“Waaah!
I’m late, I’m late!”
At dawn, Elsie’s shout echoed through the room, followed by the sound of her stumbling down the stairs.
With a scream and a tumble, she dashed out of the hotel entrance in a complete mess.
“Ugh…
is this girl really going to be okay?”
Yugi, floating helplessly behind her, sighed.
It was worth noting that he was now hovering in midair, apparently, a duel spirit’s body didn’t need much sleep.
After only a short rest last night, he was already full of energy, spending the rest of the night experimenting with the various extraordinary powers his new body possessed.
By the end of his experiments, he realized he truly was no longer human, physically, that is (he had mentally already given up being human long ago).
His abilities were frighteningly high; if he returned to the real world, just standing in the card shop would exhaust an entire room of duelists.
One of those abilities was now his flight.
Seeing Elsie’s panicked, disheveled state, he felt a little embarrassed, he’d gotten so caught up in doing the “Dio face” and enjoying his power that he’d lost track of time.
Although, to be fair, he really didn’t know what time the entrance exam started.
In any case, seeing Elsie in such a state, he swooped down, grabbed her by the back of her neck, and flew toward the crowd of duelists, duel disks at the ready.
“Waaah…” Elsie flailed in fear at first, but when she saw it was Yugi, her face lit up with a sweet smile.
“Thank you, Mr.
Yugi!”
Although they hadn’t really interacted before, as her summoner, she instinctively understood his basic information, name included.
Any further knowledge would depend on whether the spirit was willing to open up.
At the same time, Elsie felt relieved.
Duel spirits could have all sorts of personalities.
In theory, the summoner was the master, but in practice, many summoned duel spirits refused to acknowledge the duelist, some even turning the tables to dominate, or worse, kill their summoner.
But it seemed her duel spirit wasn’t just powerful and rare, it was gentle too.
Facing her clumsy self, it hadn’t judged her and had even taken the initiative to help.
“Hehe…
hehehehe…”
Elsie couldn’t help but giggle.
With a duel spirit like this, her future looked incredibly bright.
To restore the glory of the Mutou family, she felt it was her duty!
Meanwhile, seeing Elsie giggling so happily, Yugi couldn’t help but sigh inwardly.
From his perspective, it seemed like all he could see was darkness.
…………………………………..
Thanks to Yugi’s flying ability, the two arrived at the exam location without incident.
Their “shining entrance” attracted a fair amount of attention.
Seeing Elsie land, the nearby freshmen whispered among themselves:
“That’s her…
the heir of the Mutou family.”
“I heard she’s a notorious waste, but she actually summoned a duel spirit.”
“Idiot, “waste” is relative to the major families.
To us ordinary people, she’s still an absolute genius.”
“Sigh…
our class is doomed.
Not only do we have the Mutou heir, but also the second daughter of the Kaiba family.
D*mn…
completely overshadowed by these prodigies.”
“………..”
Genius?
Hearing all the chatter, Yugi glanced down at Elsie, who was looking around for a few blades of grass to nibble on, and he couldn’t help but stare into the distance in disbelief.
Her?
Genius?
At least based on her deck construction last night, he didn’t see any sign of it.
“Here, these are the snacks your friend brought last night.” Yugi said with a sigh, producing a small box from his arms like an old father handing it over.
No wonder Mai had stressed so much about her last night, she really was that unreliable.
“Wow, thank you so much, Mr.
Yugi!” Elsie took the snack box, beaming her brightest smile.
“You’re such a kind person!”
Yugi: “…………”
He felt even more mentally exhausted.
On the other hand, Elsie didn’t notice Yugi’s mood.
To her, anyone who gave her food was automatically a good person.
“Waaah, having Mr.
Yugi as my duel spirit is amazing!
I’ll work so hard and pass the entrance exam!”
The entrance exam itself was actually quite simple.
First, it checked whether each freshman had a duel spirit.
Then, they had to duel the examiner, with admission determined by performance, winning wasn’t required; just putting on an impressive duel was enough.
After all, merely requiring a duel spirit already eliminated over 90% of duelists, so the exam duels were slightly relaxed, otherwise too few new students would be admitted each year.
And then, right at the first stage, they ran into a snag.
“Apologies, Miss Mutou,” a staff member said with an awkward yet polite smile.
“Our system hasn’t registered your duel spirit at all.
Please wait a moment while we conduct a detailed scan.”
Normally, no one would attempt to fake a duel spirit to sneak into the academy, but as they say, “anything can happen in a big forest”.
The DM Academy had been running for so long that it had technology to distinguish genuine duel spirits from impostors.
As for Yugi not being recorded in the “Spirit Codex”, it wasn’t a big deal.
The very possibility of duel spirits existing spanned countless planes, and even now, the authorities couldn’t even claim to have cataloged half of them (referring to Konami constantly releasing new cards).
Once the machine deemed someone who looked human to be a duel spirit, they would be recorded in the codex, becoming part of the duelist knowledge base.
Hearing this, the other freshmen whispered among themselves:
“Someone from the Mutou family wouldn’t fake a duel spirit, right?”
“Who knows…
that girl’s a notorious Mutou failure.
Until yesterday, she didn’t even have a duel spirit.
How could one suddenly appear overnight?”
“Hehe, if she fakes a duel spirit and it’s detected, the Mutou family’s reputation will be completely ruined…
though there isn’t much left anyway.”
“………..”
Hearing the surrounding sneers, Jounouchi Mai let out a cold snort.
“Idiots.
Just wait and see their eyes pop out.”
“By the way, isn’t this academy a little…
weird?” Yugi thought as he stepped into what looked suspiciously like the Trap Card <Time Machine> used by Bandit Keith, “requiring new students to have duel spirits is like demanding our students master American-style iaido and bring their own weapons.
This is basically a militarized warlord system.”
Before he could dwell further, the machine emitted a sharp alarm.
A burst of rainbow-colored light erupted from his body, arching across the sky before gradually fading.
“No way…
the highest-grade duel spirit?!”