Chapter 40: A Genuine Experience, and an Updated Ranking?

As Iono stepped forward, the moment her character touched the stone tablet, her screen instantly went black.

The previous cinematic played once again, drawing a chorus of astonished gasps from viewers in the live stream who hadn't checked out Cynthia's path earlier.

[Such high production values! Even more impressive than that ocean scene just now!]
[It really sets the mood... Good grief, talk about atmosphere.]
[So what are these things? Why do they look so much like writing?]

Amidst the chatter, as the cinematic ended, the choice symbol and the text-filling puzzle interface appeared before Iono.

Although Iono wasn't as well-versed in ancient symbols and scripts as Cynthia, she wasn't foolish and quickly figured out what was going on.

"Are we doing a crossword puzzle? I excel at this!"

A confident smile spread across Iono's face as she patted her chest proudly. After examining the symbols closely, she selected one and dropped it into a blank space.

The next moment, however, the symbol burst with a red light, trembled violently, quickly lost its color, and snapped back to its original position.

One of the three golden lights above the game interface instantly dimmed.

"Ahem, an accident, pure accident. It'll definitely work this time."

Iono gave a couple of light coughs, carefully and earnestly studied the pile of symbols again, picked up another one, placed it into the blank space, and muttered to herself, "This symbol looks just like a little bird. I reckon it should connect with this cloud-like symbol..."

Before she could finish her sentence, the red light erupted once more, the symbol flew out shuddering, and the second golden orb dimmed.

"Hiss—"

Seeing this, Iono finally realized the gravity of the situation. It seemed this puzzle couldn't be solved simply by matching the shapes of the symbols...

Does that mean she just had to keep guessing?

Yet every time she failed, one of the golden orbs at the top of the interface would vanish.

Knowing this game's mischievous nature, no good could possibly come from the moment all three golden rings disappeared!!

Iono pouted.

No, no. Logically speaking, a puzzle stage shouldn't be designed so unreasonably...

As if suddenly remembering something, she scanned the interface before her and actually discovered a page of a book in the bottom right corner!

Clicking on that page brought up some information regarding the symbols, floating right before Iono's eyes.

It appeared to be a set of intact symbol details along with hints for choosing them.

For instance: "The triangle must not be adjacent to the square," "The circle must not be adjacent to the rectangle," and so on.

Following the hints on the book page and after careful deliberation, Iono picked up the symbol she had chosen the first time once again and dropped it into a blank space!

This time, she finally succeeded.

The symbol fell into place, seamlessly integrating into the sequence, coated with a warm amber glow as if it had been brought back to life!

"See that? Still pretty simple after all."

Iono smiled smugly, picked up another symbol, and dropped it into another blank space.

Yet the very next moment, accompanied by a fierce crimson glare, the symbol bounced right back out with a screech!

Iono froze, opened the hint interface again, and realized she must have grabbed the wrong one!!

On the interface, the final golden light blinked out of existence.

The entire cavern began to violently shudder, and the ground beneath Iono's feet suddenly collapsed, revealing a massive hole that swallowed her whole!

After a rapid flicker on the screen, when the visuals cleared up...

Surrounding Iono were five or six Golem with menacing expressions and murderous glares.

She blinked in confusion.

"Hi?"
"Umm... has everyone had lunch yet?"

The air fell silent for a single beat.

"GOLEM!!!"

Roaring, the Golems curled their bodies into tight spheres, transforming into heavy steamrollers, and charged directly at her!!

The next moment, Iono's shrieks echoed throughout the entire live stream.

"Aahahaha, don't come any closer! Please!!"

...

Three minutes later, after exhausting every ounce of effort, Iono finally managed to scramble back up to the third floor from the Golem-filled pit.

By this time, the viewers in the chat were rolling with laughter.

[Is this game paying homage to Raiders of the Lost Ark with rolling boulders? I'm dying.]
[I still prefer how confident and smug you looked just a second ago, hahaha.]
[If all else fails, streamer, maybe you should go copy notes from the other stream? There's no shame in it...]

Facing the roaring chat, Iono pouted her cheeks in defiance.

"Hey! That last one was honestly just a minor slip-up!"
"Let's go again. I've totally got it this time!"

