Win a Championship First

"You want to go to Duel Academy?"

Curator Takeuchi was taken aback.

Come to think of it, it seemed that the Duel Academy's enrollment period was indeed approaching.

Duel Academy was practically a sacred place for young Duelists. Top students gathered there, and graduates were almost guaranteed to become elite figures. Moreover, under Seto Kaiba's operation, regardless of whether someone was the son of a world-class financial group or a second-generation official whose family held immense power, if they lacked talent, no amount of financial resources or background could get them in.

Who was Seto Kaiba?

He was the strongest Duelist in the world today, wielding the "Blue-Eyes White Dragon," a Duel Spirit comparable to the Three Phantom Gods of old. Rumor had it that he was even developing technology to travel through dimensions and time, attempting to open a gate to the Underworld through technological means to duel the Nameless Pharaoh who had long been asleep.

Not only was he the richest man in the world, but he was also a powerhouse standing at the peak of both the Supernatural Side and the Technology Side. After Yugi Mutou sealed his cards, he was widely recognized as the world's number one Duelist.

And he didn't acknowledge anything but dueling skill.

So if Seto Kaiba said there would be no backdoors and only skill mattered, then it truly was only about skill. No matter how powerful or influential someone was, if they wanted to get into his school, they had to take the exams obediently. There was absolutely no room for shady deals.

Furthermore, he advocated for strength and promoted elite education. This was evident from the strict hierarchy within Duel Academy in GX and the disdain shown by the entire school's staff and students towards underachievers.

Many Duel Dojos offered subsidies for students applying to Duel Academy. This was because once a student successfully got in, they would undoubtedly become a valuable alumnus in the future and would also bring excellent publicity to the dojo.

Curator Takeuchi's dojo also offered this subsidy, although the spots were limited each year.

Considering that Kira had defeated everyone in the dojo, including the curator himself, within the past three days, he naturally fell within the scope of eligibility.

If the application was approved, the student would not only receive a tuition subsidy but also a fund for their deck from the dojo. The curator would provide one-on-one guidance to help the student purchase new cards and optimize their deck structure.

Of course, in Kira's case, the guidance part could clearly be skipped; they just needed to give him the money.

"Wait a minute."

Just as Curator Takeuchi agreed, he suddenly thought of something.

"What was your Duelist Level again?"

"...One Star."

The curator: "..."

Honestly, even though he had witnessed it firsthand, he still found it hard to understand how a One Star student could suddenly improve to such a degree as if enlightened.

However, having personally experienced Kira's current dueling strength, he felt that Kira had a great chance of getting in this time.

"But One Star doesn't meet the application threshold..."

"I know." Kira nodded. "So I'm going to try the Arena tomorrow and climb as quickly as possible."

"Hmm... but there's only a month left until the entrance exam. Time is a bit tight." Curator Takeuchi pondered for a moment. "It would be much more convenient if you could get a ranking in an open tournament."

Getting a ranking in an open tournament could directly raise your level to a high star all at once, unlike slowly climbing point by point in the regular Arena. Plus, it would add a tournament history to your resume, which would be beneficial for your future as a Duelist.

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

"Although the registration window seems to have closed, I have friends among the organizers. Adding one more person to the preliminary selection shouldn't be a big problem. The dojo will also cover the registration fee. What do you think?"

This year, only Koji had reached Three Stars in the entire dojo, so he was the only one originally planned to apply to Duel Academy. He was participating in the Moonflower Cup precisely to add to his resume before the entrance exams, and it would be even better if he could get a ranking.

"Then I thank the curator," Kira said.

Hearing this, Koji Sato, who was standing nearby, couldn't help but gasp.

This guy wants to enter too?

Then what if I get matched with him again in the tournament...

Just imagining that scene sent a shiver down his spine, making him feel utterly uncomfortable.

However, he immediately thought that there were so many participants, the probability of getting matched was small. Or rather, once he was in the tournament, he would have the chance to see more clueless Duelists being given smiles through duels by his junior... just like him.

The moment he thought of that scene, the corners of his mouth couldn't help but curl upwards.

His smile gradually became distorted.

Indeed, dueling does bring happiness.

It just depends on who the happiness lands on.

The first ray of morning sun was like a gentle line of poetry, as if the tranquil world was covered in a golden veil. The darkness was dispelled, replaced by a fresh and bright morning, the air filled with a faint early morning scent and the fragrance of flowers.

At 6:20 AM, Kira lazily woke up from his comfortable bed. Sunlight filtered through the sheer curtains, casting dappled light on the white sheets and soft duvet.

He had gone to bed late last night and hadn't slept very well, having many dreams. He only vaguely remembered seeing the Black and White Impermanence in his dream. The two figures first eerily told him that his time was up and he should go, but then they each unfurled a Duel Disk and pulled out two decks, saying that if he won a duel, he could extend his lifespan...

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

It really seemed he was slowly starting to internalize the fundamental mindset of this card-dueling world: there was nothing that couldn't be solved by dueling.

Kira only took five minutes to shake off his sleepiness, jump out of bed, quickly change and wash up, and begin a new day of study.

You could never imagine how terrifying a self-disciplined Duelist could be.

There was only one month left until the Duel Academy entrance exam, it was time to start some preliminary study.

He originally thought, how hard could a dueling exam be? Isn't it just learning and applying the K Language?

