"You want to go to Duel Academy?"
Takeuchi was taken aback.
Come to think of it, it was indeed almost time for Duel Academy's admissions to open.
For young duelists, Duel Academy was nothing less than a holy land. The top students gathered there, and almost everyone who graduated was destined to become an elite. Thanks to Seto Kaiba's management, it didn't matter if you were a world-class tycoon's son or from a powerful political family—if you didn't have talent, all the money and connections in the world wouldn't help you get in.
Who was Seto Kaiba, anyway?
The world's number one duelist, wielder of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon—the strongest Duel Spirit of the current era, rivaling even the three Egyptian Gods. Rumor had it he was developing technology to travel across dimensions and time, trying to open a gateway to the Underworld with science so he could duel the ancient Pharaoh who slumbered there. He wasn't just the richest man alive; he stood at the pinnacle of both the mystical and technological worlds. After Yugi Muto sealed his deck, Kaiba was universally recognized as the world's greatest duelist.
And he recognized nothing but card skill.
So, if Kaiba said there were no back doors and only strength was considered, then it was truly only about strength. No matter how powerful or influential someone was, they'd have to take the exam like everyone else—no shady dealings allowed.
He admired strength and elite education. You could see that from the strict hierarchy and the contempt for underachievers at Duel Academy in GX.
Many dojos offered scholarships or support for students applying to Duel Academy. If they succeeded, those students became distinguished alumni, which was great publicity for the dojo.
Takeuchi's dojo offered such support too, but spots were limited each year.
Given that Kira had defeated the entire dojo, including Takeuchi himself, over the past three days, he was naturally qualified.
If the application was approved, a student would receive a tuition subsidy and a grant to build a deck. The dojo master would even provide one-on-one guidance to help the student optimize their deck and purchase new cards.
Of course, given Kira's situation, he didn't need the guidance—just the money.
"Wait."
Takeuchi paused as if a thought had struck him.
"What's your duelist rank again?"
"…One-star."
Takeuchi: "…"
To be honest, even though he'd seen it with his own eyes, he still couldn't understand how a one-star student had suddenly improved so dramatically.
But after personally experiencing Kira's current dueling skills, he thought Kira had a strong chance at getting in.
"But a one-star can't meet the application threshold…"
"I know," Kira nodded. "That's why I'm planning to hit the arena tomorrow and climb the ranks as fast as possible."
"Hmm, but there's only a month left until the entrance exam—that's a tight schedule," Takeuchi mused. "If you could place in a public tournament, it'd be much easier."
Placing in a public tournament would let you skip straight to a high rank, instead of grinding slowly in the arena. Plus, having a major tournament record would help your duelist career.
"How about this?" Takeuchi turned to Koji Sato. "Koji, weren't you preparing to enter the Moonlight Cup this year?
Although the registration window was closed, I know someone on the organizing committee. It shouldn't be hard to get one more person in. The dojo will cover your entry fee—how about it?"
This year, Koji was the only one in the dojo to reach three stars, so he was the only one originally set to apply to Duel Academy. He was entering the Moonlight Cup to pad his resume before the entrance exam; placing would be even better.
"Thank you, Sensei," Kira replied.
Koji Sato, standing nearby, gasped.
He's entering too?
What if I end up facing him in the tournament…
Just imagining it made a shiver run down his spine.
But then he thought, with so many contestants, what were the odds they'd face off? Or maybe, he'd get to see other duelists get crushed by his kouhai, just like he was.
That thought made the corners of his mouth twitch upward.
His smile turned a little twisted.
Truly, dueling brings happiness.
It just depends on who's happy.
...
The first rays of morning sunlight were like gentle poetry, casting a golden veil over a tranquil world. The night faded, replaced by a fresh, bright morning, the air fragrant with the scent of dawn and flowers.
At 6:20 AM, Kira woke lazily from his comfortable bed. Sunlight filtered through the gauzy curtains, dappling the white sheets and soft covers.
He'd gone to bed late, hadn't slept well, and had dreamed a lot. He vaguely remembered seeing the Black and White Impermanence in his dreams. At first, they eerily told him his time was up, but then they each whipped out a duel disk and two decks, saying he could extend his life if he won a duel.
"Why am I having dreams like this?" Kira rubbed his temples.
It seems he was starting to internalize the worldview here—a world where there was nothing that couldn't be solved by dueling.
