Note: Don't Forget to join my Patreon.com/flokixy to get access to +300 Advance Chapters I have to stop if there is no support
The Chapter get Retranslated
On a maritime island, the Duel Academy Headquarters.
After a busy half-day, Principal Samejima finally found some free time. He came to his office, leisurely brewed a cup of tea, and used this rare break to check the results of this year's enrollment exam, as well as some duels that piqued his interest.
He hadn't expected Professor Crowler to personally take part, making it clear he was deliberately trying to make things difficult for a certain jellyfish-haired freshman. But this student named Jaden Yuki was truly formidable; he had actually defeated the academy's top practical combat instructor using his own deck during the entrance exam.
Principal Samejima took a sip of tea, quite satisfied with the extraordinary potential Jaden had displayed.
Next, he naturally looked at the top-ranked practical duel of the year. It was said that this person had perfect scores on all written tests except for the subjective open-ended questions, easily surpassing Bastion Misawa, who also scored close to full marks, making for a very impressive performance.
So, let's see this person's practical performance and deck construction...
What is this?
Principal Samejima couldn't help but scratch his shiny bald head.
He mused that he had been active in the dueling world for many years and considered himself well-informed. But he had never really seen a deck built quite like this.
No, if he had to say, the legendary Duel King Yugi Muto's deck from his later glory days, which he had the fortune to witness once at an invitational tournament hosted by Kaiba when he was young, seemed to have a similar feel to it.
It was said that in the later stages of Duel King Yugi's dueling career, many opponents who tried to challenge him ended up furious and distraught, their twisted expressions in the later stages of the duel were almost like cosplaying Marik Ishtar during the Battle City era.
It was a bit like that unfortunate examiner facing him in the assessment duel now.
However, the evolution of the dueling world over the years had proven that it was the Duel King's unique skill, not easily imitated by others. For many years, the mainstream dueling meta still gravitated towards the direction guided by Seto Kaiba, and while such unusual special techniques weren't completely absent after the Duel King's retirement, they were very rare.
Unlike traditional professors represented by Crowler, Principal Samejima didn't insist that students strictly follow textbook standards for tactical deck building.
It was just that ordinary students didn't possess the ability for innovative independent research. But based on his many years of teaching experience, Principal Sameajima immediately felt that this student named You Xuan might just have that talent.
Could it be that this year the academy had recruited a freshman with such a rare talent?
Thinking of this, Principal Samejima couldn't help but feel a surge of anticipation.
Looking at Jaden Yuki on the roster, and then at Fujiki You Xuan next to him, the principal leaned back in his chair, took a leisurely sip of tea, and couldn't help but smile contentedly.
This small Duel Academy had actually recruited two great talents, a Crouching Dragon and a Fledgling Phoenix, this year.
Truly delightful.
Duel Academy was quite efficient. Within a few days of the exams, candidates could already inquire about their scores, results, and admission information.
As expected, You Xuan received his admission notice.
Of course, there was still a month until school started, so there was no rush to immediately go to the island. However, the new batch of freshmen had already completed their registration, and those who passed the threshold were already considered probationary freshmen for the year.
You Xuan took his newly assigned student ID information and logged into the Kaiba Corporation's card search system through the academy department channel. Sure enough, the options for purchasable cards had increased.
He quickly glanced through them, first noting down all the cards in stock that he thought might be useful, compiling a list. Then he analyzed them one by one.
Most of them were cards he thought might be useful, but possibly required specific builds or combos. These were listed separately for further discussion.
The cards he immediately decided to buy were generally versatile cards that could function in most decks, primarily powerful trap cards.
For example, "Karma Cut," which could send an opponent's monster directly to the Different Dimension by discarding one card from hand, and the ancient forbidden card "Ring of Destruction," which hadn't been nerfed back then – it could destroy a monster and both players would take damage equal to its ATK, a perfect weapon for turning the tables if you couldn't win, known in the dueling world as "Draw Wheel."
Besides these, he was even more pleasantly surprised to find that the almighty in-game shop also had hand traps.
