World Of GX Yang-Style

Kira slowly opened his eyes and blankly looked around the unfamiliar surroundings.

It was a room he'd never seen before, yet it had a strange sense of familiarity. Sunlight filtered through the window frame, dappling the soft floor like sparkling stardust. Even the air felt light and transparent in the warm sunlight.

A dull ache throbbed in his head, and strange images and unfamiliar fragments flashed through his mind. Some kind of instinct deep down seemed to tell him about the extraordinary situation he was currently facing—

—he had transmigrated.

Kira looked around the environment again, his gaze quickly drawn to the computer on the desk.

The computer was on, displaying a search engine webpage, but it wasn't any search engine he was familiar with from before.

Large letters clearly displayed above the search box read, "Kaiba Search."

What he found even stranger were the trending news headlines below the search box.

"Touto University Research Team Discovers New Form of 'Summoned Skull,' Fiend Decks May See Major Buff!"

Kira: "?"

Out of curiosity, he clicked on it to take a look. The report said the research team had worked day and night to develop new potential for the famous Fiend Type monster, "Summoned Skull," and had already published a paper in a top international Duel Monsters journal.

A spokesperson for the team said they had spoken with Maximillion Pegasus, CEO of Industrial Illusions, and Industrial Illusions was already assisting them with the development of new cards.

If he still couldn't tell what world he had transmigrated to even after this, then Kira really had wasted all those years playing cards.

This was the World of Yu-Gi-Oh!, a plane where, as everyone knew, cards reigned supreme, and the very foundation and laws of the entire world were built upon playing cards.

Below the trending searches was something even more outrageous.

"Middle East Regional Conflict Eases, Heads of State Decide to Reach Agreement Through Duel"

Kira: "."

After reading the headline, a scene seemed to form in his mind. Two armies faced off on a smoke-filled battlefield, both sides heavily armed, rifles and cannons pointed at each other.

At this moment, the generals of both armies stepped out from their positions, revealed the Duel Disks on their arms and their Decks, and decided to resolve the territorial dispute with a tense and exciting game of Yu-Gi-Oh!

That's absolutely ridiculous.

But that was precisely how this world operated.

Duel Monsters was the only path to reaching the Supernatural Power in this world, to wielding divine power that surpassed time and space and could rewrite the laws of reality.

His brain gradually shook off the hazy state, and new memories seemed to be slowly absorbed. Kira quickly sorted out his identity in this world.

Fujiki Kira, male, current identity is... Duel Dojo apprentice?

Although it was called a dojo, it felt more like a community card-playing training class. Unlike the formal Duel Academies, a Duel Dojo was a social training institution that anyone could join as long as they paid the registration fee.

In the World of Yu-Gi-Oh!, playing cards was certainly not considered unproductive. On the contrary, if one could truly learn to play well, their future would be bright.

The development of Duel Monsters cards had reached a point where almost every industry was closely related to playing cards. These days, even starting a company or doing business required a Corporate Duel Agent specifically to help the company handle any commercial matters that needed to be resolved through Duels. It was even said that Domino City, known as the "Duel City," had reached a point under KaibaCorp's operations where you couldn't even register as a resident without registering your Deck.

But this didn't mean the path was easy. Although Kira's predecessor had worked his way through school, earning tuition money while studying at the dojo, and striving towards the path of a true Duelist, both he himself and those around him knew that his hopes were slim.

Because he was terrible at it.

It was true that the future of a Duelist was boundless, but at the same time, this industry was incredibly competitive. This world was different from his previous life; being a Duelist was a profession widely acknowledged to heavily rely on talent, and not everyone had the potential to become a master.

Putting everything else aside, if someone couldn't even draw the cards they wanted, what kind of Duelist could they be?

Kira thought for a moment and felt that the development path his predecessor had insisted on, despite enduring such hardship, was correct in itself.

In this world, whether one wanted to seek the Supernatural Power or build a career in the city, Duel Monsters was the preferred path.

So, since he wanted to take this path, his biggest reliance would be the years of accumulation as a veteran card player from his previous life.

Thinking of this, Kira immediately sat in front of the computer and started searching.

