To verify his thoughts, John Smith looked at the Shinx in his arms and asked, "How was it? Was the game fun?"
"Meow~ ^ω^"
"Then, do you want to continue?"
"Meow ヽ(▽)ノ"
Seeing Shinx's excited look, John's mood also brightened. "Alright."
Then he placed Shinx on the sofa. "Then close your eyes, we'll continue."
"Meow~"
After responding, Shinx found a comfortable spot on the sofa, lay down, and closed its eyes once more.
The game continued.
Opening the game interface, this time there was no Pokémon detection, just the skill selection directly.
"It is detected that your Pokémon has multiple skills. Please select 4 before entering the game."
"Do you want to use the already selected Pokémon skills?"
"Yes" "No"
Just as he was about to click "Yes," John suddenly thought of a question: If Shinx levels up and needs to learn a new skill, does it still need to forget an old one? Will the forgotten skill truly be gone?
Thinking of this, John immediately clicked "No" and reset Shinx's skills to Thunder Fang, Fire Fang, Ice Fang, and Tackle.
"This way, even if Tackle is forgotten, it's fine. There's still Quick Attack." Thinking this, John officially started the game… The screen flashed, and the game character appeared in Professor Birch's laboratory.
"The plot is over. The next step should be to find May and capture Zorua along the way." John sorted out the plot in his mind. "Oh, right, can Pokémon captured in the game be brought into the real world?" As he thought about the Zorua he was about to get, a question surfaced in John's mind.
"Forget it, it's still up in the air. The plot of this game has changed, and whether I can get Zorua is still an unknown. Why think so much?"
Temporarily setting aside the questions in his mind, John controlled the game character, preparing to set off.
"Oh, right, I haven't checked Shinx's attributes yet." John thought as he pressed "Start." Subsequently, a menu appeared on the right side of the game screen, from top to bottom: Pokémon, Bag, John Smith, Save, Exit.
Because he was in a hurry to exit earlier, John hadn't looked closely at the menu bar.
"Hmm, the Pokédex, Navigator, and Settings are missing. The Pokédex and Navigator haven't been obtained yet, so it's normal. As for Settings… it's also normal that it's not there. Who am I to set the golden finger?"
John first opened the Bag: Apart from a Potion and a Magnet in the item slot, the entire Bag was empty.
"Alright, this golden finger really doesn't have a Newbie Gift Pack or anything." Although he hadn't held much hope, John still felt a pang of disappointment. "Forget it, at least I got an item," he thought, and casually put the Magnet on Shinx.
Next, John opened the Trainer card:
Name: John Smith IDNo.15029
Money: 3000 yen
Time: 0:21
At the bottom was a row of empty badge slots.
"Alright, a plain Trainer card, next." Returning to the menu page and scrolling down, John pressed the "Save" button, and then a dialogue box popped up:
"Do you want to save the game? (Once a month)"
"Once a month, that's a bit too little. It seems that the gameplay of unlimited saving to farm critical hits and skill success rates can't be used. And I can't catch legendary Pokémon with one ball anymore, sigh—"
Thinking that he could no longer use saves for various tricky maneuvers like when he used to play games, John sighed resignedly.
"It's already pretty good that the golden finger has a save function. At least there's a chance to correct mistakes."
With this thought, John finally opened "Pokémon" and clicked on Shinx to check its summary:
Pokémon: Shinx ♦ (In this book, all Pokémon names, except for those like Pidgeot, use the official translations.)
Owner: John Smith
Type: Electric
Level: 4
Ability: Intimidate (When it enters battle, it lowers the Attack of all opposing Pokémon by 1 stage.)
Nature: Naughty (+Physical Attack -Special Defense)
Right-click to turn the page:
Item: Magnet
Ribbon: None
Stats: HP 18 / 18 Special Attack 9
Physical Attack 12 Special Defense 7
Physical Defense 8 Speed 9
Experience: 128
To next level: 17
Turn the page again:
Skills: [Electric] Thunder Fang pp15 / 15
[Fire] Fire Fang pp15 / 15
[Ice] Ice Fang pp15 / 15
[Normal] Tackle pp35 / 35
Looking at the interface before him, a sense of familiarity washed over him. "I haven't played this game in about two or three years." John couldn't help but recall various past events, as if… it was another lifetime.
Temporarily setting aside his nostalgia, John continued the game. Leaving the laboratory and walking straight up, John controlled the game character to Route 101. "I'll go find May later. First, I'll level up Shinx."
Then, John began searching for wild Pokémon in the tall grass. Before long, the screen flashed, and a battle began.
"A wild Bulbasaur jumped out."
"I choose you, Shinx."
Looking at the Bulbasaur that appeared on the game interface, John chose to have Shinx use Fire Fang.
"Shinx used Fire Fang."
"It's super effective."
"The wild Bulbasaur fainted."
"Shinx gained 45 experience points."
"Shinx leveled up to 5."
"Shinx wants to learn the skill Glare."
"But Shinx cannot learn any more skills."
"Delete a skill to make space for Glare?"
John followed his previous plan and deleted Tackle, learning Glare.
"Shinx learned the skill Glare."
After completing his planned actions, John exited the game, wanting to see if Shinx had changed.
As soon as he exited the game interface, a finger-thick, light blue energy floated out from the phone—or more precisely, from the golden finger on the phone—and went directly into Shinx's body.
Perhaps because Shinx's increase was much greater, this energy was more obvious than the first time, so John finally noticed this anomaly.
Looking at the scene before him, John roughly understood how his golden finger was boosting Pokémon.
After that energy entered Shinx's body, Shinx's size subtly increased a little. If John's gaze hadn't been fixed on Shinx since the energy appeared, an ordinary person really wouldn't have noticed this tiny change.
"Shinx, do you feel any changes in your body?" John woke Shinx up again and asked with concern.
"Meow~ ┗(￣︶￣)┛"
Shinx indicated that it was full of power.
"Then can you still use Tackle now?" Seeing Shinx in good condition, John began to verify his ideas.
Hearing its Trainer's command, Shinx immediately used Tackle.
"What about Glare?"
This time, Shinx paused for a moment, then glared at John with its large yellow eyes, accompanied by a faint surge of energy.
After using the move, Shinx seemed to become even cuter. John instantly felt his defenses crumble. Unable to resist, he scooped Shinx up and buried his head in its belly, taking several deep breaths.
"Sniffing cats is truly the most enjoyable thing in this world," John, high on cat-sniffing, exclaimed.
"Meow Σ(°△°|||)!? "