Chapter 6

"You want to go to Duel Academy?"

Master Takeuchi was stunned.

Come to think of it, it did seem to be almost time for Duel Academy's recruitment to open.

For the younger generation of duelists, Duel Academy was simply like a holy land. Top students gathered there, and almost everyone who graduated was destined to be an elite figure. Moreover, under the operation of Seto Kaiba, whether it was a young master of a world-class conglomerate or a second-generation official whose family covered the sky with one hand, anyone without talent, regardless of his heaven-defying wealth and background, was out of the question.

Who is Seto Kaiba?

The most powerful duelist in the world today, driving the world's strongest duel spirit, the "Blue-Eyes White Dragon," which is comparable to the former Three Phantom Gods. Rumor has it that he is even developing technology to travel through dimensions and space, attempting to use technological means to open the gate to the Underworld to find the long-dormant Nameless Pharaoh to play cards.

Not only is he the richest man in the world, but he is also a powerhouse standing at the peak of both the supernatural and technological sides. After Yugi Wu Teng retired from dueling, he is recognized as the world's number one duelist.

And he recognizes nothing but card skills.

So if Seto Kaiba said he wouldn't open the back door and only looks at strength, then he really only looks at strength. No matter what kind of powerful and prominent person wants to enter his school, they must obediently take the exam, and there is absolutely no room for black-box operations.

Moreover, he advocates strength and promotes elite education. This can be seen from the strict hierarchical system in Duel Academy in GX and the contempt of the whole school's teachers and students for the underachieving students.

Many duel dojos have relevant subsidies for students to apply for Duel Academy. Because once they successfully land, the student will undoubtedly be a high-quality alumnus in the future, and it will also have a very good publicity effect for the dojo.

Master Takeuchi's dojo also has this subsidy, but the quota is limited every year.

And considering that Fujiki You Xuan had already cleared the entire dojo, including the master, in the past three days, he should naturally be within the qualification range.

If the application is approved, the student will not only have tuition subsidies, but the dojo will also provide a sum of deck funds. The dojo master will personally provide one-on-one guidance to help the student purchase new cards and optimize the build.

Of course, for Fujiki You Xuan's situation, the guidance part can obviously be skipped; he just needs the money.

"Wait."

Master Takeuchi had just agreed when he suddenly thought of something.

"What is your duelist rank again?"

". One star."

Master: "."

Honestly, although he saw it with his own eyes, he still finds it hard to understand how a one-star student could suddenly progress to such a point as if he had been enlightened.

However, having personally experienced Fujiki You Xuan's current dueling strength, he also feels that Fujiki You Xuan has a great chance of landing this time.

"But one star doesn't meet the registration threshold..."

"I know," Fujiki You Xuan nodded, "So I plan to go to the arena tomorrow to try and climb up as soon as possible."

"Hmm, but there is only one month left until the entrance exam, time is a bit tight," Master Takeuchi pondered for a moment, "It would be much easier if you could get a ranking in a public tournament."

If you get a ranking in a public tournament, you can jump to a high star in one breath, without having to climb points slowly one by one like in a regular arena, and you can also get a tournament resume, which is also good for your future duelist career.

"How about this," Master Takeuchi looked at Sato Koji, "I remember Koji was preparing to participate in this year's Yuehua Cup, right?"

Although the registration window seems to have closed, I have friends among the organizers, and it's not a big problem to squeeze one more person into the preliminary selection. The registration fee will also be covered by the dojo, what do you think?"

This year, only Koji in the entire dojo reached three stars, so naturally, he was the only one originally scheduled to apply for Duel Academy. He participated in the Yuehua Cup because he wanted to get an extra resume before enrollment, and it would be even better if he could get a ranking.

"Then thank you, Master," Fujiki You Xuan said.

On the side, Sato Koji couldn't help but gasp.

This guy is going to participate too?

Then what if I get matched with him on the field...

Just imagining that scene, he couldn't help but shiver, feeling uncomfortable all over.

But then he thought again, there are so many contestants, the probability of being matched is not high. Or rather, once on the field, there will be an opportunity to see more confused duelists being brought "smiles" by the junior brother through dueling, just like himself...

Thinking of that picture, he couldn't help but lift the corners of his mouth uncontrollably.

The smile gradually became perverted.

Sure enough, dueling still brings happiness.

It's just a matter of who is experiencing the happiness.

The first ray of morning sunlight was like a gentle poem, as if the quiet world was draped in a golden veil. The darkness was dispelled, replaced by a fresh and bright morning, and the air was filled with the faint scent of early morning and the fragrance of flowers.

At 6:20 in the morning, Fujiki You Xuan woke up lazily from his comfortable bed. Sunlight filtered through the gauze-like curtains, forming mottled light and shadows on the white sheets and soft quilt.

He went to bed late last night, and his sleep quality was not very good; he had many dreams. He only vaguely remembered seeing Black and White Impermanence in his dream. The two first said gloomily that his life was over and he should go, but then they unfolded their duel disks left and right and pulled out two decks, saying that as long as he won the duel, he could extend his life...

"Why would I have such a dream?" Fujiki You Xuan rubbed his temples.

It seems that he has indeed slowly begun to internalize the basic logic of this card-playing worldview, which is that there is nothing that cannot be solved by playing cards.

Fujiki You Xuan only brewed for five minutes before shaking off his sleepiness, jumped out of bed, quickly finished changing and washing, and started a new day of study and life.

You can never imagine how terrifying a self-disciplined card player is.

There is one month left until the Duel Academy entrance exam; it's time to start previewing a little.

