Chapter 26: A Carefully Crafted Cave, Qishu the King of Scavengers! (4k)

As the people in the conference room were murmuring, a figure pushed open the door and walked in.

It was none other than Cui Yu, the boss of Dream Factory. The moment he entered, everyone fell silent in unison, and the entire conference room was plunged into quiet. There was no helping it; while anyone could badmouth him behind his back, no one dared to utter a single word to his face. After all, he was their direct superior, and no one wanted to gamble with their livelihood.

Cui Yu walked to the head of the round table, sat down, and scanned the crowd with a stern gaze.

"Have you all looked at the materials I sent you? Does anyone have any questions?"

No sooner had he finished speaking than a slightly chubby man raised his hand tremblingly and spoke up:

"Um, boss, their pixel art technology, while not necessarily superior to ours, is truly quite impressive. I’m afraid our art team won't be able to catch up or surpass their quality in such a short time... Perhaps we shouldn't make a pixel game like them, but switch to 3D or 2D instead? After all, pixel games aren't our specialty."

Cui Yu frowned at this.

"If we are going to completely suppress them, we must make something identical, and we must make it better than theirs!"

He raised his head to look at the others.

"I’m investing 80 million into this project for your development. You can distribute it among your departments as you see fit. You have one week. Can you do it better than them?"

The people present lit up. 80 million in funding! Although this money would eventually be spent on the game, the boss was rarely this generous. Usually, Cui Yu was such a penny-pincher that he wouldn't even pay overtime. Furthermore, they were being given all this money just to develop a pixel game—it was no different from using a cannon to kill a mosquito. They were, after all, top-tier talent in the game production industry; with enough capital, doing this was naturally no problem. At most, the time frame was a bit tight.

As for whether such plagiarism—or even usurping their position—would ruin their conscience... let's just say they knew it was dirty work, but they had no choice. When you are under someone else's roof, you have to bow your head. Besides, anyone who couldn't accept such things had already been fired on their first day at Dream Factory.

Just then, another person raised his hand. It was a young man with round-rimmed glasses who didn't look old, yet he was already showing a bald patch. Clearly, he was a programmer. He looked troubled as he said:

"Boss, their game code isn't particularly advanced, but the artificial intelligence embedded in it..."

The man held his mobile phone in his other hand, which was playing the video of Iono and the NPC in "Emerald" interacting via voice with their Pokémon.

Cui Yu glanced at him and let out a cold snort.

"Zhang Bo, and you call yourself one of our lead programmers? You don't actually believe that, do you? Has coding made you stupid?"

"This is clearly pseudo-intelligence, just fixed feedback based on specific commands."

"Aside from us, which game company on the market has mastered AI technology? Does anyone here not know the current state of things?"

The programmer named Zhang Bo seemed to want to say something more, but he was cut off by Cui Yu.

"Doesn't the AI R&D department have a new breakthrough? Just incorporate our new AI into it."

"Add in some command-based feedback, and it will be better than their fake AI no matter what."

With Cui Yu having spoken, Zhang Bo could only nod submissively.

"Alright... boss."

Cui Yu lit a cigar and stood up.

"That's enough, get to work. I want to see your results within a week."

"Before our [Pokémon: World] is released, the progress of this game of yours must be at least twice as far as Emerald!"

"Remember, this matter is very important to the company. If you don't do it well, you're all fired!"

...

Night deepened.

Ling Feng exhaled a long breath and clicked the upload button, completing this update. After upgrading the production efficiency module, he found that his game production speed was much faster than he had originally imagined. In just this one night, he had successfully created the maps for Dewford Town, Granite Cave, and Slateport City.

In fact, at a normal pace, there would have been enough time to finish the two battles against his rival and Shinji. But this time, Ling Feng had spent a large portion of his time on one thing—the cave of the Rock-type Legendary, Regirock!

According to his memory, the people in this world seemed to be completely unaware of the existence of Legendary Pokémon. Many didn't even know that most of these legends existed! Under these circumstances... he was very much looking forward to seeing how many emotional points his carefully crafted content would generate.

Speaking of which...

