In a parallel world, on the planet Azure Star, in the year 2100, inside a small base city under Jiangnan Province within the Federation, every ninth-grade student sat eagerly in their classroom.
Their homeroom teacher was still sharing his “valuable experience” with the class.
“Students, spend a little more time looking through the Pokémon Illustrated Encyclopedia.
Focus on your favorite Pokémon.
Around ten-thirty, it’ll be our school’s turn to head to the Pokémon Center and summon your Pokémon.
“You’ve spent nine years studying Pokémon knowledge, and today you’ll finally see the results.
As long as you successfully summon a Pokémon, you’ll become a One-Star Trainer.
From then on, you’ll receive government subsidies and enjoy both status and respect.
Back when I was your age, I kept staring at pictures of Geodude every single day, so I successfully summoned one…” Lucas Carter stared blankly at the podium.
His chubby homeroom teacher stood there with the Geodude he was so proud of, tirelessly repeating his utterly unreliable advice.
His mind was completely numb.
He had only done poorly on an exam, gotten depressed, and stayed up for several nights straight.
How the hell had he ended up transmigrating?
Fine, he could accept transmigration.
But why the hell were there Pokémon in this world?
That Geodude hopping around on the podium was absolutely real.
It wasn’t a toy.
It wasn’t a model.
At the same time, an enormous flood of memories suddenly poured into his mind, leaving him stunned.
This world was called Azure Star.
Its overall structure was remarkably similar to Earth, and the country he lived in was governed by the Federation.
However, compared to Earth, humanity’s survival pressure here was much lower.
Most people lived inside fortified base cities, while the vast wilderness between cities was overrun by countless ferocious beasts.
Conventional firearms had limited effect against these monsters, and the cost of using nuclear weapons was simply too great to bear.
Instead…
Humanity relied on Pokémon to fight these terrifying beasts.
Every person only had one chance in their lifetime to summon a Pokémon of their own, and the success rate was only around ten percent.
If the summoning failed, the only option was to work hard, save money, and hope to someday buy a wild Pokémon.
Unfortunately, doing so required an astronomical amount of money.
As a result, the overwhelming majority of people never owned a Pokémon.
Those who did possess Pokémon were society’s elite.
And if your Pokémon was powerful enough, you would be respected wherever you went.
The thing that shocked Lucas Carter the most, however, was something else entirely.
There was no Chinese, mathematics, or English.
Forget physics and chemistry.
Schools here taught only Pokémon knowledge and information about ferocious beasts.
According to common belief, studying Pokémon allowed Trainers to raise their summoned partners more effectively.
The more a person understood Pokémon, the easier it supposedly became to summon one.
Whether that was actually true, no one knew, but the textbooks certainly claimed it was.
As for studying ferocious beasts, it was simply so people could judge their strength and avoid getting themselves—and their newly summoned Pokémon—killed within days.
With a numb expression, Lucas Carter flipped through the Pokémon Illustrated Encyclopedia lying on his desk.
It was a full-color book, and every Pokémon looked almost identical to the ones he remembered from before his transmigration.
Even the descriptions closely matched his previous knowledge.
The first page introduced the most common Pokémon of all—Caterpie.
Caterpie was a caterpillar-like Pokémon.
Its back was green while its underside was white.
Its most distinctive feature was the bright red Y-shaped antenna on its head.
It had two pairs of prolegs equipped with suction cups that allowed it to cling to trees.
Yellow ring-shaped markings ran along both sides of its body, and it possessed black eye-like spots as well as a yellow spindle-shaped tail.
Caterpie could spit silk to trap opponents.
Although its combat ability was relatively weak, with proper training it could evolve into Metapod, and eventually into Butterfree.
The information was incredibly detailed.
It even recorded Caterpie’s habits, preferred foods, and included a note stating that silk produced by Caterpie could be woven into clothing that was highly sought after and could be sold for an excellent price.
He continued turning the pages.
The next entries were Metapod and Butterfree.
The Pokémon Illustrated Encyclopedia was extremely thick, containing several hundred pages.
According to the memories he had inherited, this had been the primary textbook throughout their nine years of education.
The copy in Lucas ‘s hands had already become somewhat worn from constant use.
He quickly flipped through the entire book once more.
Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle, Oddish, Weedle, Rattata, Pidgey, Magikarp, Onix…
Everything was there.
The information matched his memories almost perfectly.
But after finishing the book, Lucas suddenly realized something was wrong.
There was no Ditto.
There was no Tyranitar.
There were no entries for Suicune, Entei, or Raikou.
Even more strangely, legendary Pokémon like Ho-Oh, Rayquaza, Mewtwo, and the others from his memories were nowhere to be found.
There weren’t even any legends or rumors about them.
It was as if those Pokémon had never existed in this world.
“Ahem.” At that moment, the chubby homeroom teacher cleared his throat and announced, “Alright, everyone, get ready.
We’re leaving for the Pokémon Center now!”