“I activate <Laundry Dragonmaid>’s effect, sending the top three cards of the deck to the graveyard!”
“Wha!?
How did the <Feather Duster> I borrowed from Mai end up there!?
Little Blue———!”
“Idiot!
According to Master’s theory, the reason you can’t unleash my power is because you’re too weak!”
“No way!
Mr.
Yugi said I was already really strong!”
“No, you should return your friend’s card first…”
It had been three days since that duel spirit plunder battle.
Thanks to her excellent performance in the duel, Elsie had earned a large amount of credits, her duelist level had risen to LV4, and she had moved out of her old small single room into a standard three-bedroom dorm.
Now, Yugi sat on the sofa in the living room, watching Little Blue and the Aqua clone bicker and feeling utterly drained.
It made sense that Little Blue’s affection for him was maxed out, after all, he called her the future Dragon Emperor, but for some reason, her attitude toward Elsie wasn’t very good.
Was it because those of the same sex (both being weaklings) repel each other?
“Uh…
what are you two doing…”
Jounouchi Mai, who had come to visit, wasn’t sure whether she should step in.
“Nothing, just a clash between Bronze ranks.
No matter how intense, it’s just fists swinging at thin air.” Yugi waved his hand helplessly.
“By the way, Elsie, give her her <Feather Duster> back.”
Ignoring their gestures, he bent over Elsie’s duel disk to flip through pages.
“What are you looking at?” Jounouchi Mai sat down beside him, curiosity piqued.
“Oh, Elsie earned a lot of credits again.
I’m checking if there’s anything to exchange for cards.” Yugi tapped on an SR card: <Graceful Charity>.
Such restricted draw cards were always valuable in large quantities.
“Isn’t that in the card packs outside?
Just buy packs and open them.” Mai didn’t understand.
Card packs contained only N and R cards; only extremely lucky players could get the limited SRs.
Credits, however, could be directly exchanged for SR cards, and sometimes even URs.
Clearly, they were much more precious than money.
Mai, perhaps due to her lineage, was insanely lucky and didn’t see opening packs for limited cards as difficult.
As for his luck…
borrowing a line from Teacher J: This month, the boss just paid, I ran into Yu-Gi-Oh!, a new booster pack appeared~~ One pack costs 300, ends up being 30, see you on the rooftop (gritting teeth).
Seriously, what was going on in this world?
He’d already read the library books and checked online histories.
This wasn’t the world of the Yu-Gi-Oh!
anime or manga.
The original Duel King wasn’t named Mutou Yugi, so why was the Jounouchis still ridiculously lucky?
Jounouchi Mai wasn’t angry; she just pulled out the card he wanted from her storage box.
“Save some credits for Elsie.
Here, use this.”
“And for yourself?”
“Oh, I got four of those cards from packs.”
Yugi: “………”
F*cking luck sacks!
“Of course, it’s not free.” Mai looked at him seriously.
“You can duel too, right?
Have a match with me.”
Yugi wasn’t surprised.
“Because of the Duel Realm?”
“Exactly.” Mai nodded.
“I’ll be teaming up with Elsie, and while she trusts you, I need to gauge my teammate’s strength first.”
The Duel Realm, a special space in this world formed where the duel spirit world and the real world overlap, is filled with the remnants of duelists.
Defeating these remnants can yield cards once used by those duelists, and sometimes, lost duel spirits can even be found.
It’s a strategic resource comparable to oil or gold mines on Earth.
Framed in the context of the cultivation world, it’s like a secret realm, entering it for exploration can yield many valuable rewards.
To put it simply, it’s like that Mind Maze WY set up in the DL Chinese server.
But since it’s a secret realm, it’s naturally dangerous.
At least an LV3 level is required to enter, and participants must go in as a team.
This realm essentially serves as a channel for duelists to acquire cards and duel spirits.
Even at the risk of death, participants flock to it.
Among the current freshmen, only three met the criteria.
Kaiba Hanatsuki had her sister accompanying her, so naturally Elsie and Jounouchi Mai became a team.
“Alright, I’d like to use this chance to gauge your strength as well.”
Yugi thought for a moment and nodded in agreement.
He hadn’t seen Jounouchi Mai’s dueling skills before, but like Kaiba Hanatsuki, she enrolled at LV3, so her level was at least higher than Elsie’s without any external aid.
The two quickly arrived at the practice arena, ready to start.
Yugi had already added the newly acquired cards to his deck.
Since he didn’t need to use spiritual power, any card could be played instantly, but the downside was that he didn’t have “miracle draws”…
and he didn’t have many endgame combos yet.
Because Elsie’s spiritual power was insufficient, she couldn’t summon any of the Mutou family’s ancestral spirits, and thus had no corresponding endgame options.
For example, to access a corresponding endgame for the <Dark Magician> line, she would need a strong bond and high affinity with him.
The higher these two values, the more endgames she could unlock.
But Elsie didn’t even have the spiritual power to command the <Dark Magician>, so she naturally had nothing.
Take <Gandora> as another example.
Without those values, she could only retrieve <Gandora> itself with <Magical Contract Door>, not possessing its alternate form.
In the freshman zone where duelists traded blows like axe kings, Elsie could hold her own.
But entering the Duel Realm required more than that.
There was a solution: fusing with a duel spirit.
Once Elsie and Yugi fused, she could access the endgames Yugi could transform into and even let him control her body to play any card without using spiritual power.
Unfortunately, fusion between a duelist and a duel spirit was extremely difficult.
They had tried several times without success.
Since she didn’t need to duel herself, Elsie naturally took on the role of referee.
“Duel start———–!”
“Bloom, Black Rose!”
“………”
Catching Yugi’s glance, Jounouchi Mai’s cheeks turned red.
“W-what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Yugi looked on, exasperated.
Girl, you’re already keeping pace with the main crowd, collecting style points, and yet your duel disk is still standard.
Of course, the “On the day I got caught peeping at Lady Kaiba’s bathing…” device on his own wrist was also standard, so he had no right to say anything.
Speaking of which, Kaiba Ayatsuki hadn’t come to settle scores with him yet, he was genuinely grateful for her generosity.