Chapter 3: First Battle

The initial deck from the transmigration was thus formed. After checking and confirming it was correct, Fujiki You Xuan naturally began to feel a bit itchy to play.

There couldn't be any card player who wouldn't want to test the quality after just completing a deck.

Then for him, the first choice was to go directly to the dojo his predecessor belonged to, preparing to randomly find a dojo colleague to bring him the joy of dueling.

Arriving at the dojo, as soon as he entered the door, he saw a group of students surrounding a place, making a racket.

"As expected of Sato-bro, he actually succeeded in passing the tribulation!"

Fujiki You Xuan raised an eyebrow, looking over with some curiosity.

Only to see that the one surrounded by the apprentices was a yellow-haired guy with a hairstyle that looked like he was relatively good at playing cards. He sounded like he was being humble, but he couldn't hide his pride: "Where, where, just luckily reached Level 3, just so-so, haha..."

"Level 3! Sato-bro should be the first Level 3 in our dojo, right?"

"Too strong..."

Fujiki You Xuan frowned and searched through his predecessor's memories, only then did he understand what they were talking about.

The Duelist Star System was a strength assessment indicator adjusted in real-time by the Kaiba Corporation based on the battle record of each Duelist registered in the company's internal system, which was the system that appeared in the "Yu-Gi-Oh! DM" anime.

Normally, the Duelist star level range was from Level 1 to Level 8, a total of eight ranks. In the Battle City arc of the DM anime, Duel King Yugi Wu Teng and Seto Kaiba themselves were both rated as Level 8.

However, it could also be seen that this system was not absolutely authoritative and sometimes carried some personal factors. For example, Joey Wheeler, the man contemptuously called "Vanilla" by Kaiba.

Joey was called the "world's third-best Duelist after Yugi and Kaiba" by Pegasus, yet in the Kaiba Corporation's system rating, he was only Level 2, belonging to the amateur level.

It was hard to say that this didn't include the personal grudge between the President and the Vanilla...

But that was already a matter of the Battle City period. Now Joey Wheeler had long been adjusted to Level 8, which was the highest-level tier among Duelists in the general sense, known to the world as a "Legendary Duelist."

And President Seto Kaiba very arrogantly adjusted himself to Level 10.

Among the Duelists existing in the world, there were only two Level 10s left. One was Seto Kaiba himself, and the other was Yugi Wu Teng, who had long sealed his cards and retired.

Setting it this way was partly because President Kaiba considered himself a higher tier than existing Duelists, and at the same time, it also represented that Yugi Wu Teng was the only opponent in the world he recognized as qualified to rival him.

Well, saying "rival" was actually a bit of an exaggeration. Because as everyone in the world knew, President Kaiba had had countless duels with Duel King Yugi Wu Teng, yet he had never won once to this day.

And his predecessor's rating in the system...

Level 1.

The fighter plane among the losers.

Fujiki You Xuan: (ヘ｀;)

It was clearly because his predecessor was both bad and loved to play, often going to the arena under the Kaiba Corporation to play matches, but losing more and winning less, and over time, the star level naturally plummeted to the bottom of the abyss.

For an ordinary person to raise their star level, they had to play matches in the arena, but arena matching seemed to be limited to Level 4 at most. If one wanted to continue rising, they had to participate in public competitions.

He then remembered that when searching for the Duel Academy registration conditions earlier, it seemed there was a rule saying that the Duelist star level certified by the Kaiba Corporation had to be at least Level 3 or above.

In this system, Level 7 and 8 were either Legendary Duelists or top experts in the professional circle. Most professional players were Level 6, and a few bottom-tier professional players were Level 5.

Most amateur Duelists were clustered at Level 2. Level 1 were rookies below the average, and Level 3 could be considered experts.

So the Duel Academy registration requirement of Level 3 or above was actually considered quite high.

But this was also a matter of course. At the current stage, Duel education in this world was still in its infancy, and there were not many school choices. And the academy Kaiba ran was the top among them, and the academy quality and the huge amount of resources invested were obvious to all.

In the opening speech of the GX anime, the principal also mentioned that the academy's recruitment was strict, so the students present were all elites. The passerby students in the academy in the anime, even the bottom-tier poor students in the Osiris Red dormitory, were theoretically higher in level than most Duelists outside.

"So to get into the academy, I have to rank up first..." Fujiki You Xuan's mouth twitched.

The apprentice everyone was surrounding was named Koji Sato, who was already the big brother in this small dojo. It seemed he had good luck this week and reached Level 3, and everyone was congratulating him.

Fujiki You Xuan happened to be looking for someone to duel, and thinking of this, he decided to just challenge the big brother to test it out.

Although the passerby extras in the anime seemed to be very bad, Fujiki You Xuan knew the truth that practice was the only criterion for testing truth. One couldn't just make conclusions based on inherent impressions without testing it personally.

It just so happened to test how strong the Duelists in this world were.

The dojo encouraged students to duel and exchange ideas often. At this time, Sato had just reached a high rank and was in a pleasant mood. Seeing a duel challenge, there was naturally no reason to refuse.

The students scattered in the dojo, hearing that there was a card game to watch, all immediately gathered on the Duel field to watch.

"Really? That Fujiki You Xuan? Challenging Sato-bro?"

"I remember he's only Level 1? Isn't this just looking for abuse..."