Ling Feng opened the sales backend to check the game's sales figures and was surprised to find that it had already reached over 18,000 copies! Clearly, just as he had expected, the reputation of *Emerald* was gradually spreading across the internet. If not for the high price of 288, he suspected the sales figure would have more than decupled.

*Sigh*, he wondered when he would be able to set the price of the game himself. If this were a free game... he didn't even dare to imagine how many copies it would sell. However, a high price had its benefits.

Ling Feng looked at the 4 million-plus balance in his bank account, and the corners of his mouth couldn't help but turn upward.

Life was finally looking up! With this much money, he certainly wouldn't stay in this run-down rental room anymore; he could move to a place with better scenery. Where should he go? Perhaps check out the Hoenn region? He’d heard the scenery there was quite nice...

Just as Ling Feng was pondering, he suddenly realized something.

—Wait, where is Litwick?

Why hadn't he seen him since this afternoon?

He thought for a moment. Litwick seemed to have gone out to play. He had said goodbye before leaving, but Ling Feng had been so immersed in his work that he hadn't paid much attention. Actually, it was normal for Litwick to want to go out. After all, according to his description, he had spent his entire existence in a dark, terrifying void. Now that he had finally arrived in the outside world, it was natural for him to be curious about everything around him.

He would wait for him to return and talk about moving tomorrow.

Ling Feng stretched. He would have to remind Litwick later that it was fine to go out, but he shouldn't let anyone see him... Otherwise, a Ghost-type Pokémon without a trainer appearing in the city would be enough to scare the living daylights out of quite a few people.

...

In Iono's stream.

"Mareep, use Thundershock!!"

Accompanied by Iono's incredibly excited command, a bolt of electricity arced across the screen. The Archen fell from the sky, its health bar drained, completely losing its ability to battle!

Roxanne's sprite appeared.

"Your perseverance is as admirable as rock. Even a hundred failures couldn't stop your steps. Please, continue forward; I believe you can go even further!"

As the Stone Badge appeared on the screen, Iono couldn't help but let out a celebratory cheer.

"Yay!! Finally cleared it!!"

The chat in the stream began to flood.

[Truly moving. How many times was this? A hundred, at least?]

[Didn't you hear what Roxanne said? It's been more than 100 times; she even moved the NPC to tears.]

[Hahahaha, I suspect Roxanne couldn't help but go easy on her...]

[Congratulations to the streamer, congratulations!]

After a hundred battles, Iono had finally found the perfect timeline and painstakingly secured victory in the Gym battle. After the fight, the first thing she did was enable voice interaction to heap praise on all three of her Pokémon. Yes, three, not two. Upon realizing that it was impossible to defeat Roxanne with only two, Iono had to go back to Petalburg Woods, where she was lucky enough to encounter a Pikachu and successfully capture it.

"Mareep, beautiful finish!"

"Pikachu, your paralysis was super critical, otherwise I wouldn't have known how to handle that Archen..."

"Joltik, high five!"

Her face beamed with a brilliant smile; it was clear she was truly happy. After winning the Gym battle, Iono didn't continue to push forward in the game like Cynthia had; instead, she stopped in Rustboro City.

She shared her thoughts with the audience:

"Winning this time, the recovery effect of the Berries was actually quite critical, but I just happened to pick them up while wandering around on the roadside back then..."

"So I was thinking, does this game have other items hidden in different places that players can pick up or acquire?"

"Anyway, the next opponents are also very strong, so it's better to be prepared before moving on..."

With that, she began to control her character, searching through the first room in the bottom left corner of Rustboro City.

...

As it turned out, thanks to Iono's accidental hypothesis, she seemed to have discovered an important gameplay mechanic: useful and valuable items could be lying around on the roadside at any time. As for the NPCs in the rooms, chatting with them might also lead to unexpected gains.

In just a few dozen minutes, Iono had searched almost the entire Rustboro City, and the harvest was quite staggering:

[Stardust] and [Nugget] that could be sold for money.

The held item [Quick Claw], which gave the Pokémon a certain probability of ignoring speed differences to attack first.

A precious [Leaf Stone] that could evolve Grass-type Pokémon...

There was even a TM that allowed a Pokémon to learn the special move "Cut"...

In addition, there were all sorts of miscellaneous things, such as Potions, Berries, and so on...