With that, she maneuvered her character back to the stone tablet.

The puzzle interface reappeared.

This time, Iono entered a state of absolute focus and concentration, repeatedly cross-referencing the hints on the book page before placing the symbols into the blank slots one by one.

This time, her solving speed was much slower, but once she grasped the key, she didn't make a single mistake!

Finally, when the last symbol was correctly slotted into place, Iono let out a long sigh of relief and flashed a smile.

"How about that? I told you I could do it!"

However, as she glanced at the live stream, she noticed the viewers weren't praising her at all; instead, many were spamming the exact same barrage.

[The big one is coming!]
[High energy ahead!!]

"What's that supposed to mean... It's just a little puzzle mini-game. What incredible event could it possibly trigger?"

Iono pouted unhappily, looking entirely unconvinced.

Yet, the next instant...

"RUMBLE RUMBLE!!"

The ground all around suddenly began to violently shake!!

The game screen went black once more, cutting straight into a cinematic!

Amidst heavy, pounding drumbeats, the earth in front of the stone tablet began to fracture and cave in, a colossal dark shadow rising abruptly from the depths of the earth!

It was a mountain-sized figure, its entire body constructed from brownish-tan minerals, standing dozens of meters tall!!

Witnessing the scene before her, Iono was left completely frozen in place!

... What... on earth is this?
Is this a Pokémon??

Just as an overwhelming wave of shock gripped her heart...

BOOM!!

A terrifying wave of air, accompanied by an intensely heavy sense of oppression, rushed head-on toward her!

She realized her body had stiffened entirely, unable to move a muscle, almost losing the capacity to even think!!

A primal, savage aura surrounded her, as if boulders weighing thousands of tons were crushing down upon her head!

And all of this...
Stemmed from that giant Pokémon on the screen, standing dozens of meters tall!!

This was the sheer magnitude of its presence!

Iono's heart pounded wildly, and the last shred of her surviving consciousness managed to force out a single thought.

... But... isn't this just a game??
How could a game make someone experience something so intensely real right through a screen?

At this very moment, Iono wasn't the only one lost in shock; every single viewer in the live stream was experiencing pretty much the exact same thing.

Even through the broadcast of the stream, Regirock's formidable aura was transmitted clearly and unmistakably straight into their minds!!

The system had perfectly replicated Regirock's immense presence as a Legendary Pokémon. Ordinarily, these ordinary people had never even been close to a Legendary Pokémon—let alone a Gym-Leader-tier one.

Consequently, the psychological impact of this aura upon them was undoubtedly all the more staggering!

For a time, the usually frantic chat room fell dead silent, the screen entirely blank without a single message being sent.

Dozens of seconds ticked by before those who had begun to recover slowly started sending new messages.

[????]
[Is this what you guys meant by "the big one"? It really is kind of big... Oh mom, I felt like I couldn't breathe for a second there.]
[Uh, actually, this thing wasn't like this before. I swear, it was just a video clip originally...]
[Holy crap, my back is soaked in sweat. There's definitely something altered inside this game!]
[Putting everything else aside, though, this Pokémon looks genuinely cool...]

While the chat discussed the shock delivered by the Regirock cinematic, Iono gradually regained her composure.

As a Gym Leader trainer, her knowledge was extensive.
She had personally encountered the Pokémon of Elite Four members and Champions, witnessing the powerful auras they radiated during battle.

Yet even a Champion-tier Pokémon's pressure didn't measure up to even a fraction of what she had just felt inside her computer screen...

Could this massive, slumbering Pokémon before her possibly be a Legendary Pokémon?

After a moment, she gave a slight shake of her head.
No, what's more important right now is... what does she need to do next?

Just as she was pondering this, a pentagram altar suddenly emerged from the ground!

...

Shortly after, through the prompt audio transmitted from the altar, Iono finally understood what event she had triggered.

"So now I need to place some offerings inside here to wake this big guy up..."

Iono muttered to herself, opening her game inventory to inspect its contents.

Anything of value had already been sold back in Rustboro City.
And in order to explore this Rock Tunnel, the berries and consumables she had on hand were entirely depleted.

Across her entire inventory, aside from a few Poké Balls given to her by the Professor at the start, there was only one item left.

