While Kairos was still processing his surprise, something suddenly occurred to him. He pulled out his phone, opened the game's backend software, and checked the reward distribution status for the last progress leaderboard.
Sure enough, the name listed under the lucky reward recipients was none other than "The Ocean Will Swallow Everything."
Looking at this name that immediately gave away the player's identity, Kairos instantly understood what had happened.
Oh, so this guy got drawn as the lucky player and received that box of Rare Candy.
No wonder he broke through the emotional threshold on his very first day playing the game.
This Archie sure had some incredible luck. With the game already having nearly 100,000 players, he'd just arrived and immediately hit the jackpot.
But seriously, why are all these people so straightforward with their usernames?
"Dragon-types Rule," "Strawberry Ice Cream," "Electric-types Rule," and now "The Ocean Will Swallow Everything."
Doesn't this make it ridiculously obvious who's who...
Kairos couldn't help but rub his forehead.
At the same time, another thought crossed his mind: if even Archie was here now...
Then Maxie probably wasn't far behind, right?
Sure enough, the next moment, another notification popped up before his eyes:
[Ding! Congratulations, host. You have received emotion points from key character "Maxie": 231 points.]
Compared to Archie, he hadn't experienced any breakthrough in emotional threshold, which was actually normal since he hadn't received that lottery reward.
As a new player, 231 points wasn't bad at all. As his gameplay progressed, the points he provided would naturally increase along with it. After all, there were some pretty "explosive" things waiting for him later on.
If Kairos wasn't mistaken, just like Archie, Maxie had probably learned about his appearance in the game and the leak of their plans, which prompted him to urgently start playing this game.
Kairos felt somewhat pleased. It seemed that as time went on, Pokémon Emerald was gaining more and more recognition, and naturally, more key figures were getting exposed to his game.
As for whether these big shots were good guys or bad guys, Kairos didn't really care. After all, he was just some guy making games, and with the system's concealment, as long as he didn't do anything stupid, they couldn't track him down anyway.
But... he wondered what kind of expressions would be on Archie and Maxie's faces when they saw "themselves" in the game — one summoning Kyogre and the other summoning Groudon.
Just thinking about it was pretty amusing.
Meanwhile, at Team Magma's base, Maxie was genuinely puzzled right now.
Because Archie, who had just been communicating with him, had suddenly vanished mid-conversation.
Something about having some urgent matters to handle... and then his communicator became completely unreachable.
Based on Maxie's understanding of Archie, this situation was quite unusual.
The only reasonable explanation for this behavior was that Archie had suddenly encountered something that caused his attitude toward him to do a complete 180.
But what could that something be?
Maxie frowned, his gaze unconsciously drifting to the upper right corner of his screen, where a mail icon was continuously expanding and flashing, indicating he had new messages.
Maxie instinctively clicked on the mail icon, and a series of messages appeared before him.
[This week's game progress leaderboard player rewards have been settled. Players "Strawberry Ice Cream," "Electric-types Rule," and "Dragon-types Rule" have received the top three ranking rewards!]
[Due to the three players' settings, specific reward details have not been made public.]
Looking at these two notifications, Maxie snorted coldly, appearing quite disdainful.
He naturally knew the real identities of these three players — Cynthia, Lance, and Iono, all people from the League's side.
"Just some crappy rewards from a game, and they won't even make the specific information public. They claim to be upright and honest, but is this how League people conduct themselves?"
He snorted coldly, muttering to himself.
Of course, he mainly had issues with League people; the specific matter wasn't really important.
However, the next moment, when he saw another line of text below the message, he couldn't help but freeze.
[The player who received this period's lucky reward is: "The Ocean Will Swallow Everything" [Online], reward content "Rare Candy Gift Box (Intermediate) x1"]
The Ocean... Will Swallow Everything?
Wait a minute, no matter how you look at it, this sounds like that bastard Archie's username, doesn't it?
Maxie suddenly snapped to attention.
So this guy suddenly became unreachable because he received a lucky reward in the game? And then he ran off to play the game?
This guy... what's wrong with him? It's just some in-game reward from a lottery; is it really worth getting this excited over?
