Win a Championship First

"You want to go to Duel Academy?"

Curator Takeuchi froze for a moment.

Come to think of it, it really was almost time for Duel Academy's admissions to open.

For young duelists, Duel Academy was practically sacred ground. The brightest students gathered there, and nearly every graduate was destined to become an elite. Under Seto Kaiba's management, whether you were the son of a world-class tycoon or the privileged heir of an all-powerful family, if you lacked talent, then no amount of wealth or influence would get you in.

Who was Seto Kaiba?

The strongest duelist alive, commanding the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, the most powerful Duel Spirit of the modern era, comparable to the Three Phantom Gods of old. Rumor had it that he was even developing technology capable of traversing dimensions and time, intending to use technology to open the Gate of the Underworld and play cards with the long-slumbering Nameless Pharaoh.

Not only was he the richest man in the world, but he also stood at the pinnacle of both the Supernatural Side and the Technology Side. After Yugi Mutou sealed his cards, Kaiba was universally recognized as the greatest duelist of the modern age.

And he acknowledged nothing but card skills.

So if Seto Kaiba said there were no back doors and only strength mattered, then only strength mattered. No matter how powerful or prestigious someone was, if they wanted into his school, they had to take the exam properly. There was absolutely no room for under-the-table dealings.

He also worshipped strength and championed elite education. You could see that from Duel Academy's strict class hierarchy in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, as well as the contempt the entire school held for underachieving students.

Many Duel Dojos offered assistance programs for students applying to Duel Academy. Once a student got in, they would undoubtedly become a valuable alumnus in the future and provide excellent publicity for the dojo as well.

Master Takeuchi's dojo had such assistance too, though the number of spots each year was limited.

And considering that Kira had swept through the entire dojo, including Master Takeuchi, over the past three days, he naturally qualified.

If the application went through, the student would not only receive tuition assistance, but the dojo would also provide deck funds. The Master would personally offer one-on-one guidance, helping the student purchase new cards and optimize their build.

Of course, in Kira's case, the guidance portion could clearly be skipped. He just needed the money.

"Wait."

Curator Takeuchi had just agreed when something suddenly occurred to him.

"What was your Duelist Level again?"

". One Star."

The Curator: "..."

Honestly, even though he had seen it with his own eyes, he still found it difficult to understand how a One Star student could suddenly improve to this extent as though enlightened.

But having personally experienced Kira's current dueling ability, he also felt that Kira had a strong chance of getting into the academy.

"But One Star doesn't meet the registration requirement."

"I know." Kira nodded. "That's why I'm planning to go to the arena tomorrow and try to rank up as quickly as possible."

"Mm, but there's only one month left until the Entrance Exam. That's a little tight." Curator Takeuchi considered it. "It would be much easier if you could place in an open tournament."

Placing in an open tournament would allow him to jump directly to a higher star rank, rather than slowly grinding points one duel at a time in an ordinary arena. It would also add a tournament record to his resume, which would benefit his future career as a duelist.

"How about this?" Curator Takeuchi looked at Koji Sato. "I remember Koji was preparing to enter this year's Moonflower Cup, right?

Though the registration window seems to have closed, I know someone among the organizers. It won't be a problem to squeeze one more person into the preliminaries. The dojo will cover the registration fee too. What do you think?"

This year, Koji was the only person in the entire dojo who had reached Three Stars, so naturally he had originally been the only one planning to apply to Duel Academy. He had entered the Moonflower Cup to build up his record before enrollment, and placing would have been even better.

"Then thank you, Curator," Kira said.

Beside them, Koji Sato could not help drawing in a sharp breath.

This bastard was entering too?

What if he got matched against him again at the tournament—

Just imagining that scene sent a shiver down his spine and made his whole body feel awful.

But then he thought of how many contestants there would be. The odds of getting matched against him were not that high. Or rather, at the tournament, he might get to watch more clueless duelists get the same smile-inducing treatment from his junior disciple that he had.

The moment he imagined that sight, the corners of his mouth rose uncontrollably.

His smile gradually turned deranged.

Sure enough, dueling still brought happiness.

It just depended on who the happiness belonged to.

The first rays of morning sunlight were like soft lines of poetry, as though the tranquil world had been draped in a veil of gold. The night had been driven away, replaced by a fresh and bright dawn. The air was filled with the faint scent of morning and the fragrance of flowers.

At 6:20 in the morning, Kira lazily woke from his comfortable bed. Sunlight filtered through gauzy curtains, casting mottled shadows across the white sheets and soft blankets.

He had gone to bed late last night, and his sleep quality had not been great either. He had dreamed quite a bit. He only vaguely remembered seeing Black and White Impermanence in his dream. The two had first said sinisterly that his fate had run out and it was time for him to go, but then they had each unfolded a Duel Disk with a clatter and pulled out decks, saying that as long as he won a duel, he could extend his life.

"Why would I have a dream like that?" Kira rubbed his temples.

It seemed he really was beginning to internalize the core logic of this card-playing world: there was nothing that could not be solved through card games.

Kira needed only five minutes to shake off his drowsiness. He jumped out of bed, quickly got dressed and washed up, then began a new day of study.

You could never imagine how terrifying a disciplined card player could be.

There was one month left until Duel Academy's Entrance Exam. It was time to start doing a little advance studying.

Originally, he had thought, how hard could a dueling exam be? Wasn't it just learning and applying K Language?

