Summoning a six-star Magic Guide Spirit through a Normal Summon would take Dark nearly an hour at his current speed - and the process couldn't be interrupted once.
So Sacrificial Summoning was his only option.
Still, now that he had "Greed Slime II", even Sacrificial Summoning had gotten a good deal more convenient.
"Good a time as any to test it."
Dark drew out "Greed III" at once, walked over to the Trash Slime and scooped it up. "I'm counting on you for this part."
"Glub-glub-" The Trash Slime nuzzled against his hands, plainly pleased.
Dark activated the Normal Summon and brought "Greed III" online fast.
Light swallowed the Trash Slime, and it evolved into "Greed Slime II".
Facing the enormous slime looming in front of him, Dark gave the order. "Use 'Divide and Succeed'."
"Blorp!"
"Greed Slime II" gave its body a gentle shake, and one after another three "Greed Slime I" split off out of it.
The three "Greed Slime I" were obviously short on wits - clumsier, by and large, than an ordinary Magic Guide Spirit rated at intelligence level 2.0.
But their whole reason for existing was to serve as offerings, so cleverness hardly mattered.
Dark set to work on the summon. "Three two-star Magic Guide Spirits. With these three 'Greed Slime I' as the offering - Sacrificial Summoning: 'Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon'!"
The three "Greed Slime I" dissolved into light and rose, merging with the white radiance that shot out of the "Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon" card face, and the whole mass wove itself at speed into a vast Sacrificial Summoning array.
And out of that array, the Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon took shape!
Only then did it hit Dark that the word "baby" here was strictly relative to dragons as a species.
This newly born "Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon" stood nearly three meters tall on its hind legs - taller even than Leomon.
Its build had a round, plump look to it, and the big blue eyes were genuinely cute, but a body like a small hill standing right in front of you still pressed down on the air in the room.
As a product of Forging with the "Fruit of Pride", this "Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon" had already awakened to intelligence without needing a [Major Sin Card].
Yet it differed a little from Gatomon, another incarnation of "Pride" - it didn't seem nearly so aloof?
Dark thought for a moment, then held out his hand.
The Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon obediently lifted one claw and set it lightly in his palm.
Given the difference in size, of course, Dark's entire hand vanished beneath it.
But the dragon clearly put no weight behind the gesture. Having raised its claw, it simply widened its eyes and stared at Dark, as though working hard to memorize his face.
"Maybe its pride is buried deeper, on the inside."
Dark scratched the center of the dragon's paw, then drew his hand back and murmured, "Let's start with 'Dragon Egg Conversion'."
The Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon cocked its head, spread both forelimbs wide, raised them over its head, pressed them together, balanced on one foot and spun in a tight circle.
"Wa-woo, wa-woo-"
After that cheerful little cry, the Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon folded up the way a flower closes its petals and becomes a bud again. The energy radiating off it drew swiftly inward, its whole frame contracting in a rush of light - into the shape of an egg.
When the glow faded, a giant egg stood there, roughly a meter and a half tall!
Dark picked up the "Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon" Magic Guide Card, meaning to check what had changed about its status.
Then his gaze locked. The card's name had changed!
"What's going on here?"
Across the top of the card face stood the words: "Primordial Dragon Egg"!
This sort of change was nothing new to him.
When Magic Guide Spirits evolved, or when "Honedge" shifted into its weapon form, their Magic Guide Cards changed names too - and with the names came changed attributes, changed Ultimate Moves, all of it!
"Could it be…"
Dark's eyebrow rose. He'd noticed that on becoming the "Primordial Dragon Egg", the card had dropped from six stars to three!
A drop in star rating… was hardly a bad thing.
A six-star Magic Guide Spirit needed offerings for a quick summon. At three stars, that concern disappeared entirely.
Falling from the second tier to the first meant this "Primordial Dragon Egg" could be brought out with nothing more than a Normal Summon.
And if, once summoned, it could hatch smoothly into a "Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon", then the egg became a special summoning method in its own right.
On top of that, the "Primordial Dragon Egg" very likely had a different set of Ultimate Moves from the "Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon".
Dark poured in magic power at once to look.
"Just as I thought."
The information feeding back from the Magic Guide Card was indeed different!
