Kira slowly opened his eyes and blankly looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings.
It was a room he had never seen before, yet it carried an inexplicable sense of familiarity. Sunlight filtered through the window lattice, scattering across the soft floor like flickering stardust. Even the air seemed light and transparent beneath the warm sunshine.
His head ached dully as strange images and unfamiliar fragments flashed through his mind. Some instinct seemed to tell him what this extraordinary situation meant—
—he had transmigrated.
Kira looked around again, and his gaze was quickly drawn to the computer on the desk.
The computer was on, displaying a search engine page, though it was not any search engine he had known before.
Large words above the search bar clearly read, "Kaiba Search."
What struck him as even stranger was the trending news below it.
"Touto University Research Team discovers a new form of 'Summoned Skull'; Fiend Decks may receive a major boost!"
Kira: "?"
Curious, he clicked on it for a look. The report said that, after tireless research, the team had uncovered new potential in the famous Fiend Type monster Summoned Skull and had published a paper in an internationally recognized top Duel Monsters journal.
A team spokesperson said they had already spoken with Maximillion Pegasus, CEO of Industrial Illusions, and Industrial Illusions was assisting them in developing new cards.
If he still could not recognize what world he had transmigrated into after all that, then Kira had played cards for all those years for nothing.
This was the World of Yu-Gi-Oh!, a plane known to all where cards reigned supreme, where the foundations and laws of the entire world were built upon playing cards.
There was an even more ridiculous trending topic below it.
"International conflict in the Middle East eases as leaders of two nations decide to negotiate through a Duel."
Kira: "..."
The moment he read that headline, an image seemed to form in his mind. On a smoke-filled battlefield, two armies faced each other, armed to the teeth, their guns and cannons aimed across the field.
At that moment, the commanders of both armies stepped out from their positions, revealed the Duel Disks and decks on their arms, and decided to settle their territorial dispute with a tense, thrilling game of Yu-Gi-Oh!.
That was way too absurd.
But that was exactly how this world operated.
Duel Monsters was the only path to reaching the extraordinary in this world, to wielding divine power that transcended time and space and rewrote the laws of reality.
As his mind gradually shook off its haze, new memories seemed to be slowly absorbed. Kira quickly sorted out his identity in this world.
Fujiki Kira, male, currently a... Duel Dojo apprentice?
Though it was called a dojo, it felt more like a card-playing training class for working adults. Unlike the proper Duel Academies, Duel Dojos were social training institutions anyone could enter as long as they paid the registration fee.
Playing cards in the World of Yu-Gi-Oh! could hardly be called an improper occupation. On the contrary, anyone who truly learned to play well had a bright future ahead.
By now, Duel Monsters cards were closely tied to nearly every industry. These days, even companies needed Corporate Duel Agents to handle all business matters that required card games to settle. Domino City, known as Duel City, had supposedly reached the point under KaibaCorp's management where you could not even register as a resident without registering a deck.
But that did not mean this path was easy. Though Kira's predecessor had worked and studied, earning tuition through part-time jobs while training at the dojo and striving toward becoming a True Duelist, both he and those around him had known his chances were slim.
Because he was bad.
It was true that Duelists had limitless prospects, but the field was also brutally competitive. This world differed from his previous life; being a Duelist was widely acknowledged as a profession that depended heavily on talent. Not everyone had what it took to become a master.
Setting everything else aside, if someone could not even draw the cards they wanted, what kind of Duelist could they be?
After thinking it over, Kira felt that the career path his predecessor had stubbornly pursued despite such hardship had not been wrong.
In this world, whether one sought extraordinary power or wanted to make something of oneself in the city, Duel Monsters was the first choice.
Since he wanted to follow this path, his greatest asset would be the experience he had accumulated over many years as a hardcore card player in his previous life.
With that in mind, Kira immediately sat down at the computer and started searching.
First, he had to determine what era and setting he had transmigrated into. Yu-Gi-Oh! had many installments, and the later the anime, the closer it came to the Real Card Environment. That meant a transmigrator's advantage became smaller in later eras.
After a simple search, he quickly found the information he needed.
This was the most classic Standard Dimension, where the dream had begun—the world serving as the setting for Yu-Gi-Oh! DM and Yu-Gi-Oh! GX.
The current point in time was likely after DM had ended, but before GX began or during its early stages. With that, Kira had a rough understanding of the current card game environment.
Now then, it was time to look at his predecessor's deck.
Kira: (─??─)
Was this deck serious?
Once he spread everything out, he found a bloated sixty-card deck. No, this thing could not even be called a deck. It was just a pile of cards.
First, there was a huge pile of Normal Monsters with no effects whatsoever—card players generally liked to use a term President Kaiba often had on his lips to describe such things: vanilla.
Then the entire build was a complete mess, with every card doing its own thing. Almost no two cards had any synergy whatsoever. Draw any six cards at random, and they would all be playing separately. Kira seriously doubted this pile could have any battle power at all.
But after looking again, he felt as though he understood his predecessor's deck-building philosophy.
They were useless, but mostly expensive.
It was probably like those two episodes in the GX Anime where Manjoume's rich, foolish brothers appeared. The two tycoons had plenty of money but were complete rookies at card games. Yet they believed money was everything and were convinced that expensive meant best.
So they threw money around wildly, buying a pay-to-win deck made from a dozen of the most expensive Rare Cards to challenge Manjoume. In the end, however, Manjoume crushed them with a temporary deck built from junk cards he had picked up from a dried-up well behind the school.
Clearly, Kira's predecessor had made the same mistake as those two tycoons in the anime. Many cards in the deck might have been ones he had painstakingly earned through endless work. Seeing their ridiculous market prices, Kira even had reason to suspect that he had transmigrated because his predecessor had worked himself to death.
Still, looking at those nominally ultra-rare yet utterly baffling cards in his hand, Kira could not help silently feeling that it had not been worth it for his predecessor.
Many powerful cards in the card-playing world were indeed expensive, but expensive did not necessarily mean good. Many cards in this world were costly simply because they were "rare." Some were made from excavated artifacts, while others used diamond rings and gemstones as materials.
Some were even expensive simply because the monsters they summoned were beautiful and highly sought after, while their production was limited—especially certain Female Bodhisattva-type spirits that were generously endowed yet scantily clad.
So after going through the entire deck, Kira estimated that only a few expensive Trap Cards were even slightly useful.
It looked like the Starting Deck would have to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch.
Kira thought for a moment, then used the Internet again to look up match videos from today's mainstream Professional Duelists, gaining a rough understanding of the current environment and prevailing strategies.
Sure enough, it was just as the anime portrayed. Duelists of this era generally pursued overwhelming force, striving to bring out high-ATK, flashy Ace Monsters and seize control of the field.
After watching several match recordings in a row, Kira could not help sighing inwardly.
What a wonderfully simple world.
In short, it seemed that most Duelists today shared one common problem—
—they had gone Yang-style.
Of the world's Yin-style Index, there were eight measures in total. The former Duel King Yugi Mutou occupied one measure alone, while everyone else owed him two.
Now that Yugi Mutou had sealed his cards and retired, Duelists everywhere took Seto Kaiba, the Legendary Duelist who chased power and constantly talked about "crushing and shattering," as their model. The entire environment was suddenly filled with sunshine.
Thus, Kira's deck-building direction was decided.
He would bring a little Yin-style Fun to this Yang-style Card World.
I'm back. This time, the setting starts from GX.
New book—please bookmark it and vote! Read retention is especially appreciated!
Before you continue