Chapter 128: You Asked Me to Copy It—So I Made a Scientific Breakthrough?

“You Xuan, you really look calm~”

Teacher Dade Temple sat in his alchemy lab chair, cradling his cat named Fa Lao Wang, stroking its plump fur with one hand.

Since entering the Duel Academy, Dade Temple had been slacking off almost the entire time. The lab was supposedly provided by the academy as his research resource, but in reality, it had gathered dust for years.

After all, Dade Temple’s persona at the academy was that of a lazy slacker; he had to maintain this image before both students and faculty. No one had ever seen him seriously conduct research, and the lab was essentially abandoned.

Until now.

When You Xuan first opened the door, a musty odor hit him. The floor was covered in dust; sunlight streamed through gaps in the glass, casting streaks of light, with countless dust particles dancing in the beams.

You Xuan spent a little time cleaning the lab, and since then, he had been using it almost exclusively.

“What?” You Xuan lifted his head slightly, still focused on his work at the lab bench.

“About the team duel,” Dade Temple tilted his head, continuing to stroke his cat. “You don’t seem nervous at all.”

“Oh, that? There’s nothing to be nervous about.”

You Xuan kept working, head lowered, as he spoke.

"Besides, Ten Dai doesn’t seem nervous either," You Xuan added casually. "I invited him yesterday to help design our team deck, but he refused—something about Hayato’s dad showing up? Anyway, he didn’t come."

But with Ten Dai’s mention, You Xuan now recalled the incident. Apparently, Koala from their dorm’s father thought his son was wasting time at the academy and wanted him to drop out and return home.

Later, Hayato played a duel with his father, lost, but still convinced him to let him stay at the academy.

Hayato’s father used a deck of drunkard cards—an obscure series never officially released as real cards.

According to Teacher Dade Temple, Hayato’s father was supposedly the heir to the "Satsuma Dimensional Style," a world-famous dueling style said to be born from mastering sword techniques and capable of instantly killing opponents.

Yet judging from the anime duel, the deck’s performance seemed underwhelming.

You Xuan found this strange. A world-renowned duelist shouldn’t perform this poorly—but then again, he couldn’t entirely dismiss it.

After all, in the anime, Hayato’s father summoned only two monsters total; the rest of the deck remained unknown to viewers. Perhaps he held back intentionally, since it was a duel with his son.

Over the years, Koei had proven more than once that if they wanted to, even the oldest, weakest decks could skyrocket several generations with just a few overpowered cards.

One shouldn’t casually underestimate a top-tier duelist with worldwide fame.

“Haha, Ten Dai’s different,” Dade Temple laughed. “That kid has a natural talent—he rarely gets nervous about anything.”

“But there are rumors your team’s opponents might not be easy. Have you prepared a strategy?”

“Well, sort of,” You Xuan smiled.

He had a bold idea. If things went well, with a bit of Ten Dai’s divine draw luck, he could give the Maze Brothers double the joy.

“Enough about that—I’m done here.”

You Xuan stood up and handed a card to Dade Temple.

“Teacher, please review it.”

Dade Temple took the card, adjusted his glasses: “Let me see.”

You Xuan had only recently begun learning card design. Though he showed exceptional talent and received private tutoring from Dade Temple, his current skill level remained at the “replication” stage.

That meant attempting to copy relatively easy, low-rarity cards; only after mastering that could he consider advanced card creation.

Dade Temple glanced at the card You Xuan handed him: “You tried replicating a bicycle? I heard you really like this card. Good, good—you replicated it so quickly… Huh!?”

Dade Temple’s squinted eyes nearly closed again, his glasses nearly slipping off his nose.

Because he had just read the effect of You Xuan’s newly replicated card: 【Double Bike Mechanoid】.

“This card can attack directly.”

Wait a minute—wasn’t this card supposed to lose 500 attack points?

He looked up at You Xuan in shock, finally realizing something.

You told me to copy it—and you achieved a research breakthrough?

You Xuan only smiled.

He had successfully proven an earlier hypothesis of his was correct.

Many early Yu-Gi-Oh! fans knew that the same card often had conflicting effects in different anime appearances.

A classic GX example is the famous monster 【Cybernetic Horizon - Psychic Shock】. Its anime effect in GX differed from its DM version.

In DM, Cybernetic Horizon’s effect was: “When this card is on the field, all face-up and face-down trap cards on the field are destroyed, and trap card activations and effects are negated.”

But in GX, when Cybernetic Horizon appeared twice—once early and once late—it matched the real card’s effect: “Trap cards cannot be activated or have their effects applied,” but it no longer destroyed all face-down traps like in DM.

The same applied to 【Future Fusion】—its effect differed when used by Caesar versus when used later by Darkness’s henchman Mr. T.

Countless similar examples existed, too many to list.

As a viewer, You Xuan had once just laughed off these contradictions as anime bugs. But now, in this real Yu-Gi-Oh! world, he could no longer accept such explanations. Especially after studying card design principles, he developed a new idea.

As previously stated, a card’s effect in this world isn’t arbitrarily written—it’s the manifestation of the card’s power.

Could it be possible that one designer awakened only part of a card’s potential, while another designer, when designing the same card, unlocked greater potential? Would the two versions naturally differ in strength?

Or perhaps some cards inherently possess more latent power, simply never discovered—so during replication or reset, could further improvement still be possible?

Over the past period, while learning card imprinting from Dade Temple, You Xuan had been experimenting with this very question.

The results proved him right.

For instance, after persistent experimentation, he found that 【Double Bike Mechanoid】—a relatively simple card to modify—wasn’t powerful to begin with. Even enhancing it merely meant removing the 500-attack-point penalty, not a massive upgrade, making it easier to develop.

But it was enough to prove his hypothesis.

The anime versions of cards weaker than their real-card counterparts still had room for further development.

“Truly astonishing.”

Teacher Dade Temple adjusted his glasses and looked at You Xuan again—his squinted eyes now glimmered faintly.

Losing 500 attack points on a bicycle card wasn’t a huge deal—but this was a research breakthrough. And achieving such a result right at the start of card design training? Even for Dade Temple, this was unprecedented.

Is this what true genius looks like—unfairly so?

“You might truly have a gift for alchemy.”

“Teacher, you flatter me. I merely followed your teachings and treated each card with care,” You Xuan replied cheerfully.

But in truth, he succeeded largely because he knew exactly where to focus his efforts. Others didn’t even know which direction to pursue—among countless cards in this world, no one knew which ones still held hidden potential.

“By the way, Teacher, I’ve also tried creating a few other cards.”

You Xuan quietly pulled out several more cards.

“Look, these two are also different from others’ versions…”

Dade Temple: “???”

More?

Even the well-traveled Dade Temple was momentarily speechless.

After a long pause, he raised his head and spoke slowly.

“You Xuan.”

“Yes, Teacher?”

“Have you considered becoming a professor?”

“?”

(End of Chapter)