Originally, he thought, what could be difficult about the duel exam? Isn't it just the learning and application of K-language?

Like the distinction between whether a certain card effect targets or doesn't target, like the order of chain resolution, like high-end card timing teaching, etc...

None of the above.

There are no such unique Yu-Gi-Oh rules that are relatively profound and difficult to understand in the physical cards. The conceptual part only has the basics of "Please explain what a Normal Spell Card, Equip Spell Card, and Field Spell Card are," just like the questions asked by Professor Chronos in the GX anime.

Then there is the memorization of various card effects. In fact, Fujiki You Xuan soon found that this part was unexpectedly a bit difficult, because it was impossible for him to remember the classifications and effects of a pile of ancient cards that hadn't been used in the physical card environment for twenty years. Not to mention that there are a large number of anime and manga cards in this world that have never been made into physical cards.

He also quickly noticed that there are many differences between here and the physical card environment twenty years ago. Many cards might only be made into physical cards twenty years later, but they exist here now.

Of course, it's not strange when you think about it. Even the key card of the Neos deck in Yugi's hand, "Miracle Contact," made players of all kinds of heroes drool for I don't know how many years after it appeared in the anime, feeling like they waited a lifetime for Konami to make it a physical card...

So naturally, there are many cards here that didn't exist back then.

Looking at the entire question bank, in Fujiki You Xuan's view, they are all content with no nutritional value, and the consciousness and techniques that really involve the core of card skills are not mentioned at all.

This reminded him of a secondary setting explanation he saw on the internet in his previous life. For many movies and anime, reality is a higher dimension, and in the world of Yu-Gi-Oh, cards are the foundation of creation, and dueling represents the most fundamental law of this world, not just a card game like in reality.

So for people in the anime world, exploring the rules of dueling is like doing the most cutting-edge research in reality, which is the exploration of truth. For the reality dimension, learning to play cards is not that difficult, but in the anime world, it requires high talent and a lot of effort to understand these.

Fujiki You Xuan bought a set of "Fundamentals of Duel Theory," "Duel Academy Real Exam Question Bank," and other teaching books, and spent most of the day brushing up on questions. At the same time, he also took the time to learn about the field of card making.

In the successive anime of Yu-Gi-Oh, the stories of duelists are emphasized, and the card design part is only mentioned in passing. It is only known that Pegasus, known as the "Father of Duel Monsters," first discovered the stone tablets of ancient duel monsters in Egypt and made the stone tablets into cards, which led to the modern Duel Monster card system.

Later, the card-making work was mainly issued by Pegasus's Industrial Illusions, but it was not completely dominant. Companies like KaibaCorp also printed many cards, which also circulated in the market.

Later on, there were even more "Yugi-generation" players like Yugi Wu Teng and Jaden Yuki, who all had the cheat-level talent of printing cards on the spot according to the needs of the situation. Sometimes they were so arrogant that they would simply print themselves and their duel opponents directly into the card art, without any cover-up...

Obviously, these private card printings can also be recognized by the system and duel rules, and are not considered violations.

After all, Yu-Gi-Oh is inherently a supernatural world, and dueling is the manifestation of the supernatural. So, for some "Yugi-generation" players with seafood-style hair to pull out a blank card and print the card text effects on the spot in front of their opponents while shouting about friendship and bonds, it can even be said to be the application of the laws of this world, a manifestation of supernatural strength.

How can the King of Games' affairs be called cheating?

God-draws and card-printing are all part of dueling; if you're not happy, don't play.

However, it is conceivable that printing cards in such a world cannot be done at will. Even for designers at Industrial Illusions, newly designed cards should probably comply with the rules to some extent and cannot be done at will.

And what Fujiki You Xuan is curious about is what the threshold for card making is and what kind of cards can be recognized.

Assuming that all the cards in the physical card pool of his previous life could be printed, then as a card maker, he would have to bring some modern Yu-Gi-Oh "storytelling" shock to this overly "sunny" card world...

Fujiki You Xuan also bought a series of tool books and textbooks first. It's not that he really expects to learn it so easily, just to get a rough understanding first.

"Fundamentals of Field Spell Construction: Introduction to Environmental Modeling"

"Nine Common Misunderstandings in Monster Card Design"

It is completely expected that card making in this world is a very profound science. Now there are many university laboratories and cutting-edge research institutes specifically doing scientific research and development related to duel monsters.

Even many old cards still have the potential for further development and design.

A more representative one, for example, the most famous Blue-Eyes White Dragon, is developed by an independent research team led by Seto Kaiba himself. That is the world's top duel monster research team. Rumor has it that they have developed various evolutionary forms of Blue-Eyes, such as "White Spirit Dragon," "Blue-Eyes Alternative White Dragon," "Blue-Eyes Twin Burst Dragon," etc.

There is also the Chaos Soldier similar to Yugi's. When it was first made into a card from a stone tablet, it was just a Level 8, 3000 ATK blank monster, but now it has been developed into the "Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning" vest, which is what real card players call the "Great Beginning," a rare super-rare card in the world, and also a legendary powerful monster in the mouths of duelists.

"If only I could learn to make cards myself..." Fujiki You Xuan pondered.

But for now, it's just a thought. He remembered that Hayato Maeda, a roommate of Jaden Yuki in the first season of the anime, seemed to have joined Industrial Illusions as a full-time card designer after graduating from Duel Academy. Fujiki You Xuan guessed that there might be professional courses related to card making in the academy.

If there is a chance, I must go and learn about it.

As for now, he has tentatively set a new small goal.

Go and win the championship at the Yuehua Cup first.

(End of chapter)