"Phew..." Arthur let out a deep sigh as he stepped out of the shower, steam curling around him like a gentle mist.
In a village as remote as this one, the concept of a "shower room" didn't even exist. Most folks bathed in the nearby lake, beneath a cascading waterfall that had been divided down the middle by simple wooden partitions—one side for men, the other for women. It worked like a free public bath, and for the villagers, it was more than enough.
That is, until Arthur came along.
Not too long ago, he decided to install two shower rooms inside his house—mostly because the walk to the lake was long and inconvenient, and it kept cutting into his research time.
For the locals, bathing twice a week was the norm. But for Arthur, whose soul hailed from modern-day Earth, that was borderline torture. Especially after hours of farm work, drenched in sweat and grime, he felt like he might actually die if he couldn't shower at least once a day.
Using a magic circle to draw moisture from the air, he devised a way to conjure clean water right at home. Before long, his invention caught on with his family. Word spread, and soon the neighbors came knocking, asking if he could build them one too. It was one of the earliest ways he earned money for his research, so he was more than happy to help.
Since then, the once-crowded lake baths had grown quieter. Still, some villagers visited now and then—more for relaxation than necessity.
Arthur stretched, slipping into his pajamas before settling at his cluttered work desk. Scattered across it were all-too-familiar devices and half-finished projects—an unfinished Poké Ball, a prototype Pokédex, and more. Mixed among them were materials native to this world: Remnora, Harmonite, copper, iron, and a variety of glimmering gems and ores. All had been confirmed safe to handle, so he didn't mind the mess. Otherwise, he'd need a more secure lab—definitely not his bedroom, where Lena also slept just across the room.
"Bro? Back to your research again?" Lena asked curiously, watching as Pichu chased her Squirtle around the room. The two Pokémon played enthusiastically, though their movements were sluggish—they were clearly exhausted after a long day of training.
Over the past few days, both Pichu and Squirtle had reached level 8, steadily approaching level 9.
Arthur could've raised Pichu's level faster if he'd focused purely on grinding experience in the forest. After all, nothing beat real combat when it came to leveling up. There was no "EXP system" in this world, but actual battle experience always led to faster growth than simple at-home training or playful exercises.
However, Arthur's focus now was more on playing and bonding with Pichu. Sure, battling monsters in the forest could also build that bond—but it wasn't nearly as efficient, or safe, as simply spending time together. Besides, his magic wasn't strong enough to fight alongside Pichu effectively.
With only average talent in magic, Arthur often struggled to deal with even weak monsters—at least when he wasn't prepared. But when he was prepared, equipped with his deep knowledge of magic runes and circles, he could easily rank among the strongest in the village.
Perhaps I should ask dad or mom to come with me to the forest for protection, so I can set up some hidden magic circles ahead of time. That way, I can train with Pichu and strengthen our bond faster. He thought with a sigh.
Nothing builds friendship like surviving a life-or-death battle together!
…Not that he had any intention of actually doing that.
Taking things slow was better—for both their safety, and for Pichu's happiness.
"Yeah, this little guy has too much energy during the day, so I can only get some research done at night," Arthur said with a small smile, gently petting Pichu as the tiny Pokémon jumped into his lap and curled up, clearly ready to sleep.
"Okay, bro… don't push yourself too hard," Lena mumbled through a yawn, pulling Squirtle close under her blanket before drifting off.
Arthur smiled softly as he looked at them, then turned his attention back to Pichu. He ran his fingers gently through its fur, feeling its slow, sleepy breaths as it drifted off in his lap.
As he gently stroked Pichu's fur, his gaze drifted toward the glowing magic circle hovering above his cluttered desk—a delicate web of light and runes.
He'd postponed his work long enough. It was time to continue.
Since he was determined to make time for Pichu during the day, the only chance he had to focus on research was at night, when the house was quiet and everyone else was asleep.
Even after living in this world for almost thirteen years, Arthur hadn't lost his night owl habits.
Back on Earth, staying up late had been second nature—almost a cultural norm.
He reached into his waist bag and pulled out a small flask. It was a Memora Potion—a magical concoction that helped the drinker recall memories of the past. It was commonly used to treat amnesia, and had become especially popular among the elderly who wanted to relive cherished memories from their past.
But for Arthur, it served another purpose entirely.
He needed it to recall his memories of Earth.
