I Think You're a Pokémon Too

Xin Mu was naturally curious about what this gray-and-white app could actually do in this new world.

Still, this wasn't a gaming headset, just an ordinary phone. Opening it only brought him to a new page.

Kitchen, medicine crafting station, training area, healing hot spring...

Simple little icons appeared on the screen one after another. Xin Mu tried tapping them, but all he got was a string of red text.

[Insufficient space. Unable to deploy.]

Xin Mu recognized these icons. In the game, these were the places for cooking, improving stats, and restoring HP.

Recalling the sizes of these facilities in the game, Xin Mu figured he'd probably need to secure a soccer field before he could deploy them all.

"Where's my storage?! You could at least have brought my storage over!"

After searching everywhere without finding a storage screen, Xin Mu felt he'd lost another chance to get rich without lifting a finger. Selling Nuggets alone would have been enough.

The currently available features included a map. Every place Xin Mu had visited that day was already lit up, and it looked much more useful than a conventional map app.

There was also Meownei's stat panel. Her level was marked MAX, and her seemingly endless list of move slots showed that she hadn't been weakened.

It included moves like Flower Trick, which she had naturally learned as she leveled up.

There were also special moves that required NPCs or TMs to learn, along with Leech Seed, which she had inherited from her parents.

Xin Mu then tried a few more things. Although he couldn't deploy the facilities in their entirety, he could take out some of the smaller machines inside them individually.

Worried that he might not be able to put these things back once he took them out, Xin Mu chose carefully. In the end, he took a treadmill from the training area, where Pokémon trained their speed and stamina in the game.

Once he took it out, however, the treadmill disappeared from the phone's interface, and he couldn't put it back at all.

"There's no room for this stuff here. Looks like I'll need to buy some land before taking anything else out."

Those repeated insufficient-space messages seemed to be hinting that Xin Mu should buy some property. The good news was that land was more plentiful here, and private individuals could buy it too.

"I don't have any spatial storage items, but with this... training other Pokémon will be much easier. Meownei, want to relive old times?"

"Meow?"

Meownei remembered this treadmill. She had trained on it back when she was still a Sprigatito.

These machines could no longer improve her stats.

Meownei had already reached the limits of the Meowscarada species. All she could improve now were things like battle experience and combat skills. Everything else was essentially being maintained.

Once he got another Pokémon, Xin Mu planned to let them try these machines too. They might make raising Pokémon twice as effective with half the effort.

If they worked well, he could even consider opening a Pokémon Day Care. Suddenly, the road ahead looked much wider.

None of that was something he could do right now, though. At the very least, Xin Mu wasn't planning to borrow some random person's Pokémon for testing. That could cause quite a lot of trouble.

Meanwhile, Meownei fiddled with the buttons on the treadmill, then pulled Xin Mu onto it with her.

Back when she was a Sprigatito, Xin Mu's game character had always run alongside her. Xin Mu didn't refuse, but the moment he stepped on, he noticed something was wrong.

The treadmill was set to its lowest speed, but the rate at which it drained his stamina was nothing like a light jog.

He was no expert runner, but he wasn't so out of shape that he'd get tired before running ten meters. Unless... this training machine worked on him too.

This thing only looked like a treadmill and operated like one. Its effects were entirely different.

The treadmill had only been running for two minutes, yet Xin Mu felt as though every last bit of his stamina had been wrung out of him.

Lying on his bed, he picked up his phone and reopened the page. Besides Meownei's stats, Xin Mu found the stat sheet for his game character.

Given the current situation, he should probably call it his own stat sheet.

Although there were no exact numerical values, the stamina and speed bars had each crept up by a tiny segment.

This fitness machine, which could only be used to train Pokémon in the game, seemed to have classified him as a Pokémon too.

Still, humans in the Pokémon world could essentially be considered a special kind of Pokémon. In theory, there wasn't even a reproductive barrier between them.

The Pokémon world really did have psychics, Aura users, and all sorts of other people with special abilities.

Those abilities weren't originally human. They belonged to Psychic-type Pokémon and certain Pokémon that used Aura. As for how humans had acquired them...

Just look at the trainers who had publicly announced their relationships with Gardevoir.

Even everyone else's physical strength had long since surpassed that of ordinary humans.

"Great. At this rate, I could pretty much become a superhuman from Pallet Town too."

This thing definitely couldn't turn him into Superman. The training machine was designed around the upper limits of each species.

If there were no limits, Meownei's current stats might not merely be the pinnacle of Meowscarada. She might have become some absurd Pokémon with higher base stats than Eternatus.

But a chance to approach human limits-and the limits of humans in the Pokémon world, at that...

Compared with material possessions, good health was something nothing could replace. Finding a spacious enough place after graduation naturally became part of Xin Mu's plans.

"I'll have to take this gradually... The effects are strong, but it really burns through stamina..."

The hunger in his belly made Xin Mu sit up again. He polished off the lunch he'd just bought and some snacks from the fridge, then resumed investigating the other features.

He could use this fitness-enhancing machine directly, but the others were a different story.

Some required special materials to operate, while others needed a suitable Pokémon that was familiar with how to run them.

Examples included a stove that only Fire-type Pokémon could power, and a medicine crafting station that required assistance from Grass-type Pokémon.

Those materials wouldn't just drop from defeated monsters anymore. Many of them had to be bought, so everything ultimately circled back to money.

"What can I use right now... The Pokéblock-making station works, but who would I sell them to...?"

The Pokéblock-making station produced Pokéblocks, special energy blocks made by processing Berries.

Different recipes produced different effects. Some recipes yielded blocks that could fill up a Snorlax with just one, while others could make scales shinier.

For Pokémon, Pokéblocks were like fruit-flavored calcium tablets, supplementing whatever nutrients they lacked.

All kinds of trainers needed them, especially breeders and coordinators. However, the League's online store already sold them, and skilled coordinators and breeders could make their own.

Even if Xin Mu's products were exceptionally effective, breaking into the market would still be a hassle.

Pokéblocks sold by some stranger of unknown origins couldn't compete with those from an official store. After thinking it over, the person who could currently help him open up at least a few sales channels... was Ash.

More precisely, it wasn't Ash himself, but Professor Oak behind him, along with Brock and Misty at his side.