Still, from his perspective, this guy's understanding of K language was not even at an entry level, yet he could still be a Shadow Duel user. Betting his life on cards and surviving until now really was a miracle. Then again, Yugen quickly realized he was still thinking with habits from his previous life.
He could not judge it that way, because in this world a Duelist's strength depended more on miraculous draws. Interpreting card text and K language might only be decoration here. It really was a dangerous world, and there was no room to relax.
Getting stronger and collecting more powerful cards was the only reliable path forward. Starting with what was right in front of him. Yugen stepped forward, bent down, and picked up the Duel Disk that had fallen from the now-gone Genichiro.
Since the person was gone, the Deck naturally became ownerless. Yugen spoke solemnly, "It was a good duel. Rest easy, brother. Your Deck and your will, I will inherit them." As he spoke, he tucked the Deck into his pocket.
As he left, he felt a chill on his back, as if a cold gust of wind had brushed past him. He frowned slightly but kept walking. The feeling quickly faded.
The next morning, sunlight slipped through the gap in the curtains and scattered across the floor. Yugen opened his heavy eyes in a daze and struggled to focus his blurred vision. It felt like he was seeing a girl.
Silver hair floated gently, one hand holding a staff and the other covering her mouth. In a spirit form, half of her body passed straight into his own as he lay on the bed, bright eyes peeking around as if quietly observing him. The instant he opened his eyes, it was as if an exclamation mark popped over her head, and she turned and dove back into the Deck inside the Duel Disk leaning against the desk, leaving no movement behind.
Yugen said nothing for a long moment. After the chaos of last night and their first real cooperation, he had learned that the quiet girl was not rejecting him as her master. She was simply silent.
In other words, she was withdrawn. Thinking about it that way, a withdrawn Spirit matching a withdrawn player actually made a lot of sense. No matter what, she had truly helped during the ambush last night.
In the world of Yu-Gi-Oh!, going out without powerful cards or a Spirit at your side was far too dangerous. He was not sure if it was just in his head, but during the life-or-death duel yesterday, with Silent Magician inside the Deck, something had indeed felt different from his previous duels.
It was a sensation hard to describe clearly. Every time he touched his Deck and drew a card with Card Draw, he could vaguely feel a kind of rhythm. Before that duel, his Deck had felt no different from the Duel Disk, just a tool for dueling.
But in that match, he had the first illusion that the Deck had come alive. Of course, that feeling was vague, and it could very well have been his imagination.
"No matter what, I still need to get stronger." The sudden life-or-death duel made Yugen realize again how important it was to play cards well in this world. Compared to that, even carrying an arsenal around was less reliable.
As he reviewed his recent consecutive battles, new understanding gradually formed. From a player's perspective, many anime characters' Deck looked shocking, and you could not help but wonder how such bricky systems even functioned. But if you assumed the existence of players who never bricked no matter what they played, those decks shared a common trait.
They were filled with things whose purpose seemed unclear at first glance. In reality, it meant that their Deck contained answers to almost any situation. Real-world Deck usually chased stability and efficiency, but even top-tier decks could still encounter boards they simply could not break.
In this world, that was unacceptable. A Shadow Duel only gave you one game, winning meant survival and losing meant death, with no chance to surrender and try again. That was why decks that looked full of strange cards actually aimed for a state where almost no board was impossible to deal with.
The same logic applied to deck size. In reality, players tried to keep decks at forty cards to reduce bricking and improve efficiency. Here, sixty-card decks were common, and the upper limit might not even stop there.
More cards meant more possibilities, all built on the foundation of never bricking. Only top Duelists could handle such systems, even mixing four or five completely different cores into a single Deck like Seto Kaiba did, while still drawing smoothly as if wielding several decks at once.
Without that level of skill, blindly copying those builds only led to worse results. Everyone starting with sixty cards would just brick more and more, creating a strange environment where the gap between the top and the bottom kept growing. Thinking it through, Yugen felt he had understood something new again.
Dark tactics were powerful, but relying on them alone would not take him far. For now, deck construction alone was enough to handle his opponents, but in the future he would need broader styles and tactics. Both deck building and miraculous draws mattered, and he had to grasp both firmly.
Playing more duels also made him realize that many things here differed from what he was used to. In anime-style duels, after activating an effect, duelists rarely paused to ask if the opponent wanted to chain. Effects often just resolved immediately.
By the rules he knew from his past life, players would always confirm chains before resolving effects. Here, even if the opponent had already started resolving their effect, you could still interrupt and activate your own. Otherwise, duels would just become contests of who talked faster.
From an animation perspective, strict adherence to rules likely mattered less than dramatic presentation. Even if it was technically improper, it rarely affected the overall outcome. That was simply how this world worked.
Last night also taught Yugen that dueling was physically exhausting. The PE teacher at Duel Academy often said you needed a good body to duel well, which he had once found amusing. Now he was starting to understand.
During the life-or-death duel, he had not noticed it, but afterward his body felt completely drained. He fell asleep without wanting to think about anything. After a full night's rest, he finally felt refreshed, his mind back online.
The rewards from yesterday's victory were considerable. Genichiro was a Shadow Duel user who lived on the edge, and his Deck looked valuable. Some cards could be sold for a good price if Yugen did not need them.
Most important of all was the anime-effect version of Card of Demise. Drawing five cards at once with only the joke-like drawback of discarding after five turns made other draw cards look worthless. It was a pity there was only one, and he could not help wishing he could run three.
He was also drawn to the other two treasures from the DM era, alongside life-draining cards. One was Dueltaining, owned by Joey Wheeler, which let you roll dice to draw cards and then banish the same number from the top of the Deck. (ANIME EFFECT) It was absurdly strong, but almost no one besides Joey Wheeler ever used it.
The other was Card of Sanctity, used by the King of Games himself, drawing both players up to six cards. It was a devastating card, and though it appeared beyond DM, Yugen had not seen it on the market yet. He wanted all three DM treasures badly.
For now, his greatest hope lay in the road called Duel Academy. Rumors said that once you entered the academy, everything changed, with access to countless Rare Cards beyond what ordinary Duelists could imagine.
It was already close. Three days from now, at the amusement park owned by Seto Kaiba, the annual entrance examination for Duel Academy would be held. He would definitely take it.