Maxie frowned slightly.
Huh?
Wait a second...
Something feels off about this situation...
Whatever, who cares? That guy's just scatterbrained sometimes, always doing weird and inexplicable things.
He glanced at his screen, where his character was still standing in front of that girl called "Rival"... his eyes flickering.
Although he'd been saying the game was boring, deep down, Maxie felt like this game had awakened his competitive spirit.
How could a distinguished Team Magma leader and Champion-level trainer like himself be stopped by some little girl?
If he couldn't even get past a game of this difficulty level, how could he ever hope to realize his great ambitions and ideals?
But... today, he should probably get some sleep first.
He wasn't someone who stayed up late, and he was indeed feeling a bit tired right now.
Just as Maxie was getting up from his desk, preparing to turn around and rest for the night.
His office door suddenly echoed with urgent knocking.
"Sir, are you there! I have urgent matters to report, it's about Archie!"
Archie?
Hearing that name, Maxie felt himself instantly perk up.
"Come in!"
The room door was pushed open, and a man wearing a blue robe quickly stepped forward, half-kneeling before Maxie and hastily bowing to him before speaking urgently:
"Sir, just moments ago, the spy you planted within Team Aqua sent back a message!"
Maxie's eyes immediately lit up upon hearing this.
Although he and Archie had begun cooperating on the surface, they were fundamentally incompatible like fire and water, so Maxie had never let his guard down around Archie.
This chess piece was one he'd planted ages ago, costing him considerable effort and energy.
For so long, there had been no reliable intelligence coming back that he'd almost forgotten about it.
Who would have thought it would finally come in handy today!
"Make it clear."
He stood up and approached the man, staring intently at him.
The latter didn't dare delay and quickly said:
"Today we received contact from him, saying that Archie's side finally had some major developments!"
"Sir, according to the intelligence our spy sent back, just moments ago, Archie suddenly woke up all the organization members in the entire base in the middle of the night and issued an order."
A gleam flashed in Maxie's eyes.
As expected, Archie's unusual behavior today was because he was hiding something big, and it had nothing to do with that so-called Pokémon Emerald game reward. That was just Archie's cover story.
Tsk, after all these years, this guy finally got a bit smarter and learned how to disguise his intentions.
He'd almost fooled even him and led him astray.
Good thing he was one step ahead.
Just as Maxie was pondering this, the man before him suddenly showed a somewhat complicated expression on his face, hesitating briefly before speaking.
"But sir, he said that order was... kind of strange."
"What exactly was the order? Hurry up and tell me!"
Seeing his hesitant manner, Maxie immediately felt something was wrong.
The man seemed to make a difficult decision, and after several seconds, finally gritted his teeth and said:
"The content of the order was that starting today, everyone should stop all work and plans in their hands and focus on one thing: put all their effort into playing through a game, and try to get on the leaderboard if possible!"
"Anyone who makes it into the top three on the rankings gets promoted directly to his deputy and receives a reward of one million Pokédollars!"
"Sir, according to our spy, right now every computer in Team Aqua's entire base is being used to play that game..."
"What was that game called again... something like Pokémon... Emerald?"
"I believe this intelligence is too absurd. Our spy... has probably defected, otherwise he couldn't possibly send back such bizarre intelligence."
"...Sir, why aren't you saying anything?"
"Lord Maxie?"
Meanwhile.
On the outskirts of Cerulean City.
After figuring out why Archie's emotional threshold level had suddenly increased, Kairos began taking stock of the rewards he'd gained today.
Although he'd just purchased the Mega Evolution Stone gift box for Cynthia, he spent a hefty 10,000 emotion points that completely drained his balance.
But the income from these three new emotional threshold level breakthroughs, plus the 1,000+ emotion points Cynthia herself provided from receiving the game leaderboard reward, filled about half of that hole and helped Kairos recover some ground.
Now his emotion point balance was still over 7,000 points, which was fairly comfortable. Compared to earlier, he was just a bit further from that 20,000 emotion point advanced efficiency production module...
