Bonus Chapter
~~~
In the center of the screen, as the colorful evolutionary light faded away, Blipbug's appearance had completely changed.
Its pixelated body was clearly elongated, the originally round, ball-like silver shell segments replaced by larger, more angular heavy armor plates, as if it had become a somewhat honest-looking metal ball.
[Congratulations! Your Pokémon Blipbug has evolved into Dottler.]
The chat immediately began updating rapidly.
[It evolved just like that?]
[Well yeah, Bug-types all have transitional forms, right? Don't forget what that guy said—this thing doesn't evolve again until level 30.]
[Bug-type intermediate forms... their battle power is pretty questionable]
While the chat argued about Blipbug's evolution, a prompt appeared directly in the game screen.
[Ding! Dottler has learned the new moves "Light Screen" and "Reflect"!]
After a brief pause, the chat absolutely exploded.
[??? Wait, bro, what did you just learn?]
[Hold up, am I seeing things?]
[Huh??? Is this a bug???]
No wonder these viewers were so shocked right now. The reason was simple—Light Screen and Reflect were widely known in the real world as extremely powerful defensive moves.
But correspondingly, these weren't moves that just any ordinary Pokémon could learn. They were incredibly difficult to master, basically only Gym Leader-level Pokémon could attempt to use them.
If it wasn't a Psychic-type Pokémon, using these moves would be even harder!
But now, a small Bug-type Pokémon had directly mastered both moves after evolving...
Kairos seemed to have anticipated the chat's explosion, showing no surprise on his face.
He moved the mouse cursor and precisely clicked on this new form Pokémon's Pokédex page in the party menu. A clear electronic voice accompanied by concise text introduction played in the stream:
[Dottler: Possesses powerful psychic talent, especially excelling at constructing defensive energy barriers. Its shell effectively amplifies mental power, forming powerful protective fields.]
He seemed to say nothing, yet somehow said everything.
The chat continued scrolling rapidly:
[Streamer, come clean—how did you know this guy could learn these moves???]
[Confirmed! The streamer definitely snuck in some practice beforehand and figured it out...]
[So what? He practiced ahead of time, so what? Could you understand a game this well in one night?]
Kairos's gaze quickly swept over the rapidly scrolling chat filled with various emotions.
Dottler mastering these two moves had undoubtedly stirred up emotions among the stream's viewers.
And naturally, prompts appeared before his eyes.
[Congratulations host, you have gained a total of 410 shock emotion points from stream viewers!!]
As the number of viewers in the stream increased, the efficiency of emotion point acquisition naturally improved as well.
But Kairos's attention returned to the more important matter—the party panel.
Beautifly had already reached level 14, while Wimpod was level 13 and had finally learned an offensive move—Struggle Bug.
But trying to challenge Roxanne's gym with the current team would obviously still be difficult. He'd probably need more preparation.
Fortunately, the biggest advantage of Bug-types was that they were easy to catch and train. Going to catch new ones now would be perfectly manageable.
So Kairos controlled his character and dove straight into the forest grass, quickly catching two more suitable Pokémon—a Caterpie and a Sewaddle.
As he caught these two new Pokémon, the chat began commenting rapidly.
[You're catching Caterpie too? Streamer, are you really that desperate?]
[Ohhh! Sewaddle, from Unova! I know this one! So cute and green!]
[Sewaddle evolves into... Swadloon, right? Like a big leaf wrap, then Leavanny?]
[Does anyone know how Leavanny evolves...?]
Kairos glanced at the chat, which reminded him of something. After Sewaddle evolved into Swadloon at level 20, it needed to reach a certain friendship level to evolve into Leavanny.
And in this world, friendship evolution obviously hadn't been discovered yet.
So probably not many people would bother training Sewaddle.
That was truly unfortunate, since he felt Leavanny ranked pretty high among all Bug-types in terms of strength.
But no worries—he could demonstrate this to the chat soon enough.
After catching two new Pokémon, Kairos continued using his previous method, finding NPCs and Bug-types in Petalburg Woods to quickly level up his team. Twenty minutes later, all Pokémon in his party had reached the current level cap—15.
Caterpie had even evolved all the way to its final form, Butterfree.