It was impossible to remember everything from the past with perfect clarity—especially after living in this world for over ten years. Still, if Arthur hoped to realize his dream of bringing Pokémon World to life, revisiting those memories was essential.
He'd been skeptical when he first bought the Memora Potion. By all logic, it should only recover memories stored in the brain. But his memories of Earth definitely weren't housed in his physical brain—they were etched into his soul, remnants from a life in another world. Even so, to his surprise, the potion worked. For about an hour after drinking it, he could recall any memory he focused on, down to the smallest detail.
He still wasn't sure how it worked—maybe it tapped into the soul directly, or maybe it was just good old-fashioned magic. Either way, it didn't matter. It worked. It was safe. And that was enough.
Of course, it wasn't without its side effects. The recommended limit was six bottles a day, but most people never needed more than one. Arthur, however, drank it as often as he safely could, sometimes even pushing that limit when inspiration struck.
Lena had started calling him an addict freak.
And honestly? He agreed. What kind of kid downs Memora Potions like they're candy?
But he couldn't exactly tell her the truth. Instead, he explained that the potion helped him concentrate on his research—something technically true.
Memory, after all, was part of the mind domain, and that explanation was just believable enough for Lena to accept it—albeit with an eye-roll and a sigh.
Truth be told, he spent more money on Memora Potions than anything else. And still, he had no regrets.
Once he finished drinking, he tucked the empty flask back into his waist bag and leaned into the flood of vivid memories surging through his mind.
With his left hand gently stroking the sleeping Pichu in his lap, his right hand took up a magic brush. Carefully, he began tracing runes onto the glowing magic template floating above the desk—a framework he called the Pokémon Blueprint.
Each one recorded a prototype: a magical framework of the Pokémon he planned to bring to life later by using infant animal souls and Harmonite.
He wasn't exactly a genius biologist, but the Memora Potion let him access fragments of scientific theory he'd long forgotten—starting with the core building blocks of life, like DNA.
Of course, he skipped countless steps. What he was doing would've been utterly impossible in his old world, no matter how hard he tried. But here, where science could be fused with magic?
It became possible.
Today, Arthur set out to create a template for Omanyte—an ancient Pokémon once revived from fossils, shaped like a spiraled shell with wriggling tentacles, a creature that had once roamed the deep oceans of a long-lost world.
Although it was known as a fossil Pokémon, the concept of Pokémon fossils hadn't yet been realized in this world. For now, creating Omanyte was no different from any other ordinary Pokémon.
First, he activated a pre-prepared magic circle, one he called the Pokémon Codex Circle, summoning the 'database' from his hidden storage space—the same pocket dimension located somewhere in the Spirit Realm where he kept Pokémon Eggs, templates, and reference materials. From there, he pulled out the magic codes he'd previously recorded.
Recreating the foundational structure of a Pokémon from scratch every time would've been a monumental waste of effort. Thankfully, he had long since devoted an absurd amount of time to spamming Memora Potions, meticulously recording and encoding the stat systems of Pokémon—how their six base stats worked, and how those values translated into the real world. With that groundwork in place, all he needed to do now was pull up the framework and input Omanyte's stats and growth pattern.
In simpler terms, all he had to do was punch in the numbers—like using a custom-built calculator.
He'd also pre-recorded details like Pokémon abilities and available movesets. With the Memora Potion helping him recall Omanyte's standard and hidden abilities, as well as its learnable moves, he could now feed the information into the Pokémon Blueprint before him. It felt almost like working in a magical version of Excel—only instead of spreadsheets, this was genetic code, and every entry engraved itself into Omanyte's magical DNA.
Fortunately, he had prepared all the basic systems even before creating Caterpie, which made developing subsequent Pokémon infinitely easier.
The blueprint in front of him began to glow softly—thin blue lines tracing through the design like the circuitry on a motherboard. Each rune was meticulously etched, combining harmonic resonance patterns with simplified structural markers that mimicked the DNA strands he once saw in biology class, only written in a form of programmable magic.
He couldn't help but think how much smoother this would all be if he actually knew how to code. He only had a basic grasp of programming—just enough to get by—and it nagged at him that the Memora Potion couldn't help him recall knowledges he never had to begin with.
When the foundational framework was finished, the blueprint took on a sleek, almost digital form—like a 2D Pokédex entry brought to life, packed with neatly arranged data and stats.
