Kairos stared at the brilliant golden notification text hovering in the center of his vision, his movements pausing involuntarily.
[Congratulations, Host! Player "Cynthia's" emotional threshold level has been upgraded to LV3!]
She actually broke through? A flash of surprise crossed his mind.
Cynthia's emotional threshold had been stuck at level two for quite a long time, stubbornly refusing to budge in a way that caught him off guard.
He'd even sent her a Mega Stone as a reward previously, but even that hadn't pushed her threshold any higher.
He never expected it to suddenly jump now.
Honestly, this was definitely a noteworthy development.
After all, as one of the earliest batches of special players, each of Cynthia's growth milestones meant the system could harvest more energy from her, which also indirectly reflected how much influence his game content had on this world's trainers.
But what happened? How did she suddenly break through?
Driven by this curiosity, he immediately pulled up the system interface and switched to Emerald's game progress leaderboard.
When he saw that familiar name at the top, the progress bar clearly showed she'd reached the absolute end of the current version.
In other words, her story progression had reached that critical moment when Rayquaza calmed the battle of the two legendary Pokémon, and the sky suddenly tore open with an Ultra Wormhole!
Kairos couldn't help but raise an eyebrow.
She played through it that fast? Pushed all the way to the latest content in one go?
Has Cynthia gotten addicted to gaming or something??
At the same time, Kairos suddenly understood the key reason for the threshold breakthrough.
This game progress meant she had just experienced the CG animation he'd painstakingly crafted: the epic three-way battle between Groudon and Kyogre, culminating in Rayquaza's descent to end their conflict.
He'd spent considerable time on that cutscene.
The system's auto-generated initial version was grand enough, but it felt like it lacked soul and detail.
It was more like a straightforward display of the legendary Pokémon's power, missing that epic sense of rhythm and emotional tension.
He'd gone back and revised it countless times, adjusting camera angles, like the perspective when Rayquaza burst skyward from the Sky Pillar, and the special effects when it dive-bombed Groudon.
He'd enhanced the impact of each attack and the environmental destruction, making the heat waves from exploding lava spheres and the distortion from Hydro Pumps more realistic.
He'd even carefully selected and adapted the background music.
When Rayquaza appeared, he used solemn, magnificent orchestral music, then switched to a rhythm full of power and urgency during the final confrontation, striving for movie-level impact.
It looked like his hard work really hadn't been wasted.
The effect was super effective, directly smashing through Cynthia's long-stuck emotional threshold level.
To be honest, from a game developer's perspective, this sense of achievement from finely crafted content directly touching the deepest part of a player's heart felt way better than simply harvesting emotion points.
Just then, a series of new system notifications popped up in succession, interrupting his thoughts.
[Ding! Special player "Cynthia's" emotional threshold level has been detected to have risen to LV3. Congratulations, Host, on receiving upgrade rewards!]
[Reward 1: 5,000 Emotion Points!]
[Reward 2: One S+ Grade System Item Box!]
[Reward 3: Unlock special character ability related to player "Cynthia's" core traits: [Mythical Resonance]!]
Five thousand emotion points instantly credited, making his total point reserves considerably more substantial.
That "S+ Grade System Item Box" glowed with tempting radiance, sitting quietly in the system space.
One look and you could tell it would definitely contain good stuff.
System items were different from ordinary items; they were things like invitation cards and dimensional communicators, that level of equipment!
Or perhaps something that hadn't appeared before, possibly a special tool that could greatly assist game development.
But Kairos's gaze only briefly swept over the first two items before skipping past them entirely, landing directly on the last option that radiated a unique, soft golden light with a name carrying an ancient, archaic charm.
Special character ability? Mythical Resonance?
Curiosity rose in his heart.
The system had vaguely mentioned before that when a special player's emotional threshold reached a higher level, they might feed back some special abilities related to the player's core traits.
But he'd always thought that would take time, or that he'd only get some minor auxiliary skills.
He never expected Cynthia to break through to level three so quickly and directly unlock an ability that sounded, well, pretty high-tier.
"Mythical Resonance."