But from a long-term perspective, whether it was Lance's or Iono's emotional threshold breakthroughs, both meant they'd be able to provide more and more points going forward. He'd probably be able to gather 20,000 points soon enough.
So now, it was time for the main event.
Kairos's gaze fell on the system panel.
"System, use the three intermediate module lottery chances!"
As the lottery interface appeared, Kairos couldn't help but feel some anticipation.
Last time he'd been lucky and hit the jackpot in one draw, getting the special module "Easter Egg Button."
So among these three chances, could he get another special module?
Without a doubt, special modules far exceeded regular modules of the same level in both effects and potential value, sometimes by several times or even more than 10 times.
The previous Easter Egg module was perfect proof of this. It not only helped Kairos directly break through Cynthia's emotional threshold, but also indirectly brought him at least several thousand, nearly 10,000 emotion points.
But at the same time, the probability of such special modules appearing was obviously very low. After drawing so many intermediate modules, Kairos only had this one special module so far, and this thing couldn't be directly purchased but could only be obtained through a lottery.
Kairos had always considered himself not particularly lucky, so he didn't have very high hopes for these three lottery chances.
As he input his command, the system's light screen began spinning rapidly, and a notification finally appeared before his eyes.
[Ding! Congratulations, host, you have obtained an intermediate module: Quantum Server Module!]
[Module Description: With this module, the host's server capacity and security strength will surpass all servers in the world. No matter how many players flood in or how much server pressure there is, there will be no overload conditions. The server will automatically perform maintenance at regular intervals, automatically resolving any potential problems and security vulnerabilities. At the same time, hackers of any level cannot breach the game server, and only the host has management rights over this server.]
Kairos quickly scanned through this module's description and nodded slightly. Although it wasn't a special module, its practicality seemed pretty decent.
After all, the games he'd make in the future wouldn't just run simultaneously, but would likely attract countless players from around the world to play them. Server capacity would be very important then.
Strictly speaking, his current Pokémon Emerald game server wasn't hosted by him, but borrowed resources from the League's side.
The game data he uploaded wasn't confidential either. The League could examine it anytime they wanted. The only thing kept secret was his own identity.
Now with this module, he could build his own advanced server that no one else could access.
Looking at it this way, his luck in drawing this module wasn't too bad at all.
Kairos glanced at the module's content information and operated the system panel for a bit. The Pokémon Emerald game itself was directly transferred from the League's official server to the system's server, marking the game's complete independence.
In any world, such a server would be something any game developer could only dream of having.
But compared to the system's other functions, Kairos knew this was just child's play.
So he immediately started the second module lottery. Unfortunately, he still didn't get a special module this time.
However, this module's appearance caught his attention. Unlike the previous black square module, the icon that appeared before him this time was two colliding fists with spiraling, rainbow-colored light bursting out, looking somewhat similar to the radiance of bond evolution.
So, this was...?
Just as he was wondering—
[Ding! Congratulations, host, you have obtained an intermediate module: Bond Detection Module!]
[Module Description: When the host's developed games are loaded with this module, the game will intelligently detect the bond, friendship, and emotional state between players and any Pokémon in their team. When players engage in positive bond-building and emotional interactions with their Pokémon, they will generate large amounts of corresponding emotion points. This point production is not negatively affected by the player's bond threshold level.]
[At the same time, the host can also set certain mechanisms based on the bond situation of Pokémon in the player's team, such as bond requirements for Mega Evolution, or friendship-based combat bonuses in the game.]
After reading through this module's information, Kairos's eyes lit up again. Although what he'd drawn wasn't a special module this time either, it was definitely among the best of the intermediate modules.
In Pokémon Emerald, he'd been consciously and unconsciously emphasizing the concept of bonds, whether it was arranging Mega Evolution settings for players in the Petalburg Gym battle or the chance for players to trigger bond-based survival mechanics in battle. These were all things he'd deliberately added.
But previously, limited by technical constraints, he could only work with the built-in friendship values in the game. When players interacted with their Pokémon, it would increase the Pokémon's friendship, potentially enabling special mechanisms like bond evolution and bond survival in battle.
