Without any hesitation, Mephis opened by summoning the nine-star Magic Spirit—"Hybrid Beast."
"Hybrid Beast" was an exceptionally unusual Bird-Beast Species. It possessed an enormous body, yet was fat and round like a ball.
Its spherical body was covered in white fur, with a tiny bird head, four thick, rounded elephant legs, and a thin, stubby fish tail.
It also had two pairs of inconspicuous transparent insect wings on its back.
It possessed traits of birds, beasts, insects, and fish alike, and its four Ultimate Moves corresponded respectively to each of those four races.
Under such circumstances, the "Mutation" ability Mephis used on it had a high chance of causing it to evolve specifically toward one particular race.
This would increase the likelihood of mutating the nine-star Magic Spirit into a twelve-star one. And this time, his luck was clearly quite good.
After receiving his Mutation ability, "Hybrid Beast" underwent an immediate transformation. Its form, which possessed the traits of bird, beast, insect, and fish alike, dramatically changed toward an ultimate form centered on the beast type.
Within mere seconds, "Hybrid Beast" had become a ferocious-looking giant beast.
Its star rating had risen all the way to twelve stars!
Opening with a twelve-star Magic Spirit had, in previous duels, basically meant an eighty percent chance of victory.
But Mephis showed no joy in this duel. His gaze remained fixed on Professor Kazel.
Yet what he saw was that Professor Kazel had, at the very start of the duel, summoned a Golem!
A Golem—not a Golem-type Magic Spirit. A Golem itself was an "Item."
The Golem Professor Kazel had summoned was an "Item Card." Therefore, it could be summoned directly without requiring a sacrifice.
It bore a slight resemblance to Dark's "Golden Kingdom" series, but was actually completely different.
That was because