Things like determining whether a card effect targeted or did not target, the order in which chains resolved, or advanced lessons on missed timing.

None of that was included.

None of those more obscure and difficult Yu-Gi-Oh!-specific rules from the Real Card Environment were included. The conceptual questions only covered basics like, "Explain what a Normal Spell Card, Equip Spell Card, and Field Spell Card are," just like the questions Professor Chronos asked in class in the GX Anime.

Then there was memorizing the effects of all kinds of cards. Kira soon discovered that this section was unexpectedly difficult, because there was no way he could remember the classifications and effects of a pile of ancient cards that nobody had used in the Real Card Environment for twenty years. Not to mention that this world had many Anime and Manga Cards that had never undergone Physical Card Adaptation.

He also quickly noticed that this place differed quite a bit from the Real Card Environment of twenty years ago. Many cards might only have received Physical Card Adaptation twenty years later in his previous world, yet already existed here.

Of course, on second thought, that was not strange at all. Even Miracle Contact, the key card in Judai's Neo-Spacian Deck, had made Hero players everywhere salivate for who knew how many years after appearing in the anime. It had felt like they waited a lifetime before Konami finally gave it Physical Card Adaptation.

So naturally, many cards that had not existed back then existed here.

After going through the entire question bank, Kira felt it was all fairly empty material. The awareness and techniques that truly involved the core of card skills were not mentioned at all.

That reminded him of an explanation from a fan theory he had seen online in his previous life. For many films and anime, reality was a higher dimension. But in the World of Yu-Gi-Oh!, cards were the foundation of creation, and dueling represented the world's most fundamental laws rather than merely being a card game like it was in reality.

So for people in the anime world, exploring the rules of dueling was like conducting the most cutting-edge research in reality: a pursuit of truth. Learning to play cards was not that difficult for people from the real-world dimension, but understanding these things in the anime world required exceptional talent and tremendous effort.

Kira bought study guides such as Foundations of Duel Theory and the Duel Academy Past Exam Question Bank, then spent most of the day doing practice questions. At the same time, he also took some time to look into the Card Creation Field.

The Yu-Gi-Oh! anime series had always focused on duelists' stories, only briefly touching on card design. All he knew was that Pegasus, known as the Father of Duel Monsters, had first discovered ancient Duel Monsters stone tablets in Egypt and turned them into cards, creating the modern Duel Monsters card system.

Later, card creation was primarily handled by Pegasus's Industrial Illusions, though it did not hold an absolute monopoly. KaibaCorp had also printed many cards that circulated on the market.

Later still, there were Yu-series Duelists like Yugi Mutou and Judai Yuki, each possessing Cheat-level Talent that let them print cards on the spot according to the situation. Sometimes they printed so brazenly that they simply printed themselves and their opponents directly into the card artwork without even trying to hide it.

Clearly, those privately printed cards could also gain recognition from the system and the Dueling Rules, and did not count as cheating.

After all, Yu-Gi-Oh! was originally a Supernatural World, and playing cards was simply a manifestation of the supernatural. So when certain Seafood Head-wearing Yu-series Duelists shouted things like friendship and bonds while pulling out a blank card and printing its name and effect text on the spot right in front of their opponents, it could even be said that they were applying this world's laws. It was a display of supernatural strength.

How could the Duel King's business be called cheating?

Topdecking and printing cards were both part of dueling. If you didn't like it, don't play.

But it was easy to imagine that card printing in a world like this could not be entirely unrestricted. Even Industrial Illusions' Card Designers probably had to make their new designs conform to certain rules. They could not simply do whatever they wanted.

What Kira was curious about was what requirements card creation had, and what kind of cards could be recognized.

If the cards from his previous life's Real Card Environment Card Pool could all be printed, then once he became a card designer, he would definitely bring some modern Yu-Gi-Oh! comboing shock to this overly Yang-style Card World.

Kira first bought a series of reference books and textbooks. He was not really expecting to learn it so easily; he merely wanted to gain a basic understanding first.

Fundamentals of Field Spell Construction: An Introduction to Environment Modeling

Nine Common Mistakes in Monster Card Design

Just as expected, card creation was an extremely profound discipline in this world. Many university laboratories and cutting-edge research institutes now specialized in research and development related to Duel Monsters.

Even many old cards still had the potential for further development and design.

One representative example was the most famous Blue-Eyes White Dragon. An independent research team personally led by Seto Kaiba was conducting development work on it. It was the world's foremost Duel Monsters research team, and rumor had it that they had developed various evolved forms of Blue-Eyes, such as White Spirit Dragon, Blue-Eyes Alternative White Dragon, and Blue-Eyes Twin Burst Dragon.

There was also the Pharaoh's Black Luster Soldier. When it was first made from a stone tablet into a card years ago, it had merely been an eight-star, 3000 attack-point vanilla monster. But it had now developed another form, Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning, known among real-world card players as Big Envoy. It was a rare ultra-rare card in the modern age, as well as a legendary-level powerful monster in the eyes of duelists.

"It would be nice if I could learn to make cards myself." Kira mused.

But for now, it was only a thought. He remembered that Hayato Maeda, Judai Yuki's dormmate in the first season of the anime, had seemingly joined Industrial Illusions as a full-time card designer after graduating from Duel Academy. Kira guessed that the academy might also offer professional courses related to card creation.

If he got the chance, he would definitely look into it properly.

As for now, he set himself a new small goal.

Win the Moonflower Cup first.