Chapter 43: Coffin of the Spirit World – Shinji's Challenge!

Gazing at the news article for a moment, Ling Feng roughly pieced together the origin and background of this so-called Spirit World.

Generally speaking, it was a special realm existing independently of the physical world, populated by a vast number of Ghost-type Pokémon.

According to what Litwick had mentioned recently, for some unknown reason, the Ghost-type Pokémon within had suddenly begun rioting over the past few years. From time to time, batches of Ghost-types would break out from the realm into the real world, resulting in injuries to people and destruction of cities.

As the news reported, their method of leaving the Spirit World was by traversing the boundary between the two realms through a special channel, manifesting directly in the physical world.

Such channels were scattered around cities across every region of the globe, and a sizable Spirit World channel happened to be located near Pewter City, where he currently resided...

Seeing this, Ling Feng finally understood why Litwick had suddenly appeared in his bedroom.

Viewed in this light, that Litwick had likely crawled out from the Spirit World channel near Pewter City.

He closed the news interface and performed a search, confirming that two days prior, an abnormality had indeed occurred at the Spirit World channel near Pewter City.

Consequently, the League had stepped up security controls surrounding nearby cities, and even dispatched several elite trainers to Pewter City to provide reinforcements against the riots.

Even so, some of the smaller towns near Pewter City had still been attacked by Ghost-type Pokémon, though fortunately, no casualties had occurred.

Similarly, such incidents were happening all over the world with increasing frequency.

Ling Feng couldn't help clicking his tongue in realization; it seemed the Pokémon world wasn't entirely peaceful after all.

Fortunately, thanks to the existence of the League, the safety of ordinary citizens could still be guaranteed to a certain extent.

That being the case, his own luck wasn't bad either—the Litwick he encountered turned out to be a Ghost-type Pokémon that had no desire to harm humans.

The more Ling Feng thought about it, the luckier he felt. He reached directly into the cupboard, opened another can of Pokémon food, and set it down for Litwick.

"Little one, eat your fill. There's as much as you want, and just let me know if you want to switch flavors. Our family isn't short on money."

Litwick nodded, looking as if it half-understood, and buried its head back into the food.

Meanwhile, Ling Feng watched Litwick and fell into deep contemplation.

He truly had no interest in becoming a Pokémon trainer. The income from his game development was already more than enough for him and a group of Pokémon to live happily together for the rest of their lives.

However, the news regarding the Spirit World served as a reminder that the world he lived in was not entirely safe.

If he wanted to live in peace and handle potential emergencies, having the ability to self-preservation was quite important.

That being the case, his gaze fell upon the five "Miracle Candy Gift Boxes" currently resting within his system inventory interface.

—Should he simply use these candies on Litwick?

Since Litwick was his only Pokémon at the moment, these candies could only be used by it anyway, unlike the other five sets which could be given away to others.

After a brief moment of reflection, Ling Feng decided to hold off and not feed them right away.

Based on how things worked in games, items like this produced different effects depending on the Pokémon's current level; the higher the level, the better the outcome.

At present, Litwick was clearly still in its growing and developmental stage. Feeding it all the Rare Candies in one go would genuinely be a bit wasteful.

It was better to wait until it had grown a little more... before feeding them to it.

With that thought in mind, Ling Feng stretched lazily and headed toward the bathroom.

It was getting late; time to wash up and go to sleep.

Tomorrow morning... he would move houses straight away, taking Litwick with him!

...

As the night grew deeper, the lights within Pewter City dimmed, and the entire city fell silent.

Everything appeared tranquil and peaceful.

However, just at the edge of the city, dozens of kilometers away in a suburban open space, a massive, deep purple vortex hovered quietly in the air, continuously spitting out black mist that quickly dissipated into the air, looking rather ominous.

Surrounding this vortex stood dozens of trainers wearing League uniforms, staring intently at the vortex with solemn and weary expressions.

Clearly, they had been standing guard here for quite some time.

Beside them stood powerful Pokémon, one after another.

At their head was a woman with long, deep blue hair.

"Everyone, please stay alert. Tonight should be the very last night of this Spirit World tide. The moment any Ghost-type Pokémon shows its face from the channel, subdue it immediately!"

