Mamma mia, this really is hard to judge

The hall announcement sounded right on cue.

"Practical exam candidate number 1, Bastion Misawa, please proceed to Dueling Field Five for your assessment."

Bastion immediately withdrew his gaze, looking a little disappointed.

"It's my turn."

He held out his hand to Yūki.

"Yūki, see you at the academy. I hope you'll let me see your full deck build then."

Yūki shook his hand.

"Same goes for you. All six attributes at once sounds pretty entertaining."

Bastion missed the Duelist humor in that remark and took it as encouragement.

"I'll prove that it makes sense."

With that, he turned and strode toward Field Five, even his retreating figure radiating the earnestness of someone heading off to submit a thesis.

"Practical exam candidate number 100, Syrus Truesdale, please proceed to Dueling Field Seven for your assessment."

Syrus stiffened.

"M-my turn?"

Jaden immediately clapped him on the shoulder.

"Syrus, good luck! Show them the spirit you usually have when you play!"

"I don't usually have much spirit, either."

Syrus clutched his Booster Pack with a miserable expression.

He looked at Yūki and hesitated.

"Yūki, if I get into the academy, could I ask you to teach me a few things?"

"Like how to deal with monsters with really high attack, and how to tell whether my opponent has a Trap Card in their back row."

Yūki thought for a moment.

"Sure."

"First, don't panic when you see a high-attack monster. Check whether it has any protection first."

"Second, don't rush to attack when you see a face-down back-row card, either. Think about the worst-case scenario."

Syrus carefully committed those two points to memory.

"I'll remember that."

Jaden added from beside him, "Third, have fun playing!"

Syrus was halfway through nodding when his expression grew a little conflicted again.

That sounded right.

But somehow, he felt that putting the first two points together with the third made for a rather strange combination.

"I'll head over, then."

Syrus took a deep breath and walked toward Field Seven.

Jaden watched him leave, then turned to Yūki.

"Yūki, my number's coming up soon, too. Will you come watch?"

"Yes."

Yūki answered without hesitation.

Jaden immediately broke into a smile.

"Great! Then I'll definitely show you a win!"

With that, he dashed off to his waiting area, as though afraid the examiner might start early.

Yūki stood where he was, looking in the directions the three had left.

Bastion Misawa, Syrus Truesdale, Jaden Yuki.

They had yet to set foot in Duel Academy, but they had already gathered together.

This was probably the gravitational pull of the protagonist's group.

Just as Yūki was about to find a spectator seat, someone stopped at a control terminal in the corridor on the other side.

Professor Crowler stood before the screen, holding a cup of coffee.

He had only been making a routine check of the practical exam records.

Then the information from Duel Field Two popped up.

[Candidate: Fujiwara Yūki]

[Practical exam number: 9]

[Result: victory]

Cronos's gaze stopped on the word "victory."

"Mamma mia."

He set down his coffee cup and opened the detailed records.

Kaiba Land's system was linked to Duel Academy's, and the examination Duel Disks simultaneously uploaded basic deck data, action logs, and duel projections.

He first watched how the duel had played out.

Cronos's expression gradually grew peculiar.

"This child's deck certainly has... a very clear style."

He opened the full Deck List.

The cards appeared on the screen one after another.

The monster section was fairly normal.

Spirit of the Harp, Witch of the Black Forest, Marshmallon.

Cronos's eyelid twitched when he saw Marshmallon.

Three round Marshmallons sat neatly in the list, looking innocently white.

Cronos stared at them for several seconds.

"A full three Marshmallons?"

He continued scrolling down.

The Trap Cards began to pile up.

All kinds of defensive and burn cards.

Farther down.

[Wave-Motion Cannon]

Cronos opened the effect description.

"Send this card to the Graveyard to inflict damage to your opponent's Life Points..."

His gaze followed the text down.

"...equal to the number of your Standby Phases that have passed while this card was on the field, multiplied by one thousand?"

Cronos fell silent for a moment.

He suddenly understood why the teacher at Field Two had looked so uncomfortable right from the start.

His opponent had a face-down monster on the field, traps in the back row, and a cannon beside them that grew more powerful with time.

How was this a practical exam?

It was like arranging a feast of timed explosions for someone.

What Cronos found even stranger was how targeted Yūki's monster choices were.

Spirit of the Harp held high-attack monsters in check.

Marshmallon made attackers take damage.

Silent Magician negated spells.

Then there was the staggering number of Trap Cards.

Every card he looked through was there to make the opponent's duel miserable.

Cronos raised a hand and pressed his forehead.

"This really is hard to judge, na no ne~."

Had this been an ordinary student, he might have considered the deck unorthodox.

But Fujiwara Yūki had used it to defeat the examiner.

And judging by the duel record, he had still held back his Wave-Motion Cannon.

The student could clearly have ended things directly with burn damage, yet he had entrusted the final attack to Silent Magician.

Cronos recalled the scene on the field.

The silver-haired magician had stood amid starlight, blocked Smashing Ground, and struck back to destroy Curse of Dragon.

Card Spirits were willing to respond to him.

That was worth far more than a victory in a single exam.

Cronos scrolled another page down the Deck List.

After seeing several more cards that he found equally headache-inducing, the corner of his mouth twitched.

"Fortunately, this child hasn't brought all his strange things to the exam just yet."

He closed the Deck List and opened the candidate's profile instead.

Cronos stared at the information for a while, the distaste on his face slowly fading.

However much of a headache the deck was to face, the deck-building skill was there.

He knew how to counter high attack values with low-attack monsters, how to build pressure with burn cards, and how to turn his opponent's attacks into risks through back-row cards.

More importantly, he also had Silent Magician.

This talent was worth nurturing.

Cronos picked up the stylus and wrote a line in the placement recommendations field.

[Recommended placement: Ra Yellow]

Based on his practical performance, Fujiwara Yūki was fully qualified to enter Obelisk Blue.

But the Blue dorm had always accepted the elite students who had advanced through Duel Academy's middle school division.

Those were the rules.

As the head of the Blue dorm, he could not casually make an exception for an outside candidate.

Cronos set down the stylus and looked at Yūki's name on the screen.

"Go hone yourself in Ra Yellow first, Fujiwara Yūki."

"When the second-year assessment comes around, I'll transfer you to Obelisk Blue."

He picked up his coffee and had just taken a sip when he remembered those three Marshmallons and the screen full of Trap Cards.

Cronos froze.

"Provided you can first learn to duel a little more properly, na no ne~."