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Bright, glaring sunlight poured down from overhead, making Wendy, who stood at the entrance of the Gym, narrow her eyes.
"Sigh."
She raised a hand and rubbed the corners of her eyes, letting out a soft sigh.
By now, she had already broken free from the shock and joy of discovering Sobble, as well as the frustration and disappointment of being defeated so easily afterward.
Her surging emotions gradually returned to calm.
Although she had unexpectedly found Sobble's location, she had no chance to capture him.
She did not know what had happened in between, but the Sobble who had once been a free-roaming Pokémon inside the marine park had somehow transformed into a defending Pokémon of the only Gym in Azure Bay City.
Aside from using force, she had no other way to put him into a Poké Ball.
No.
She did not even have the chance to force a capture.
After all, the battle just now had already proven that she was not Sobble's opponent.
Besides, trying to forcibly capture the defending Pokémon responsible for Gym challenges right in front of the referee was an insane act, and the consequences would be extremely serious.
Putting aside whether the capture would succeed or not, the moment Wendy made such a move, she would be arrested by the local League branch in a very short time.
Because she was a player, the punishment might be lighter than it would be for an in-game NPC, but having her League Trainer status revoked was inevitable.
At the same time, Wendy's name would be placed on the League blacklist.
By then, whether it was Pokémon Centers used to restore Pokémon stamina or the League's internal market used for communication and trading, she would be banned from using all of them.
Under those circumstances, if she still wanted to continue playing the game as a Pokémon Trainer, then her only path would be to become a glorious member of an underground criminal organization.
Wendy slowly shook her head, and the two orange-yellow ponytails behind her swayed gently through the air.
As far as her own wishes were concerned, Wendy absolutely did not want to leave the bright side of the world and become a criminal organization member hiding underground like a rat.
But that Sobble…
Was she really just going to let it go?
She was still unwilling.
Whether from her own perspective or for the sake of helping her brother's guild rise again, Wendy did not want to give up like this.
Then what should she do?
After thinking for a long time, the girl finally decided in her heart.
She decided to publish her discovery on the player forum.
There was only one Gym in Azure Bay City. Even if no players had discovered it yet, sooner or later, a challenger aiming to collect Gym Badges would find out Sobble's identity during battle.
She could not make the Gym close down.
Even if she deliberately hid the information, she could only slightly delay the time it took for players to discover Sobble. For Wendy, who had no way to avoid League inspection or capture Sobble herself, that was meaningless.
In that case, it was better to take advantage of the fact that the topic was still hot among players and make the whole matter even bigger.
She would use the situation to her advantage and publicly reveal Sobble's location.
That way, with everyone brainstorming together, perhaps there really would be some genius among the players who could get Sobble out of the Gym.
And as long as Sobble lost the backing of the League Gym behind him, she would have far more room to act.
Thinking this, Wendy's eyes, which had dimmed after the heavy blow she had suffered, suddenly brightened.
Although she knew she might not be able to compete with those large guilds that possessed massive amounts of resources and manpower, she still decided to try.
The girl casually found a wooden bench by the roadside and sat down.
Then she closed her eyes.
On the surface, she looked as if she were tired and taking a short rest.
In reality, however, she had opened the game's system interface.
A little clumsily, Wendy entered the player forum.
Because the game had only recently launched, Pokémon: World's built-in forum was not especially polished. It had not yet been divided into clear sections.
Pokémon training questions, scenery records, battle videos, capture guides.
All kinds of posts were mixed together.
Although it looked incredibly messy, that chaos also revealed the game's powerful vitality.
It was extraordinarily lively.
Wendy did not waste time on unrelated posts.
Right now, she had to race against time.
Players' interest came quickly and left just as quickly.
It was already the second day since Sobble had exploded in popularity. The players who had searched Azure Crystal Marine Park without results would soon lose interest and leave Azure Bay City.
She had to make more people learn Sobble's location before this wave of attention faded.
With her thoughts controlling the system interface, a post soon appeared quietly on the forum.
[Major Discovery! Azure Bay's Sobble Is Actually Here!?]
As a young person of the modern age, Wendy naturally knew what kind of title could attract more players into clicking on her post.
At a time like this, becoming a so-called clickbait writer was not excessive.
After posting it, Wendy felt uneasy.
She had already edited all the information she knew about the Sobble inside the Gym into the post.
As for whether more people would see it next, that could only depend on luck.
Ding-dong.
A system notification suddenly sounded.
"That fast?"
Wendy opened her own post in surprise.
She discovered that the originally empty first floor had already received a comment from another player.
…
[Rainfall White Breath]: First floor is mine ^^
…
The corner of Wendy's mouth twitched.
She had been happy for nothing. It was just someone flooding the thread.
Still, it was better than no one seeing it at all.
While comforting herself in her heart, she was about to reply to [Rainfall White Breath] and explain some information about the Sobble in Azure Bay.
One more person was still one more person.
But at that moment, several more system notification sounds rang out.
Ding-dong, ding-dong.
The popularity of Pokémon: World had almost reached the hottest level since the birth of video games.
On the very first day of launch, millions of players from all over the world had entered the game through virtual access ports.
The game's built-in forum, as the main method for players to communicate, was naturally extremely active.
Even after excluding the players who were completely immersed in raising Pokémon and could not pull themselves away, there were still a large number of people who loved posting and chatting on the forum.
Wendy's post title followed current hot events and was extremely eye-catching, so the moment it was posted, it naturally attracted the attention of many players wandering around the forum.
…
[Unlocked]: Sobble? A Pokémon with high species value and huge growth potential? Is that something ordinary players like us can even get?
