Actually, today was Red's first day arriving at this villa. Before this, he had been secretly carrying out a mission assigned to him by the League while also training in the wilderness for an extended period.
After completing those tedious tasks, Red's first priority was to bring his Pokémon to this mountain villa for relaxation.
So when Charizard had just indicated it wanted to leave to continue training, Red had those thoughts. It was simply working too hard and pushing itself too much.
Correspondingly, during this time, aside from occasionally searching online for breakthrough methods, Red hadn't even opened his communication apps. He believed these things would only interfere with his training state.
At this moment, as he disabled his phone's do not disturb mode, a flood of messages from social group chats naturally poured in. What had just caught his attention was one of these messages with a special notification.
[Advanced Trainer Exchange Group: 999+ new messages.]
Red's mission and training period had lasted about a week.
Based on his experience, this group chat filled with Elite Four members and Champions was usually quite quiet, with people rarely speaking up regularly.
Having 999+ messages in just one week was a first in his lifetime.
So had something major happened recently?
He raised an eyebrow slightly and clicked into the group chat. However, the content that met his eyes was completely beyond his expectations.
[Cloyster: Just cleared the Fighting gym! Pidgey is actually pretty useful early game, I recommend everyone catch one.]
[Dragon Supreme: Dropped to third on the leaderboard! About to take on the Flying gym, this time I'm definitely going to surpass Cynthia haha.]
[This Ninja Isn't Too Cool: It's me again, (Picture) Has anyone seen this Pokémon?]
[Ice Artist: Regirock... so this is what a legendary Pokémon is like.]
[Fighting Genius: Everyone, who exactly is this "Decent Person" who cleared with all Bug-types online? Does anyone know them?]
[Psychic Queen: @Dragon Supreme Want to surpass Sister Cynthia? Ask my Gardevoir if it agrees first.]
[Dragon Supreme: ...]
[This Ninja Isn't Too Cool: So has ANYONE seen the Pokémon in the picture?! Urgent!]
(t/n: Hahahaha)
Red quickly caught the keywords in their conversation: Pokémon Emerald. What was this?
It sounded like some kind of game?
He scrolled through these messages and content, soon seeing many Elite Four members posting game screenshots in the group, confirming his guess.
Red's expression couldn't help but become somewhat strange.
The Elite Four members and Champions who could appear in this group chat were all without any padding whatsoever, absolutely first-rate powerhouses with talent and strength far exceeding ordinary people.
It was hard to imagine such a group of people would gather together to discuss an electronic game.
Could this game have something special about it?
Speaking of games, Red had naturally encountered them in his younger years.
However, he quickly discovered that real-world Pokémon battles were more attractive to him, and games couldn't really spark his interest in comparison.
The only electronic game he had deeply engaged with was Battle Frontier, but that was really just a substitute when battling wasn't convenient.
Like during his recent mountain training period, Red hadn't logged into that game in quite a while.
Discovering that this group of Elite Four members and Champions in the chat were actually discussing an electronic game, Red felt somewhat disappointed and directly closed the group chat.
But thinking it over, he still felt curious, so he opened a search window and typed in "Pokémon Emerald."
What met his eyes were several posts glowing red, indicating extremely high popularity.
[Pixel game Pokémon Emerald emerges from nowhere, incredibly popular - let this editor take you on an exploration.]
[Mysterious player "Decent Person" successfully clears Flying-type gym! Surpasses Cynthia and other trainer streamers to currently rank first in progress leaderboard.]
[Decent Person is conducting an all Bug-type clear challenge, latest progress recorded, complete battle recordings!]
Among the flood of messages, half were about the popularity of this game called Pokémon Emerald, while the other half were entirely about a player called "Decent Person."
Red also scanned through this information and actually became somewhat interested.
From the current content, this game was at least different from other electronic games he knew about, and instead, like Battle Frontier, was built on the foundation of Pokémon battles.
Unlike other games that just slapped on a Pokémon skin, like that previously popular game called "Rolling Stone," which essentially had nothing to do with Pokémon.
But Red couldn't help feeling somewhat puzzled. Battle Frontier, as a game that could simulate trainer teams for Pokémon battles, aside from slightly slower response times and requiring payment and microtransactions to fully configure teams, really had no other flaws.
This was absolutely the mainstream, top-tier pinnacle of Pokémon battle simulation games on the market.
But the players who would play this game and attempt to reach top levels were mostly trainers with considerable strength in the real world, so naturally they wouldn't lack the money for these microtransactions.
So for Red, this really wasn't much of a flaw.
In his view, he understood that since game companies created games, they had operational costs and needed to make money.
Although these microtransaction options were indeed quite expensive and not friendly to ordinary players.
But that said.
In comparison, could this Pokémon Emerald's current popularity be the result of spending a lot of money on deliberate marketing?
But this thought was immediately dismissed by Red himself.
The reason was simple—
Because not only were everyone in the Elite Four and Champion group chat playing this game, but the posts just mentioned that even Cynthia was playing it.
If he had to say, Red and Cynthia weren't really that familiar. But since they were both Champions and world-class trainers, they still had some connection.
If even she was playing this game, the situation might be quite different.
But speaking of which, who was this player called "Decent Person"?
