Pokemon Go player becomes the world's first level 40 trainer - but of course they had to cheat

The race to become the world's first Pokemon Go trainer has been won - sort of.

Pokemon Go was thoroughly data mined last week, revealing a level cap of 40 - and so began the race to be the first to get there.

As detailed in Arekkz's run down of 25 things serious Pokemon GO players should know, the gap between level 39 and level 40 is a big 'un - 5 million XP - and the whole journey requires a whopping 20 million XP.

Since the most XP you can earn from a single Pokemon Go action is 1,000 XP for hatching a 10km egg, that's a hell of a slog. You'd need to earn over 54,000 XP every single day for a year to get there.

So how did the world's first level 40 Pokemon Go trainer do it? They cheated. Redditor _problemz posted proof of his achievement, let the joke play out for a bit, and then confessed to using a bot to get there.

"It's over. First of all I want you to tell that I was using a bot. Obviously," they wrote to curious Pokemon Go players.

Declining to answer any questions on how to emulate the feat, which was performed as an experiment rather than for Pokemon Go glory, the world's most experienced Pokemon Go trainer said they were able to average about 280,000 XP per hour using the cheat. 131 Eggs were required.

The bot did not fight in gyms, won't fight in gyms in the future, and will be deleted rather than sold, because its creator doesn't want to be "disrespectful and disgusting" to legitimate Pokemon Go players.

"I don't play this game - I just wanted to see how far I can push with the given Tools. And I learned so much out of this," they said.

Hit the links above for more details and evidence of the bot's achievements - or just get back to work grinding your own Pokemon Go profile.