[Card Name: Primordial Dragon Egg]
[Type: Spirit Card]
[Level: ???]
[Race: Dragon Breed]
[Attribute: Light]
[Magic Power: 1500]
[Attack: 0]
[Defense: 1500]
[Ultimate Move: Hatch]
"Only one Ultimate Move? And it's just 'Hatch'?"
The delight of a moment ago drained away, and Dark's frown deepened.
As far as raw numbers went, the "Primordial Dragon Egg" had nothing special about it. Maxed-out magic power and defense for a three-star were acceptable, and 0 attack was more or less expected - but the Ultimate Move… a single "Hatch"!
Taken at face value, "Hatch" seemed to be nothing more than a move that turned the "Primordial Dragon Egg" into a "Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon".
Wanting to know exactly how long the hatching took, Dark fed in more magic power and dug deeper.
And then the lines between his brows smoothed out all at once, and open delight came over his face.
This "Hatch" was, against all expectation, an Ultimate Move of extraordinary depth!
[Hatch: Before hatching, the Primordial Dragon Egg holds infinite possibilities. Currently unlocked standard hatching route: (Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon).]
[Hatching Route 1: Inject sufficient magic power and the Primordial Dragon Egg will hatch into a Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon.]
"Meaning the egg is the true body? Looks like my instinct earlier wasn't wrong."
Understanding struck Dark, and then inspiration on its heels. He pulled a "Pride III" from his card case and summoned it on the spot.
"In the name of Dark Demon - Magic Guide Summon!"
In that instant, dark-gold radiance burst from the face of "Pride III" and lit up the whole room.
Bathed in that light of pride, the dragon egg threw back a dazzling golden sheen.
An enormous "Pride" emblem surfaced quietly out of the shell, and every trace of light around it was drawn in, devoured by that emblem and funneled into the egg.
The Primordial Dragon Egg, holder of infinite possibilities, began to give off the scent of pride.
Dark watched with total focus, tracking every change in the egg.
As the last of "Pride III"'s radiance guttered out, the shell finally cracked, and a "Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon" marked with dark-gold striping across its hide hatched free.
Dark checked the Magic Guide Card immediately, and found the card had gone from "Primordial Dragon Egg" to "Sin - Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon"!
This "Sin - Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon" was clearly a subspecies of the "Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon". Apart from the dark-gold stripes on its hide and the "Pride" emblem on the inner surface of its wings, it was identical to the original.
Its race, attribute and three core stats matched exactly as well.
[Card Name: Sin - Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon]
[Type: Spirit Card]
[Level: ??????]
[Race: Dragon Breed]
[Attribute: Light]
[Magic Power: 2500]
[Attack: 3000]
[Defense: 2500]
[Ultimate Moves: Dragon Egg Conversion, Call of the Baby Dragon, Dragon's Reverse Scale, World of Sin.]
"Four Ultimate Moves, and only the last one differs from the Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon's set."
"The original 'Mausoleum of Light' has become 'World of Sin'."
"But since this is a sin dragon hatched using 'Pride III', that 'World of Sin' ought to be a Field Card tied to the Major Sins."
Dark poured in magic power again, trying to pull more detail out of the move.
[World of Sin: Sin - Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon can call down the descent of the (World of Sin). When a Magic Guide Spirit possessing the power of original sin dies within the [World of Sin], the residual power of original sin is absorbed by the [World of Sin] and may be used as an offering to summon a Magic Guide Spirit possessing the same power of original sin, of a star rating no higher than that of the dead spirit! The (World of Sin) lasts for three minutes.]
"A special-summon type field technique!"
"Unfold 'World of Sin' in the middle of a battle and I can ignore the sacrifice rules entirely, calling out qualifying Magic Guide Spirits one after another with no end to it."
"There's no question this suits me far better than 'Mausoleum of Light'."
It was all coming clear to him.
"This 'World of Sin' should work like 'Call of the Baby Dragon' - the type that summons Magic Guide Spirits straight out of the deck. But spirits with no connection to the Major Sins in their initial state, like 'Curse Cage: DemiDevimon' or '[Magic Beast (Eevee)]', probably can't be Special Summoned through this mechanic."