As for Sewaddle, since it needed to reach level 20 to evolve, there was naturally no change.
[Another fighter! Feels like the streamer's really well prepared.]
[This evolution speed for Sewaddle... feels as slow as Wimpod, what's up with that?]
[Don't tell me it's another late-blooming Bug-type haha]
[Deadweight +1]
While the chat discussed, Kairos pressed the interaction key and spoke to his Pokémon, his voice carrying encouragement and comfort.
"Alright everyone, we're about to face your first gym battle. Win or lose, I'll be right there with you. Let's give it our all and try to clear it in one shot!"
Kairos's behavior sparked another string of comments.
[The streamer definitely watched other streams, even learned about speaking to boost bonds.]
[Sigh, too bad he's about to face Roxanne... waiting for the streamer to crash and burn.]
A few minutes later, Kairos entered Roxanne's gym with a bag full of Bug-types at the level cap.
Due to reaching the level cap, the NPCs guarding the gym entrance didn't pose any real challenge and were easily defeated.
And the moment Kairos stood before Roxanne, a red exclamation mark appeared above her head.
What followed was Roxanne's signature line—
[The solid, powerful hearts of Rock-type Pokémon—let me show them to you now!]
The gym battle officially began!
[Gym Leader Roxanne sent out Archen!]
The Poké Ball was thrown, and Archen's figure appeared on the battlefield. But on Kairos's side, his lead Pokémon was... actually Wimpod!
The stream's viewers were completely dumbfounded.
[??? Starting with Wimpod???]
[Streamer, are you sending it out as cannon fodder? Don't NPCs have infinite PP for their moves?]
[RIP Wimpod, moment of silence. Amen.]
The battle command panel appeared at the bottom of the screen. Kairos's fingers showed no hesitation on the keyboard as his mouse cursor moved lightning-fast to the "Switch Pokémon" option and clicked confirm.
As the turn began, Roxanne's command also lit up simultaneously—also "Switch Pokémon"!
The pixelated animation of Poké Balls being recalled and thrown out flashed quickly. Kairos's Wimpod on the field disappeared, replaced by the newly evolved Dottler!
On Roxanne's side, Archen was replaced by Lileep—composed of multiple rocky tentacles and resembling an ancient lily flower!
The chat was instantly confused.
[???]
[Holy crap?! They were battling fine, then suddenly both switched?]
[How did the streamer predict that? How did you know Roxanne would definitely switch to Lileep?!]
While the viewers were surprised, Kairos's voice came through the microphone clearly to every viewer's ears, carrying a calm tone.
"Lileep's ability is Storm Drain, which makes Water-type moves ineffective and instead boosts its Special Attack. Seeing me lead with Wimpod, to prevent any Water-type moves I might use from threatening her while utilizing the ability as a counter, she'd inevitably switch to Lileep first to absorb Water-type moves—taking no damage while getting a free Special Attack boost. For her, that's the optimal play."
[Pfft, you still have the nerve to say this is your first playthrough when you even know Lileep's ability!]
[This calculation is insanely precise, holy crap! It even avoided dealing with that Archen — it was brutal.]
[The streamer definitely has some skills, but now the problem is how do you get past this Lileep? This thing is ridiculously tanky!]
Among the flood of comments, Kairos remained calm and selected the move [Reflect].
As the turn began, a translucent energy wall composed of countless tiny light pixels instantly erected in Kairos's half of the field, emitting a soft glow.
The next moment, Lileep directly used "Confuse Ray"! A twisted, eerie pixelated light orb hit Dottler, causing Dottler to fall into a confused state!
However, seeing the confusion status take effect, Kairos didn't pause at all and immediately selected "Switch" on the command panel, bringing in Beautifly from the back!
Right after, Lileep acted, using Giga Drain. Green light flashed across Beautifly's body, but a "barely effective" message popped up.
As a Bug/Flying-type Pokémon, Grass-type moves obviously couldn't deal much damage, only scraping off a bit of Beautifly's HP.
Kairos felt somewhat grateful that when he originally designed Lileep's moveset, he hadn't given it any Rock-type moves, otherwise it would be genuinely dangerous for Beautifly.
