When he thought about it, it actually made sense. The guy had been a Champion back in the day—now that he was older, playing games to recapture the feeling of being a trainer was perfectly reasonable.
But... why were the emotion points so low this time?
Kairos was certain it wasn't a problem with his game content. After all, when Cynthia first streamed the game, she'd brought in nearly 200 points.
But this time, Iono, Cynthia, and Professor Oak combined had only provided 230 points total.
Just as Kairos was pondering this, a system notification popped up in front of him, answering his question:
[Ding! Please note: emotion points gained from the same game and the same person will gradually decrease. Over time, they will drop to a minimum of one-quarter of the original amount.]
Kairos looked at this and raised an eyebrow.
So, he needed to find ways to get more people to play this game.
In other words, he had to fully promote Emerald.
Moreover, from these past two days of emotion point income, he could already see that when the player base wasn't large enough, emotion points from regular purchasers was minimal.
The real jackpot came from special characters with status like Cynthia, Professor Oak, and Iono.
So, going forward, if he wanted to earn massive emotion points, besides promoting the game widely, he'd also need to find ways to get special figures like them to play Emerald...
But obviously, that wouldn't be easy.
At Kairos's current level, forget about approaching them—even contacting them would be extremely difficult.
After all, not every Elite Four member or Champion was like Cynthia or Iono, streaming on platforms.
Plus, he still had no clue how Cynthia, Iono, and Professor Oak had even discovered Emerald in the first place.
It couldn't be purely from the Gaming Festival's promotional effects, right?
Impossible. Absolutely impossible.
With this thought, Kairos shook his head slightly.
Now that the game's income was picking up, he might as well spend some money on promotion.
Pokémon Emerald would naturally become a phenomenon-level game, and with its quality improving as he upgraded his modules, a little promotion would eventually make it explode in popularity.
Of course, the most important thing was still winning first place at the Gaming Festival!
The official League traffic promotion spot—that wasn't something money could buy.
As Kairos was contemplating the specifics, he suddenly felt a chill beside him as a cold breeze swept past.
He turned to look and saw that Litwick, who had been sleeping for ages, had finally woken up!
"Lit-wick!!"
As soon as it woke up, Litwick bounced right over to Kairos's side, putting on a pitiful expression.
"Hungry, huh? Here, this is for you."
Kairos was prepared, smiling slightly as he pulled a can of Pokémon food from his drawer and handed it over.
In this world, while the entertainment industry wasn't very developed, the number of internet users was substantial.
Pokémon: Emerald had already been released for three full days, and clips of Cynthia and Iono's gameplay streams, along with news about the game, had gradually started appearing online.
On the web's largest short video platform, a site called "Magnemite Station," several videos had begun trending and climbing the rankings.
[A newly released pixel game is selling for the outrageous price of ¥5,922! Hell-level difficulty, yet 100% positive reviews?]
[Gaming Festival's biggest dark horse? Climbing toward first place in just two days—could it defeat Dream Factory?]
[Sinnoh Champion Cynthia and Paldea Gym Leader Iono playing Emerald complete meltdown compilation—watch it all at once!]
[Shocking! Cynthia becomes the first to clear Emerald's ultra-difficult gym battle—do you understand what the power of bonds means?]
[Missing person: Does anyone know who this Roxanne is? Why is she so powerful?]
As these videos gained popularity, Pokémon: Emerald began entering the sights of internet users everywhere.
Naturally, it also caught the attention of certain people...
Right now, in the Sinnoh region.
Jubilife City, top floor of a certain skyscraper.
A young man in a brown suit and sunglasses frantically pushed open the office door.
Clutching a tablet in his hands, he rushed to the desk, gasping:
"Boss! We have a problem!"
Sitting behind the desk was a middle-aged man in casual clothes with parted hair, his eyes calm but radiating an oppressive aura.
Anyone with experience could tell this was the kind of presence naturally formed from countless battles in the business world.
This was Nova, the owner of the world's largest and most powerful gaming company, Dream Factory.
Nova looked up at him coldly.
"How many times have I told you? Knock before entering."
"Now talk. What's got you this panicked?"
The suited man wiped cold sweat from his forehead and quickly handed over the tablet, explaining rapidly:
"Boss, three days ago, a game called Pokémon Emerald suddenly appeared in the Gaming Festival."
"In these three days, it's climbed from over 1000th place on the popularity rankings to 20th place, and its popularity is still growing!"
"Emerald?"
Nova chewed on the name, looking down at the tablet—it was a recording of Cynthia's first gameplay stream.
After a few moments, he looked up, his gaze now more serious.
In just minutes, he'd grasped the general content and gameplay of the title.
What caught his attention most was that, despite being a turn-based game, the cities and routes were rendered in exquisite detail.
This visual quality...
As a gaming company owner, while he didn't participate in development himself, he understood that this technical level was far from simple.
Even with his company's mastery of pixel game technology, they couldn't completely replicate it.
"Who made the game? Did you find out?"
He asked coldly.
"Boss, I checked immediately. The information says it was individually developed, but I think that's impossible—probably some company using a front."
"I'm guessing it might be Piplup Studios, or maybe Greyscale."
Nova set down the tablet and lit a cigar.
"Against our Dream Factory, whoever it is poses no threat."
"Who it is doesn't matter. What matters is we can't let them continue developing like this."
He exhaled smoke rings.
"Notify the development department—emergency meeting tonight at 8 PM."
"Even those on vacation must return. If they can't make it in time, they'll join online. No one is to be absent."
The suited man was stunned and asked carefully:
"Boss, you mean—?"
