Invitation to the Ruins

Early morning, Duel Dojo.

Kira got up early that day, went out to buy something to eat, then arrived at the dojo bright and early.

Before he even entered, he ran into Koji Sato head-on.

Koji's eyes immediately lit up when he saw him, and he hurried forward. "Good morning, Senior Disciple! You're here early today, Senior Disciple!"

"Uh, Senior Disciple Koji, you don't have to be so formal. Just call me Junior Disciple."

"Sure thing, Senior Disciple." Koji grinned. "Oh, you're here to see Master, right, Senior Disciple? Master's inside."

Kira: "."

He had no idea how it happened, but at some point, he seemed to have become the Senior Disciple of the entire dojo.

Koji had actually signed up for the Duel Academy entrance exam too, but unfortunately, he had failed at the Written Test.

Kira could not understand why anyone would fail such simple questions, but the pass rate for the Written Test seemed rather low. You could tell from the anime that Judai Yuki had ranked 110th on the Written Test—and he had still been near the bottom—which meant only around a hundred people had passed in total. It was apparently quite difficult.

When he arrived at Takeuchi Master's room, the door was surprisingly open.

Looking inside, he saw Takeuchi Master seated in his office chair with a bulky VR headset on his nose. Who knew what he was watching, but he was giving off a somewhat lecherous "Heh heh," "Hehehe," while his old face was faintly flushed.

Kira pondered for a moment.

Hmm, could he be launching in Gundam mode right now?

After thinking it over, he felt that speaking up and interrupting at a time like this would probably be rather impolite. So he stepped back out, pretending he had never come, stood outside the room, and knocked twice on the open door.

Then he asked in a loud voice, "Master, are you in there?"

A burst of frantic scrambling immediately came from inside, followed by a "thud," as though someone had fallen onto the floor. He waited patiently for a few seconds before finally hearing a voice.

"Come in."

Kira entered the room with a perfectly normal expression, as though nothing had happened—and as though he had not noticed Takeuchi Master's disheveled hair at all.

"You just got here?" Takeuchi Master probed cautiously.

"Yeah, I just got here." Kira remained perfectly calm.

"Um... you didn't see anything strange, did you?"

"No." Kira put on a puzzled look and glanced around. "Did something happen?"

"Oh, no, nothing. Good, good that you didn't see anything. Ahem, I was just studying Deck Building." Takeuchi yawned as he spoke. "Why did you suddenly come over? Is something the matter?"

"You told me to come see you this morning after I finished the exam," Kira reminded him.

Takeuchi Master slapped his forehead.

"Ah, right, that did happen. Look at my memory. Getting old, and my brain isn't working as well anymore."

No, Master, I don't think age is necessarily the problem. Maybe you just burn through your money too freely and have overexerted yourself.

Especially in a world where Solid Vision technology was so advanced, realistic holograms would naturally propel certain industries that were already highly developed in District 11 to even greater heights. For gentlemen constantly fighting on the front lines, it was truly a high-end battle with kidney pressure maxed out.

"First, congratulations on making it through. I already heard about it—your exam performance was quite impressive. You didn't disgrace our dojo." The master chuckled. "But you can't slack off after enrollment either. Study hard. Whether our school can rise to prominence again depends on you."

"I understand, Master."

"Good, good. Actually, there's nothing particularly important about why I called you here. There just happens to be an opportunity, and I wanted to see whether you'd be interested.

"You've probably been busy preparing for the exam these past couple of days, so you likely haven't had time to watch the news. Have you heard about the ruins in the northern outskirts of the city?"

"Ruins?" Kira was surprised and shook his head, indicating that he had not.

"Yeah. A KaibaCorp team unearthed them. They're just outside the city, only a little over an hour's drive from here. They aren't open to the public yet, but I know someone on the inside. He said that if I'm interested, I can bring my students over for a visit."

Kira began to understand.

Ruins where they dug up stone tablets, huh?

As everyone knew, in Yu-Gi-Oh!, modern card games all originated from archaeology. Back then, Pegasus went to Ancient Egypt on an archaeological expedition and unearthed stone tablets of Duel Monsters from three thousand years ago. He brought the slumbering spirits back to the modern era, and that was how everything began.

After all these years of development in the Duel Monsters system, card-making techniques had grown increasingly advanced, and research methods for developing new cards and new monster forms had become ever more sophisticated. Yet archaeological excavation remained a key channel for the birth of new decks.

In fact, even after all these years, the tablets discovered so far were still only the tip of the iceberg of ancient Duel Monsters. Even in Yu-Gi-Oh! 5DS, set many years later in this world, new ruins were still constantly being discovered.

Moreover, contrary to the original belief that Duel Monsters had originated in Ancient Egypt three thousand years ago, later exploration revealed that ruins connected to ancient Duel Monsters could be found all over the world.

For instance, Atlantis, where Dartz had lived ten thousand years ago; the Three Sacred Beasts later discovered in Northern Europe; the Earthbound Immortals tablets found in Peru's Nazca Lines; and the Gem Spirits excavated from the ruins of an ancient nation that worshipped the power of jewels, which were used to create the later Crystal Beasts.

Kira had never seen ruins or stone tablets before, so he was indeed somewhat interested.

After many ruins were excavated and explored by professional teams, they could be opened as tourist attractions. There really had been cases of duelists resonating with hidden spirits within ruins.

"Although the details haven't been made public yet, my friend said this time it seems to be a very impressive set of ruins too," Takeuchi Master said.

"Master, you actually know people at KaibaCorp?"

Only then did Kira realize that perhaps his master's connections and influence were unexpectedly impressive.

"Heh, don't mention it." Takeuchi Master raised his head and puffed out his chest. "Your teacher was once quite a figure in his youth. It's just that I later grew indifferent to fame and fortune, retired from the world, and had no desire to stir up conflicts with others again—"

Kira's expression turned solemn with respect. "Then is your friend an executive at KaibaCorp? Or a duelist? Do they have internal channels for buying cards?"

At that, all the air immediately went out of the master.

"No, he worked construction at the excavation site."

Kira: "..."

"Ahem, he used to be a very skilled Duelist, actually, but later he found another line of work. Apparently, KaibaCorp required everyone at the site—from the archaeological researchers to the excavation crew—to be Duelists. It seemed to be a personal requirement from the President himself."

Kira thought, Damn, these days you even had to know how to play cards to join a construction crew.

But on second thought, it was not entirely unreasonable. After all, ruins like these were often accompanied by supernatural forces that science could not explain. It really could be dangerous for ordinary people to get close. But in this world, as long as you knew how to play cards, the level of danger dropped dramatically.

"Perfect timing. The day after tomorrow, Kaiba Land in the city is holding a 'White Dragon Festival' event, and our dojo is planning to go there for team-building. That friend of mine will be there too, so you can talk face-to-face then."

"Okay," Kira replied casually, but then he noticed something else that seemed off.

Wait, there was even a holiday called the "White Dragon Festival"?