First, he had to determine what era and background he had transmigrated into. There were many Yu-Gi-Oh! series, and the later the anime, the closer it was to the real-life card game environment. Therefore, the later the environment, the smaller the advantage for a transmigrator.

After a simple search, he quickly obtained the information he needed.

This was the most classic Standard Dimension, the place where dreams began, the world that served as the backdrop for the stories of Yu-Gi-Oh! DM and Yu-Gi-Oh! GX.

The current time node should be after DM ended, before GX began, or in its early story. This way, Kira had a general concept of the current Duel card environment.

Now let's take a look at his predecessor's Deck.

Kira: (─??─)

Seriously? This Deck?

Spreading it all out, it was a bloated sixty-card... no, this thing couldn't even be called a Deck, it was just a pile of cards.

First off, the monsters were a bunch of Normal Monsters with no effects whatsoever—card players generally liked to describe these with a term President Kaiba often had on his lips: Vanilla Monster.

And the entire build was simply each card doing its own thing, like the Eight Immortals crossing the sea; there was hardly any synergy between any two cards. Drawing any six cards in the starting hand would result in each card acting independently, and Kira highly doubted these things put together could have any fighting power.

However, looking again, he seemed to grasp his predecessor's Deck building philosophy.

It wasn't very useful, but the main thing was... it was expensive.

That feeling was probably like the two episodes in the GX anime where Manjoume's two rich, simple-minded brothers appeared. Those two tycoons had plenty of money but were completely terrible at playing cards, yet they believed in the supremacy of money and were convinced that the most expensive things were the best.

So they desperately threw money around, buying a Deck of the most expensive rare cards to challenge Manjoume, only to be utterly defeated by a temporary Deck Manjoume built from discarded cards he'd picked up from a dry well behind the school.

Clearly, his predecessor had made the same mistake as those two tycoons in the anime. Many cards in the Deck might even have been earned by his predecessor through desperate part-time work and grinding, and after seeing the outrageous market prices, Kira felt he had reason to suspect that the reason he had transmigrated was because his predecessor had overworked himself to death grinding for them.

However, looking at the few cards in his hand, which were nominally super rare but seemed meaningless to him, he couldn't help but feel it was a waste for his predecessor.

In the World of Duel Monsters, many powerful cards are indeed expensive, but expensive doesn't necessarily mean good. Many cards in this world are expensive simply because they are "rare." For example, some cards are made from unearthed cultural relics, while others are crafted using diamond rings and gems as raw materials.

Some are even expensive simply because the summoned monsters are very attractive and highly sought after, but production is low—especially some female monster spirits of the 'Bodhisattva' type, highly sought after for their attractive appearance and revealing attire, but prohibitively expensive due to low production.

So, after flipping through the entire Deck, Kira estimated that maybe only a few of the expensive Trap Cards seemed somewhat useful.

It looked like his initial Deck would have to be completely rebuilt from scratch.

Kira thought for a moment, then used the internet again to search for competition videos of current mainstream professional Duelists, getting a general idea of the current environment and strategies of mainstream Duelists.

As expected, just like in the anime. Duelists of this era generally still pursued overwhelming power, striving to bring out their high-Attack, cool ace monsters to dominate the field.

After watching several match replays, Kira couldn't help but sigh inwardly.

What a simple world.

In short, it seemed that most Duelists currently shared a common problem—

—They were too Yang-style.

The world's current Yin-style Index totals eight dou. The former Duel King, Yugi Mutou, alone accounted for one shi; the rest of the world collectively owes him two dou.

Now that Yugi Mutou has stopped Dueling, Duelists across the world look up to the Legendary Duelist Seto Kaiba, who always talks about "Crush and Destroy" and pursues power through overwhelming force, as their role model. The entire environment is suddenly filled with a sunny atmosphere.

And so, Kira's Deck building strategy was decided.

He was going to bring a little bit of Yin-style Fun to this Yang-style Card World.

I'm back, and this time the background starts from Yu-Gi-Oh! GX.

New book, seeking collections and recommendation votes, especially read-throughs!