After that, he set his focus on creating a 3D model for Omanyte and its evolution, Omastar.
Building the model itself wasn't the most challenging part. The real difficulty lay in the rigging—ensuring the creature would move naturally, as a living being should. Without proper rigging, the entire model would collapse, forcing him to start from scratch. After all, the end result had to function like a true living organism, following the laws of nature. That meant including things like organs and internal structures in the design. However, this was just a skeletal framework; he planned to use the forces of nature—magic—to build the creature from the ground up, starting inside the egg until it became a fully-formed Omanyte, much like the 3D model he was creating.
After three failed attempts, he finally succeeded in shaping the Omanyte model.
Now came the most delicate stage of creation—the transition from 2D data to 3D life.
Taking a deep breath, he hovered his magic brush just above the glowing blueprint. A faint hum filled the air as the harmonic resonance deepened, responding to the activation of the structural evolution phase. This was the critical moment when flat information—the "DNA spreadsheet"—would expand into a physical form.
The blueprint was like a schematic or a recipe, and now it had to be transformed into something tangible. Arthur activated another pre-prepared magic circle, the Essence Encoding Circle, which began converting the encoded stats, abilities, and genetic runes into molecular patterns.
The encoded values—HP: 35, Attack: 40, Defense: 100, Special Attack: 90, Special Defense: 55, Speed: 35—spiraled around the Pokémon Blueprint like a rotating wheel, anchoring the core of Omanyte's being. Each number influenced the creature's density, elasticity, and internal structure. They weren't just abstract stats anymore; they were laws of physics, mathematical blueprints for Omanyte's physiology.
Gradually, in the center of the circle, a translucent spiral shell began to take shape, as if grown from invisible coral, layer by layer. The shell rotated slowly, its edges glowing faintly blue, while the inner lines pulsed with stat-coded circuitry. Then came the tendrils—emerging like ink spreading through water, solidifying with a subtle, wet sound, folding and curling inwards.
From the blueprint, the lines flickered again, listing each move: Withdraw, Water Gun, Ancient Power, Brine, and many others... Each move was assigned to a memory sector, linked to specific reflex triggers: Water Gun connected to a hydration sensor, Ancient Power to a tectonic resonance node near the creature's neural cluster. These moves were not something Omanyte would need to learn; they would be instinctual, activated when the right conditions were met—like leveling up.
As for TMs and HMs, all he had to do was input the possibility into its DNA, allowing the Pokémon to learn them later without specifying the exact conditions for each one—unlike the earlier moves, which required specific triggers.
Sweat beaded on his forehead as he concentrated, deeply immersed in perfecting the creation before him.
During the process, he drank two more Memora Potions. It was necessary—keeping the Earth's scientific knowledge fresh in his mind ensured nothing would go wrong in the delicate procedure.
Once the physical form stabilized, and he was confident he hadn't overlooked any detail, he activated another magic circle—a work of art he called Eggshell Matrix Circle. The magic formed a containment field shaped like a Pokémon Egg, enveloping the tiny, soulless Omanyte like a womb. As the eggshell began to form around it, the creature regressed into a suspended, giant single-cell embryonic state.
Thus, with the fusion of Earth's science and Ocasia's magic, the Omanyte Egg was born.
"Another job well done today!" Arthur stretched, inspecting the Egg one last time to ensure it was flawless. Satisfied, he activated a Template Creation Circle and 'copied' the Omanyte Egg into a template format, allowing him to replicate it later when needed.
He then activated a Summoning Circle in reverse and sent both the egg and its template into his hidden storage.
Yawning, he began tidying up the table. Most of the equipment was left as it was, prepared for future projects.
Gently, he lifted the sleeping Pichu from his lap, tucked the little creature close to his chest. With careful steps, he made his way to the bed, laying down and pulling the blanket over them both, readying himself for sleep.
As he glanced over at Lena, who was peacefully asleep in the bed across from him, a thought crossed his mind. "With my current wealth, maybe it's time to build a new house... one with separate bedrooms... but would that be considered using research funds for personal use?"
He mumbled groggily, attempting to justify it in his mind. "A new house... new environment... would help my mental focus... With my own research room... no distractions... yes, it's a necessary use of the research funds..."
His voice trailed off as he finally succumbed to sleep, Pichu nestled close to his face.