Onizuka Genichiro, LP 0
The final attack came to an end, taking all of his remaining Life Points—and in this Dark Duel he had initiated himself, it signified the end of the duelist's actual life as well.
At that moment, he could not even feel the pain caused by the Dark Duel's backlash.
Because he had already begun losing all sensation in his body.
During the duel, he had talked a big game, saying that being caught by him was the other person's greatest misfortune in life.
Looking at it now, whose misfortune was it, really?
This boy was strong, but the feeling he gave was completely different from any powerhouse Genichiro had encountered before.
How should he put it? It was as though—
As though the way this boy understood dueling was completely different from how everyone else saw it.
This was also the first time in Genichiro's life that, after finishing a duel, such a thought had come to him—
—Dueling was so hard.
Defeated, Genichiro collapsed onto the ground. A layer of golden light enveloped him, and then he scattered into specks of light and vanished.
Just like the people who lost duels and died in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX's Different Dimension Arc.
Kira sucked in a sharp breath.
Good lord, Dark Duels really were dangerous. Losing meant even your ashes got scattered. That was terrifying.
Good thing he had been the better duelist.
Still, from his perspective, this guy's K Language level had not even reached beginner level. He was that bad and still qualified as a Dark Duelist? It was a miracle he had survived this long playing Life-Gambling Cards.
No, wait.
Kira realized he was still thinking with the habits of his previous life.
He could not look at it that way. In this world, a duelist's strength still depended more on godly draws. K Language for interpreting card text might only be window dressing.
Yeah, this really was a dangerous world. He could not relax for even a moment.
He still needed to collect more powerful cards. Improving his strength was the true path forward.
For example, starting with what was right in front of him.
Kira walked over and bent down to pick up Genichiro's Duel Disk, which had fallen onto the ground after his death.
Now that the man was gone, his deck naturally became ownerless property.
Kira solemnly said, "It was a good duel. Go in peace, brother. I will inherit your deck and your will."
As he spoke, he tucked the deck into his pocket.
As he was leaving, he seemed to feel a chill run down his spine, as though a cold gust had swept past him.
The next morning.
Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the curtains and scattered across the floor. Kira groggily opened his heavy eyelids, his blurry vision struggling to focus.
It looked like he saw... a girl?
Her silver hair drifted in the air. She held a staff in one hand and covered her mouth with the other. In spirit form, half her body had passed through him as he lay in bed. Her bright eyes peeked around curiously, as though she were examining him.
But the instant he opened his eyes, it was as if an "!" popped up over the girl's head. She abruptly turned around and dove back into the deck inside the Duel Disk leaning against the table, falling silent.
Kira: "."
After the master and servant's first cooperation last night, Kira had learned that the Silent Magician was not deliberately Targeting him or refusing to acknowledge him as her Master. She was simply... silent.
In other words, she was socially withdrawn.
Well, like Master, like servant. It made sense that the spirit of a socially withdrawn player would also be socially withdrawn.
No matter what, she really had helped in last night's unexpected encounter. Sure enough, in the World of Yu-Gi-Oh!, going out without divine artifacts or a spirit at your side was simply too dangerous.
And he was not sure whether it was just psychological, but during yesterday's Life-Gambling Card duel, with Silent Magician in his deck, something really had felt different from his previous duels.
It was a feeling difficult to describe clearly. But whenever he touched his deck, whenever he drew a card, he could vaguely sense a certain rhythm.
Before that, his deck had been like his Duel Disk—merely a tool for dueling.
But in that duel, for the first time, he had the illusion that his deck had come alive.
Of course, the feeling was rather mystical, and it was possible he was simply overthinking it.
"No matter what, I still need to get stronger."
The sudden Life-Gambling Card encounter had made Kira realize once again how important it was to play cards well in this world. It was even more reliable than walking around with an arsenal strapped to his back.
And as he reviewed his recent consecutive battles, he had gained some new insights as well.
From a card player's perspective, many anime characters' decks often inspired the same question: how did they make a system this bricky actually function?
But if one assumed that certain Seafood Head players possessed the ability to never brick no matter what system they used, then looking at their decks again revealed a common trait.
They were stuffed full of meaningless junk☆—cross that out.
They had answers in their decks for almost any situation they faced.
Real-world decks generally pursued consistency and efficiency, but even top-tier meta decks sometimes encountered situations that the entire deck simply could not overcome.
That was when one faced a particular board or a specific situation and knew clearly that no card in one's deck, no matter which one was drawn, could break that board.
Such cases might be extremely rare. Even if they occasionally happened, one could simply surrender; it would not affect a meta deck's standing. But this world was different.
A Dark Duel had only one game. Victory meant life, defeat meant death. There was no chance to surrender and try again.
So those decks that appeared stuffed with meaningless junk actually followed the idea of having almost no board they could not break.
Likewise, real-world deck building generally aimed to stay right at forty cards. The more streamlined the deck, the more it reduced bricking and improved efficiency. But sixty-card decks were normal in this world. No, it even seemed that the deck limit here might exceed sixty cards.
