[Location: Levincia City - Pokemon Center]
Walking into the pokemon center, Colt couldn't help but look around with a curious look in his eyes. Although nothing truly extravagant, the advanced tech around the building naturally attracted a young man like himself who lived in a modern era.
Although he was pretty certain that the Pokemon world was probably in a similar era to his home world, they obviously made much faster progression in regard to technology.
Being a pokemon center, there were naturally many trainers present. Places like this not only served as a pokemon hospital, but also a temporary residence for trainers who need it.
Honestly, he was surprised the city had a genuine pokemon center.
As far as his memory served, the Scarlet and Violet games only ever portrayed them as similar to kiosks or gas stations that could be found around the cities and in open wild areas somewhat close to civilization.
"Welcome to the Pokemon Center! How can I help you today?"
Colt looked at the familiar pink-haired nurse in front of him, he really couldn't understand how an entire family line possessed such strong genetics that every member shared probably at the absolute least an 80% resemblance to one another.
He didn't know if every single Nurse Joy across all regions were related in one or another aside from occupation, but he didn't really care enough to delve into that rabbit hole. He'd just leave it as anime logic and move on.
Genetics aside, it wasn't surprising to see that Nurse Joy's across different regions had a different form of aesthetic, be it in their hair style or the style of their outfits.
As for the Nurse Joy here, she was certainly very unique compared to the other regions versions. Colt honestly wasn't sure if he could even call her Nurse Joy, she looked more like a gas station employee!
Unlike the others who wore more typical nurse-like uniforms, the ones in Paldea had on a collared white t-shirt and blue shorts underneath an apron with a pokeball design, even topping off with a cap of similar design.
"Hello, I'd just like a check up on my pokemon here."
Ralts was currently standing on Colt's shoulder while Zorua was resting calmly in his arms, and seemingly to avoid getting attention, tried to shrink into his arms as much as possible.
"Certainly, that shouldn't take long at all!" Nurse Joy nodded in understanding after hearing Colt's request. She blinked in surprise after seeing the pokemon though. "I don't think I've ever seen this pokemon before, it looks similar to a zorua."
"He is a zorua, just... unique." Colt chuckled a bit as he saw Zorua shrink even further after Nurse Joy looked at him with such curious eyes. "Alright, you two. Nurse Joy will take care you, you can trust her. I'll be waiting for you both here."
Although having hesitated at first, Zorua eventually nodded before hopping down from Colt's arms and onto the floor. Ralts teleported off of Colt's shoulder, appearing beside Zorua who jumped a bit after Ralts had done so.
Seeing this, Ralts smiled wryly and gave a quick apology. In response, Zorua grumbled a bit before looking away with a small visible red hue of embarrassment on his face. Colt chuckled at their antics before speaking to Nurse Joy.
"I'll leave them in your care, Nurse Joy. When you're finished, just call for Colten."
"Of course, leave everything to me!" Nurse Joy responded with a professional smile before looking down at the two who also looked up at her. "Please follow me, you two. You'll be back with your trainer in no time."
With that, Nurse Joy began walking towards the doorway that most likely led into the examination room of the pokemon center, Ralts and Zorua following behind soon after. Zorua did pause though, turning to look back.
Seeing this, Colt merely gave a reassuring smile along with a small wave.
Staring for in silence for a moment, Zorua took a deep breath before he turned back and quickly followed after Nurse Joy and Ralts. With both of them now gone, Colt gave a small sigh as a small, concerned frown appeared on his face.
"Seems like Zorua may need some time to adapt to human interaction..."
Colt didn't really know if the pokemon who come into existence within the Aerie Tower lived any kind of past life or not, but that didn't seem to have experience when it came to interacting with humans, at least in Zorua's case.
That aside, Colt was honestly relieved that it seemed that the pokemon center
After finding a place to sit down, one that was rather desolate compared to the others, Colt was able to comfortably open up his system. On the way here, he had received a notification regarding a new mission.
Of course, since he was in the middle of the city at the time and also needed to prioritize potential wounds that Ralts or Zorua had, he pushed the task of checking the new mission back until he was in a favorable situation to do so.
'Two missions?' Colt blinked in surprise upon seeing this after opening the system, he honestly had no idea multiple missions could be issued simultaneously. 'I guess I'll just check them one by one, let's see...'
____________
[Mission]
- Primary Objective: Successfully register 50 members into the store (Progress: (0/50)
- Mission Issued Supplies: [None]
Reward(s):
- 300 Store EXP
- Level 1 Pokeball Crate
- Level 1 Medicine Crate
____________
'Fifty members, that's a lot harder than it sounds...' Colt couldn't help but frown as he read over the details of the first mission. In essence, it was a simple and straightforward objective, the difficult part was how to achieve it. 'If I want to complete this task, I'll need to get the ball rolling.'
Reputation goes a long way, maintaining it was one thing, but building it up first from scratch was another. At the current time, he had no existing presence in this world, he was literally starting from ground zero.
