At this moment, before Kairos's eyes, the main quest reward he had just completed was quietly floating there - it was a uniquely designed card.
It wasn't a physical object, but was composed of flowing blue data streams, with edges flickering with starlike glimmers, appearing quite ethereal.
In the center of the card, a simple vortex pattern slowly rotated, as if it could absorb everything around it, like a black hole.
Before Kairos, a series of information began to appear:
[Special System Item: Invitation Card]
[With this card, you can invite any existence to play all your games and use products through mental connection out of thin air.]
[Note: This item is consumable. After successful invitation, the duration is unlimited, but the invited existence still needs to pay for games and software to play them]
[Please select your invitation target!]
...
After waiting so long, he finally got this thing.
Looking at the familiar content prompt before him, Kairos had almost no hesitation and immediately made the choice he had prepared long ago.
"Confirm target, Mewtwo!"
He reached out to touch the invitation card, silently reciting in his mind, with a trace of excitement and anticipation.
As for the reason for choosing Mewtwo... obviously, this no longer needed a reason.
That was Mewtwo! The strongest artificial Pokémon, the most charismatic legendary Pokémon of the first generation, possessing both looks and power, an existence with sky-high prestige...
Of course, besides his own feelings, choosing Mewtwo had some more practical reasons.
The timeline of this world seemed somewhat chaotic, and he wasn't sure how far Team Rocket's crazy god-creation plan had progressed.
This invitation could serve as a test.
If the invitation succeeded, it meant Mewtwo had already been born, and he needed to pay attention to this powerful Pokémon's movements in advance, preventing Team Rocket from deviating from the original plot and completely controlling this powerful artificial legendary beast.
But conversely, if the connection failed... at least he would know it hadn't appeared yet...
Whatever, this thing wasn't a consumable anyway... if it didn't connect, he could just switch to another target.
This would also let him see whether the legendary Pokémon of this world had all disappeared.
[You have selected target: Current world, legendary Pokémon "Mewtwo", individual identity characteristics are unique existence, no precise targeting needed. Begin connection immediately?]
Kairos shook his head slightly, focused his thoughts, and confirmed using the item again.
The next moment, following Kairos's choice, the data stream card in his hand suddenly lit up, transforming into a thin blue beam that seemed to penetrate space and escape into distant void.
Kairos leaned against the dining table, holding his breath and waiting expectantly for some kind of response.
However, several seconds passed, and the surroundings remained completely silent.
The blue beam from the invitation card seemed to have sunk like a stone into the sea, bringing back no ripples.
"Hm? Failed?"
Kairos was stunned for a moment, then reacted.
Hiss... could it be that Team Rocket really hasn't started creating Mewtwo yet??
But... that doesn't seem right either. Recalling the situation he saw in news reports about the laboratory that Team Rocket was discovered to have by the League proved that Team Rocket should have been making moves in this direction...
So... or rather, the creation had just begun, and Mewtwo's consciousness hadn't been born yet?
Kairos scratched his head, feeling the latter possibility was more likely.
Or rather, it actually didn't matter much what the current situation was.
After all, given Boss Giovanni's personality, his pursuit of legendary Pokémon power was endless - only such power could realize his ambitions.
And in the Emerald game he released, he had modified part of the plot, which detailed Mewtwo's power and story, with Team Rocket's base serving as foreshadowing for this.
With Giovanni's ambition and action capability, once he encountered this part of the game's content and learned of Mewtwo's existence, creating it by following the template would almost be an inevitable outcome.
But if he remembered correctly, Giovanni hadn't provided any emotion points so far, which meant he hadn't encountered the game yet.
He wondered when Giovanni would get to play Emerald...
While Kairos was pondering, the system's notification sound rang in his mind again:
[Ding! Detected that the target unit currently cannot establish an effective connection.]
[Tip: The invitation card can be set to continuous standby connection mode. The system will continuously attempt to establish a mental channel with the target. Once the target unit meets the condition of 'existing and possessing independent consciousness,' the connection will automatically complete and take effect!]
[Proceed with continuous connection?]
"Oh? It can stay on standby?" Kairos's eyes immediately lit up.
This feature was quite user-friendly... then he'd leave it running.
He chose continuous connection without hesitation, and at the same time, he suddenly remembered that note in the item description about [requiring payment].
That was close, he almost forgot about this.
"Since it's for my favorite Mewtwo bro, of course the first experience should be on me..."
Kairos smiled as he operated the system interface, casually depositing 1,000 Pokédollars of game funds into this future Mewtwo-exclusive connection card through the system, treating it as paying the bill for that special player he hadn't met yet.
This much money would be enough to play all the games he'd release in the future, and even do some microtransactions - assuming his games had places to spend money.
After finishing all this, the blue data invitation card before Kairos completely dissipated, apparently going into automatic standby mode.
A wave of drowsiness also hit him.
"All set, time to rest..."
Kairos yawned, decided not to think about it anymore, and got up to walk toward the bathroom.
...
Time passed, no one knew how long.
Late at night, on the ocean, on a solitary island far from land.
Deep in Team Rocket's most secret research facility, a pale figure soaked in a huge cultivation tank, with complex tubes connected to it, while instruments emitted regular, cold, low humming sounds.
Besides this, everything around was quietly still.
But the next moment, something changed.
Suddenly, in the cultivation tank, those eyes that had been tightly closed snapped open!
Through the liquid, a pair of purple pupils reflected the laboratory's dim white light, filled with endless confusion, bewilderment, and questions about their own existence.
Who am I? Why am I here?
This was the first moment of his consciousness being born. He had just begun to think, just begun to perceive this world...
