"Actually, I tried," Cynthia's voice carried a hint of helplessness, as if she had already anticipated that Professor Oak would make this request.
"I discovered that in the friends interface, regarding 'Wind's' information, aside from that name, everything else, including friend code, any contact methods, even the share button, is all grayed out, completely unable to be viewed or operated. The system seems to have some kind of restriction, only allowing me to have the most basic text communication with him."
"I also couldn't possibly ask him questions directly like 'who are you,' and I imagine he wouldn't answer either."
Professor Oak was also stunned, then suddenly understood. "I see... Could it be that because you achieved first clear, you obtained this unique 'special friend slot' qualification? This is exclusive permission he grants to top players?"
"For others, including me, to add him as a friend, we'd probably also have to achieve something like a 'first clear' or similar accomplishment. That's quite interesting."
"I think so," Cynthia confirmed. "This friend slot is more like a form of recognition and reward from him."
Professor Oak fell into a brief silence.
Becoming a first clear player was indeed no easy feat.
But if he could get this mysterious creator's contact information...
His mind raced, and soon he had an idea.
"I understand..." Professor Oak's voice suddenly became more cheerful, even carrying a hint of eager anticipation.
"Cynthia, thank you for telling me all this. I've sent you the data. If you're going to the forbidden zone, make sure to discuss it with me first."
"I might be busy for a while, so I won't be available. If there's any new information, I'll contact you."
Not available?
Cynthia didn't immediately react.
"Mm, I will. Professor, you should also remember to rest, you're getting on in years..."
Before Cynthia could finish speaking, she heard from the other end of the communicator that Professor Oak seemed to have put down the device, followed by a familiar electronic sound effect with a somewhat profound quality. It was exactly the startup music from Wind Studio's games.
Cynthia: "...?"
Well, now she knew what Professor Oak was going to be busy with.
The first clear player of Emerald was herself, and the first clear player of Pitch Black Phantom...
It might very well become Professor Oak!
---
At the same time, in Cerulean City.
In the villa, Kairos was staring at the semi-transparent system panel that only he could see, where the golden task completion notification was slowly fading:
[Main Quest: Legendary Foundation (SS)]
[Quest Requirements: 1. Have any game you created accumulate over 10 million paid downloads in a single world. (Completed)
2. Unlock and use at least one "Advanced Production Module" to create a new game, with that game reaching sales of at least five million copies! (Current sales: 5,021,378 copies, completed)]
[Quest rewards being distributed...]
The next moment, as usual, three spheres of light immediately appeared, floating in the air.
Along with them came a series of notifications.
[Obtained: Emotion Points 10,000 points!]
[Obtained: "World Seed" Fragment x1!]
[Obtained: Random Legendary Production Module x1!]
So now the most important thing was undoubtedly to verify whether that item called the World Seed had any connection with life energy.
Kairos took a deep breath and touched the second sphere of light.
The next moment, as the light dissipated, a thumb-sized, emerald green seed quietly floated in the air.
Its surface was covered with mysterious golden patterns, emanating a gentle green glow from within.
A rich life aura rushed toward him, and Kairos instantly felt an indescribable comfort throughout his entire body.
This thing...
He raised an eyebrow, and the system interface appeared:
[SS+ Level Item: World Seed]
[Description: The core origin seed of the World Tree, containing incredible power, but it seems to be only a seed right now, not even counting as the most basic juvenile form. It's hard to imagine what it will become after growing.]
[Effects are as follows:]
[Source of Life: Slowly restores the holder's life force, greatly enhances perception of life energy.]
[Nature Affinity: Increases affinity and communication with natural life (Grass, Fairy, some Ground-type Pokémon, etc.), with further enhanced effects in natural environments.]
[Space Stabilization: Carrier gains weak resistance to spatial ability interference.]
[Growth: Can absorb specific high-grade energy or meet conditions for activation and cultivation, unlocking deeper power. ???]