Because more cards meant more possibilities.
But all of that rested on the premise of never bricking.
That was why only top duelists could pilot such systems. People like Yugi and Kaiba could even mix four or five entirely different engines into one deck, yet never brick when playing it. It felt as though they were dueling with four or five separate decks at once.
When there really was no other option, drawing a card that was not even in your deck was not necessarily impossible either.
But if Ordinary People without that kind of skill blindly imitated the deck building and tactics of those top masters, with everyone running piles starting at sixty cards, they would naturally get worse the more they copied, brick more the more they copied, and create this bizarre environment where the gap between experts and the bottom tier became increasingly severe.
Thus, Kira felt that he had attained enlightenment once again.
Cheesy tactics might be powerful, but in this world, relying on cheesy tactics alone would not get him far. At this stage, his deck building alone was enough to handle his opponents, but in the future, he still needed to expand upon it with more varied styles and tactics.
Deck building was important, and godly draws and bonds were important too. He needed to grasp both with both hands, and both had to be strong.
His recent duels had not only made Kira realize that the anime's deck environment was different; he had also discovered that many other aspects differed from what he knew.
He had not noticed it when watching the anime before, but after personally coming here and dueling, he realized that just as portrayed in the animation, duelists here never proactively gave you a chance to chain after activating an effect.
Under the rules Kira knew from his previous life, after activating an effect, you often needed to give the opponent time and ask whether they had a response. Only after every card in a chain had been activated would effects resolve in order.
Unless the other side said, "No responses, keep going," or "GKD," could you happily combo off without restraint.
But that was not how things worked here. Whether in the anime or among duelists Kira had personally encountered, they immediately started resolving their effects on their own after activating them, without any such awareness at all.
However, he soon discovered that it did not matter much, because the rules regarding chain timing in duels were not that strict either. Even if the opponent had already begun resolving the effect of their current card on their own, that would not cause you to miss your timing to activate a chained effect. You could still interrupt their play and follow up with your own effect.
That was only natural. Otherwise, would it not turn into a contest where whoever moved their mouth fast enough could deny the opponent the chance to play cards by forcing them to miss timing?
And this was not because the rules in the early anime were incomplete. Even in several later series that had long since followed real card-game rules, it was still the same.
From the perspective of anime production, one could only speculate that the staff had decided dramatic impact mattered more than strictly following the rules. If everyone rigorously activated every card first and then resolved them one by one, it might undermine the presentation of certain reversal scenes.
Though such plays would be illegal in reality, overall, even in the anime, they were merely a presentation choice and generally did not affect the state of the duel.
Last night, Kira had also discovered that playing cards really was physically demanding. Duel Academy's gym teacher had emphasized that without a good body, one could not play cards well. Kira had found it rather funny back then, but now he was beginning to understand what that meant.
Especially that Life-Gambling Card duel last night—it had truly been mentally and physically exhausting. He had not felt it while dueling, but once he returned, he felt completely drained. He did not want to think about anything; he only wanted to fall asleep.
Only after waking from a full night's rest did he feel refreshed, with his brain back online and working again.
He had gained quite a lot from yesterday's victory. Genichiro had been a Dark Duelist who lived on the edge of a blade, and his deck looked fairly valuable. Kira estimated that even cards he could not use himself would fetch a good price on the market. He could sell them and exchange them for what he wanted.
And most importantly, without question, was that Anime Effect Version of Card of Demise.
A divine artifact that instantly drew five cards, with only the laughable side effect of "discarding your hand after five turns," which practically amounted to mocking the opponent to their face. Things like Archfiend's Manifestation instantly became trash by comparison.
Unfortunately, there was only one copy. Kira even felt that if he could run three copies of this thing, it would be truly wonderful.
There were also the other two treasures from the DM Three Sacred Treasures of Cards, alongside Card of Demise, that he longed for deeply: Card of Fate and Card of Sanctity.
Card of Fate was Joey Wheeler's. Basically, you rolled a die, drew however many cards you rolled, then banished that many cards from the Top of Deck. It was another absurdly overpowered card, but no one besides Joey Wheeler had ever been seen using it in the anime, and by the Yu-Gi-Oh! GX era, it had vanished entirely.
Card of Sanctity, meanwhile, belonged to Yugi. Both players drew until they had six cards in hand—a god-tier weapon of mass destruction. Aside from Yugi, quite a few others had used it in DM, making it a generic card, and it had even appeared in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX. But Kira had not seen it on the market yet.
The DM Three Sacred Treasures of Cards... he wanted them all so badly.
And now, his greatest hope was the broad road known as Duel Academy.
Rumor had it that once you entered the academy, you would enter a completely different world. There was supposedly an internal purchasing channel with massive numbers of Rare Cards that ordinary duelists could hardly imagine—one rumored to have "everything."
It was already within reach.
Three days from now, at Kaiba Land, the annual Duel Academy entrance examination would be held.
He would definitely take it.
Before you continue