After spending a few days, Hikaru asked the Allied Army's spirits to help the Frightfurs tidy up the two dimensions their tribe inhabited. He then attended a few more days of classes before finally returning to the Critical Nexus.
This adventure in the Frightfur Sanctuary could be said to be the most rewarding of Hikaru's dimensional travels so far.
Besides his initial self-obtained card, Edge Imp Chain, Hikaru also gained many Fluffal cards.
In truth, Hikaru could have just taken Burns Jay's entire Deck, but upon inspection, he realized many of those cards were spirits forcibly transformed into cards by the Fusion Army's Duel Disks. While it wasn't necessarily a big deal to use them, Hikaru ultimately left those behind in the Frightfur Factory dimension, so they could recover more quickly under Tierra's accelerated reincarnation.
Therefore, Hikaru only accepted cards from the higher-level Frightfur spirits.
These included their pre-fusion cards as well as some others.
Quite a lot, in fact.
After counting them, Hikaru realized he had as many as seven or eight copies of Frightfur Patchwork.
Honestly, that was far too many.
Although Hikaru had never used a Frightfur Deck before, he did already possess cards like Frightfur Fusion and Frightfur Patchwork,he just lacked the low-level monsters and Fusion Monsters to make use of them.
Suddenly acquiring so many at once, Hikaru truly didn't know what to do with them.
Back in the Critical Nexus Dimension, Hikaru didn't hurry to leave the Land of Glorious Knights. After all, he had already promised Gaia that he would stay to observe the new candidate for domain lord.
That candidate was a knight spirit who didn't look particularly strong, far smaller than Gaia, with Spirit Compatibility at best only around three stars,hardly impressive among the knights, possibly even considered low.
Regardless, Gaia had high hopes for it.
As Hikaru watched the spirit undergo trials and duel Gaia, he gradually realized it was a Ritual Duel Spirit.
So that was it,no wonder Gaia favored this spirit so much.
In a faction that pursued Fusion, it dared to walk the path of Ritual Summoning and even challenge Gaia. Such courage was something Gaia admired deeply.
It wasn't just about going along with the crowd, nor was it opposition for the sake of opposition. It firmly believed in its own path, refusing to stay stagnant. At least in terms of developing a local spirit, it was certainly promising.
Therefore, since there were still several five-star warrior spirits in the domain, Gaia decided to give this spirit one month of special training before departing.
The spirits naturally didn't want their savior and "domain lord" to leave, but Gaia was straightforward. It had protected this land to uphold its ideals of knights and warriors, and now that the spirits here had gained basic resistance, it wanted them to face hardships on their own, just as true warriors would.
Besides, it wasn't as if it would never return.
Spirits lived for an exceptionally long time,there would always be another chance to meet again.
Truthfully, after two spirit-dimension adventures and even experiencing a Shadow Duel, Hikaru didn't feel tired. His Spirit Compatibility had been honed in this past half-year, and with the Light of Destruction granted by Boss Light, he had already reached seven stars of compatibility. Dimensional travel no longer exhausted him.
Even so, he chose not to set out on another adventure immediately. On one hand, he didn't want to rush recklessly, in case something happened here that he couldn't respond to. On the other hand, he wanted to prepare for the coming adventure in the DT Dimension by crafting some cards with Tierra.
He still had plenty of odd materials left unused, perfect for practice. Making an Infernoid or two to test for future machine shell production was a fine option. More importantly, Hikaru wanted to experiment with the new alchemy books he had been studying.
While Hikaru busied himself with experiments, time continued flowing in the Critical Nexus.
Due to the Dark World invasion, the GX Tournament had been suspended for a short while,about half a month. But once the Dark World's Dragon Lord was defeated, the tournament gradually resumed.
To make the tournament fairer, KaibaCorp and Professor Crowler agreed to extend it by twenty days. As long as a student could collect four seals within the time limit, they would pass.
Of course, students with ambition could aim for more seals and higher rankings; or, as Principal Sheppard had originally envisioned, they could take the chance to bond with spirits and even gain their support directly.
In fact, quite a few students succeeded in collaborating with the Lightsworns during this period and obtained Lightsworn cards.
Not only with the Lightsworns,some students, noticing the Dark World demons still waiting idly in the mountains, boldly approached them to seek cooperation.
Unfortunately, while the idea was good, the reality wasn't. This wasn't the Dark World's home dimension, and here the Dark World spirits only listened to Jaden Yuki.
Because if they didn't, the Lightsworns would wipe them out completely.
And Jaden,he still wanted to participate in the tournament. He had already collected several seals, and gathering eight in total wouldn't be a problem with a bit of effort.
That said, the Lightsworns kept a close eye on him, making it difficult for him to move around freely.
Meanwhile, he fought the Supreme King every day. Each time he felt close to victory, he would inexplicably lose. Most of all,why was Super Polymerization so powerful?
He thought about it every day.
Every time he thought he was near triumph, Super Polymerization reminded him who was really the boss in a mirror match.
Still, there was good news.
Jaden leaned back on the couch, staring at the sky, cards in hand.
Evil HERO Toxic Bubble, Evil HERO Death Prison Demon; Elemental HERO Gaia, Elemental HERO Core; Masked HERO Gust, Masked HERO Divine Wind,these cards had somehow appeared in his Deck during these duels.
All of them were cards the Supreme King had used.
'Could it be…'
He looked outside. A Lightsworn Dragon soared past, drawing gasps from passing students and leaving trails of starlight.
'Is it what I think it is…'
He realized these cards hadn't just materialized out of nowhere.
They had always been his. As his duels with the Supreme King increased, he came to understand that the Supreme King's power wasn't bound by good or evil. And so, these cards gradually manifested.
Even so, there was still a serious problem.
Until now, apart from their very first duel when the Supreme King had spoken a few words, afterward, he never said a single thing,like a soulless dueling machine.
"Ahhh!!" Jaden couldn't stand it anymore, flopping back and forth on the couch like a salted fish. "So troublesome!"
…
Meanwhile,
"What? Spirits are at war with us?" Chazz squinted at his phone, question marks popping up above his head.
"What? Jaden defeated the invading demons, but got penalized?" Chazz leaned back in disbelief. Honestly, wasn't Jaden supposed to be a hero?
"What, what,what's with the Lightsworns now? Can anyone explain this?"
"Huh? The Society of Light changed its whole personality??"
Chazz scratched his head endlessly.
Just what happened while his teacher had him grinding against AI duel bots?
...
Bonus @200 PS