No Money, Why Play Yu-Gi-Oh!

On a sea island, the Duel Academy headquarters.

After a busy half-day, Principal Samejima finally managed to find some free time. He went to his office, leisurely brewed a cup of tea, and used this rare moment of rest to check the results of this year's entrance exam, as well as some duels he found interesting.

He hadn't expected Professor Chronos to personally participate; it was clear he was intentionally making things difficult for a certain jellyfish-haired freshman. But this student named Judai Yuki was truly formidable; he had actually defeated the Academy's top practical dueling instructor, who was using his own deck, during the entrance assessment.

Principal Samejima took a sip of his tea, quite satisfied with the extraordinary potential Judai had displayed.

Naturally, he then checked the practical duel of the top-ranked student this year. It was said this person had scored perfect marks on the written exam, except for the subjective open-ended questions, easily surpassing Daichi Misawa, who was ranked second and also scored nearly perfect. Their performance was truly outstanding.

Let's see this person's practical performance and deck build...

What on earth is this?

Principal Samejima couldn't help but scratch his shiny head.

He figured he'd been in the dueling world for many years and had seen quite a lot. But he really hadn't seen a build like this before.

No, if I had to say, there was one time, when I was younger, that I had the fortune to witness the deck used by the legendary Duel King Yugi Mutou in his later career during an invitational tournament hosted by Kaiba. It seemed to have a bit of this kind of feel.

It was said that in the later stages of Duel King Yugi's dueling career, many opponents who tried to challenge him ended up frustrated and enraged. Their distorted expressions towards the end looked just like Marik Ishtar during the Battle City era.

Just like that unlucky examiner on the other side in the assessment duel before me.

However, the evolution of the dueling world over the years had long proven that this was the Duel King's unique skill, not easily imitated by others. For many years, mainstream deck builds still gravitated towards the direction guided by Seto Kaiba, and such unique techniques, while not entirely absent after the Duel King retired, had become quite rare.

Unlike traditional professors represented by Chronos, Principal Samejima wasn't insistent that students had to learn tactics and build decks strictly according to the textbook standards.

It was just that ordinary students didn't have the ability to innovate and develop independently. But based on his many years of teaching experience, Principal Sameajima felt at a glance that this student named Kira might just have that ability.

Could it be that the Academy has recruited a newcomer with such rare talent this year?

Thinking of this, Principal Samejima couldn't help but feel a bit of anticipation.

Looking at Judai Yuki on the roster, then at Fujiki Kira next to him, the principal leaned back into his chair, leisurely took a sip of tea, and couldn't help but reveal a relieved smile.

In this small Duel Academy, we've actually recruited two exceptional talents, a Worthy Dragon and a Fledgling Phoenix, simultaneously this year.

Truly cause for celebration.

Duel Academy was quite efficient. Within a few days of the exam, students could already check their scores, results, and admission information.

Completely as expected, Kira received an admission notice.

Of course, there was still a month until the start of the semester, so there was no rush to go to the island immediately. However, the new batch of Academy freshmen had already completed their registration, and those who passed the threshold were already considered this year's prospective freshmen.

Kira took the new student ID information he had received and logged into KaibaCorp's card database system through the Academy Division channel. Sure enough, the options for purchasing cards had also increased.

However, he quickly scanned through them. For now, he decided to list all the cards in stock that he thought might be useful, creating a checklist. Then he analyzed them one by one.

Most of them were cards he thought might be useful, but might require specific builds or be used for Combos. These were listed and set aside for later consideration.

The cards he immediately decided to buy were generally versatile cards that could be useful in most decks. These were primarily fun Red Traps.

For example, "Karma Cut," which could send an opponent's monster to the Different Dimension simply by discarding a card from hand, and the perennial Forbidden Card "Ring of Destruction," which hadn't been severely restricted back then—it could destroy one monster, and both players would take damage equal to that monster's ATK. It was a powerful tool for flipping the table if you couldn't win, known in the community as the Draw Ring.

Besides these, he was even more pleasantly surprised to find that the versatile in-game purchase channel actually had Hand Traps.

As the saying goes, you can guard against a thousand things, but not Hand Traps. Unlike Trap Cards set on the field that are easily anticipated and cleared, Hand Traps whose effects activate by discarding them from your hand have been a mainstream staple in Yu-Gi-Oh! since their inception, and continue even today.