"I know everyone is already exhausted, but whether it is to protect the safety of the citizens or for the reward promised by the League, we must push through this final moment with all our might."

Her latter sentence was evidently far more effective than the first half. As soon as those words were spoken, everyone's eyes lit up, regaining a bit of spirit as they looked up at the vortex in the sky.

After all, the majority of these individuals were not official League-affiliated trainers; they had simply been summoned temporarily to lend a hand due to the emergency.

For them, standing here was purely for the generous compensation offered by the League.

Right at that moment, the vortex in the sky suddenly began to vibrate violently once more, and a massive volume of deep black mist surged out continuously from within!

A howling sound akin to a mournful wail echoed, making one's hair stand on end.

—It seemed something was about to emerge.

"Everyone, please prepare for battle!"

...

Simultaneously, within the Spirit World.

This was a bleak and gloomy space; there was neither sun nor moon in the sky, and the black earth was withered and cracked, stretching for thousands of meters with no end in sight.

Beneath the scarlet firmament, a figure suddenly emerged from a patch of shadow on the ground.

It appeared to be a man wearing a mask and a cloak.

He reached out and gently tapped the air in front of him, causing the surrounding atmosphere to shatter like foam, revealing the true appearance of the place.

—A massive, pitch-black coffin, dozens of meters tall, stood quietly before his eyes.

Countless golden chains as thick as a wrist were wrapped around the coffin, and densely packed spells flickered with a faint light across its surface.

All of this... seemed designed to bind whatever entity lay trapped inside the coffin!

At the upper section of the coffin was a shocking, massive scratch mark... stained with fresh crimson traces that made one shudder just to look at it.

The cloaked figure glanced at the coffin, raised his hand once more, and a golden magic array suddenly erupted beneath his feet.

Upon closer inspection, the symbols and patterns within this array were identical to those engraved upon the coffin.

Yet the light within this array was far more dazzling, carrying a sacred aura as well.

At that moment, the man carefully inspected the array on the ground all around, and after confirming everything was in order, he stared at the coffin for a moment, sighed softly, and turned to leave.

The surrounding air began to blur and distort, once again shrouding and concealing the gigantic coffin.

Just as the final slice of void closed shut...

A faint, almost imperceptible sound rang out abruptly.

"Snap."

—As if something had broken at that very moment.

...

...

Early the next morning.

Hoenn Region, Rustboro City.

Today brought a rare, beautiful day. Roxanne pushed open the doors of the Rustboro Gym, looked up at the clear sunlight, blue skies, and white clouds, and felt her mood instantly brighten.

—Weather like this... was simply perfect for slacking off.

Today should be another day without any challengers, right?

Thinking this, she prepared to haul a reclining chair out of the gym to bask in the sun and spend the day leisurely, as per custom.

Yet the very next moment, she suddenly noticed something amiss.

Surrounding her, without her noticing when they arrived, was a large crowd of trainers—easily several dozen people strong!

—Why on earth were there so many people gathered outside the Rustboro Gym today??

The moment they saw Roxanne step outside, the crowd surged forward frantically, hoisting their Poké Balls and Trainer Dexes high in the air, vying with one another to issue challenges to her:

"The gym is open!! I'm first!"

"I was here first!"

"Please accept my challenge first!"

"Please, Ms. Roxanne, would you let me challenge that Lileep and Archen?"

"Yeah, let us see them!!"

...

Roxanne: ???

Archen?

Lileep??

Wait, what on earth are you all talking about??

...

Meanwhile, the Sinnoh Region.

Cynthia was in a great mood because she unexpectedly found herself with free time today, having received no requests for temporary assignments.

Without a doubt, such time had to be put to good use—pushing forward in Emerald.

As per her usual routine, she first started her livestream, then launched the game.

Tens of thousands of viewers flooded into the livestream room instantly.

Whether it was her imagination or not, ever since she started playing Emerald, the number of viewers during each broadcast had been significantly higher than before.

—It seemed everyone was quite interested in this game as well.

"Good morning, everyone. It's Emerald again today."