As the saying goes, "a thousand defenses, a hand trap is hard to defend against." Unlike trap cards that are set on the field and easily anticipated or cleared, hand traps, which can be activated directly by discarding them from the hand, have been a mainstream in Yu-Gi-Oh! since their inception and continue to be so today.
Of course, early hand traps weren't as vicious as modern ones; they were generally primarily used for defensive, damage-negating effects. Their origin naturally traced back to the mascot of the DM era, Yugi's Kuriboh, which could negate battle damage by discarding itself.
So, when he found a Kuriboh in the rare card section, You Xuan bought it without hesitation, somewhat surprised that such a rare item hadn't been snatched up yet.
But then again. From the anime, duelists didn't seem particularly fond of low-level monsters with weak ATK that could only block one attack. Even Kuriboh, apart from its rarity, mostly derived its extra value from being the "Original Duel King's mascot."
Next, he discovered a section in the academy department called "Structure Deck." He clicked on it and saw that it contained pre-built decks with specific themes, sold as a complete package for a fixed price.
Among them, he even saw the legendary "Elemental HERO" cards.
However, thinking about it, it was only natural. In the first episode of GX, Professor Crowler called Jaden's deck "a very common HERO deck." In this era, HERO decks themselves were considered commoner builds. It was only later, as Jaden received more and more new cards, that they gradually started to move out of the commoner ranks.
Every duelist secretly harbored a HERO dream, and since he was in the GX era, You Xuan was curious and tried searching for them.
Then he quickly gave up on his HERO dream.
The monsters were basically the famous "Four Useless HEROs," and there were only two or three Fusion HEROes in stock. Then there was a pile of exclusive support cards for various "Useless HEROs," such as Spark Blaster, Feather Shot, Burst Return, and so on.
These were all cards that even Jaden had only used once in the anime before they disappeared, highlighting their inexplicable nature.
A quick glance told him that it was simply not a deck that an ordinary person could master. Almost every Spell/Trap card required a specific Normal HERO to be used effectively, and even if he forcefully bound them together, the applicable scenarios for each combination were too limited, leading to constant hand bricking and self-doubt in real combat.
Therefore, for Jaden to have conquered most of Duel Academy with these cards in the early stages of the anime, his skill was something ninety-nine percent of duelists could only dream of.
Elemental HEROes were temporarily out of the question. You Xuan continued to browse.
Next, he discovered that Jaden's junior, Syrus Truesdale's "roid" archetype, a vehicle-themed deck, was also on the list.
His eyes lit up, and he quickly looked through the card list in the structure deck.
Syrus's roid deck was also not a rare deck in the current environment, having performed poorly in the physical card game for many years, never having any competitive strength, belonging to the more marginalized category of fun decks.
But this deck contained one particular early "god card" that Syrus had used in the anime, but which Konami had yet to make a physical card of, even after nearly twenty years.
Indeed!
You Xuan's gaze immediately locked onto that specific card in the deck, and he unhesitatingly bought the entire structure deck.
The cards in a structure deck couldn't be bought individually; he had to buy the whole set. But it didn't matter. The structure deck itself wasn't expensive, and in the current environment, buying the entire deck just for this one card was still a steal.
[Kiteroid, Level 1, ATK 200, DEF 400.
Effect:
1) You can discard this card from your hand; negate one direct attack to your Life Points.
2) While this card is in your Graveyard, once per duel, you can negate one direct attack to your Life Points.] (Anime Effect)
This card was never released in the real world as a physical card; it was exclusive to the PSP game "Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Tag Force 3" and "Duel Links." It could act as a hand trap once and a graveyard trap once, blocking two attacks with a single card. In the GX era, where hand traps were incredibly scarce, it was undoubtedly a life-saving item.
You Xuan reveled in the pleasure of buying, reinforcing his deck once again. His card inventory grew richer, and his deck options became freer, but his wallet, which had just recovered, quickly dwindled.
You Xuan decided to keep some money on hand and not spend it all. He exited the interface, sighed softly, and gazed wistfully at the sky.
Indeed, the seniors were right.
What's the point of playing Yu-Gi-Oh! if you're broke?