Curiosity can certainly attract customers, but that was based entirely on luck and was overall unreliable. Even if customers came into his store purely out of curiosity, there was no guarantee they were trainers, so his services would essentially mean nothing to them at the current time.
He needed to think of some other way of attracting attention, even if it was still based on luck, as long as it was more reliable than the former than he'd go with it. The only question now was what that situation could possibly be...
"Hm...?" Colt was immediately attracted to a loud group of sounds nearby. "What's going on over there?"
Curiously, Colt got up from his seat before walking over to where a bunch of trainers were all gathered together, along with their pokemon. As for what they were looking at, they seemed to be focused entirely on TV screen on the wall.
Although he remained a meter or so behind the large crowd, Colt also turned his curious eyes up, he couldn't help but wonder what was so attractive that it garnered such a large crowd. When he did, he saw that most of the screen was being taken up by a female around his age.
With a head of thick hair that was mix of teal and pink, styled into wide ponytails with large hair clips shaped like magnemite, which strangely somehow exhibited emotional expressions that seemed to match the female's.
As for her outfit, from what could be seen on the screen, she seemed to be wearing an honestly comically oversized yellow and black jacket, the sleeves were covering her entire hands and more for God's sake. How does someone function in an outfit like that?
'Iono, the gym leader of this city.' Colt seemed to recall as he crossed his arms over his chest. 'If I'm not mistaken, she was supposed to be a famous streamer or something. Well, I suppose it's without a doubt that she's a famous streamer...'
Glancing around, he had noticed a number of others who, although having not gotten up to watch the big screen, were most likely watching the same thing on their rotom phones. Even if you didn't include the streamer side, her presence as the gym leader of this city still warranted such fame.
The Scarlet and Violet games may be the generation that Colt had the least familiarity about, but that didn't mean he was entirely clueless. He at least had quite a bit of general knowledge, though if you asked him to name every Paldean pokemon, you're pretty much shooting him in the foot.
[Your eyeballs are mine —caught in my Electroweb! Whosawhatsit? Iono! 'Ello, 'ello, hola! Ciao and Bonjour!]
'...Huh?'
Colt felt a small sweat run down his face as his mouth curled up into a wry smile, he knew that his memory of Scarlet and Violet wasn't the best, but did she always have that catchphrase? He had to give it to her, to be able to say that with such enthusiasm was truly admirable...
'Her fame aside, are those teeth of her's real...?' Colt really had no idea, Iono looked to possess a set of shark-like teeth. In fact, they were probably sharper than shark teeth! 'If those aren't fake, I worry for who her future partner is...'
Colt was no child, his words also referred to less than child-friendly situations as well, the thought of it honestly made him feel a shiver run down his spine. Shaking his head, Colt watched for a bit before eventually turning to return back to where he sat previously.
"Streaming, huh? That really brings me back... damn, I sounded old when I said that."
He wasn't a stranger to the streaming scene, he used to do it himself back in his old world. His streams were always music based and were mainly of him singing, but life tends to get busy, and he had no choice but to stop.
Of course, that didn't mean he left music entirely!
Although he had no time to stream, he would occasionally post songs onto platforms like Youtube, either songs that he composed himself or cover songs. Now that he reminisced about it, he really did miss doing all of that...
"Streaming..." As Colt sat back down, his face seemed to fall into a look of contemplation. 'Is that a feasible method to gain popularity? A long term one, sure, but it could work. Of course, the content would have to relate to the business.'
The only reason he was hesitant was because this method was a double-edged sword, and how you may ask? Well, if his content for whatever reason has a negative influence instead of a positive one, he'd be tainting his already non-existent reputation.
Was he concerned about not getting views?
Not, not at all.
This was the world of pokemon, and battles were probably THE most popular form of entertainment across all regions. There was most certainly an audience for this field, which was both a good and bad thing, thus the previous concern.
'Aside from casual entertainment, there have to be trainers out there who also watch battle-related videos online to improve their own skills, right? If that's the case, I'll have to prove myself and show that I'm worth watching. After all, those trainers are the ones I'm mainly after.' Colt thought to himself before sighing. 'I have to get the ball rolling somehow, so I'll have to figure it out later.'
For now, he still had that other mission to look at.
____________
[Mission]
- Primary Objective: Clear floor 25 of the Admin's Aerie Tower or the general Aerie Tower (Progress: 0/25)
- Secondary Objective: Complete the Primary Objective within 1 week (Duration: 06:23:12:34)
- Mission Issued Supplies: [None]
Reward(s):
- 120 Store EXP
- Power Item Collection
- ??? (Secondary Objective)
____________
'Once again, straight forward but probably still easier said than done.' Colt thought after reading all the given information. 'The tutorial tower only had me go ten floors, and if I take that as reference, how strong are the pokemon beyond that?'