She smiled slightly as she greeted the chat, her gaze falling upon the computer screen, only to be taken aback by a prompt that popped up in the game.

To her surprise, the game had received yet another update last night...

The content of this update was... enhancing the realism of the CG sequences?

Cynthia wore a somewhat peculiar expression for a moment.

That CG sequence involving Regirock—when she watched it yesterday, even her consciousness had been deeply drawn into it, unable to pull away for a long time.

As a result, this update prompt... actually claimed to have further enhanced the realism of that CG?

What kind of level had it reached now?

Suppressing her inner curiosity, she glanced at the next update log, roughly comprehending the second piece of update content before immediately opening the leaderboard.

A series of prompts popped up before her eyes, detailing the weekly rewards for the leaderboard and the metrics for rankings.

Much like Grusha, Cynthia didn't care particularly much about these so-called rewards.

After all, what she needed was simply the contact information of that game developer.

Reading through the prompts quickly, Cynthia carefully observed the progress of other players within the game.

The next instant, a question mark appeared above her head.

Because the player ranked first on the progress leaderboard was not her own account, "Strawberry Ice Cream," but another player named "Dragon-Type is Supreme."

This intensely familiar name was one Cynthia would recognize even if it were reduced to ashes.

When did Lance start playing this game??

And furthermore...

Why was this guy's progress faster than hers?!

She checked Lance's player profile carefully.

[NO.1 Dragon-Type is Supreme]

[Current Game Progress: Two Badges, arrived at Slateport City beach.]

[Current NPCs Defeated: 35]

[Current Team: Fletchinder, Pidgeotto, Applin, Magikarp, Horsea]

[Registration Time: 19 hours ago]

[Play Time: 18 hours and 50 minutes]

Seeing this, a wave-like flurry of chat messages erupted instantly within the livestream room:

[Registration time... equals play time? Haha, Dragonite boy, you really...]

[Utterly defying the heavens, did he literally go to sleep just 10 minutes ago? I'm genuinely worried this guy might die of overwork.]

[You can tell he really, really loves this game...]

...

Meanwhile, looking at the nearly identical play time and registration time of her opponent, Cynthia felt a sudden sense of release.

No wonder this guy's game progress was so outrageous... leaping ahead of her.

It turned out he had practically gone all out through the entire afternoon, evening, and a whole all-nighter, huh??

He had gone to sleep a mere ten minutes ago...

"Tch, this guy..."

Cynthia couldn't help shaking her head slightly.

Despite being a Champion, he was fully capable of pulling off such childish antics.

On second thought, though, this was precisely the sort of thing Lance would do...

Well then, it was time for her to reclaim the number one spot in progress!

Cynthia's gaze sharpened as she officially entered the game.

Originally, she had intended to do some fishing, but considering her fishing experience from the previous night and the fact that she needed to catch up on progress, Cynthia decisively chose to put that matter aside, boarded Mr. Briney's boat, and headed toward the next city—Slateport City.

Slateport City was a coastal city, connected upstream to Mauville City, an important industrial hub in the Hoenn Region.

At the same time, it was a city dense with harbors, where numerous cruise ships arrived daily.

As Mr. Briney's boat docked, Cynthia offered a word of thanks and walked straight up the beach.

She hadn't gone more than a few steps before encountering several Trainer NPCs with exclamation marks over their heads who came forward to challenge her actively.

As before, the difficulty of these NPCs wasn't particularly high. After Cynthia easily defeated them, her team's overall level increased by another two levels.

It was worth mentioning that within this game, even Pokémon that didn't participate directly in battle could gain a major portion of the experience points from combat.

Currently, Ludicolo's level had reached an impressive 22, while Grovyle and Bewear were both at level 21.

Just as Cynthia was about to leave the beach...

A figure suddenly trotted up close to her.

The person was not tall, with purple hair and dark sportswear, wearing a gloomy and indifferent expression on his impassive face.

"I saw that you seemed to have defeated quite a few trainers. As a training target for me to defeat today... you'll do just fine."

"So... prepare for battle!"

Amidst stirring musical notes, a Poké Ball icon flashed across the screen, and battle was on the verge of erupting!