"Either way, this is genuinely an Ultimate Move I could build a duel around. Though it works best with multiple Magic Guide Spirit Cards carrying the same power of original sin to back it up."
Dark reached out and ran a hand over the scales of the "Sin - Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon". Getting a feel for the creature also sharpened his grasp of the "Hatch" Ultimate Move on the "Primordial Dragon Egg" card.
"'Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon' and 'Sin - Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon' can both be read as the lower forms of 'Blue-Eyes White Dragon' and 'Sin - Blue-Eyes White Dragon'."
"And since the 'Primordial Dragon Egg' holds infinite possibilities, then as long as I find the right hatching formula, I should be able to unlock the routes to 'Blue-Eyes White Dragon' and 'Sin - Blue-Eyes White Dragon' - and to more Blue-Eyes subspecies besides!"
"Of those, 'Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon' is the standard route. Sufficient magic power alone brings it out."
"By that logic, its upper form, 'Blue-Eyes White Dragon', should require magic power of higher quality to hatch."
"And 'Sin - Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon' hatched from 'Pride III'."
"So its upper form, 'Sin - Blue-Eyes White Dragon', should need 'Pride IV' or 'Pride V' to hatch."
"'Pride IV' is the likelier of the two."
"Beyond that, I can try other 'Major Sin' cards and see whether any new hatching routes open up."
"In any case - first, let's see how long the cooldown on 'Dragon Egg Conversion' runs."
…
The "Dragon Egg Conversion" Ultimate Move clearly didn't work the same way as "Honedge"'s "Weaponize".
Its cooldown was long, but shorter than Dark had braced for - roughly an hour.
Once it came back up, Dark had the "Sin - Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon" revert to the "Primordial Dragon Egg", then ran experiments on it in turn with "Lust III", "Greed III" and "Lust III - Moon".
But apart from "Pride III", none of the other "Major Sin III" cards could induce the "Primordial Dragon Egg" to hatch.
"Is it because the attribute doesn't match?"
Dark sank into thought.
"White dragons with blue eyes are fundamentally Light attribute. Only certain special subspecies carry other attributes - but those do exist."
"Or is it simply an energy-level shortfall again?"
"After all, Blue-Eyes White Dragon subspecies are basically eight stars and up."
"Both of the baby dragons I've hatched so far come with limitations."
"Enough. It all comes back to not having higher-grade 'Major Sin' cards - I can't push the research any further."
"When I go home over the long holiday, I have to find a way to work out a template for the 'Major Sin IV' Forging array!"
With nothing to show for a long stretch of thinking, Dark set the research aside for now.
When he came back to himself, it was nearly five o'clock.
"Did I really lose that much time in one sitting?"
Dark patted his cheeks and started tidying the workbench.
The Magic Guide Spirit Card he'd Forged this afternoon might not be all that practical in the here and now, but there was no question it had blown his deck's possibilities wide open.
Call it promising.
And from a purely experimental standpoint, the "Primordial Dragon Egg" carried a second layer of significance.
Hatch various Blue-Eyes subspecies through repeated trials, then use those subspecies as the foundation for further research, and he could Forge still more Blue-Eyes subspecies Magic Guide Spirit Cards.
Call it a "chicken first, then egg" approach.
If he could follow that thread all the way through, sooner or later he'd assemble a formidable "Blue-Eyes deck".
And when that day came, he might even contest Pandora for the title of "King of White Dragons".
All in all, then, Dark was very satisfied.
He wrote up his notes from the experiment, planning to come back in the evening and Forge the next "Lust III - Moon".
As for the Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon he'd just Forged… it would simply have to put up with staying inside the Magic Guide Card a while longer.
…
On the first Wednesday of the final month of first year, Professor Medea loaded the teaching instruments she'd prepared in advance onto a carriage, ready to give her darling students a little surprise tonight.
The students had learned some time ago that tonight's Astronomy class would assign the end-of-term project, so they came prepared, streaming up the Spiral Clock Tower before seven and vying with one another to debate this last assignment inside the classroom.
"I hear Astronomy becomes an elective starting in second year - you can formally sign up for it. Wonder if Professor Medea will stay on to teach it?" Dark said to Diana and Rose while ruffling Eevee's fur.
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