directly use these items or use them for other purposes.]
After witnessing the powerful effects of those Rare Candy boxes firsthand, it would be unrealistic to say Kairos wasn't tempted by these in-game items. After all, those things had directly boosted his beginner-level Litwick to Elite Four level, which would be hard for any normal person to remain calm about.
But thinking it over, Kairos hadn't planned to become a trainer from the beginning anyway. Now that Chandelure had Elite Four-level strength, self-protection was already sufficient, so let it be.
Stay chill, stay chill! Don't forget the original intention!
Becoming a trainer wasn't really necessary - better to just make games every day and laze around at home.
Anyway, he'd naturally have new Pokémon come to him even while lying around. Now he had two Ghost-type Pokémon at home, which was already lively enough.
He took a deep breath and quickly adjusted his mindset.
Setting that aside, this exchange function was purely beneficial for him.
When he distributed leaderboard rewards earlier, Kairos had been wondering what he'd do if he didn't get any items to give as rewards during the next week, since the leaderboard settled weekly.
He couldn't just shortchange players' rewards, right? That would make him a terrible game developer.
And now this store interface perfectly solved that problem.
With this in mind, Kairos continued observing this new store panel interface. Just as he had judged before, items that already existed in the real world like premium Thunder Stones, Great Balls, and Ultra Balls didn't require very high point costs.
A Great Ball worth over ten thousand Poké Dollars in the real world only needed about a dozen emotion points to exchange here.
But Kairos soon discovered that special items that couldn't possibly exist in the real world, like Rare Candy gift boxes and Exp. Share, had exponentially higher exchange prices.
For example, the intermediate Rare Candy gift boxes he had just sent out required a full 780 emotion points each to exchange.
And advanced ones required 2,000 points.
Items like the Exp. Share, which were like cheats in the original games, required a whopping 15,000 emotion points!
However, Kairos didn't find this particularly unacceptable. After all, he had seen the effects of these items with his own eyes - five boxes of intermediate Rare Candy gift boxes could directly boost a low-level Pokémon to Elite Four level.
And these Rare Candies would adjust their specific effects based on the Pokémon's current level, meaning Elite Four-level Pokémon would likely have a chance to break through to Champion level with just one box. Under such circumstances, could 800 emotion points really be considered expensive?
Obviously not.
As for those advanced candies costing 2,000 points per box, Kairos really couldn't imagine how powerful their effects could be. Maybe he should try giving one to first place next leaderboard distribution?
Anyway, his daily emotion point harvest was continuously increasing with the growing player base, so he wasn't as tight on resources as he had been initially.
While thinking, Kairos suddenly remembered something and began looking through the exchange interface again, scrolling down quickly.
"Super Rod," "Escape Rope," "Revival Herbs"... one after another, items that couldn't possibly exist in reality appeared before Kairos's eyes.
However, he didn't stop browsing, instead speeding up.
Finally, when a familiar item flashed before his eyes, his entire body suddenly froze, and his eyes burst with excited light!
His gaze stopped on a square box.
At the very top of the box was engraved a spiral symbol radiating seven-colored light.
Kairos would recognize this symbol even if it turned to ash.
Because this was the iconic symbol of Mega Evolution!
[Special Item: Mega Evolution Gift Box]
[Required Exchange Points: 10,000 points]
[Description: When a player obtains and opens this gift box, the box will automatically generate the corresponding Mega Stone for any Pokémon in their team, plus one intermediate-quality Key Stone.]
[Please note: When the player opening the gift box does not have any Pokémon capable of Mega Evolution in their team, a Mega Stone will be randomly generated.]
[Before sending this gift box to a player, the Host can check that player's real-world team's Pokémon status to determine whether to give the gift box.]
Looking at this string of information prompts, Kairos felt his heartbeat quicken. He had originally just been trying his luck, never expecting there would actually be Mega Stones for sale in this store!
Although he couldn't use the Mega Stones himself after buying them, giving them to players would still benefit him!
