Four thousand life points? Wasn't that just four shots?

Yūki drew in a sharp breath.

The breath was cold and harsh, choking straight into his throat with the smell of old quilts and rags that hadn't dried properly.

There was none of the bitter, burnt-plastic smell of chemotherapy drugs in the ICU.

Nor was there the damp, fishy rubber smell of an oxygen mask pressed against his face.

Yūki opened his eyes and stared at the yellowing plasterboard ceiling overhead for a full five seconds.

An incandescent light hung from the center of the ceiling, its shade coated in greasy old dust thick enough to scrape off and stir-fry a plateful.

"...I actually didn't die all the way?"

He tried rolling over, planted his palm against the floor, and sat up effortlessly.

There was no agonizing pain left by bone marrow punctures, no bellows-like wheezing in his chest. Even his limbs felt light and smooth, as if they had just been lubricated.

Yūki lowered his head and looked at his hands.

His fingers were long, the skin flushed with a teenager's vigorous blood flow, and his palms bore a thin layer of calluses, worn into them by years of handling stiff paper cards-not the honeycomb of punctures left by IV needles in a hospital ward.

Of his twenty-three years of life, he had spent the last three months staring at the hospital's ghastly white surgical lights every day, counting his heartbeats under the torment of late-stage leukemia.

Yet once the line on the heart monitor went flat, he had closed his eyes, opened them again, and somehow traded his body for the youthful frame of a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old.

"A medical miracle? Or did some reincarnation system passing by screw up its KPIs?"

Yūki threw back the covers and stood, planting his bare feet on the floor.

The slightly cool sensation felt unquestionably real.

The room was small and sparsely furnished. What stood out most was the white wall directly opposite the head of the bed.

A huge holographic poster was stuck to it.

On the left was a Blue-Eyes White Dragon baring his fangs and claws, his scales gleaming with a cold metallic sheen in the morning light; on the right was a Dark Magician striking a cool pose, his pointed purple wizard's hat towering high.

Directly beneath them was a line of large, gold-stamped text:

[The ceremonial duel draws to a close! Duelists of a new age, set sail!]

Yūki stood before the poster and rubbed the corner of his eye.

The next second, a flood of jumbled memory fragments blasted straight into his brain like a pressure washer that hadn't been shut off properly.

The body's original owner was named Fujiwara Yūki.

A third-year student at Domino City No. 3 Middle School, fifteen years old, and a textbook invisible nobody on the sidelines.

His parents had been archaeological investigators working for the International Fantasy Society. Three years ago, they had mysteriously disappeared inside some pyramid ruins and were officially declared dead in the line of duty.

They had left behind a small studio apartment, along with trust-funded survivor benefits paid monthly by the International Fantasy Society.

A home, a subsistence allowance, and dead parents-the standard opening setup for the protagonist of a Japanese manga or novel.

But the original owner's card-playing skills could only be described as "painfully innocent."

His deck was stuffed with low-level vanilla monsters with barely over a thousand attack points. His best tactic was to press his palms together and pray, "Save me, destiny draw," then pin his hopes on elusive high-level monsters.

Just the day before yesterday, he had dueled a classmate on the school rooftop. His opponent had stomped him four times in a row with a big 2,000-ATK monster, handing him a shutout on the spot. He had come home so depressed that he hadn't even eaten dinner.

"A vanilla among vanillas. Exceptionally pure."

Yūki gave the original owner a fair assessment.

He walked over to the desk and casually pressed the power button on the bulky computer with its massive monitor.

The cooling fan roared like a tractor rumbling into a village.

Half a minute later, the CRT screen lit up blue. The desktop held just one conspicuous Duel Disk icon: [KC-Net personal terminal].

Yūki grabbed the mouse and opened the browser. Several local trending headlines immediately popped up on the default homepage.

[Domino City Public Security Bureau reminder: unprotected holographic duels are strictly prohibited in residential alleyways. Violators will have their Duel Disks confiscated for fifteen days.]

[Kaiba Entertainment Group bulletin: this year's autumn unified entrance examination syllabus for the global Duel Academy has been released. Cheating in practical tests will be strictly punished.]

[Today's card market: the market price of the eight-star vanilla [Blue-Eyes White Dragon] has broken into eight figures. President Kaiba remains unmoved. Experts say, "Large Dragon monsters have exceptionally high investment value."]

Yūki stared at the screen, his expression gradually turning peculiar.

In this wondrous world, playing cards was not merely entertainment. It was a fundamental law of society.

Students played cards for entrance exams, companies looked at star ratings when hiring, and even the police confiscated regulation Duel Disks when busting gambling operations.

As for the dueling environment in this era...

Yūki deftly opened the most popular recording of a professional promotion match.

On-screen, the red-side duelist was drenched in sweat, roaring himself hoarse:

"With my soul as the conduit! I summon-a ferocious monster with 2,400 attack points!"

The stands erupted instantly. The commentator's voice cracked with excitement. "High attack power with no blind spots! This is the dignity of a professional!"

The blue-side duelist ground his back teeth to pieces, then brought out a 2,500-ATK monster on the next turn and struck back head-on. The scrolling comments were a uniform sea of "Now we're fired up!"

Yūki silently closed the video.

These native duelists of an innocent age probably had nothing in their heads besides attack points and "entrusting my soul to my deck."

They firmly believed that the bigger a monster's fist, the stronger its argument, and that shouting loudly enough could create miracles.

But as a seasoned veteran who had spent over a decade immersed in competitive card games in his previous life, the first thing Yūki had noticed was the glaring number in the upper-right corner of the screen.

[Starting life points: 4000 LP].

Four thousand life points.

To duelists who worshipped clashes between big monsters, that was merely a matter of two big monsters charging in and landing a couple of kicks.

But in the calculations of a devious old stall-and-burn player.

Four thousand life points?

Wasn't that just four shots from [Stealth Bird] straight to the face?

Or two blasts from [Wave-Motion Cannon], each charged for a full four turns?

He could even simply set a [Magic Cylinder] in his back row, quietly brew a cup of hot tea, and wait for his opponent to come howling in with 3,000 attack points, only to reflect themselves straight to death.

"Everyone wants to be a great hero, so I'll just have to settle for being an architect of illegal structures."

Yūki leaned back in his chair, his lips spreading into an innocent, harmless smile.

Someone who had died once understood better than anyone what security meant.

Having big monsters brawl was too risky. Step into one trap and it could all be over.

Building his field into a solid block of concrete, hiding behind cover as his opponent scratched their head in frustration, and finally watching their life bar evaporate on its own-that was the ultimate pleasure of competitive sports.

As he was mulling it over, a sudden "ding" sounded deep inside Yūki's mind.

An emotionless mechanical prompt abruptly rang out.

[Soul Power Duel Shop activated.]

[Contracted host: Fujiwara Yūki.]

A faintly glowing pale blue panel quietly unfolded in midair, hovering neatly right in front of his eyes.

Yūki blinked, showing no sign of alarm. He even casually picked up the half-finished glass of cooled boiled water left on the desk from last night.

"My cheat's arrived? Sure. Pretty punctual."

He set down the glass and reached out to poke the panel.