Although Ralts had defeated Zorua with relative ease, that was mainly because Colt managed to keep up the attacks to prevent Zorua from setting up. If he had failed to do so, the results most likely would've been catastrophic.
He was clear on the fact that the pokemon inside the tower weren't stupid, they fought with strategy instead of pure instinct or recklessness. In other words, getting to and defeating Floor 25 was much harder than it initially sounds.
'Power items, that's for EVs and stuff.' Colt glanced at the second reward listed, his eyes showing interest. 'I wonder how they work in the real world? I doubt it'll be the same as in the games.'
He was never a competitive player when it came to Pokemon, but he at least knew the purpose for things like EVs, otherwise known as Effort Values. They essentially determined what kind of purpose that pokemon would serve, let it be a defensive tank or a powerful offense.
However, that was all calculated using numbers in the games, and there was even a cap as to how much could be improved, both for a singular parameter and overall EVs. Once they have been trained to a certain point, they won't gain any more improvement in terms of EVs.
'Will that limitation also exist in this real world? I sure hope not.' Colt frowned as he thought about this, it'd be a real shame if it was. 'I didn't see specified EVs in the Master's Pokedex either, so perhaps all parameters can continue to improve as long as certain stimulation is provided.'
He didn't just mean through the use of power items, even basic training like weightlifting and such could probably achieve the same results, the power items would most likely just make that process less tedious.
'Even so, I doubt it's infinite.' Colt shook his head. 'There has to be some kind of genetic threshold or something similar, there's just no way stats can be improved infinitely. If I were to hazard a guess, it may directly relate to potential, and the grading system the Master's Pokedex uses for a pokemon's level and parameters respectively.'
On the other hand, that hidden reward did very well spark his curiosity. If it was truly possible, he'd certainly want to try and complete that secondary objective.
"Colten, please head immediately to the front desk to collect your pokemon!" A familiar feminine voice seemed to boom through the speakers of the pokemon center. "Repeat. Colten, please head immediately to the front desk to collect your pokemon!"
Hearing the announcement, Colt immediately stood up and began making his way back to the front desk.
Upon getting closer, Colt could see Nurse Joy waiting patiently behind the front desk with Ralts calmly standing on top of the counter, and as for Zorua, Colt could only smile helplessly when he saw him peeking out and looking around from behind the gap that acted as the entrance to get behind the desk.
Seemingly noticing his presence, all three of them turned to see Colt walking over. Zorua, wasting no time, immediately rushed over before jumping into his arms while Ralts calmly teleported back onto his shoulder.
"You two certainly seem to be fine." Colt chuckled, and Ralts responded with a small smile as well as a nod of his head. Zorua just continued burying himself in Colt's arms. "There's nothing to be nervous about, Zorua. Just try and calm yourself."
Hearing this, Zorua slowly looked up from Colt's chest, revealing his still wary eyes that looked around with vigilance. Colt could only rub Zorua's back to comfort him, because it seems that it may take a bit more time than he thought for Zorua to get properly settle in.
"Thanks for everything, Nurse Joy." Colt looked back up from Zorua and spoke. "Were there any issues?"
"No worries, none at all." Nurse Joy shook her head with her usual smile. "Aside from some minor injuries and fatigue, both Ralts and Zorua seem to be perfectly healthy. Though, it took a bit of time to get Zorua to cooperate..."
"I see..." Colt wasn't at all surprised, he was honestly amazed Zorua cooperated in the end at all. "Sorry for the trouble."
"There's no need, feel free to come back if you need anything!"
With a simple farewell, Colt turned to leave the pokemon center, though he made sure to return Zorua to his pokeball before doing so. Similar to how he had walked here, he decided to keep Zorua hidden away to avoid any looks.
If he was truly going to decide to live stream or simply record videos to potentially gain an audience, then he'd probably avoid getting Zorua captured on camera, at least not until he was confident enough to protect himself.
'The second mission is probably the one I'll try and aim for first, the first mission definitely seems more long-term. With that trial membership available, that mission at the absolute very least will take three days.'
To build a good reputation, honesty was policy.
If he withheld information about how a trial period was available, it could affect him negatively in the future. True, he could just never mention it entirely, thus the issue will arise. However, compared to waiting three days, losing a sure-fire method of getting customers was far worse.
For those who are truly interested, they'll certainly become official members after their trial period ends. Colt needed to think through the wider lens, if he made people pay for the official membership straight off the bat and they end up not liking it, his reputation would plummet.
He wasn't looking for trainers who are battling merely for fun, the nature of the business was aimed towards those who sought power and opportunity. If some budding trainer appears and expects a fun time, they'd be in for a rude reckoning.
"Hold on, the second mission is an opportunity to complete the first mission if I go through with the plan, I can kill two birds with one stone here." Colt muttered, prompting Ralts to look at him in confusion from his shoulder. Colt then turned his head and smiled. "Ralts, we have some work to do."
In response, Ralts could only tilt his head in confusion.