Iono cleared out her bag and went to the store, selling off everything she didn't need, including the Leaf Stone. Her debt of 15,000 in the top left corner instantly turned into a positive 10,000! Seeing this, Iono couldn't help but curl her lips into a smile.

"I knew it. Since this game is so difficult, the author must leave some way for the players to survive."

The chat in the stream was also refreshing rapidly.

[Reincarnated as a Super Invincible Scavenger]

[Shocking! Famous Electric-type Gym Leader and big streamer actually makes a living by picking up trash. What cruel truth lies behind this?]

[The streamer is like a bandit, entering other people's houses and rummaging through everything she sees. Is there no Officer Jenny to come and arrest her?]

...

Seeing these comments, Iono couldn't help but blush. She gave a light cough and defended herself:

"...In a game, can you call it picking up trash? This is called rational use of resources."

Then came some incomprehensible remarks about "Trainers are inherently poor" and "Training Pokémon also costs money," which made the audience roar with laughter. The atmosphere in and out of the stream was filled with joy.

After looting Rustboro City, Iono was just about to leave when she suddenly noticed a dilapidated little house in a corner of the city she hadn't visited before. Her eyes lit up; her intuition told her that there might be something good inside! After all, the more precious the items she had found, the harder they were to find. The valuable ones were always dug out of some obscure corners...

She excitedly controlled her character to enter the house, but the sight that greeted her made her feel a bit disappointed. Inside the room, there was no furniture, only an empty table and a middle-aged man sitting behind it. Clearly, it didn't look like there were any hidden items.

Iono was just about to leave with regret when an exclamation mark appeared over the middle-aged man's head, and he hurried over.

"Hello, young lady, have you seen her?"

As the man spoke, he handed over a photo. In the photo was a young girl with blonde hair, hugging a Shroomish, revealing a brilliant smile.

"She is my daughter, Alice... She came to this region for a trip a month ago but suddenly went missing. I am looking for her everywhere now..."

The man's tone was filled with anxiety and urgency. His haggard, stubble-covered face showed anticipation, as if he really wanted to get some information from Iono.

Faced with this scene, Iono tried hard to recall, but could only press the interaction key and answer softly:

"I'm sorry, I haven't seen your daughter... But I will be traveling in this region. Don't worry! If I find her, I will definitely bring her to see you."

Upon hearing this, the man slumped back into his chair, the light in his eyes instantly dimming.

"Alright... young lady... sorry to have bothered you..."

He murmured softly, filled with infinite pain.

"Sigh, what should I do... I don't have the money to go to the next city anymore..."

"Alice... my Alice... where are you? Daddy misses you so much..."

Hearing this, Iono was silent for a few seconds.

She suddenly entered a command.

On the screen, her character walked up and placed a bag of money on the table. She then walked out of the room. At this moment, her character's balance in the top right corner of the screen had been completely cleared to zero.

"Anyway, if I keep this money, I might just lose it all. It's better to leave it to someone who needs it..."

"That uncle must really miss his daughter..."

The stream's chat immediately began to refresh wildly.

[Damn, tearing up.]

[The streamer is truly kind, I support you.]

[This is why I like Iono, her values are truly upright...]

[There might be scammers in the game too, what if he's trying to trick you out of your money?]

[Yeah, she clearly doesn't know how dangerous society is...]

...

Just as the chat was debating whether Iono was right or wrong, the door to the dilapidated house behind Iono was suddenly pushed open. The middle-aged man rushed out, his eyes brimming with tears.

"Thank you, miss, thank you so much! With this much money, I can go look for her again!!"

"...This is our family heirloom gemstone, please, you must accept it!"

With that, he shoved a small box into Iono's hands and hurried away.

"Eh?"

Iono was stunned. She looked at the box. Inside lay a small, spherical stone like a glass marble, pale purple mixed with red and yellow spirals. What was this?

While Iono was puzzled, a line of golden, brilliant text suddenly popped up on the screen!

[Item: Ampharosite (Special)]

[Description: A strange stone... Perhaps it can unleash incredible power?!]

...

[I'm on the recommendation list today. I’m brazenly asking all you dear readers for follow-up reads, monthly tickets, and recommendation tickets again! QAQ, thank you so much!]