Nova glanced at him.
"Imitation, just like we've done before."
"Pixel games have such low development costs—with our technology, we can make something better anytime."
"Copy their battle system and content, change the region, add some storylines, speed up updates, lower the difficulty, make it more enjoyable."
"Their creativity is good, but setting the difficulty this high with such an expensive price—they're basically asking to die."
"Plus, our new product will be launching in the Gaming Festival soon."
"When the time comes, we'll hit them from both sides—on one hand, a competing product with higher quality and lower price; on the other, traffic domination in the Gaming Festival. What waves could they possibly make?"
The suited man's face lit up with a smile as he gave a thumbs-up.
"Boss is brilliant! As expected of you—I'll notify them right away!"
He left the office with his tablet.
Nova stood and walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows, looking down at the city, his eyes flashing with arrogance as he snorted coldly.
"Hmph, Emerald?"
"No one can shake Dream Factory's position in the gaming industry."
"Not even a little bit—I absolutely won't allow it."
Meanwhile, in Viridian City.
Kairos had no idea his game had caught Dream Factory's attention.
He was watching Litwick, happily devouring its Pokémon food, with an aunt-like, benevolent smile.
Who came up with Pokémon anyway?
They're way too cute!
Sure enough, he didn't need to become a trainer—just having one or two Pokémon to live with would make him plenty happy.
"Slow down, there's more when you're done."
Kairos opened his drawer to reveal dozens of cans of Pokémon food stacked inside, showing them to Litwick.
"Lit—"
Litwick's eyes lit up, and it buried its head back in its food with renewed enthusiasm.
"Eating this much and sleeping this much—just how long were you hungry and tired before you met me?"
Seeing its behavior, Kairos couldn't help but sigh.
As he spoke, he suddenly remembered something.
Right—where exactly did Litwick come from?
Even though he was in Viridian City's suburbs, it was still within a major city's jurisdiction with lots of human activity. By all logic, there shouldn't be any Ghost-type Pokémon here.
Ghost-type Pokémon generally lived in remote wilderness areas or abandoned buildings. If one appeared in the city, it would cause a commotion and attract law enforcement.
To figure this out, the best approach would be to ask Litwick directly.
After all, he had that Pokémon language translation module—might as well use it.
With this thought, Kairos patted Litwick and posed his question.
"Hey, can you tell me how you ended up in my room?"
Litwick stopped eating, looking somewhat confused and thoughtful.
"Lit-wick... lit."
It began explaining.
After a moment, having heard Litwick's account, Kairos had a general idea.
"So you're saying... You used to live in some special space, then somehow just appeared in my room?"
Litwick nodded.
"Lit-wick!"
Now Kairos found this strange.
Why did it sound like this guy had also traveled here from somewhere else?
"Do you have any impressions of that space you mentioned?"
He asked again.
Litwick thought for a moment and answered.
"Lit-wick... lit."
[There were lots of scary guys there.]
[The sky was completely different from here.]
[...didn't like it there... so dark, so hungry... so scary...]
Kairos fell into thought.
In his memories of the original series, there didn't seem to be any space like what Litwick described.
The only thing that somewhat matched was Ultra Space.
But Ultra Space was full of terrifying Ultra Beasts—ordinary Pokémon simply couldn't enter.
Litwick had no reason to appear there either.
After a moment, he reached out and petted Litwick's head, smiling.
"It's okay. Since you don't like it there, just stay with me from now on."
"Big Bro Kairos will get you the good stuff, take you to the top of the Litwick world—how about it?"
Litwick nodded blankly.
"Lit-wick!"
Though it couldn't quite understand what Kairos meant...
As long as there was food, it was fine!
After comforting Litwick, Kairos opened his system panel to check his current emotion point balance.
Since Cynthia and Iono had been streaming the game for two days, emotion points had been slowly increasing.
Right now, including the 230 points from those three, his total was 620.
Since his points had dropped to single digits after his last module purchase, Kairos could clearly calculate that players who bought the game during this period had provided about 400 points.
Considering the number of people who bought the game, Kairos felt this gain was minimal.
Not to mention, these players' contributions were essentially "one-time only"—the same player would provide fewer points over time.
Kairos couldn't help but feel a headache coming on.
Those intermediate modules required at least 2,000 points each.
At this rate, when would he ever be able to buy all the intermediate modules he wanted?
No way—he had to think of something. He couldn't just wait.
Kairos fell into deep thought.
But just then, a notification lit up before his eyes.
[Ding!]
[Detected that the host has a strong demand for emotion points!]
[Task function unlocked!]
[Ding! Host has received side quest: "Part-Time Activities"!]
[Task Difficulty: C]
[Task Requirements: Register as a streamer on any platform and achieve a peak viewership of 1,000]
[Task Rewards: Random Special Low-Level Module ×1, 200 Emotion Points]
[Task Note: If the benefactor doesn't like playing games, this humble monk also knows a thing or two about entertainment value!]
Kairos was stunned.
Right!
According to the system's explanation...
Not only could he gain points when his games caused emotional changes in people—
He could do it personally, too!
Streaming was undoubtedly the best way to influence others' emotions.
So... what would he stream?
Kairos glanced at the icons on his desktop, then at the words entertainment value in the task note, and suddenly had a bold idea.
The next moment, evil laughter echoed through the room.
Litwick, who was eating:
Σ(°△°|||)
This kind of laughter??
Am I... back in that scary place again??
Help me—(つ﹏<.)!!!
۞۞۞۞
~ Push the story forward with your Power Stones