Lao Hu was just one example of what was happening across the Interstellar Peace Corporation's entire territory. There were countless streamers and players doing the exact same thing. Most of them wisely chose to switch to Pokémon right away, while others watched from the sidelines before quietly downloading the game. No matter where you looked—video platforms, live streams, or player forums—everyone could feel a massive storm named Pokémon sweeping through the universe.
The moment Topaz saw the data feedback, she didn't hesitate. She immediately adjusted her marketing strategy, making sure there was something for everyone.
For the players who loved a good fight, she flooded the networks with Master League highlights, intense battle videos, and expert commentary. For those who preferred casual exploration, the algorithms pushed clips of beautiful wild scenery, rare hidden events, and heartwarming moments between trainers and their partners. For the pure pet lovers, she recommended the most adorable, fluffy, and completely irresistible Pokémon.
Topaz even brought out the big guns for the star-chasers. On top of keeping Miss Robin as the main face of the game, she got several high-profile celebrities from within the IPC itself to promote it. She even uploaded videos of her own tournament matches. While she might not be a galactic superstar to a random citizen on a distant planet, her fame inside the IPC system was enormous. Everyone knew the Ten Stonehearts, and every employee wanted to reach that height. Since the IPC's workforce stretched across the cosmos, her personal endorsement carried just as much weight inside their network as Robin herself.
The anime didn't lag behind either. It captured the hearts of kids and young women first, and before long, the hype spread to men and entire families. Topaz spared no expense, launching an overwhelming publicity campaign that easily rivaled the Xianzhou Luofu's historic launch. Whenever the Traditional Department tried to mess with her plans using their usual petty tricks, Topaz's team shut them down instantly.
As for more open corporate sabotage? The Traditional Department didn't dare cross that line. This was an internal struggle, and fair competition was the most basic unwritten rule. If they went too far, it would throw the entire IPC into chaos. More importantly, the Strategic Investment Department was backed by an Emanator. If an internal war broke out over profits, Diamond could easily dismantle the Traditional Department before the board of directors could even call a meeting, and no one would say a word. After all, everyone was working for the Amber Lord. If the Investment Department was raking in trillions of credits for Qlipoth, what exactly was the Traditional Department trying to achieve with its petty jealousy?
It wasn't just the corporate marketing driving the numbers, though. The earliest batch of players—the ones who previously had to use network accelerators just to bypass the firewall—started promoting the game organically the second the restrictions lifted. In the past, trying to recommend Pokémon to a friend meant dealing with the stigma of a "banned game" and the extra cost of a VPN. Now, they could widely proclaim the greatness of Pokémon to anyone who would listen.
Under this massive wave of publicity, Pokémon became a household name across the stars. Game sales shattered the charts. The game, which had already reached six billion purchases and generated over three trillion in profit, saw another two billion purchases on the first day of the unbanning alone. As the planetary rotations turned and the worlds currently locked in the dead of night woke up, that number was expected to double on the second day. Doubling the original six billion lifetime sales was suddenly a very real possibility.
Naturally, this wave of digital love triggered a massive craving for physical Pokémon merchandise. Even though virtual reality offered a near-flawless simulation of touch and sight, people still psychologically viewed a game as an illusion. Fakes were always fake, and a digital pet simply couldn't match the comfort of holding something real in your hands.
Topaz had seen this coming a mile away. Before the promotion even began, she had secured the physical merchandise rights from Julian, stockpiled a massive inventory in her warehouses, and released it all the exact second the gates opened. The authorization fees hadn't come cheap; Julian had structured a ruthless deal involving a heavy upfront deposit, a high licensing fee, and a cut of the direct revenue, sucking up profits from every factory line.
But the merchandise manufacturers didn't care about the steep prices. Pokémon merchandise was a gold mine; the moment a factory printed a plushie, it sold out. Aside from standard items like plush dolls, high-end figures, and Poké Balls equipped with built-in holographic projectors, the single highest demand from the elite markets was for biological cloning. Wealthy buyers wanted to use advanced biotechnology to print real, living Pokémon.
Topaz had actually brought this up during her early calls with Julian. The raw production cost for cloned biological pets was remarkably low, but given the technical difficulty, they could easily command a fortune in the high-end luxury markets. Both the Xianzhou Alliance and the IPC possessed the god-tier biotechnology required to execute the prints, so production bottlenecks weren't an issue.
However, Julian had given her an unconditional refusal, using the plot of Mewtwo Strikes Back to shut down the project.
"I refuse to let our factories print living creatures who might grow up to harbor deep, negative emotions simply because they lack the magical elemental abilities a true Pokémon should possess."
Hearing the unyielding protectiveness in his voice, Topaz had immediately dropped the subject. It was crystal clear that Julian cherished these designs like his own flesh and blood, and it was equally obvious that the craftsman harbored a grander, secret ambition to eventually bring authentic, magical Pokémon into reality. Since they were already swimming in an ocean of credits, there was zero reason to create friction over a luxury cloning line. Topaz had initially assumed Julian was letting his imagination run wild regarding the limits of cosmic physics, but then she remembered his close creative partnership with a member of the Genius Society. Suddenly, printing real life didn't seem so impossible. After all, for those elite minds, no technology was beyond reach. More importantly, there was a specific geneticist inside that club who specialized entirely in the creation of uncataloged life. As fellow members, a future collaboration between them was practically written in the stars.
Back in his luxury lounge in Penacony, Julian received the latest financial brief from Topaz's desk. The numbers were dizzying. Thanks to the integration of the IPC's automated logistics network, the global Pokémon merchandise market had violently ballooned from an already impressive 1,500 trillion credits annually to a staggering 3,000 trillion credits.
At this point, the revenue curve finally slowed down, pinned entirely by the physical limitations of their manufacturing plants. The factories literally couldn't print the toys fast enough to clear the queues. As a result, the merchandise market suffered a sudden influx of scalpers. Within the wealthy core worlds of the IPC where money was just a number, selling a plushie for double the retail price was considered a generous discount. Some of the high-tech, holographic Poké Balls were being flipped for ten times their original price, and consumers were still fighting to buy them.
To break the bottleneck, both the Xianzhou and the IPC were urgently constructing fresh automated mega-factories and approving new design blueprints. Within less than half a month, their manufacturing capacity was slated to expand threefold, allowing them to supply a near-impossible market value of one quadrillion credits (one Jing). Whether they would need to expand the lines further would depend entirely on live consumer feedback; there was no point in rushing blindly. Constructing a high-spec automated facility was an expensive transaction, and even with a limitless mountain of cash, a wise director doesn't waste capital carelessly.
The massive corporate wave surrounding the franchise kept the general public completely glued to their terminals. But just as the community boards were settling into a stable rhythm, a fresh, world-shattering system alert popped up across the global servers, siphoning everyone's attention instantly.
The final legendary Pokémon of the Johto region had been discovered in the wild!
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