Just from the name, it clearly had deep connections with those legendary existences.
As his attention focused, the detailed description panel for [Mythical Resonance] rapidly unfolded before his eyes.
The text wasn't the cold black system font, but rather like inscriptions carved on an ancient stone tablet:
[Mythical Resonance] (S+)
[Description:
Originating from the echo of a soul's relentless pursuit of mythological genealogy, this ability grants its holder a unique talent for communicating with Mythical Pokémon (Legendary Pokémon/Mythical Pokémon).]
[Effects:
1. When communicating with Mythical Pokémon, gain a natural affinity bonus, bypassing language barriers to directly sense their emotional fluctuations and inner thoughts.
2. Emotion point gains obtained from Mythical Pokémon increased by 1000%!
3. Can view the [Bond Gauge] with specific mythical life forms. When the bond gauge rises to specific nodes, additional rewards will be obtained.]
Kairos's pupils contracted slightly, his attention almost instantly drawn to that crystal-clear "1000%."
Ten times! This amplification multiplier was indeed unexpectedly high.
The base point value obtained from Legendary Pokémon was already quite high.
Multiply that by ten, and the returns would become extremely considerable.
Not only that, this ability would let him directly bypass language barriers to understand Legendary Pokémon's inner thoughts and true emotions!
This effect seemed tailor-made specifically for establishing connections with those lofty, usually incomprehensible existences.
It truly lived up to the impressive name "Mythical Resonance."
At this moment, the notification wasn't finished. Another line of slightly smaller text appeared, supplementing more details:
[Please note: reaching bond gauge levels of 60 (Friendly) and 100 (Resonance) will both grant special rewards.
The reward at gauge 100 will be extremely generous!]
After reading through all the descriptions, Kairos opened his mouth slightly, thought for a moment, and found himself momentarily at a loss for words.
He'd certainly speculated before that someone like Cynthia, a Champion focused on mythological historical research and heritage, would likely have an ability related to concepts like "legends" or "history."
But he never expected it would ultimately fall into the category of "legendary beast affinity."
This wasn't Mythical Resonance, this was a freaking Legendary Pokémon-exclusive favorability guide!
Even a bond gauge system like something from a dating sim had appeared.
What's next? Unlocking exclusive storylines and gift-giving functions? This is turning into "Love and Pokémon" or something.
He couldn't help but raise his hand to rub his forehead. His feelings were genuinely a bit mixed.
This ability, to say it was useless, would be absolutely impossible.
The ten-times emotion point gain alone was outrageously powerful.
And being able to communicate and understand thoughts without barriers meant he could avoid many unnecessary misunderstandings and conflicts when facing Legendary Pokémon, possibly even obtain precious information.
Most crucially, this thing had a favorability milestone reward.
Looking at the long term, the returns were massive.
But the problem was... the prerequisite for using this ability was having Legendary Pokémon around!
And that's where it got awkward.
In the world he inhabited, Legendary Pokémon truly were just legends.
In reality, there weren't even reliable sighting reports, let alone actual physical contact.
Wait, that wasn't entirely accurate.
Kairos suddenly remembered that in this world's current timeline, there actually was one exception: Mewtwo.
This particular being was a legendary-class Pokémon artificially created by Team Rocket using genetic material from Mew's eyelash fossils. That counted as a Legendary Pokémon!
Although it was still under Team Rocket's control, it was indeed the only confirmed, genuinely existing Legendary Pokémon currently known in the world.
With a mix of verification and curiosity, he focused his thoughts and opened the [Mythical Resonance] ability panel he'd just unlocked.
Sure enough, below that "Legendary Registry" section, where most of the area was still blank and waiting to be filled, a single name sat all alone: [Mewtwo].
And next to that name, the displayed [Bond Gauge] value was a rather glaring [-10].
Kairos stared at that bright red negative number and nearly keeled over.
Negative ten? This initial favorability was way too low, wasn't it?
How could there even be negative values??
But thinking it over carefully, it actually made sense.
As a being created by humans who had likely suffered through experiments and confinement, it was perfectly normal for Mewtwo to harbor strong wariness, distrust, or even anger toward humanity as a whole.
