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At that moment, Mason was chatting with one of the nearby NPC contestants while observing the fishing spots along the lakeshore.
He had no idea what kind of wizards the programmers at Nintendead, the game's development company, were, but the NPC speaking with him felt almost exactly like a real person.
The conversation flowed smoothly and naturally, unlike the old games where characters repeated the same few lines over and over again.
Mason even found himself thinking that the ordinary conversations he had always taken for granted in real life had somehow become interesting inside the game.
If circumstances allowed, he felt like he could keep chatting like this all day.
But right now, he was a contestant in the Bibarel Cup Fishing Tournament. Naturally, the competition had to come first. Everything else would have to wait.
So while making small talk with the NPC, Mason also carefully studied his surroundings.
Based on his real-world fishing experience, in a fishing competition held in a shared venue like this, choosing the right spot was extremely important.
Experienced anglers often select their fishing locations according to the habits and habitats of their target fish.
Doing so greatly increased the chances of getting a bite.
Although he was now inside a Pokémon game world, and although Mason only had a rough understanding of the exact habits of Water-type Pokémon, some broader, more general principles still applied.
The current season is summer. Under the blazing sun, the water temperature in the shallows would be high, so there would be very few fish there.
The best fishing spots should be in cooler, deep-water areas or places shaded by aquatic plants, where Pokémon can escape the heat.
This year's Bibarel Cup Fishing Tournament in Azure Bay City offered extremely generous rewards. However, due to regional movement restrictions, there were basically no other players participating besides Mason. There was not a single powerful professional player among them.
That meant with fewer players competing against him, his odds of winning the championship had suddenly shot up.
At least, that was what Mason believed.
In reality, winning this competition would be far more difficult than he imagined.
Perhaps because his thinking was still shaped by past gaming experience, he had overlooked the most important part of the tournament.
The NPCs.
In Pokémon: World, a game whose deeper systems were designed and managed by top-tier artificial intelligence, the NPCs possessed a long and detailed history almost as rich as that of the real world.
If interested players were willing to dig deeper, they would discover that this world's history was incredibly complete.
Just like the human world, it had known war and peace, division and progress.
In fact, because of the existence of Pokémon, its historical development had been even more turbulent and dramatic.
The countless details within that history were not something that could be explained in just a sentence or two.
Across that long history of human development, countless cultures had emerged, and fishing culture was naturally one of them.
With a population base comparable to Earth's, the number of fishing enthusiasts in this world was enormous. Among them, expert anglers were far too numerous to count.
If Mason continued looking down on NPCs the way he was now, then once the tournament began, things would not go smoothly for him.
In this kind of environment, winning the championship would be incredibly difficult.
Of course, before the competition officially started, Mason had no way of knowing that.
Right now, he was still happily chatting with the NPC beside him.
"Excuse me, sorry to interrupt."
"We're from Azure Bay City's official live broadcast program. May we interview you for a moment?"
Suddenly, a clear, gentle female voice rang out from beside him, and a black handheld microphone was extended toward him.
Mason turned his head and found a beautiful woman standing in front of him, her smile sweet and her presence charming.
While silently admiring just how ridiculously pretty the girls in this game were, he nodded and replied, "Of course."
"May I ask your name?"
Crystal moved the microphone a little closer to Mason.
"Just call me Mason."
"Then, Mason, may I ask if you feel confident about today's fishing tournament?"
"Of course I do."
Mason lifted his head, straightened his chest, and answered loudly.
Unlike the more modest, cautious replies from the previous contestants, Crystal immediately sensed the strong confidence in his voice.
Her eyes lit up, and even the smile on her face seemed to become a little sweeter as she asked tentatively, "What ranking are you hoping to achieve in this competition?"
Mason's gaze passed over the lovely host in front of him and landed on the dark camera lens beyond her.
In real life, he was only an ordinary person. He had never appeared on television before.
Now, facing a camera inside the game for the first time, he suddenly felt excited.
The thought that there might be hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of people watching him from behind that lens made his heart pound and his blood surge.
Under that intense emotional rush, he opened his mouth almost without thinking.
"Champion."
"I'm going to win the championship in this tournament."
The instant those words fell, hostile gazes from the other contestants around him swept over all at once.
Of course, Mason was still caught up in the surge of emotion and did not notice.
On the other side, after hearing Mason's answer, Crystal could not help but silently praise him.
Although she was still young, she understood very well that raising a program's ratings could not be done by relying on herself alone.
To keep viewers watching, a show needed highlights. It needed conflict.
And Mason's bold declaration of victory in front of the camera was clearly the kind of eye-catching highlight that could hook the audience.
After hearing that exchange, viewers would naturally pay attention to his performance. They would want to see exactly what kind of ability he had that allowed him to make such a confident claim.
Naturally, they would not change the channel. Instead, they would keep their attention fixed on the program.
With that, the ratings would rise.
And regardless of the final result, whether Mason won or lost, there would be no downside for Azure Bay City Television.
Crystal laughed lightly.
"It seems Contestant Mason is very confident."
"Then let's look forward to seeing how he performs once the tournament begins."
"Now, we'll hand things back to the studio and hear what our hosts there think about this year's fishing competition."
"…"
Her voice gradually faded, and Crystal's figure, microphone in hand, slowly disappeared into the crowd.
Only then did Mason gradually calm down from his excitement.
He did not regret the bold words he had spoken in front of the camera.
Because in his heart, that was exactly what he believed.
Glancing at the time displayed on his system interface, Mason thought to himself.
"There's only half an hour left before the competition starts. I need to hurry up and find a good spot by the lake."
"If I miss the best fishing location because of that interview, that would be a real loss."
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~Support with 200 PowerStones = 1 Bonus Chapter
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For early access to advanced chapters on P-atreon:
P-atreon/iamxeno
(Just remove the - hyphen to access normally)
Thank you so much for your support and for reading!