After returning to the preparation room, You Chen immediately checked the drawing results.
He discovered that after his duel, there would be nothing else to do that morning.
At the very least, he had to wait for the others to battle through the elimination rounds, so his match would not be until the afternoon.
"As expected of you, getting off to a winning start."
"Halfway through, I almost thought you were going to lose."
"But fortunately, you were meticulous enough."
"You must be the most meticulous man alive."
Hua Ningning stepped forward and spoke softly.
"?" No matter how You Chen heard it, Hua Ningning seemed to be insulting him.
But with no proof, there was nothing he could do.
"I checked. You're in the third match, which isn't bad. Let's wait until you're done before leaving." You Chen looked over the match schedule and found that it was not far off, so he simply decided to wait.
For five hundred thousand, what was one hour of waiting?
"Looking at it this way, you do have a bit of gentlemanly grace." Hua Ningning's eyes glimmered with amusement as she teased him.
"If you pay more, I can have even more gentlemanly grace," You Chen said.
Only then did Hua Ningning realize that he was simply doing it for the writing fee.
She had met all kinds of men, but without exception, they would all put on an exceptionally generous and gentlemanly act in front of her. Never had she seen someone express his desire for money so bluntly.
"I'll go get ready first, Mister Extra Pay." Hua Ningning was quite good at picking up jokes and playing along.
Since Hua Ningning was in the third match, she had to go prepare, so she said nothing more and turned to leave.
That was also why You Chen did not dislike chatting with Hua Ningning.
If she had been the spoiled-princess type, then no matter how much money there was, You Chen probably could not be bothered with her.
After sitting down alone, You Chen had nothing to do, so he took out his phone and scrolled through the news and short videos.
But after watching for a while—
You Chen's face twisted like that of a subway old man.
These news stories looked like bizarre parody videos no matter how he viewed them.
"Recently, Ba Country researchers discovered an ancient battlefield from the Banished Zone near the Dead Sea—the Sea of Death Domain. Within it were ancient battlefield remains such as the Sea of Death Domain's lighthouse. They also filmed many new types of spirits, achieving a major breakthrough."
"Beautiful Country has successfully broken through the Level 8 Secret Realm and obtained abundant resources."
"Long Country's national-level researcher Mo Tianheng has proposed the theory of Spirit Companions. He discovered that some duelists undergo enormous personality changes before and after duels, and even their strength changes."
"He also mentioned that spirits and humans can coexist, and that spirits can even become humanity's Spirit Companions."
"Research is currently underway. Stay tuned."
"The new domestic KC Cup is now being actively prepared and will begin in May. The rewards include abundant Rare Cards and cash prizes, waiting for you to claim them!"
You Chen scrolled through quite a few news stories in one go and found this world frighteningly pure.
In his previous world, the news had covered every imaginable topic. It had never been this uniform.
Every news story was about cards and duels.
It was as if no one cared about anything unrelated to them.
However, it had to be said that dueling was indeed important in this world. Just like in the first news story, if one encountered spirits, conventional weapons would be utterly useless. Only playing cards could save one's life.
And that first news story once again confirmed the rarity of cards in this world. These cards could not simply be manufactured at will; one had to explore unknown regions to obtain them.
What the news mentioned were actually all areas within humanity's range of activity.
If it was an unknown region, then it was almost entirely inhabited by spirits.
Among such places, the most representative were undoubtedly Secret Realms.
Secret Realms were worlds of spirits, or rather, worlds from card illustrations and stories.
They were also where You Chen's current Chat Group was located.
What impressed him even more was that Long Country researcher, Mo Tianheng!
After all, without the existence of anime worlds or card illustration stories—
Mo Tianheng had actually managed to put forth the concept of Spirit Companions, and had even boldly proposed the theory that humans and spirits could coexist.
He was undoubtedly a genius.
You Chen agreed with him as well.
Among card players, there was a common saying: card players never marry.
In truth, it was not that card players did not marry.
It was that spirits were simply too appealing, making humans difficult to notice in the eyes of card players.
If one could have fish roe with a mermaid and make sushi, who would not want to get married?
He even wished he could become the Underworld God, so that all spirits would have to marry him.
You Chen also realized that this world held far too many things worth exploring.
No matter what, he needed enough strength.
Only then could he do more things.
The Underworld Deck was certainly fun and satisfying.
But it was not a long-term solution.
So You Chen would not be content with his current situation.
He had already begun preparing a deck that was both stylish and strong to rely on.
Style! It would never go out of fashion.
And there were still roughly three months until the KC Cup, so he had plenty of time to prepare.
The KC Cup could be considered the highest-level competition in the country. When the time came, it would no longer be child's play. Those who could enter the KC Cup were undoubtedly professional-level duelists.
It was unrealistic to rely on the Underworld Deck to dominate everything.
At that moment, You Chen had already closed the news and noticed a message notification from Kaiba Magazine.
"Huh? What's going on? Over ninety-nine unread messages?"
"Could this paper have made the trending list?"
You Chen opened Kaiba Magazine and saw the red 99+ unread notification on the bell icon in the upper-right corner of the app. He was instantly stunned.
He even felt a little excited.
After all, when he posted that short paper, he had never expected it to become popular.
When he opened it, he found that there really were many comments.
"This paper is indeed quite unique. It's completely different from those previous cash-grab articles."
"The insights are entirely different, and it even explains the deck-building approach in great detail. I feel like I learned something."
"Tch! Just another armchair theorist. He's deliberately using a different viewpoint to attract attention, but how many decks built with this kind of approach can actually win?"
"Let the duels do the talking. All this talk is useless."
"Same here! He's probably an online duelist."
"This deck can be played? What a joke. It doesn't even have a single high-level monster—just low-level monsters."
As expected, a small portion of people supported him, but a much larger portion were keyboard warriors criticizing him.
To show off their expertise, they even deliberately used all kinds of terminology and deck-building logic to pick apart flaws in his paper.
You Chen did not care. No matter the world, there would never be a shortage of such people.
Of course, supporters had also started arguing with those people.
And once people started arguing, it meant it had become popular.
What You Chen cared more about was one particular message.
"Your insights are very unique, and I agree with them as well. Would you be willing to add each other as contacts?"
The other party had directly provided contact information: QQ.
You Chen raised an eyebrow. He could understand supporters, since they had happened to resonate with his ideas, but he had not expected someone to ask for his contact information.
However, You Chen did not add them.
That was because there were many online scammers, and such scammers often began by agreeing with one's views, then added one's contact information before gradually luring one into their trap.
There was another message, sent by a Kaiba Magazine editor.
"Hello, your paper has passed review. You may contact me to discuss signing a contract."
Only then did You Chen realize that he had not even signed a contract yet. How had it made the trending list?
That was strange.
Then it had not made the trending list. But where had all this traffic come from?
Now this was turning into a ghost story.
I went out today, so the update was a little late.
Before you continue