Of course, early Hand Traps weren't as brutal as modern ones, and were generally used for defensive effects that blocked attacks. Their origin was naturally Kuriboh, the mascot that had continued since the DM Era, the card in Yugi's hand that could negate battle damage simply by discarding it.

So, when he found a Kuriboh in the Rare Card section, Kira immediately bought it without hesitation, feeling somewhat surprised that such a rare item was still available and hadn't been snatched up.

But that made sense. From what he saw in the Anime, Duelists didn't seem particularly interested in low-level monsters with weak battle power that could only block an attack once. Even Kuriboh, aside from its own rarity, mostly derived its extra value from just being the "mascot of the first Duel King."

Next, he discovered there was also a section called "Theme Structure Deck" in the Academy Division. He clicked it open and saw that it was basically themed pre-constructed decks sold as a complete package for a fixed price.

He even saw the legendary "Elemental HERO" among them.

But thinking about it, it was only natural. In the first episode of GX, when Professor Chronos saw Judai's deck, he called it a "very common Hero deck." In this era, Hero decks themselves were commoner builds. It was only as Judai's new cards were printed more and more in the later stages that they gradually moved away from being commoner decks.

Every Duelist more or less had a hero dream deep down. Since he had come to the GX Era, Kira was also curious and tried searching for them.

Then he gave up on his hero dream at lightning speed.

The monsters were basically just the famous Four Useless Heroes. There were only two or three Fusion HEROes currently in stock, and then the deck was stuffed with a bunch of exclusive support cards for the useless Heroes. Things like Spark Blaster, Feather Shot, Burst Return, and so on.

Various cards that even Judai only used once in the Anime before they vanished, essentially highlighting their lack of meaning.

A quick look told him this was a deck that ordinary people couldn't possibly handle. Almost every Spell/Trap card required a specific Vanilla HERO to be used, and even if you glued them together (like with 502 Glue) and drew them together, the applicable scenarios for each combination were too limited. In actual duels, you'd definitely suffer Hand Bricks and question your life choices.

So, the fact that Judai could use these things to fight undefeated through most of Duel Academy in the early stages was a skill that put 99% of Duelists beyond his reach.

Elemental HEROes were temporarily out of the question. Kira continued scrolling down.

Then he found that Sho Marufuji, Judai's junior, had his Vehicle Deck's "Roid" series listed as well.

His eyes lit up, and he quickly checked the card list in the structure deck.

Sho Marufuji's Roid deck was not a rare deck in the current environment either. In the Real Card Environment over the years, it had also performed poorly, never having any competitive power, and was considered a relatively niche fun deck.

But this deck contained an early "god card" that Sho Marufuji had used in the Anime, yet Konami still hadn't made into a Real Card after nearly twenty years.

Just as I thought!

Kira's gaze immediately locked onto that specific card in the deck, and he bought the structure deck without hesitation.

The cards in the structure deck couldn't be bought individually; you had to buy the whole deck together. But that was okay. The structure deck itself wasn't expensive, and in the current environment, even buying the entire structure deck just for this one card was worth it.

[Kiteroid, Level 1, ATK 200, DEF 400.

Effect:

1) You can discard this card from your hand; the battle damage from one Direct Attack to your player becomes 0.

2) While this card is in the Graveyard, you can make the battle damage from one Direct Attack to your player become 0, this effect can only be used once.](Anime Effect)

This card was never released in the Real Card Environment. Historically, it was exclusive to two games: Tag Force 3 on PSP and Duel Links. It could act as a Hand Trap once and a Graveyard Trap once, blocking two attacks with a single card. In the GX Era, where Hand Traps were incredibly scarce, it was undoubtedly a life-saving artifact.

Kira was immersed in the thrill of buying, buying, buying, another wave of reinforcements. His card inventory became increasingly abundant, and his deck building options grew more flexible, but his recently fattened wallet rapidly depleted as a result.

For now, Kira decided to keep some money aside and not spend it all. He exited the interface with a light sigh, gazing forlornly at the sky.

Sure enough, the seniors were right about one thing.

What's the point of playing Yu-Gi-Oh! if you don't have money?