When he searched for this game, posts about this person appeared everywhere.
His game progress even surpassed Cynthia's, and he was doing an all Bug-type Pokémon challenge.
Most crucially, why was his name so similar to his own username "Battle Person"?
While Red pondered, trying hard to search his mind for information about this person.
However, his peripheral vision caught a related recommendation about his search content, seemingly an intelligent link from the website to posts about "Decent Person"—
[Shocking! Battle Frontier sees zero-spending player impact Master Ball tier! Mysterious streamer "Decent Person" successfully challenges today!]
Seeing this message, Red's eyebrows shot up again, and he began to feel genuinely surprised.
He wasn't very familiar with that game called Pokémon Emerald, but he was indeed very familiar with Battle Frontier.
After all, he had once been the player who reached rank #1 on Battle Frontier's leaderboard!
And Master Ball tier was equivalent to the absolute top tier among all players. Generally speaking, only professional trainers could possibly reach such a position.
And this so-called "professional" had to be at least Elite Four level to start.
For him, Elite Four level trainers really weren't much, and even within the entire top trainer circle, they were just barely entering this field.
But the current problem was that the opponent had reached such a tier with a zero-spending team.
This meant the Pokémon he could choose were all disadvantaged, and those mainstream powerful Pokémon could never join his team.
Under such circumstances, he actually succeeded in the challenge?
Red immediately became intensely interested and directly clicked into the post, beginning to watch the opponent's recorded stream.
The next moment, as the recording began, Battle Frontier's new account registration interface appeared on screen, and a steady, magnetic male voice sounded in his ears.
"Welcome, everyone, to the stream. Today, our challenge is reaching Master Ball tier without spending a single cent."
"Stay tuned!"
In front of the computer screen, a full 20 minutes passed before Red suddenly snapped back to reality.
During these 20 minutes, he had been staring at the battle interface of this player called "Decent Person" in the video content.
Although it had been edited and fast-forwarded by the uploader, these 20 minutes still showed at least four or five battles.
And he was amazed to discover that this player called "Decent Person," due to his excessively high win rate, not only matched against opponents with real skill, but his team configuration was completely different in every single battle.
From the initial cleverly designed dual-throw infinite control team, to the later spike and toxic spikes full-durability defensive rotation team.
The appearance of each team made Red genuinely admire the opponent's team construction and design ability—under such strict limitations on available Pokémon, he could design one exquisite team after another without any repetition, achieving his goals through excellent tactics and securing victory.
What made Red feel quite surprised was that this player called "Decent Person" hadn't shown a single flaw during these 20 minutes and 4 battles.
Red asked himself honestly: if he encountered this opponent in ranked matches with his own team, he would probably lose like those matched opponents due to information disadvantage.
If someone else were standing here, they would probably find it terrifying.
However, at this moment Red only felt his blood boiling with excitement!
For him, Pokémon battles were the most beautiful thing in the world, and being able to meet evenly matched opponents for exhilarating battles was the meaning of his life.
"Step-by-step cultivation was just a necessary process for him. His true goal was to face powerful opponents, one after another, and to complete one spectacular battle after another."
But the reality was that whether in real life or on Battle Frontier, unless he encountered top trainers like Cynthia, very few battles could make him feel that way anymore.
However, the appearance of this "Decent Person" made him see hope once again.
After brief consideration, he exited the video webpage and directly opened the streaming platform, searching for "Decent Person." He indeed found the opponent's stream room.
However, he discovered the opponent wasn't currently streaming. But even with a black screen, countless people in the stream room were sending dense barrages of comments.
[When is the streamer coming back? I'm going to die if I can't watch the streamer's stream!]
[Yeah, the streamer currently has the fastest progress of all streamers online! I'm quite curious what will happen after the Flying-type gym.]
[I advise you not to wait here. Yesterday the streamer cleared three gyms in just two hours then went offline directly.
This morning they streamed for just two hours before going offline again. This person really doesn't lack money.]
[Of course, being so skilled, they're obviously some Champion. I'd believe it if you said it was Red's alternate account. How could such a person lack money?]
...
Looking at the flood of comments before him, Red thought for a moment, directly opened the chat box, typed a line of content, sent it out, and immediately exited the stream room.
The next moment, a line of text flashing with dazzling red light and golden brilliance suddenly exploded in the stream room:
[Battle Person: Everyone, if the streamer goes live, tell him I want to have a match with him.]
The next moment, after a brief silence, countless question marks accompanied by surprised discussions flooded out like a tide!
[Holy crap! Red! The real deal!!]
[Obviously it's him. Didn't you see the official verification and entrance effects? It's the genuine Red.]
[Haha, the streamer was too high-profile and got Red's attention! This will be hard to resolve without a battle.]
[Who just said the streamer was Red's alternate account?]
...
Meanwhile, Red was unaware of the discussion in the stream room. After brief consideration, he made a decision.
Since even such a strong opponent and all the Elite Four members and Champions were playing this game, then this game called "Pokémon: Emerald" must have its unique qualities.
He happened to be due for some rest time anyway.
If that was the case, why not play it?
He opened his browser, entered the game's name, and clicked the download button.
۞۞۞۞
~ Push the story forward with your Power Stoness