Like distinguishing whether a certain card effect targets or not, or the order of resolving chains, or advanced card timing lessons, etc...

None of the above.

As for the more profound and difficult-to-understand specific Yu-Gi-Oh! rules found in physical cards, they were entirely absent. In the concept questions section, there was only the basic "Please explain what a Normal Spell Card, Equip Spell Card, and Field Spell Card are," just like Professor Chronos's questions during class in the GX anime.

Then there was memorizing the effects of various cards. In fact, Kira quickly found this part surprisingly difficult, because he couldn't possibly remember the classifications and effects of a bunch of ancient cards that hadn't seen play in the physical card game for twenty years. Not to mention this world also had a large number of Anime and Manga Cards that were never printed as physical cards.

He also quickly noticed through this that there were quite a few differences here compared to the physical card environment twenty years ago. Many cards might have only been printed twenty years later, but they existed here now.

Of course, thinking about it, it wasn't strange at all. Even the key card "Miracle Contact" from Judai's Neo-Spacian Deck, after appearing in the anime, made various Hero players crave it for years, feeling like they waited a lifetime for Konami to finally print it.

So naturally, there were many cards here that didn't exist back then.

Looking through the entire question bank, Kira found it all rather uninspired content. The mindset and techniques that truly form the core of dueling skill were completely unmentioned.

This made him recall a fan-made explanation he had seen online in his previous life. For many movies and anime, reality is a higher dimension, and in the world of Yu-Gi-Oh!, cards are the foundation of creation, and dueling represents the most fundamental law of this world, rather than just being a card game like in reality.

So for people in the anime world, exploring the rules of dueling is like doing cutting-edge research in reality, an exploration of truth. In the real world, learning how to duel isn't that difficult, but in the anime world, understanding these things requires high talent and a lot of effort.

Kira bought a set of textbooks and study guides, including Foundations of Duel Theory and Duel Academy Past Exam Question Bank, and spent most of the day doing practice questions. At the same time, he also took some time to learn about the Card Creation Field.

The Yu-Gi-Oh! anime series throughout its history have primarily focused on the stories of Duelists, only briefly mentioning the card design aspect. They only knew that Pegasus, known as the "Father of Duel Monsters", first discovered ancient Duel Monster stone tablets in Egypt and turned them into cards, which led to the modern Duel Monster card system.

Later, card creation work was also primarily handled by Pegasus's Industrial Illusions, but it wasn't entirely a monopoly. For example, KaibaCorp also printed quite a few cards that circulated in the market.

Furthermore, later there were Yu-series Duelists like Yugi Mutou and Judai Yuki, who each possessed Cheat-level Talent for creating cards on the spot based on the needs of the situation. Sometimes, when printing cards brazenly, they would even just print themselves and their dueling opponents directly onto the Card Art, completely undisguised.

It was clear that these privately created cards were also recognized by the system and the dueling rules, and weren't considered violations.

After all, Yu-Gi-Oh! was originally a Supernatural World, and dueling was just a form of supernatural expression. So, for example, when certain Yu-series Duelists with Seafood Heads yelled things like friendship and bonds in front of their opponents while pulling out a Vanilla Monster and printing its card text and effects on the spot, it could even be said to be an application of this world's laws, a manifestation of supernatural power.

How can what the Duel King does be called cheating?

Divine Draw and Card Creation are both part of dueling; if you don't like it, don't play.

However, it's understandable that Card Creation couldn't possibly be completely arbitrary in such a world; even designers at Industrial Illusions likely had to adhere to rules to some extent when designing new cards, they couldn't just do whatever they wanted.

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

Assuming that all the cards that existed in the physical card pool in his previous life could be printed, then if he became a Card Designer, he should definitely bring some of the modern Yu-Gi-Oh! Comboing Off shock to this overly Sunny Meta card world.

So Kira first bought a series of reference books and textbooks. He didn't really expect to learn it that simply, just to get a rough initial understanding.

Foundations of Field Spell Construction: Environment Modeling Introduction

Nine Common Mistakes in Monster Card Design

Completely unsurprisingly, Card Creation was a very profound field of study in this world. Currently, many university laboratories and cutting-edge research institutes were specifically conducting research and development related to Duel Monsters.

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

A relatively representative example was the most famous Blue-Eyes White Dragon, for which an independent research team personally led by Seto Kaiba was conducting development activities. That was the world's top Duel Monster research team, and rumors said they had developed various evolutionary forms of Blue-Eyes, such as "White Spirit Dragon", "Blue-Eyes Alternative White Dragon", "Blue-Eyes Twin Burst Dragon", and so on.

There was also something similar with Pharaoh's Black Luster Soldier. In the early years, when it was made into a card from the stone tablet, it was just an Eight Stars Vanilla Monster with 3000 ATK, but nowadays, it had also been developed into a variant, "Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning", which was the "Big Envoy" among Duelists in reality, a rare Ultra Rare Card in this era, and also a legendary powerful monster according to Duelists.

"If only I could learn to create cards myself," Kira mused.

But for now, it was just a thought. He remembered that Hayato Maeda, Judai Yuki's roommate from the first season of the anime, seemed to have joined Industrial Illusions as a full-time Card Designer after graduating from Duel Academy, and Kira guessed that the academy might very well have courses related to Card Creation.

If he had the chance, he definitely had to look into it properly then.

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

Go win a Championship First at the Moonflower Cup first.