Chapter 813: I Choose You!
Before the game officially launched, the waiting players were already buzzing with excitement. The randomly appearing little creatures served as a kind of preview, providing plenty of hype.
For now, these creatures couldn’t be caught or interacted with, but just showcasing the visual effect of virtual creatures blending with real-world scenes was enough to delight the players.
“Whoa, I think I see a red dragon baby over there!”
Zou Zhuo’s eyes went wide. The chubby guy huffed and puffed as he ran toward the distant red dragon baby, but the moment it saw him coming, it flapped its wings and flew farther away, vanishing in a flash.
“Ah! My red dragon baby!”
As a homebody, Zou Zhuo wasn’t in great shape. After just a couple of steps, he was already gasping for air, hands on his knees, panting heavily.
Lin Xue couldn’t help but advise, “Little fatty, don’t waste your effort. The game hasn’t officially started yet. Even if you catch up to that red dragon baby, what then? Are you going to capture it with your bare hands?”
Zou Zhuo still gazed longingly in the direction the red dragon baby had flown. “I get the logic, but…”
“No ‘buts’—look, the game is about to launch!” Lin Xue pointed at the countdown in the sky.
In the final minute, the countdown’s 60 seconds turned into a massive number. As it began to tick down and change, everyone couldn’t help shouting together: “59, 58, 57… 5, 4, 3, 2, 1!!”
As the number hit zero, it was as if countless brilliant fireworks burst in the sky. Countless shimmering lights scattered and fell all around everyone. The Matrix Glasses’ earpieces played an exhilarating background music and the sound of fireworks exploding, accompanied by the applause and cheers of the crowd. Many felt a thrill as intense as New Year’s Eve!
In North America on the other side of the globe, it was nighttime, making this scene even more dazzling and colorful.
At that moment, all the players around the world who had been eagerly awaiting “Pokémon World” were experiencing this historic moment. Those gathered in squares and at key locations cheered along with the crowd, and even players at home smiled knowingly at the cheers drifting in from outside.
However, even though the game had officially launched, many players were still completely clueless about how to actually play it.
Zou Zhuo was still fixated on his red dragon baby. “So, now that the game is live, how do I catch one? There’s no prompt or anything! Jarvis, how do I open this game?”
By now, everyone had learned the trick: if you had any questions about the Matrix Glasses, just ask Jarvis. There was basically nothing this artificial intelligence didn’t know.
Jarvis replied, “You are already in the game. If you still have questions, open the map.”
“Already in the game?”
Zou Zhuo was a bit confused. He had run the game after downloading it earlier, but the system had only shown the launch time before automatically minimizing to the background, so he hadn’t thought much of it.
But now that he thought about it, being able to see the countdown in the sky and the creatures running around was something only players who had installed “Pokémon World” could do.
“So, the game has actually been running this whole time?? There was absolutely no notification!”
Zou Zhuo was stunned. A game with zero newbie guidance like this was incredibly bold.
Following Jarvis’s instructions, Zou Zhuo opened the built-in map on his Matrix Glasses and discovered more information.
The original map was just a standard electronic map showing various locations, with navigation features and the ability to search for nearby shops. But after activating “Pokémon World,” the electronic map in the Matrix Glasses had loaded additional information, all marked in a game-style format.
In other words, “Pokémon World” was like a small plugin for the real world. When activated, it automatically “attached” itself to the player’s Matrix Glasses, rather than feeling like “opening another program.”
“Huh? There are so many special markers nearby. This one is an item pickup point, this one means a creature is active nearby, this one is a gym…” Zou Zhuo looked at the map, overwhelmed.
Once the map was open, Jarvis would explain the specific meanings of these icons, including item pickup points, dojos, and so on.
If a player asked about the location of a specific creature, Jarvis would give a detailed or vague answer depending on the creature’s rarity. Players seeking rare creatures would have to search for them themselves, and catching them would require a bit of luck.
“So, that means I have to go to a supply station first to see what items I can get, right? Huh, there’s one nearby.”
Zou Zhuo saw many people already heading toward a nearby supply station. It was on an empty lot just a few dozen meters away, and there was more than one—farther out, there were even more.
After all, this was the new headquarters of Thunder Entertainment. The density of various icons here far exceeded other areas. There were many supply stations, and it was a hotspot for rare creature activity. Moreover, the location of Thunder Entertainment’s new headquarters was itself a massive gym.
Of course, right now, everyone had nothing in hand, so they couldn’t even challenge the gym, let alone catch creatures.
They had to go to a supply station first to get items.
A crowd had already gathered around this supply station. In reality, it was just an empty lot, but through virtual technology, the Matrix Glasses projected a three-dimensional supply station image, floating in the air and continuously rotating.
Zou Zhuo and Lin Xue approached the supply station. Following the instructions, they gently waved their hands at the station ahead. The floating station immediately began to spin, and items flew toward them, merging into the lower-left corner of their field of view. A new icon appeared there, representing the items available to the player.
“This is… 20 Poké Balls, two Wood Berries, one Potion, one Revival Stone, one Incense, and two Incubators. Huh? And I can choose one pet egg!”
Zou Zhuo opened the item interface and counted what he had just received. There were quite a few things, but this was probably a newbie player’s welcome package—not every supply station would give this much.
Besides the items, there were three different pets to choose from. Three eggs floated in the air: Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle. The player could only pick one as their starter pet.
“Hmm… I choose you, Charmander!”
Zou Zhuo didn’t hesitate much. After all, what he really wanted was a red dragon baby, and among these pets, Charmander looked the most similar.
Once he made his choice, the supply station withdrew the other two eggs. Charmander’s egg flew closer to Zou Zhuo, then cracked open with a crisp “crack.”
A cute little dragon with an orange-red body and a light yellow belly jumped out of the eggshell and landed on the ground. A small flame burned at the tip of its tail, and its big, sparkling eyes blinked as it curiously looked at the world.