As the new turn began, Kairos decisively chose "Poison Sting."
The next moment, Beautifly's pixel model performed an attack animation, several needles glowing with ominous purple light shot out, accurately hitting Lileep.
The next instant, purple light flashed across Lileep's body.
[Lileep was poisoned!]
As the notification appeared, a purple skull icon immediately appeared on the right side of Lileep's status bar, indicating it had fallen into poison status.
[Holy shit, what luck does the streamer have, even triggering that effect...]
[This way it cancels out the Leftovers recovery, but how do you deal with Recover?]
[Don't even have a super effective move, still feels like you can't break through...]
Meanwhile, Lileep used Confuse Ray again, but it missed.
As the new turn began, Kairos directly had Beautifly use the move "Bug Bite." Green tooth-shaped light flashed across the screen, followed by a "super effective" notification, and Lileep's HP bar dropped by nearly half!
Keep in mind, for the extremely durable Lileep, this was already quite high damage.
This caused another wave of surprise in the chat.
[Huh, shouldn't Bug-type moves be not very effective against Rock-type? How is it super effective?]
[? What happened to Lileep being super tanky?]
Kairos's voice remained calm, as if stating an ordinary fact:
"Rock-type does resist Bug-type, that's correct. This means Rock-type moves deal super effective damage to Bug-type Pokémon, causing more harm. But conversely, Bug-type moves hitting Rock-type Pokémon aren't resisted—they just deal normal damage."
"Bug-type moves are also super effective against Lileep's Grass-type, so naturally they deal double damage."
"Moreover," he paused, then added, "Beautifly's Attack stat is actually quite high, at least pretty decent for the early game."
As the next new turn began, Kairos unhesitatingly chose "Bug Bite" again!
As the green light fell, this attack plus the previous poison damage directly brought Lileep's HP bar to near empty, almost zero.
Lileep's body then glowed with brilliant light as it used Recover, restoring half its health.
However, when the turn ended and both poison damage and Leftovers triggered together, Lileep's health finally stopped at below half, flashing dangerous yellow light—within Beautifly's KO range!
Next turn, if Beautifly used "Bug Bite" once more, it could directly finish it off!
Faced with this situation, the stream naturally welcomed a wave of excited comment frenzy.
[Holy crap, is Lileep about to go down? This annoying thing was actually this easy to deal with?]
[No wonder he started with Poison Sting—the purpose was to cancel out Leftovers recovery... preventing Lileep from using Recover to get its health back to a safe position.]
[Such explosive damage output]
[Quick, use Bug Bite again and finish it off!]
But the next moment, Kairos made a move the chat completely didn't expect.
—He actually didn't choose to have Beautifly press the advantage, but directly switched Pokémon, sending out Dottler!
Almost the instant Kairos pressed confirm, Roxanne's command also lit up simultaneously, she also chose "Switch Pokémon," targeting the previously switched-out Archen!
This scene caused another commotion in the chat.
[Holy crap!!! What kind of double switch is this!!!]
[GG, the streamer predicted Roxanne!]
[But Archen hits so hard, sending Dottler up is just feeding it!]
The last comment's concern wasn't unfounded. After all, everyone had witnessed Archen's attack power firsthand—they didn't think a Bug-type Pokémon could withstand that super effective damage.
As the new turn began, Archen acted without hesitation, launching "Rock Slide" first!
Countless sharp rocks gathered above it, crashing down like a torrential rain toward the newly entered Dottler!
Heavy stones slammed into Dottler's thick, solid silver shell pixels, producing dull sounds.
"Super effective!!"
But Dottler's HP bar stopped dropping at the final quarter, stubbornly remaining on the field!
This naturally left everyone stunned.
[Huh? It didn't faint?]
[Holy crap, is it that tanky?]
As Archen's turn ended, psychic waves surged around Dottler. Countless pale yellow hexagonal energy pixels quickly assembled and expanded around the field, forming a solid energy barrier covering Kairos's side!
[Dottler used Light Screen!]
Some viewers were starting to catch on:
[Holy shit, this is strategy! Now both walls are up!]
[If not for that first-turn double switch... directly putting Dottler against Archen would only get one wall up, but now both are active!]
