"You want to go to Duel Academy?"
Master Takeuchi was taken aback.
Come to think of it, it seems like it's almost time for Duel Academy admissions to open.
For the younger generation of duelists, Duel Academy is practically a holy place. It's where top students gather, and nearly every graduate is destined to be an elite. Moreover, under Seto Kaiba's operations, no matter if you're the son of a world-class conglomerate or from an influential political family, if you don't have the talent, all the money and background in the world won't get you in.
Who is Seto Kaiba?
The world's number one duelist today, commanding the strongest dueling spirit of the era, the "Blue-Eyes White Dragon," on par with the mythical Three Phantom Gods. Rumor has it he is even developing technology to traverse dimensions and time, attempting to open a door to the Netherworld through technological means to challenge the long-dormant Nameless Pharaoh to a duel...
Not only is he the richest man in the world, but he's also a dual-power standing atop both the Extraordinary Side and Technology Side. Following Muto Yuugi's card ban, he is universally recognized as the best duelist in the world today.
And he acknowledges nothing but skill.
So if Seto Kaiba claims there are no shortcuts, only skill matters, then it's truly about skill. No matter how powerful or influential someone is, they must obediently take the exam to enter his school, with absolutely no room for backdoor operations.
He also worships strength and advocates elite education. This is evident from the strict hierarchy within Duel Academy in GX, where the entire faculty and student body looks down on underachievers.
Many dueling dojos offer assistance for students applying to Duel Academy because once a student successfully enters, they will undoubtedly become a high-quality alumnus and bring excellent promotional benefits to the dojo.
Master Takeuchi's dojo also offers this assistance, but the slots are limited each year.
Considering that Yugen has defeated everyone in the dojo, including the master, over the past three days, he should naturally qualify.
If the application is approved, the student not only receives tuition assistance but also a card deck fund from the dojo. The master will personally provide one-on-one guidance, helping the student acquire new cards and optimize their deck...
...Of course, in Yugen's case, the guidance part can be skipped; he just needs to be given money.
"Wait a moment."
Master Takeuchi was just about to agree when he suddenly thought of something.
"What's your duelist level again?"
"...One-Star."
Master: "..."
Honestly, even though he witnessed it firsthand, he still finds it hard to understand how a One-Star student could suddenly progress to this level as if enlightened.
However, after personally experiencing Yugen's current dueling skill, he feels Yugen has a great chance of getting in.
"But One-Star doesn't meet the entry criteria..."
"I know." Yugen nodded, "So, I'm planning to go to the arena tomorrow and try to climb the ranks quickly."
"Hmm... But there's only a month left until the entrance exam, so time is a bit tight," Master Takeuchi pondered, "It would be much easier if you could place in a public tournament."
If he places in a public tournament, he could jump to a high rank all at once, without the slow grind of ranking up match by match in an ordinary arena, and it also adds to his competitive dossier, benefiting his dueling career.
"Let's do it this way." Master Takeuchi looked at Sato Koji, "I remember Koji is preparing to enter this year's Moonlight Cup tournament?
Although the registration has apparently closed, the organizers have a friend I know, so it shouldn't be a problem to slip an extra person into the preliminary selection. The entry fee will be covered by the dojo; what do you think?"
This year, Koji is the only one in the entire dojo who reached Three-Star, so naturally, he was the only one initially set to apply for Duel Academy. His participation in the Moonlight Cup was originally to add to his dossier before enrolling, and it would be even better if he could place.
"Thank you, Master," said Yugen.
Standing next to him, Sato Koji couldn't help but gasp.
Is this guy also entering the tournament?
What if I have to face him again on the field...?
The mere thought of that scenario gave him chills and made him uncomfortable all over.
But then he thought, with so many participants, the probability of facing him isn't high. Or maybe, on the field, he'd have the chance to see other clueless duelists experience the same shock he did when his junior brother used dueling to bring them to tears...
At that thought, he couldn't help but let his lips curl upwards.
His smile grew more twisted.
Indeed, dueling brings happiness.
It just depends on whom it brings happiness to.
...
...
The first ray of morning sunlight was like a gentle poem, as if draping the peaceful world with a layer of golden veil. The night was driven away, replaced by a fresh and bright morning, the air filled with a faint fragrance of early morning and blooming flowers.
At 6:20 in the morning, Yugen lazily woke up from his comfortable bed. Sunlight shone through the light, sheer curtains, casting mottled shadows on the white sheets and soft blankets.
He went to bed late last night, and the quality of his sleep wasn't great; he had a lot of dreams. He vaguely remembered seeing the black and white emissaries in his dream. They eerily told him that his time was up, and he needed to leave. However, immediately they each spread out their duel discs and pulled out two decks, saying that if he won the duel, he could extend his life...
"Why did I have such a dream?" Yugen rubbed his temples.
It seemed he had slowly begun to immerse himself in the foundational mindset of this card-playing worldview, which is that there's nothing that can't be solved with a card duel.
Yugen only needed five minutes to shake off his sleepiness, jump out of bed, quickly get dressed and washed up, and start a new day of learning and life.
You can never imagine how terrifying a disciplined card player can be.
There's only a month left until the Duel Academy entrance exam; it's time to start reviewing a bit.