The problem with this approach was obviously significant. Making judgments purely based on the friendship value was too mechanical.
Even if a player just fed their Pokémon berries of their preferred flavor every day without any actual interaction, the friendship would still rise to a very high level. But could you say there was a real bond between the Pokémon and the player? Obviously not.
But now with this Bond Detection Module, none of that would be a problem.
Kairos could arrange bond evolution requirements in a much more human-like way.
Besides that, player interactions with Pokémon in the game could significantly boost Kairos's emotion point income.
Although he didn't currently know what level this "significant" boost could reach, just the fact that the income wouldn't be reduced by players' low threshold levels was already an excellent thing.
Overall, for an intermediate module to achieve this level, Kairos was quite satisfied.
Now only the last lottery chance remained. Whether he could get a special module would be decided by this final draw!
With this thought, Kairos chose to draw again, using up his last chance.
And this time, a notification with colorful radiance suddenly popped up before his eyes, announcing his victory.
[Ding! Congratulations, host! You have successfully drawn a special module!]
Kairos's breathing suddenly stopped. Out of just three chances, he'd actually gotten one?
This didn't really match his usual bad luck persona, did it?
The sun must be rising in the west today.
His gaze quickly fell on the new module that appeared before him. This module's icon was indeed quite distinctive: it was a huge four-sided mirror, with a black and white figure standing on either side of it.
However, the black figure looked immeasurably more powerful than the white one.
A series of information notifications began popping up before Kairos.
[Special Intermediate Module: Mirror Match Module.]
[Module Effect: When the host's created games are loaded with this module, the game can create "Perfect Mirrors" or "Enhanced Mirrors" that match the player's strength as opponents based on the player's real skill level or in-game level—this is the ultimate self-challenge!]
[Specific module mechanisms:]
[Host can choose copy target: Player's in-game strength/Player's real-world strength.]
[Copy Mirror: Advanced AI will 100% replicate the player's current team, items, skill configurations, and common tactical habits. Defeating this mirror requires the player to break through fixed thinking patterns or perform exceptionally on the spot.]
[Enhanced Mirror: Super AI will use the player's team, with Pokémon IVs and EV distributions optimized by the system to theoretical limits. AI decision-making speed will be faster and more precise than the player!]
[Counter Mirror: Super AI will specifically use perfectly counter teams built to target the player's strongest team/core tactics. Players need to temporarily change teams or develop entirely new tactics with their current team to respond!]
[Point Generation Rules: When players are crushed and experience frustration and unwillingness, they will provide certain emotion points. When they finally find a way to defeat the mirror, they generate large amounts of positive emotion points. Specific output will be determined by actual mirror difficulty.]
[Additional Notes: The module deeply analyzes players' real or virtual battle records to construct highly realistic mirrors, and provides backend recording of changes in player vs. mirror win rates and performance to intuitively reflect their improvement. The host is recommended to give players rewards in-game or in reality when they first achieve victory against any mirror opponent, making them feel joy and accomplishment, thereby catalyzing the birth of emotion points.]
Looking at these numerous text notification boxes, Kairos couldn't help but feel amazed. As expected of a special module—even an intermediate one, this was incredible!
Just simply replicating an opposing trainer's strength and team in the game, then generating corresponding mirrors for players to challenge, would already count as heaven-defying technology.
But now this module was telling him it could even copy a player's real-world team situation and commanding ability into the game...
Holy crap, wasn't this basically a remote unboxing?
(t/n: dont really know what this means)
But...
Kairos thought about it and suddenly narrowed his eyes.
For him, this was actually a good thing.
After all, the higher the challenge difficulty in the game, the greater the players' emotional fluctuations. And this module even had additional bonuses for the emotion points that could be harvested from this kind of mirror challenge content.
So now only one question remained: how could he reasonably and logically place this special module's effects in the most suitable location within Pokémon Emerald?
On this point, after just brief consideration, Kairos had many good ideas.
The corners of his mouth couldn't help but curve upward slightly.
Next, there were probably going to be a lot of interesting scenes in the game...
۞۞۞۞
~ Push the story forward with your Power Stones