As the new turn began, Kairos didn't choose to switch Pokémon. Dottler was directly taken out by Archen's Rock Slide.
He pressed the interaction key and spoke softly.
"Dottler, you did great. Thank you for your hard work, rest now. Leave it to the other partners!"
As soon as he finished speaking, Kairos directly switched to Beautifly again.
However, this behavior left the stream's viewers somewhat confused.
[Switching to Beautifly again? But it takes quadruple damage from Rock-type! Isn't this just feeding?]
[Yeah, even with Reflect reducing physical damage, Beautifly itself is physically frail. Archen is fast—even if it survives two hits, two consecutive attacks might finish it off...]
[The key is how can Beautifly even damage Archen? This Flying/Rock typing is just too broken, isn't it?]
[I knew it—the streamer isn't a professional trainer after all, so operation mistakes are normal. If you ask me, sending out Butterfree this turn would be the smartest choice. Could inflict some status conditions on Archen, play around it, wear down some HP first.]
However, at this moment, as the turn began, Kairos ignored the chat's concerns and doubts, his finger firmly selecting a command for Beautifly—Stun Spore!
The next moment, in the game, Archen indeed struck first, countless rocks falling from the sky!
[Archen used Rock Slide, super effective!]
—One Rock Slide directly hit Beautifly's body, instantly taking away more than half its health!
Keep in mind, this was with Reflect reducing damage by half—without Reflect's protection, Beautifly would have been instantly KO'd!
As Beautifly's turn began, golden powder scattered from its wings, falling onto Archen's body. Yellow lightning effects flashed briefly, indicating Archen had fallen into paralysis.
The new turn began. Kairos glanced at Beautifly's HP bar and without any hesitation, directly clicked "Gust"!
Following his command, the chat immediately began updating—
[Is the streamer confused? Gust will be resisted—it can't damage Archen at all]
[And Archen is faster than Beautifly. If paralysis doesn't trigger, wouldn't Beautifly just be sacrificed?]
But the next moment, as the turn began, the first to act was... actually Beautifly!
It flapped its wings with all its might, instantly forming a powerful, tearing airflow that became invisible blades, sweeping toward Archen!
A system notification also appeared!
[Beautifly used "Gust," not very effective!]
But this attack's damage exceeded all the stream viewers' expectations, actually taking away half of Archen's HP!!
The chat was instantly flooded with question marks and shock.
[???]
[Wait, bro? Why can a resisted 40-power move deal so much damage?]
[Streamer, are you cheating? Why did you move first this time and deal so much damage?]
Kairos's voice timely provided the answer to these mysteries:
"I read the game manual—under paralysis, Pokémon not only have difficulty acting, but their speed is also halved, so Beautifly would definitely move first."
"The move 'Gust' actually has a special effect. If the opponent is in a Flying or Free Fall state, this move's damage doubles."
"And while Archen doesn't appear to be flying normally, in the game, this move should deal double damage to all Flying-type Pokémon."
[Fixed double damage? Speed halved?]
[This move has additional effects?! Streamer, are you sure you're not making this up?!]
[This is really the first time hearing this... Streamer, are you really not some professional trainer? You know so much?]
While the stream's viewers frantically discussed, golden electrical current flashed across Archen's body before instantly disappearing—paralysis didn't successfully trigger, meaning it still had the right to act!
Now quite a few viewers panicked:
[This is bad... luck isn't great. One hit took over half, two hits means certain death. Looks like Beautifly still has to go down]
[This thing might have to be handled by Butterfree, but Butterfree doesn't seem to have any good moves against it, and it still depends on how paralysis performs... this is tough]
[What a shame]
But while the chat discussed frantically, no one knew that in front of the computer screen, Kairos's gaze fell on Archen's HP bar, and his lips curved up slightly.
A shame?
Not happening!
The next moment, as Archen used Rock Slide, countless rocks crashed down with a "super effective" notification, and Beautifly's HP bar began rapidly dropping.
However, just as the HP bar was about to completely disappear... Beautifly's final sliver of red health stopped moving and stayed there!!
—It still stood tall on the battlefield, refusing to fall!