[Southbank Tiger Eats Grapes]: Sobble is pretty good, but Azure Bay City is way too far away. If I want to go there, I'd have to cross half the continent…
[Just Want a Pikachu]: Is there anyone in this game right now who actually owns a Pokémon above purple quality?
[Eastern Spirit]: I remember the leader of the Stormcloud Guild has a pale-purple Drilbur, but I think its individual potential is only deep green. It can't compare at all to the Sobble in Azure Bay.
[Cold Sky - Forget Crow]: A trash guild like Stormcloud can only rely on dirty money to buy Pokémon, right? If we're talking actual battle strength, anyone from Cold Sky could casually crush him.
[Stormcloud - Hollow Heart]: Does the guy upstairs not have a brain? I @%￥#￥*#@
…
Wendy's golden pupils carefully scanned the replies that were still increasing layer by layer.
A smile appeared on her delicate face.
Although the thread was starting to drift off topic later on, at least more and more people were paying attention to it.
If this trend continued, many players would definitely come to Azure Bay's Gym.
When that happened…
She casually closed the system interface.
Sitting on the roadside bench, Wendy looked at the NPCs moving back and forth along the street in front of her, her thoughts drifting far away.
"Now, it all depends on luck."
…
Inside the Gym's training room.
While training his explosive power, Kael thought back to the battle with Wendy just now.
Although he had the system's support, possessed extremely fast growth, and held deep experience accumulated across several lives, at his core, he was still a virtual NPC Pokémon born inside this game world.
Compared with players, he was at a huge disadvantage in many ways.
No matter how strong he became, and no matter how completely he crushed them in battle, for players, the final result was nothing more than losing some experience, some money, and paying a small price to recover their Pokémon.
It would not have much impact on them at all.
But if he accidentally got captured by players, that would be true torture.
If he encountered a decent player with a conscience, that would still be fine. At least he could grow and adventure together with them.
But if his Trainer was the kind of casual player who knew nothing about raising Pokémon and had entered the game purely because it was popular, then Kael would be the one who suffered.
Worse still, if that person abandoned the game later, Kael might spend the rest of his life trapped inside a Poké Ball in the system backpack, unable to escape.
At that point, Kael might only have one choice left.
Suicide and returning to the reincarnation space.
Snap.
The flexible rubber band tied around his waist and fixed to the wall was stretched wildly under Kael's explosive strength, pulled to an exaggerated degree.
"Hah."
He let out a rough breath.
Gritting his teeth, he endured the soreness in his waist, abdomen, and calves while repeating this dull and difficult training again and again.
Since the essential gap between him and players could not be changed, the only thing Kael could do was improve his strength as much as possible and avoid the tragic ending that might come from being captured by them.
Compared with the busier morning, the only challenger Kael had needed to face all afternoon was Wendy.
That left him with a very long period of time to train and cultivate himself.
When one trained with full focus, time always passed quickly.
In the blink of an eye, another day had gone by.
Looking at the alarm clock hanging on the wall, Kael sat up in bed in the training room.
He casually took several crystal-clear energy cubes from the plate beside the bed, tossed them into his mouth, then opened the door and walked toward the battlefield.
Having experienced it once before, he naturally no longer needed the Gym staff to guide him. He could easily move through the Gym's maze-like complex corridors on his own and find the correct path to the battlefield.
A fulfilling day had begun.
…
In truth, given how active the in-game forum was, unless a post had an enormous explosive hook, posts made by ordinary players would basically sink into the endless sea of threads within minutes, ignored by everyone.
However, Wendy's post was connected to the recent hot topic of Sobble, and it had also sparked an argument between two guilds in the comments.
Because of that, it remained on the front page of the game forum for quite a long time.
Many players wandering the forum, whether to watch the drama, join the fun, or because they had truly become interested in Kael, clicked into the thread one after another.
Quinn was one of the players who was genuinely interested in Sobble.
His starting point was a small town near Azure Bay City. The moment he saw news about Sobble on television, he immediately rushed to Azure Bay.
That was right. Unlike the information channels of other players, he had truly seen it on television himself.
Watching television inside a game.
Even saying it out loud sounded a little absurd, but it had genuinely happened to Quinn.
He was not a professional player. In the real world, his true identity was that of a second-year university student.
At school, he had not joined any clubs. He had not entered the student council to improve himself. He did not have anyone with whom he shared an ambiguous relationship either.
Because of that, he had plenty of free time.
So much free time that he could freely satisfy his desire for exploration inside the game.
As a young man born in the new era, Quinn had played all kinds of games since childhood.
Sandbox, role-playing, card games.
Basically, as long as a game on the market was popular enough, he had tried it.
That enormous amount of playtime had gradually formed a habit in him during games.
Or rather, a strange obsession.
Exploration.
He obsessively read every piece of text in a game and studied every frame of its visuals to satisfy a certain curiosity deep within his heart.
And Pokémon: World, extremely rare among games, had finally given release to the reading obsession that had been growing inside him day by day.
Could one imagine it?
That feeling of stepping into a real, brand-new world.
Casually opening a newspaper, changing a television channel.
A living world built on Pokémon's unique worldview rushed toward him like a spring breeze, making him completely intoxicated.
As if he had opened the door to a new world, Quinn did not run around capturing Pokémon like other players when he first entered the game.
Instead, using the money given by the system, he rented a small place, bought some books, and immersed himself in this virtual yet real world, unable to pull himself away.
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~Support with 200 PowerStones = 1 Bonus Chapter
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For early access to advanced chapters on P-atreon:
P-atreon/iamxeno
(Just remove the - hyphen to access normally)
Thank you so much for your support and for reading!