Speaking of which, this was one of the main reasons why Kairos didn't feel too bad about not being able to use the items from the store himself.
According to the system's explanation, he didn't need to be limited to only things he created, causing emotional fluctuations in others to gain emotion points. Like when he played "Battle Road" before, any action that caused emotional fluctuations in anyone could earn points.
So the act of distributing leaderboard rewards in the game would naturally count as long as it made players feel emotional changes.
And once players experienced the power of Mega Evolution in the game and learned about this special mechanism, they definitely wouldn't believe it was real.
After all, in the real world, this form of evolution was simply too incredible.
But if they actually received a Mega Stone sent from the game, and relied on the Mega Stone and Key Stone given by the game to complete evolution, the emotional fluctuations players would experience at that moment were unimaginable.
And if someone like Cynthia or Iono - key figures who had already unlocked the emotion point multiplier limit - got a Mega Stone, Kairos wasn't sure if he'd be able to earn back the 5,000 emotion point cost just from that.
Well, breaking even might be difficult, but it definitely wouldn't be a complete loss.
After all, there was still something called emotion threshold levels. If Cynthia got a Mega Evolution gift box, such a strong impact might even break through the third-tier emotion threshold.
With this thought, Kairos looked at his remaining emotion points, then at the 10,000-point Mega Stone gift box, gritted his teeth, and directly chose to purchase one box.
A notification quickly popped up before his eyes:
[Ding! Congratulations, Host! You have successfully exchanged "Mega Evolution Stone Gift Box" x1. Please note that this item is a limited exchange product. Remaining exchanges this week (1/2)]
Seeing this notification, Kairos raised an eyebrow slightly. Apparently, there were limits to exchanging this item - only two boxes could be exchanged per week, maximum.
But this quota was already sufficient, since he really couldn't afford that many emotion points to exchange for such expensive boxes anyway.
Exchanging this one box today was mainly to test whether it could directly break through Cynthia's third-tier emotion threshold, thereby obtaining that special reward.
Kairos hadn't forgotten the system's previous hint - if Cynthia's emotion threshold reached the third tier, he could obtain a special ability related to Cynthia, plus substantial rewards. This would definitely be worth the price.
At this moment, while Kairos was thinking, a heavy gift box made of unknown metal had already appeared in his hands.
This box looked full of luxury and quality just at first glance, clearly made with expensive materials.
The Mega Evolution super symbol carved on its top was flashing with dazzling, colorful light, making anyone who saw it feel their heart flutter.
Kairos tried to open the box, but the next moment, he found that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get the box open.
It seemed the system really wasn't lying to him - these items exchanged from the player store could only be distributed to players as rewards.
At this moment, Kairos still felt a little regret, since his current team only had Gengar and Chandelure.
If he could open it himself, he would definitely get Gengar's Mega Stone. The power of Mega Gengar was naturally beyond question - it could be considered first-tier strength among the earliest batch of Mega Evolution Pokémon.
As for Chandelure, although it currently didn't have a Mega Evolution form, Kairos had heard before his transmigration that in the next game Nintendo would release, Chandelure would get its own Mega Evolution form.
This meant that in the real world, it should also have the possibility of Mega Evolution.
He just didn't know if he'd have a chance to get its Mega Stone later.
Thinking this, Kairos shook his head slightly and directly opened the system panel, selected the leaderboard reward distribution option, and directly sent the Mega gift box in his hands as a reward to Cynthia.
As the gift box disappeared from Kairos's hands, he breathed a slight sigh of relief.
He wondered if this thing would be impactful enough for Cynthia to break through the third-tier emotion threshold.
But it should... be fine, right?
Speaking of which, after getting the gift box, Kairos hadn't used the system function to check Cynthia's current team configuration.
Because he clearly knew that Cynthia's team definitely had a Pokémon capable of Mega Evolution.
That would be Garchomp.
In the games, Mega Garchomp became the most regrettable of all Mega Evolution Pokémon due to the mind-boggling design of actually losing 10 speed points after evolution.
