After Xia Chi took Sprigatito's little paw and pressed a paw-print signature onto the sheet titled "Three Ground Rules,"
Sprigatito, fully recovered from its injuries and fatigue, gazed longingly out the window again. Its meaning was obvious.
It wanted to get stronger so badly!
Xia Chi smiled and nodded. "Go on. Remember to come back before dinner."
"Meow!"
With a cheerful cry, Sprigatito bounded out through the window in a few leaps and vanished from Xia Chi's sight.
There's a perfectly good door, but you just have to use the window. What's wrong with you?
After silently grumbling to himself, Xia Chi opened his computer and started editing a video.
It wasn't a recording of last night's stream.
To put it crudely, if Xia Chi were only getting around to editing clips from that stream now, even the shit he went to eat would have gone cold.
Last night's match against Raihan was already all over the internet. Open the trending section of any app with videos, and it was guaranteed to be there.
The commentary from content mills was more unhinged than the last.
"The entire internet is losing it: the strongest trainer below the Champions was forced to concede to a random nobody in a simulated Pokémon battle! Let's see what happened in last night's match that shocked the world."
"People in Galar woke up to the sky falling. Their strongest Gym Leader, Raihan, was actually pushed into a red-faced meltdown by an obscure little streamer using a single unevolved Pokémon."
Throw in the same tired background music, AI voice-overs, and headline banners with lettering so huge it looked designed for senior citizens, and the sheer idiocy was off the charts.
Xia Chi felt they ought to pay him damages for the mental anguish of watching their videos.
But that was getting off topic. Back to the point.
As mentioned earlier, before his streaming career took off, Xia Chi had been a small content creator in the Pokémon history category.
One reason he had chosen that niche was to funnel viewers toward his streams.
The other was that, before his system arrived, Xia Chi's dream had been to become the Cynthia of Pokémon mythology scholarship.
Wait, no. Isn't the Cynthia of Pokémon mythology scholarship still Cynthia?
Anyway, he wanted to make a name for himself in the field, and making related videos while he was a student was a good place to start.
This world's Pokémon mythology had quite a few gaps.
Three years after transmigrating into this world, Xia Chi had found this to be the best low-cost way to build up his account.
Specifically, the account called life, which you played for as long as you lived.
His idea back then had been simple: borrow the video-making formula of a top history content creator from his original world.
He would use humor and exaggeration to tell regional historical anecdotes and stories about Legendary Pokémon, mixing official history with unofficial accounts.
He would become the Pokémon world's Tongliao Khan!
Although Pokémon itself was a child-oriented game suitable for all ages, its mythology was full of dark, brutal themes such as religious allegory and tragic epics.
Pick material from any one region, and there would be enough to talk about for ages.
For example, the intertwined fates of AZ, the last king of the Ancient Kalos Kingdom, and Floette; the Ultimate Weapon and the Eternal Flower; or the legend of Yveltal destroying the world.
There was also the Unova Kingdom's creation legend involving Kyurem, and its catastrophic collapse brought about by the clash between ideals and truth.
And so on.
Some of these were things the people of this world already knew, while others were secrets buried in history.
Xia Chi selectively gave them an artistic polish, then presented them to his audience with an almost novel-like narrative.
Sure enough, these legends of divine Pokémon, blending official and unofficial accounts until truth and fiction were hard to distinguish, attracted plenty of attention.
Some treated them as light entertainment to put on while eating, while others criticized them and picked holes in them in the name of academic rigor.
Xia Chi didn't care. Conflict meant traffic.
Slap on the protective disclaimer, "This video contains artistic adaptations. Any resemblance is purely coincidental," and everything was fine.
As for how much was historical fact and how much was adaptation, only Xia Chi himself knew.
In any case, the first video in the series, "Secrets of Kanto's Burned Tower-The Truth Behind the Mysterious Fire and the Resurrection of the Legendary Beasts," had already surpassed three million views.
That was actually quite an achievement on P-site.
The incident had only happened around two hundred years ago, and the destruction of the Burned Tower was a legend everyone in this world knew.
Fortunately, there was too little information to verify the truth behind the mysterious fire, leaving Xia Chi plenty of room to work.
So he chose the most conspiratorial possibility he knew of-the Evil Organization's Legendary Pokémon Creation Project.
Adaptation wasn't the same as making things up. This incident was also documented in a Pokémon spin-off game.
After that, drawing on memories of his previous life, Xia Chi made videos about Lugia, the Legendary Birds, and other subjects.
Even now, when he was basically only uploading once a month, plenty of loyal fans still came into his streams every day to nag him for updates.
Xia Chi had no intention of abandoning the series.
His original career plan had been pretty solid. With enough time and energy to spare, there was no need to leave it unfinished.
Besides, Xia Chi wasn't the sort to forget his roots the moment he got a system.
After spending the past couple of days dealing with the system reboot, catching Sprigatito, and other matters, he began preparing this month's update, which would also mark the start of a new series.
The creation mythology of the Sinnoh Region.
Although, in terms of philosophical depth and real-world parallels, this generation's mythology wasn't on the level of Unova, Kalos, or even Galar,
the grand, epic premise of Arceus creating the world was seriously badass.
The real world certainly had related myths and legends, but they were nowhere near a coherent system, and no written records had survived.
As a result, the prevailing academic view still regarded Arceus as a totemic Legendary Pokémon, much like the "dragons" of Xia Chi's previous life, rather than a creator god that actually existed.
The reason was simple, too: ever since photography had been invented, no one had captured an actual image of Arceus.
Of course, a transmigrator like Xia Chi, with an omniscient perspective from another world, knew Arceus was real.
The people of this world, however, saw it only as an idol ancient humans had invented to worship.
Xia Chi didn't plan to take many artistic liberties with this video, because the legend itself was already awe-inspiring enough.
Using the Origin Bracelet, Arceus created the Three Matter Gods to govern time, space, and antimatter, created the Three Spirit Gods to spread knowledge, emotion, and will among living beings, and created sixteen Type Plates to give the world diversity.
Then, the conflict between the Time and Space Gods nearly tore the Sinnoh Region apart. Arceus sent down the Spear Pillar to quell the war, then banished the violent Giratina to the Distortion World.
During the conflict, Arceus also created Heatran, the God of Lava, almost in passing, while the remnants of the Spear Pillar formed the world's most magnificent mountain range, the Mt. Coronet Range.
He would then polish it with the sort of religious, epic narration found in the Bible.
It was easy to foresee that once this video came out, it would become another smash hit on Xia Chi's account, perfect for viewers to enjoy over a meal.
And that wasn't all. Looking at its longer-term impact,
once the history of Arceus's creation of the world was verified in the future, the value of this video would soar without limit.
And he, its creator, would become a master prophet shrouded in mysterious legend.
So.
Restoring the glory of Sinnoh's Almighty One was their bounden duty!
Before you continue