In five minutes, Kira shook off his sleepiness, jumped out of bed, quickly dressed, washed up, and started his day.
You can never imagine how terrifying a disciplined card nerd can be.
With only a month until the Duel Academy entrance exam, it was time to start preparing.
He'd thought, how hard could the exam be? Surely it was just K-language study and application, right?
Like, distinguishing between cards that target and those that don't, or chain resolution order, or advanced rulings…
None of that was there.
There were no difficult, deep rules like those in the real-life card game. The concept questions were basic, like "Explain what a Normal Spell Card, Equip Spell Card, and Field Spell Card are"—just like Mr. Crowler's classroom questions in GX.
Then there was memorizing card effects. Kira quickly realized this was surprisingly hard since he couldn't possibly remember the effects of ancient cards that hadn't been used in twenty years, let alone the many cards that existed only in the anime or manga.
He also quickly noticed that there were differences from the real-life card pool twenty years ago. Many cards that only became real later already existed here.
But that made sense. Even Jaden's key [Miracle Fusion] card took years after its anime debut to get a real card, so of course there were cards here that didn't exist back then.
Looking over the entire question pool, KIra found it all basic stuff, with none of the core skills and awareness that mattered in dueling.
It reminded him of a theory he'd read online in his past life: for most movies and anime, reality is the higher dimension, but in Yu-Gi-Oh!'s world, dueling and cards are the fundamental rules of creation—dueling is the world's most essential law, not just a card game.
So to people in the anime world, exploring the rules of dueling was like cutting-edge research in reality—a search for truth. Learning to duel in reality wasn't hard, but in the anime world, mastering it required talent and tremendous effort.
Kira bought a set of textbooks like [Fundamentals of Duel Theory] and [Duel Academy Real Exam Questions], spending most of the day doing practice problems. He also took some time to learn about card design.
The Yu-Gi-Oh! anime always focused on duelists; card design was only mentioned in passing. All people knew was that Pegasus, [Father of Duel Monsters], discovered ancient stone tablets in Egypt and made them into cards, forming the modern Duel Monsters system.
Pegasus's Industrial Illusions published most cards, but they weren't a monopoly. KaibaCorp printed plenty of cards too.
Later, there were even more protagonists like Yugi and Jaden, who could create new cards on the fly as needed, sometimes even putting themselves and their opponents directly into the card art.
These privately made cards were recognized by the system and dueling rules.
After all, this was a supernatural world—dueling was a supernatural act. So when a protagonist pulls out a blank card and writes its effect on the spot, invoking friendship or bonds, that's just an application of this world's rules—a show of supernatural power.
How could the King of Games be accused of cheating?
Hearts of the cards and making cards on the spot are all part of dueling—if you don't like it, don't play.
But, even in this world, card creation wasn't unrestricted. Even Industrial Illusions designers likely had to follow some rules.
What Kira was curious about was—what were the requirements for making cards, and what kinds of cards would be accepted.
If every card from the real-life TCG could be made, as a card designer he'd shake up this overly sunny world with some modern Yu-Gi-Oh! power-creep.
So Kira bought a bunch of reference books and textbooks. He didn't expect to master it right away, just wanted to get a basic understanding.
"The Basics of Field Spell Construction: Introduction to Environmental Modeling"
"Nine Common Mistakes in Monster Card Design"
Unsurprisingly, card design was a very deep subject here. Many universities and top labs focused on Duel Monster R&D.
Even many old cards still had development potential.
For example, the most famous [Blue-Eyes White Dragon] was being developed by Kaiba's research team—the world's top Duel Monster research group. Rumor had it they'd created forms like [White Spirit Dragon], [Blue-Eyes Alternative White Dragon], and [Blue-Eyes Twin Burst Dragon].
Or the [Chaos Warrior] used by the King, which started as a vanilla 8-star 3000 ATK monster but had since gained new forms like [Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning], an ultra-rare and legendary monster in the TCG.
"If only I could make cards myself…" Kira thought.
For now, it was just a thought. He remembered that in the anime, Jaden's roommate Chumley Huffington went to work as a card designer for Industrial Illusions after graduating from Duel Academy; maybe the academy offered courses on card design.
If there was a chance, he'd check it out.
For now, he set himself a new goal.
Win the Moonlight Cup championship, and then we'll talk.