[Status Description: The concrete crystallization of life cycles and natural balance, containing immense source power of life, currently in deep slumber.]
Holy crap?
Kairos was momentarily stunned.
Actually, after seeing this item's name earlier, he had considered this possibility, but what he hadn't expected was that this thing was actually a seed from the World Tree.
The World Tree wasn't a simple thing in the Pokémon worldview. Not only was it connected to Mew, but it also seemed to be the source maintaining the vitality of an entire region. At least that's what he had seen in the theatrical version.
This task reward actually gave him something with such a huge background?
And the even better news was that this thing was indeed related to life energy.
This was a seed from the freaking World Tree. How could it not be related?
With this, the key problem on the Genesis Engine's side was also solved.
Holding this seed, Kairos couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief and directly stored it in the system space.
Solving that problem was one aspect, but on another level, this item itself seemed to have quite a high status.
He had an intuition that the effects this seed could currently provide were only the most basic. If he could plant and grow it into a World Tree, the scene would be so magnificent that Kairos didn't dare to imagine it.
However, even thinking with his gut, he knew that cultivating this seed into the legendary World Tree would be very difficult and would definitely require meeting many conditions. It wasn't something that could be done by just planting it casually...
So for now, let's look at the other reward. He turned his attention to the third sphere of light.
A random legendary production module!
The highest-grade module he had obtained before was only a special advanced module, and this was truly the first time encountering the legendary grade concept.
At the time, he had been completely focused on the World Seed matter and had completely overlooked this point.
Now that he noticed it, Kairos's breathing involuntarily quickened slightly.
The advanced modules given by the system already had such exceptional production effects, so what would a legendary grade be like?
He didn't think any further and directly reached out to touch that cluster of light.
The next moment, a golden notification suddenly popped up.
[Randomly extracting legendary module!]
[Random legendary module has been generated!]
[Ding! Congratulations host, you have obtained the legendary module: Resonance Emotion Capturer!]
Seeing this notification, Kairos couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. Resonance emotion, what was this thing?
He continued reading.
[This module's effects are as follows:]
[Emotion Resonance: Strengthens the system's real-time perception and gathering ability of players' collective emotions, and can materialize emotional energy.
Can convert the gathered massive, pure collective emotional energy into temporary beneficial effects within the game at specific moments, such as final battle victories in server-wide events, world-level event achievements, successful battles, and simultaneously affect players' Pokémon in reality.]
[Emotion Materialization: Based on the dominant collective emotion type, generates spectacular scenes in specific areas within the game, with their scale and duration directly reflecting the intensity of emotions.
Can also generate corresponding scenes in real-world areas and provide additional bonuses to real-world players according to specific circumstances.]
[Resonance Emotion Boost: Emotion points obtained through mass player resonance emotions increase tenfold.]
[Mythical Resonance: When emotion points collected through resonance emotions reach 100,000 points, this additional function can be unlocked.]
[Please note, this module can only be loaded onto large-scale online multiplayer games!]
[You currently do not have a corresponding type of game and cannot load this module.]
After reading through this large amount of information in one go, Kairos also had a preliminary understanding of this module's effects.
Simply put, this transmission module was entirely aimed at multiplayer games, requiring a large number of players to simultaneously generate a certain emotion to use this module to produce additional effects.
As a legendary module, and also his first legendary module, Kairos felt this effect should be considered adequate. After all, it not only provided a tenfold emotion points boost, but also even had the ability to completely affect reality.
But thinking carefully, it seemed a bit short of what he had in mind for a so-called legendary module.
After all, first, he currently didn't have any multiplayer game types, and second, before actually loading this function description onto a multiplayer game, it was still a bit too abstract and not very specific.
Forget it, never mind. Anyway, he would eventually make multiplayer games.
The more critical point was the last unlocked effect called Mythical Resonance...
This surely had to be related to Legendary Pokémon, right?