This situation even led many Garchomp fans to try directly confronting the designers of Garchomp's Mega Evolution at Pokémon game conventions.
But Kairos knew that in the real world, such situations wouldn't occur.
With Cynthia's Champion-level Garchomp, after Mega Evolution...
Could it directly break through to legendary-tier level?
With this thought, Kairos rubbed his hands together, feeling somewhat expectant as he sat on the bedside, quietly waiting for the system's feedback.
Meanwhile, in the Sinnoh region.
After Cynthia finished her story, Garchomp stood frozen in place. It hadn't expected that its trainer's pursuit of everything related to Legendary Pokémon had such a reason.
Previously, it had always thought this was all due to Cynthia's pursuit of "power," that she wanted to learn from those Legendary Pokémon's strength to improve herself.
Now it seemed its viewpoint was only half correct.
Cynthia did indeed want to become powerful, but her reason for doing so was to be able to possess the power to reverse fate and protect everything, like that green figure she had seen that night.
While Garchomp was lost in thought, Cynthia seemed to have recovered from the emotional tide just now. She stood up from the window and patted Garchomp's shoulder again, giving it a hug.
"Thank you, Garchomp. All this way, I'm glad you've always been by my side."
"Roar."
Garchomp responded with a low growl, then spoke up again.
"Roar, roar."
[Although I support you too, I think you don't need to put so much pressure on yourself. We've already done our best, haven't we?]
Cynthia understood Garchomp's words and couldn't help but pause.
Her reason for pursuing Legendary Pokémon wasn't just because of what she had witnessed that night - that kind of powerful force had deeply attracted her.
And since reaching the Champion level, she had been trying to pursue that higher realm, the power level that only Legendary Pokémon could reach!
However, whether among the world's existing powerful trainers or in past human records, there had never been a trainer who reached that legendary realm.
For this, Cynthia had made many efforts, but soon she discovered that she and her Pokémon were still some distance away from even the most elite tier of Champion level, let alone that legendary realm.
Even though she was already one of the strongest trainers in the world, the reality was such that she had to accept this fact.
Throughout this journey to Championship, whether in terms of effort, resources, or opportunities, Cynthia felt she had already reached her limits.
Garchomp was the same. Since it was still a Gible, its daily training time had never been less than 10 hours, basically spending all time except sleep on training.
Even now, having become a Champion-level Pokémon, this remained unchanged.
The fierce battles they had experienced together were countless, constantly honing themselves through numerous high-intensity battles.
But even so, reality still dealt them a heavy blow. High-tier Champion level seemed to be the limit they could currently reach.
And above high-tier Champion level, the Champion "peak" level that had been touched by people in historical records and was now reached by a few of the world's strongest, remained frustratingly out of reach.
At least in the short term... breaking through was impossible.
Although Cynthia was still young now, and with her age, breaking through to that level was just a matter of time.
But if she couldn't even touch the extreme level of Champion peak now, then how could she reach that "legendary" realm in the future?
If the Ultra Wormhole situation was an unsolvable knot in Lance's heart.
Unable to reach the level of Peak Champion, with the path to legendary-tier power remaining forever out of reach, a hidden barrier resided deep within Cynthia's heart.
But at this moment, listening to Garchomp's words, Cynthia gradually came to her senses.
Yes, was she being too hasty?
Although the Ultra Wormhole crisis existed, there was still plenty of time for everyone to prepare.
She hadn't even begun trying to touch that legendary realm, so why was she drawing conclusions so early?
Although everything she had seen in this game had reawakened the memories in her heart, making her urgently want to become stronger.
But as long as she stayed on the path and gave her all, that was actually enough...
With this thought, she felt somewhat lighter, as if she had understood something.
However, just as Cynthia was thinking, a notification window appeared unexpectedly before her eyes.
[Please note, player Strawberry Ice Cream: Last week's leaderboard has been settled!]
[Your rewards are as follows: Rare Candy Gift Box (Intermediate) x5!]
[Rewards will be distributed shortly! Please step back two steps!]
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