"Where is this?"
The disorientation hit Julian Reed like a physical blow. One moment he was in his cramped room; the next, he was standing in the center of a gargantuan library.
"What's going on? Did I transmigrate? Just like that?"
As a lifelong fan of anime and novels, Julian didn't panic. He accepted the situation with practiced ease and began to survey his surroundings. Bookshelves stretched toward the horizon, stacked so high they seemed to support the ceiling itself.
A rush of foreign memories surged forward. He wasn't just a stranger here. He was an Archivist for the Divination Commission on the Xianzhou Luofu. Essentially, he was a glorified librarian on a galactic megaship.
On Earth, this would have been a stable civil service job. From a gamer to a government employee in one leap—his old friends would have been green with envy.
"Honkai: Star Rail... it's a dangerous world," Julian muttered. "Thankfully, I'm on the Xianzhou."
He knew the lore. While the universe was crawling with monsters and cosmic horrors, the Luofu offered a level of security an ordinary person could rely on.
"Speaking of which, where's my system? You can't have a transmigration without a cheat. Hurry up and give me something broken!"
Julian waited. Nothing happened. Frustrated, he reached into his pocket for a phone that wasn't there. His fingers brushed something cold and smooth. He pulled out a slab of dark green jade.
"Right. A Jade Abacus."
In his previous life, a piece of imperial green jade this pure would be worth tens of millions. Here, it was a standard smartphone. He swiped the interface, familiarizing himself with the controls.
"Let's check the news. I need to know the timeline so I can avoid Phantylia when she shows up."
He had no intention of playing hero. Trying to explain the future to Jing Yuan or Fu Xuan was a one-way ticket to a psych ward or a prison cell.
"Hmm? The Aetherium Wars tournament is being held in Exalting Sanctum?"
The headline caught his eye. He remembered Aetherium Wars—the "Pokémon" of the Star Rail world. It involved collecting monster data for tactical battles.
"This is what passes for a hit game here?" Julian scoffed. "If I brought out the real Pokémon, these people would lose their minds."
[Ding! Host's intention to create a game detected. Game Producer System bound.]
The mechanical voice made Julian nearly drop his Jade Abacus.
[Mission: Create and promote Pokémon. Make a name for the IP in this world.]
[Reward: 1,000 Game Points.]
[Binding Bonus: Pokémon Red/Green Cartridge and the original anime series.]
"The system is actually here!"
Julian eagerly checked the details. It was a Producer System. He could exchange points for games, and he earned those points based on the popularity and "hype" his releases generated.
He couldn't manifest real Pokémon in the physical world yet, but having the world's most profitable IP in his pocket was a golden ticket. He could already see the mountain of credits in his future.
He opened his inventory to claim the starter rewards: a disc and an old-school handheld console.
Julian's heart sank.
"Please don't be what I think it is..."
His hands shook as he turned the console on. The iconic 8-bit theme played through a tinny speaker. On the tiny, unlit screen, a crude cluster of black-and-white pixels flickered to life.
Julian's face went dark.
"System, you've got to be kidding me. This is the Honkai universe! Who is going to play this?"
Indignant, he almost threw the console.
"System! Come out! You gave me the wrong version!"
There was no response. The Game Boy lay on the table, its little red power light glowing mockingly. It was indestructible, but in this world of holographic VR and interstellar telepresence, it was a prehistoric relic.
"My dream of getting rich is dead," Julian sighed.
In a world where Aetherium Wars provided full-sensory combat, asking players to stare at a monochrome pixel-blob was an insult. Even if he ported it to a Jade Abacus, the graphics were decades behind the current aesthetic standards.
Worse, Pokémon only succeeded on Earth because of the massive synergy between the game and the anime. Without that emotional hook, the base game was just a repetitive grind.
Julian looked at the blinking pixels. He was a fan. He knew the soul of the game was there, buried under the limitations of the 1990s.
"This really means I have to build this from the ground up..."