Kairos even had reason to suspect that this last unlocked effect was the key to this entire module.
If so, the matter of creating a fourth game should probably be put on the agenda.
Just as he was thinking, a new system notification popped up again, with text in an even more dazzling dark gold color:
[Ding! Main quest has been updated!]
[Main Quest: Dominant Giant (SSS)]
[Quest Requirements: Successfully open and stably connect to a fourth world, and create a game in that world that breaks through 50 million copies in sales!]
[Quest Rewards: ??? (Determined by quest completion rate, minimum guarantee is 50,000 Emotion Points, Random Mythical Production Module x1, Exclusive Special World Anchor Coordinates x1)]
SSS-rank main quest!
Kairos couldn't help but raise his eyebrows slightly. This was the highest-grade existence among all main quests so far, and this quest's requirements were indeed not low.
First was the fourth world. Right now, he had only connected to the second world. He was still short of two worlds from the goal. He had to solve the second world's problems first before he could open the third. The fourth would probably follow the same logic.
Second, 50 million in sales...
Emerald had only sold just over 10 million copies since its release...
This required that the fourth or third world must have worlds with particularly large populations.
At least judging by the population of the world he was currently in, reaching 50 million sales would be absolutely impossible. Even if every single person played, it wouldn't be enough.
"The tasks are getting harder and harder, but this reward is acceptable."
Kairos shrugged.
So, now...
Let's think about the second world's matters.
---
At this moment, on the other end of the city, Joe, who had just fired his boss and felt like his life had been completely renewed, was comfortably lying on the bed in his rental room, browsing the Pokémon community forum. The homepage was almost entirely flooded with various reward screenshots and exclamations.
Suddenly, a post topped to the hot rankings' first place, published by the officially verified "Oak Research Institute" account, entered his view. The post had only one image and a brief line of text.
In the image, a small Pokémon with a shell glistening with moist luster was lying in an incubator, curiously examining the camera with compound eyes. Next to it was a corner of a complex machine full of technological flair.
The text read:
[Thanks to 'Wind's' miraculous creation! A miraculous moment in scientific research history! First successful fossil revival! Welcome, new friend! The little one's condition is stable and adapting. More detailed information will be announced later.]
The labeled Pokémon in the image was: #Kabuto #Ancient Revival #Emerald Reward
Joe suddenly sat up from the bed, eyes wide open, staring intently at the absolutely impossible-to-fake, living Kabuto in the image.
"Holy crap?! Re... revived?! Really revived a fossil?!"
He muttered to himself, feeling like his worldview had been impacted like never before.
He subconsciously glanced again at the string of zeros in his mobile banking app that had changed his fate, then his gaze fell on the phone screen, on the icon representing "Rescue Team of Time," and he recovered.
Well, this game could send him a million out of thin air, so reviving a fossil, what was that?
Time to continue playing the game!
---
At the same time, in a certain livestream room.
Yancy heavily leaned back in her gaming chair, letting out a long "Ahhhh," her whole person appearing very dejected.
She stared at the golden, dazzling yet extremely glaring [Please Look Forward to Subsequent Content!] notification box that had just popped up on the screen, feeling like her entire person was about to overheat.
One week. A whole week!
Ever since that day when Squirtle brought her into the rescue team, she had dove headfirst into this brand new pit and had never been able to completely climb out since.
She had played until she was almost possessed. During the day, opening her eyes meant dungeons; closing her eyes to sleep, her dreams were still dungeons.
She had thought that with her veteran player-level skills, one week would definitely allow her to progress quite a bit.
She glanced at the two Pokémon in the team column at the screen corner: Larvesta, level 26 now; Squirtle, not evolved, still Squirtle, level 27 now.
The levels had been trained up, and quite a few dungeons had been cleared.
But this game's depth was simply like a bottomless pit. The volume was really a bit too exaggerated!
Just take the rescue team rank for example...