The students were giggling on the side, while the two sides of the battle had already stood firm on both sides of the venue.

Koji Sato was in a relaxed mood at this time. Having reached a high rank, he returned to the dojo to duel, looking at this group of junior brothers, he felt a sense of pride as if he were looking down from the top of the mountain.

Now he felt a sense of a master expert coming to guide the juniors. Playing this card game was no longer for exchange and improvement; on one hand, it was to guide the juniors, and on the other hand, it was to satisfy his need to show off in front of his junior brothers.

Hmm, the latter might be slightly more.

Otherwise?

A Level 3 big shot against a Level 1 junior, could he possibly flip the car?

The two Duel Disks unfolded, and each drew five cards.

"Duel!" x2

【Fujiki You Xuan, LP4000】

【Koji, LP4000】

"I'll go first, draw card."

Fujiki You Xuan drew a card from the deck.

In the anime, it was still the era where one could draw cards going first. In his previous life, starting from many years ago, one couldn't draw cards going first.

First and second moves were generally determined randomly by the Duel Disks of both sides, but the person who got the first move could also choose to give it up.

Scanning the six cards in his hand, he couldn't help but nod slightly. Although it couldn't be called a "perfect hand," it was still so-so.

"First is this card..."

He drew the first card and inserted it into the Duel Disk.

"Pay 1000 Life Points, activate the Magic Card - Delinquent Duo from hand!"

【Fujiki You Xuan, LP4000→LP3000】

As the card was inserted, the 3D projection of the green Magic Card appeared in front of Fujiki You Xuan. Two little devils, one red and one blue, flew out, with the numbers "1" and "2" on their heads respectively.

"The effect of this card allows the opponent to randomly discard one card, and then the opponent chooses one card from their hand to discard."

A simple and crude hand destruction heavy weapon in early tournaments. A violent two-for-one, and once played, the opponent's hand is reduced by 2 right from the start.

It was conceivable that this kind of brutal thing had the same treatment as Pot of Greed, and it had been a forbidden card that would rot in prison since Fujiki You Xuan started playing cards. So he had played cards for so many years, and this was the first time he had personally played such a thing.

The devils flew out, and without saying a word, grabbed a card from Koji's hand, as if saying, "Hand it over, you."

Koji frowned, then chose another card from his hand and put it into the graveyard.

Then Fujiki You Xuan had no further operations, and directly and elegantly drew three cards—

——Set three, pass.

Then he made a gesture of invitation.

Alright, now it's your turn to play Yu-Gi-Oh!.

Any physical card player facing those three pitch-black back rows at this moment should have already started to feel the "underworld" atmosphere and started to break out in a cold sweat, but as the saying goes, "the ignorant are fearless," the Duelists in this sunny anime environment had no idea of the severity of the problem.

Koji even maintained that kind senior's gentle smile and said in a guiding tone: "Didn't you draw a monster card in the first turn? You need to pay attention to the reasonable combination of monsters and magic/traps when building the deck, junior.

Then it's my turn, draw card!"

"Wait."

Fujiki You Xuan interrupted him and waved his hand.

"The moment you drew the card, the trap was triggered. Open the set card, Trap Card - Drop Off!

Activate during the opponent's draw phase, discard the card the opponent just drew directly to the graveyard."

Koji: "!"

He hesitated for a moment and sent the card he had just drawn and hadn't even warmed up yet to the graveyard area of the Duel Disk. Looking down at his hand again, he finally started to realize something was wrong.

Up to this point, neither side had played a monster, and it seemed like they hadn't even started fighting, but Koji's initial six cards were already half gone, with only three left.

And he was also facing an even more painful problem.

That was that he didn't have any monsters in his hand either...

Two of the cards discarded by Delinquent Duo were a low-level monster, and the one just dropped was another one. Now there were only three cards in his hand, and not a single monster he could play.

But it didn't matter.

"Tch, since that's the case, then I activate the Magic Card from my hand..."

Koji waved his hand and played another card from the remaining three in his hand.

Monster Reborn!

A resurrection magic that could revive a monster from the graveyard, from the DM to GX period, whether in reality or in the anime, it was a "reverse-the-situation" god card that was highly sought after.

"I want to use Monster Reborn to revive this guy from the graveyard - Zera the Mant, Attack Position!"

This time, it was a warrior in green armor holding a greatsword who appeared, standing majestically in the center of the field, becoming the first monster to appear in this duel.

【Zera the Mant, Attack Power 1600】

Actually, if he had a choice, Koji definitely wouldn't want to use the precious Monster Reborn to revive such a small fry, but there was no way, he really had no cards to play. In a duel, hesitation leads to defeat, he had to seize the opportunity to launch an offensive rhythm...

"Open the set card - Bottomless Trap Hole." Fujiki You Xuan calmly flipped open a back row, "When the opponent summons a monster with 1500 or more attack power, destroy and banish that monster."

So, Zera the Mant, who had spent a Monster Reborn to appear, hadn't even stood firm on his heels before he stepped into a pitch-black hole that opened under his feet, fell in with a "boom," and exploded into a cloud of smoke, disappearing without a trace.

Koji: "."

Only two cards left in hand, and the field was still blank.

I don't know if it was an illusion.

Koji Sato seemed to feel his blood pressure starting to rise.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 4 =====