——And that was the item known as the "Ampharosite."

Iono's cursor hovered over the Ampharosite as she paused in thought.

This thing looked rather high-grade; using it as an offering should be fine, right?

She took out the Ampharosite, approached the altar, and was just about to place it into the magical array.

Yet, after a brief hesitation, Iono pulled it back.

"Forget it... I'll hold onto it for now. Besides, this array doesn't look like it can only be activated once anyway. I'll come back later."

She muttered to herself.

What Iono did not realize was that, through this twist of fate, she had successfully dodged the largest cyber-financial loss of her life...

...

Having triggered the Regirock questline, Iono retraced her steps, exited the Rock Tunnel, and prepared to challenge the Dewford Gym.

However, the moment she stepped out of the cave, a notification pop-up suddenly flashed onto the screen!

[Ding! The game has been updated! Current version: 0.05]
[Update details are as follows:]
[1. Slightly optimized the visual presentation of certain Legendary Pokémon cinematics. Players can now more realistically experience the might of these Pokémon.]

Seeing this first update note, Iono wore a rather complicated expression.
You call this a "slight optimization" of visual presentation?
Everyone in the live stream nearly forgot how to type out of pure terror, okay!!
Even she had almost suffocated!

As she pondered, the second update note entered Iono's field of vision.

[2. Added several online features. Some features are now open and will dynamically reflect the real-world weather of the player's current region inside certain areas of the game. Additional online features may be introduced in the future, so please look forward to them.]

This note left Iono stunned.
Online features?
Wasn't this game a standalone title of just over 100 megabytes? How could it support online functionality?

She closed the update notification window and opened the main menu, discovering that three new options had indeed been added.

These three options were Friends, World Channel, and Leaderboard.

Iono had played other games before and naturally knew what these three features were for.

She opened the World Channel first and found that quite a few online players were chatting away at this very moment.

[PiplupEatsRice: Hello, is anyone here?]
[OBO: Yeah, bro, I'm here.]
[ZoruaBigTail: Holy crap, did this game actually add a world channel?]
[BlackVortex: Where is everyone up to? I'm still stuck on Roxanne's Gym; those Pokémon of hers are too overpowered!]
[AA_Pokeball_Wholesale_Brother_Li: +1 to the above]

Even though it was already past midnight, it was clear that many players were still staying up late to play, just like Iono.

After checking out the World Channel, Iono thought for a moment and opened the Leaderboard feature.

A prompt popped up accordingly.

[The leaderboard ranks players based on their game progression. Progress ratings are comprehensively evaluated using the player's Pokémon levels, explored areas, and the number of Gyms and NPCs defeated.]
[The leaderboard settles once every weekend, and players will receive reward packages corresponding to their rank. Top-ranking players will also receive special physical merchandise rewards!]

"Top ranks even come with physical prizes?"

Iono's eyes lit up instantly.
Though the rewards a game company could offer would likely just be small trinkets like plushies or commemorative cards...
The commemorative value of such physical rewards was still quite significant, after all.

As a player who had dived in on the game's launch day, she was curious about where her current game progress would rank.

Opening the leaderboard interface, Iono addressed the viewers in her live stream:
"Heh heh, your streamer is about to challenge the second gym. While I might not compare to big sis Cynthia, ranking second should be an absolute breeze!"

The rankings then displayed on screen.

The player occupying the first-place spot naturally bore five golden characters.

[Progress Rank 1: Strawberry Ice Cream]
[Current game progress: 2 badges, about to depart for Slateport City]
[NPCs defeated: 28]
[Current team: Ludicolo Lv.21, Grovyle Lv.20, Stufful Lv.20]

Iono carefully examined these details, the corners of her mouth curling upward into a smug smile as she pulled a silly face for the audience.

"Look at that, she only just finished her gym too. I might actually have a chance to catch up to her!"
"Alright, second place is definitely mine!"

With that, she looked further down the leaderboard.

However, the player occupying the second-place spot was not her beloved "DenimRising"...
——Instead, it was a player named "DragonSupremacy"!

Iono: ???
Who even is this?
Wait a minute.
Why does that name...
Feel like she had seen it somewhere before??