The Customer Arrives

Meanwhile, on Blue Star.

As the young man entered the livestream, the large screen went black for a moment as the stream began loading.

The young man could not help frowning.

What exactly was going on with this new livestream? Its format looked exactly like Cynthia's previous stream.

Surely it was not just someone livestreaming while wearing a Gengar virtual avatar?

Or maybe someone had simply put on a Gengar costume...

If that was all, then it was really forcing content where there was none. He definitely could not be bothered to give it a second look.

But the next moment, as the stream finished loading, the image before him made him freeze.

It was a white figure... its body round, with two ears sticking up from the top of its head.

Its face was pointed directly at the screen, its round crimson eyes wide open and its expression rather blank, as if it were lost in thought.

Not only that, its two short claws were holding a silver can with two words written on it: "Thunder Sprite."

There were far too many things in this series of images worth mocking, but the young man completely ignored all of them at that moment.

Because the Gengar on the screen was not a costume, nor was it a virtual image. It looked like a living creature that truly existed in the real world!

He could even see the faint mist constantly radiating from its body, as well as the rise and fall of its body with every breath...

It took the young man several seconds to snap out of his daze.

Had virtual technology really developed to this extent already?

How much would it cost to make such a realistic Gengar model...?

No, that could not be possible. No matter how he looked at it, this seemed more like a prerecorded video...

Just as the young man was pondering this, the Gengar on the screen suddenly moved.

It raised the silver can, took a small gulp, and revealed a satisfied expression.

Then it leaned its head closer to the screen, tilted its head as it looked over, smiled, and waved.

"Geh-heh!"

—It was greeting him!

The young man froze again.

So this was not a prerecorded video after all? Someone was really livestreaming behind it?

He had thought this was just forced content, but if the avatar was this high-quality, he would not mind watching for a while longer...

As he thought, he silently tapped Follow in the upper-left corner, then tapped Share and jumped to the chat window with his friends on his social media app.

[Bro, check this out. Holy crap, I don't think even Game Freak has this kind of technical capability now. This is insane.]

A few minutes later.

Luo Chen stood before the Berry Maker, studying the notification on the system panel. Today's three crafting attempts had already been used up.

According to what the system had said before, upgrading the machine would grant additional crafting attempts.

But the system had not mentioned at all how it was supposed to be upgraded. He had examined it carefully just now, yet found no clues or hints.

At that thought, he could not help shaking his head slightly. He always felt that he had only seen the tip of the Internet Café System's iceberg. The Emotion Points from before, the Building Points, and even the Internet Café Points players earned from using the computers... he still did not know what any of them were for.

The good news, however, was that as long as he completed those refreshed tasks, he should be able to unlock those functions further.

Come to think of it, he was actually a little excited.

As he pondered, the corner of his eye caught sight of Gengar.

Gengar was still hugging the can. From time to time, it would stand up, grin foolishly at the camera, greet it, then obediently sit back down in its chair.

This was what Luo Chen had just explained to it: a whole group of people would be watching it through the screen. It seemed to have understood that...

He wondered what those people would think when they saw a huge Shiny White Gengar greeting them...

Come to think of it, a player's computer time seemed to be determined by their performance in the game, as well as their livestream performance.

Gengar did not play games. It just sat there grinning foolishly. Surely no one would actually watch that, right?

As he thought, Luo Chen walked over and glanced at the viewer count in Gengar's livestream.

[Current online viewers: 50]

Luo Chen: ???

Wait, had it not even been two minutes?

What was going on?

In his daze, he noticed that the comments in the livestream were scrolling madly, packed so densely they were almost impossible to read.

[Streamer, streamer, where did you buy that avatar? It's unbeatable!]

[Is this really a live person? Damn, I've never seen a Pokémon avatar this detailed before. This is ridiculous.]

[The stream title, the name, and this background... are they from the same company as that Sinnoh Champion yesterday? They really know how to make content, huh?]

[Why aren't you talking, streamer? I sent you gifts and you didn't even thank me?]

[The streamer's a Gengar. What Gengar can talk? Hahaha...]

[So why is it a Shiny White Gengar? Shouldn't it be black normally?]

[Am I the only one who noticed it's holding Thunder Sprite? I can't take it anymore. Looks like Sprite didn't pay enough sponsorship money.]

When Cynthia had streamed before, comments had often flown across the screen too, but they were nowhere near as dense as Gengar's were now.

Even the online viewer count in the upper-right corner kept rising as time passed, increasing by several more people in just a few dozen seconds.

Luo Chen shook his head.

All right, it seemed he had underestimated just how bored everyone was...

Nearly a hundred people had gathered here just to watch a Gengar drink a beverage...

But on second thought, it actually seemed pretty reasonable.

If he had come across a livestream like this before being transported here, he probably would have stayed to watch as well...

This was good too. If the stream kept going like this, Gengar's computer evaluation today might even surpass Cynthia's. Tomorrow, there would be new time to farm again.

But he could not just let Gengar sit there forever... Later, he would have to think of a way to let it use a mouse and keyboard too.

With that thought, Luo Chen withdrew his attention, returned behind the counter, and took out the Plate Fragment.

His gaze fell upon the Dragon Plate Fragment, and a new question surfaced in his mind.

Come to think of it, what exactly was going on with this world?

It seemed not to be entirely the same as the world setting of the original work.

Legendary Pokémon should exist, but judging from Cynthia's reaction, they seemed to be very secretive.

Which regions from the original work did this world correspond to now?

And what was the timeline like?

Only at that moment did Luo Chen suddenly realize that he knew absolutely nothing about the specifics of this world...

He sighed. There was nothing he could do about it. He had already been transported here for three days, yet he was still stuck in this deep mountain forest. His computer could not connect to this world's internet either, leaving him completely in the dark.

He wondered when he would finally become a child who could leave the mountains...

He silently sighed, picked up the Plate Fragment, and stroked it in his hand.

As he stroked it, Luo Chen's movements suddenly paused.

Because footsteps sounded outside the internet café's door.

He put down the Plate Fragment and stood up.

—The customer Cynthia had introduced finally seemed to have arrived.