Though he himself was an outsider, he was still a member of the human race.
Being dragged down to negative initial favorability seemed understandable enough.
He continued examining the panel description and learned that raising the gauge to 60 and 100 corresponded to "Friendly" and "Resonance" stages, respectively, with corresponding rewards.
This really did seem like a long-term cultivation goal.
Out of curiosity about the ability's actual effects and wanting to understand Mewtwo's current state, Kairos attempted to use the [Invitation Card] item he'd obtained before to try linking with Mewtwo.
However, after sending the command, the system feedback came almost immediately: [Connection failed.
Target unit is in a special energy-shielded state or deep hibernation and cannot establish an effective connection at this time.]
Was Mewtwo sleeping, its consciousness in a chaotic state?
Or were the experiments or containment devices Team Rocket was using producing powerful energy interference that blocked external connections?
Kairos speculated about various possibilities but could only temporarily abandon the attempt.
It seemed this newly acquired, powerful-sounding ability's only theoretically usable target was currently unreachable.
He shook his head helplessly and decided to stop worrying about it for now. After all, it didn't seem useful at the moment anyway.
It could only work on Mewtwo, and that guy's situation was special.
But thinking it over again, Kairos suddenly realized something else.
The lack of Legendary Pokémon in his world was a fact, but what about that new Pokémon world he'd previously connected to and visited using the dimensional communicator?
Did that world have any trace of Legendary Pokémon?
Were they similarly only existing in historical legends, or like ordinary Pokémon, did they have more concrete records or even occasionally manifest?
Next time he had the chance to go there, perhaps he could try asking that female professor. As a researcher, she might know some important information.
Not just that, speaking of which... a deeper idea surfaced in his mind.
Even if that world numbered PM-0734 didn't have active Legendary Pokémon, since the dimensional communicator could take him to one Pokémon world, it could take him to many more.
With so many worlds out there, containing countless possibilities, there had to be some worlds where Legendary Pokémon genuinely existed and were active.
They might even have developed completely different situations from ordinary Pokémon worlds, like that technological world.
And places like that... would be where the [Mythical Resonance] ability truly belonged!
However, while the thought was there, Kairos currently had absolutely no intention of actively pursuing this idea.
The reason was simple: the risk was too high!
The power level of Legendary Pokémon was incomparable to that of ordinary Pokémon.
Changing weather, rending the earth, filling oceans, and even affecting time itself were all child's play for them. Their temperaments were often unpredictable, too.
Some were merciful, some dignified, and some hot-tempered and easily angered or full of hostility toward humans.
While his new skill could boost favorability and enable mental communication, which sounded wonderful, it fundamentally didn't grant him any ability to defend against or counter that kind of power.
If luck ran out and he bumped into a legendary beast in a raging fury or extremely distrustful of humans, if they got unhappy, forget active attacks, even just unconscious energy fluctuations could make him instantly get sent to the afterlife.
This level of uncertainty was simply too strong, the danger coefficient too high. It was far from something he should be touching at his current stage.
In comparison, using the dimensional communicator to explore new, relatively "safe" Pokémon worlds and obtain more emotion point sources was the more practical choice with more controllable risks.
Connecting to one more world meant one more stable point of income channel.
With this thought, he immediately tried activating the [Dimensional Communicator] in his item inventory again, selecting the "Search New World" option.
However, the system notification popped up once more:
[Warning: Cannot execute search command! Must obtain at least 10,000 emotion points from the currently connected world (Number PM-0734) before unlocking the new world search function!]
Ten thousand points?
Kairos stroked his chin, quickly calculating in his mind.
This threshold wasn't particularly high.
Given that "Dark Phantom" had just launched there and was currently in the prime phase for harvesting massive amounts of first-impression emotion points from new players, it would probably only take a couple of days.
He wasn't in a rush anyway.
That new world still had plenty to explore. Its unique technology and Pokémon situation, plus that Genesis Engine thing... all deserved some time for careful investigation.
Once he'd thoroughly understood that world, it wouldn't be too late to move on to new ones.