He originally thought, how hard could a duel exam be? Isn't it just the study and application of the K language?
Like distinguishing whether a card effect targets or not, the order of chain resolution, advanced card timing teachings, etc...
...None of that is present.
None of these complex and esoteric Yu-Gi-Oh! rules regarding real cards were there. The conceptual questions only included basics like "Please explain what an Ordinary Magic Card, Equipment Magic Card, and Field Spell Card are," just like the in-class questions from Chronos-sensei in the GX anime.
Then there's the memory of various card effects. In fact, Yugen quickly found this part unexpectedly challenging because he couldn't possibly remember the classification and effects of a bunch of ancient cards unused for twenty years in the real card environment. Not to mention there are many cards in this world that have never been made into real-life cards from the anime and manga.
He also quickly noticed that there are quite a few differences between here and the real card environment from twenty years ago. Many cards might only become real cards twenty years later, but here they already exist now.
Of course, when you think about it, it's not surprising. Even the key card in Judai's Neo deck, "Miracle Contact," after appearing in the anime, left various hero players drooling for many years, feeling like they've waited a lifetime for Konami to finally make it a real card...
So naturally, there are many cards here that didn't exist back then.
Having reviewed the entire question bank, Yugen found that it was all content lacking in nutrition, while the real card technique core consciousness and skills were not mentioned at all.
This reminded him of a secondary setting explanation he had seen online in his previous life. For many movies and animations, reality is a higher dimension, but in the world of Yu-Gi-Oh!, cards are the foundation of creation, and dueling represents the most fundamental laws of this world, not just a card game as it is in reality.
So for people in the animated world, exploring the rules of dueling is akin to doing cutting-edge research in reality; it's an exploration of the truth. For the reality dimension, mastering card dueling isn't that difficult, but in the animated world, understanding these requires a lot of talent and effort.
Yugen bought a set of supplementary books such as "Duel Theory Basics" and "Duel Academy True Exam Question Bank," spending half a day going through them. At the same time, he also took a moment to learn about the field of card-making.
The various generations of Yu-Gi-Oh! animations focus on the stories of duelists, while card design parts are only briefly touched upon. It is only known that Beckas, known as the "Father of Duel Monsters," was the first to discover the ancient Duel Monsters slabs in Egypt and made them into cards, resulting in the modern Duel Monster card system.
Later, most card-making work was mainly published by Beckas's International Fantasy Company, but it wasn't entirely a monopoly. For example, Kaiba Company also printed many cards, which similarly circulated on the market.
Further on, there were players like Muto Yuugi and Yuki Judai, with each having the talent to print cards on the spot according to the situation. At times, they would even boldly print themselves and their duel opponents directly into the card art without any concealment...
Clearly, these privately printed cards could also be recognized by the system and duel rules, and were not considered violations.
After all, Yu-Gi-Oh! is an extraordinary world where dueling is the demonstration of extraordinary abilities. So some players with spiky seafood hair shouting out "friendship" and "bonds" while pulling out a blank card and printing text effects on the spot could even be seen as an application of the world's laws, a display of extraordinary power.
How could the Duel King's deeds be called cheating?
Divine draw and card printing are all part of dueling; if you don't like it, don't play.
However, it can be imagined that in such a world, card printing can't be just at will, even for designers from the Illusion Association. New card designs should also conform to some degree of rules and not be totally arbitrary.
And what Yugen was curious about was, what kind of threshold is required for card-making, and what kind of cards can be recognized.
Assuming that cards existing in the real card pool from his previous life could all be printed, he, as a Card Maker, would definitely introduce some modern Yu-Gi-Oh! storytelling shock to this overly mortal card world...
Yugen also bought a series of reference books and textbooks. He didn't really expect to learn it all that easily, but just wanted to do some basic understanding first.
"Foundations of Field Spell Construction: Introduction to Environmental Modeling"
"The Nine Common Design Pitfalls of Monster Cards"
It was entirely unsurprising that card-making in this world is a very profound field of study. Many universities' laboratories and cutting-edge research institutes were specializing in Duel Monster-related research and development.
Even many old cards still had potentials for further development and design.
A more representative example would be the most famous Blue-Eyes White Dragon. An independent research team led by Seto Kaiba himself carried out development activities. It's the world's top Duel Monster research team, rumored to have developed various Blue-Eyes evolutions such as "White Spirit Dragon," "Blue-Eyes Sub-White Dragon," and "Blue-Eyes Double Burst Dragon," etc.
Also, the Chaos Warrior, once just an eight-star, three thousand attack whiteboard monster when made from a slab, now has been developed into an "Chaos Warrior - Messenger of Creation," known by real-life card enthusiasts as "Great Opening," which is an extremely rare card, as well as a legendary powerful monster among duelists.
"If only I could learn to make cards myself..." Yugen pondered.
But for now, he's just thinking. He recalled that in the first season of the anime, Hayato Maeda, who was in the same dorm as Yuki Judai, seemed to have joined the Illusion Association as a full-time card designer after graduating from Duel Academy. Yugen speculated that there might be card-making related courses at the Academy as well.
If he had the chance, he definitely wanted to explore this thoroughly.
As for now, he temporarily set a new small goal for himself.
To win the championship at the Moonlight Cup first.