But just then, an emotionless yet crystal-clear electronic synthesized voice, without warning, directly resonated in the depths of his mind, interrupting his newborn thoughts:
[Welcome, esteemed player! You have received a special invitation from 'Wind Game Studio' and possess the privilege to play all our games and products out of thin air.]
[Detected that inviter 'Wind' has paid initial game fees for you.]
[Begin playing?]
Mewtwo: "...?"
The enormous confusion of his recent birth was instantly covered by this incomprehensible content.
This was also the second time he had experienced the emotion of confusion since coming into this world.
...What... is this?
...
At this moment, before Kairos, the invitation card composed of flowing blue data streams had dissipated, replaced by a new prompt on the system interface: [Continuous connection established, waiting for target unit response...].
But he had already fallen into sleep and naturally couldn't detect this.
...
Meanwhile, on Mewtwo's side.
Strictly speaking, this wasn't the first moment of his self-consciousness being born.
Before today, when his body and form had condensed in the laboratory's cultivation tank, Mewtwo had discovered he could already perceive some of the surrounding situation, and could even understand the words spoken by those white creatures in the research facility.
Not only that, during the formation of his consciousness, it seemed something had poured vast amounts of information into his mind, making him understand the identities of these people and know quite a few things.
This was a laboratory, surrounded by many "machines" that belonged to his creators, used to monitor his condition and create him.
They were "humans," and he was a "Pokémon." As a Pokémon, he needed to unconditionally obey the commands of these creators.
But this information hadn't explained the most crucial question just now.
Who was he?
Not only that, but now Mewtwo's heart was filled with even greater confusion.
The voice that had just sounded in his ear was really too strange.
It wasn't "human" language, not even any language he understood, yet he could precisely understand its meaning.
Player? Game? Privileges? Fees? Wind?
These words individually might have vague correspondences in the fragmentary conversations of the surrounding humans, but combined together, appearing at this moment and place, made Mewtwo feel quite strange.
The next moment, within this empty research facility, he made a decision.
Mewtwo's eyes suddenly lit up with deep purple light.
His powerful psychic power instinctively spread out like the most precise radar, instantly sweeping over every corner of the entire laboratory, even the entire island.
He tried to find the source of this voice. Could it be another so-called "machine"?
But under the carpet-style search scan, Mewtwo found he still came up empty-handed.
It was as if this voice didn't come from the outside world, but was directly imprinted in his heart, as if it were innate...
This anomaly also made Mewtwo's vigilance instantly climb to its peak.
People often fear and question unknown things, and as a newborn Pokémon, he was actually the same.
Mewtwo tried to use his newborn yet powerful telepathic ability to send cold questions toward the source of the voice, toward that empty air: [Who's speaking? Come out! Tell me... what is this place?!]
But there was no response.
Only that cold, mechanical notification sound, like a stuck machine, stubbornly repeating the same sentence over and over again.
[Esteemed player, begin playing?]
This one-sided, uncommunicative "exchange" made Mewtwo feel irritated.
He decided to ignore it, retracting his psychic power, his purple pupils refocusing on the cultivation tank glass before him, looking at his own blurry reflection on the glass.
Mewtwo temporarily classified this strange "auditory hallucination" as an unexplainable anomaly, forcibly suppressing it in a corner of his mind.
But the selection interface before him remained like a ghost, constantly floating in the background of his perception, impossible to dismiss...
The night passed without incident.
...
Morning sunlight streamed through the windows into the room, and a new day began.
In the villa, Kairos practically shot up from bed, and the first thing he did was open the system panel to check the invitation card's status.
However, before his eyes, the status [Continuous connection established, waiting for target unit response...] remained unchanged.
Kairos clicked his tongue in slight disappointment and was about to exit when his gaze caught a line of almost overlooked small text in the log records below.
[Connection status micro-fluctuation: Target unit performed high-intensity, wide-area psychic scan, suspected search for connection source.]
[Connection status micro-fluctuation: Received undefined format mental communication request (high intensity), filtered according to rules. Content analysis (for reference only): Inquiry about identity and location.]
"!"
Kairos instantly lost all drowsiness and became completely alert.
Success!
Not only had it connected, but Mewtwo had already awakened!
Mewtwo had even tried to communicate back with the system, only to be directly filtered out by the invitation card's basic "customer service."
Even so, enormous excitement surged through Kairos's heart.
Indeed! Mewtwo was there, that world's strongest artificial legendary Pokémon had gained independent consciousness!
He suppressed his excitement and tried to obtain more information through the invitation card connection - Mewtwo's location, real-time images, his vital status...
But unfortunately, what responded to him was the system interface's cold prompt:
[Insufficient permissions, invitation card connection only provides game-related services].
"Tch, not helpful at times like this." Kairos muttered.
But he quickly felt relieved.
Being able to confirm Mewtwo's existence through this invitation card was the greatest success.
However, the current situation didn't seem to be going very smoothly.
He stroked his chin, pondering for a moment.
From the situation returned by the invitation card, Mewtwo was obviously full of wariness about this suddenly appearing voice. Even though he had received the invitation, he hadn't chosen to play the game.
Hmm... could it be that he simply didn't know what something called a "game" was?
After all, from this situation, since Mewtwo's consciousness wasn't always in a wakeful state, he was very likely still in the cultivation tank, and might even have only just awakened his consciousness.
His genes came from Mew, but his nature had been altered by Team Rocket's modifications to lean toward brutality, so his personality would naturally be suspicious and cautious. Not choosing to accept this suddenly appearing voice was quite reasonable.
So now... how should he solve this problem?
Having finally connected, he couldn't possibly give up this opportunity, right?
Kairos reached out and stroked his chin.
And the next moment, a brilliant idea suddenly emerged in his mind.
Wait.
The first question Mewtwo posed to the invitation card should be the classic... "Who am I?"
And this question... he could answer it, couldn't he?