Chapter 59: The Unbridgeable Class Gap
Dragon versus dragon—the instant that 87-million appeared, everyone who'd mocked Amano's poverty obediently shut their mouths.
Even shocked by Blue-Eyes White Dragon's appearance, Mizuki maintained muscle-memory reflexes holding up her Eva terminal's recording function.
When she snapped back to awareness and checked her livestream—
[Stream Viewers: 4,320]
Mizuki nearly dropped to her knees.
This was the popularity Blue-Eyes White Dragon brought?
Just this viewer count alone exceeded the total views accumulated from years of painstaking channel building.
"Stream viewers, let's cheer for Amano-bro together!"
Forget calling him "bro"—right now Mizuki wanted to acknowledge Amano as her big boss. Following the boss from now on, exclusively streaming his duels sounded perfect.
"Battle, Blue-Eyes White Dragon!"
Declaring Battle Phase entry, Amano turned sideways raising his arm, pointing at Galaxy Knight on Kaiba Chiha's field.
"—'Burst Stream of Destruction'!!"
Pure white radiance covering half the field exploded, easily vaporizing the silver-armored knight into nothingness.
Even among Level 8 monsters, ATK differences existed.
On the battlefield between Blue-Eyes White Dragon and Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon, you—the one who isn't a dragon—are the first casualty.
[Galaxy Knight] destroyed
Kaiba Chiha LP: 4000 → 3800
But merely destroying [Galaxy Knight] wasn't enough to resolve Amano's current crisis.
Both Blue-Eyes White Dragon and Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon had 3000 ATK. If Kaiba Chiha crashed Photon Dragon into Blue-Eyes for mutual destruction, Amano with only 1000 remaining LP would be easily finished off.
"Time to gamble on card draws again!"
Currently Amano's hand had no directly summonable monsters. He could only activate that Magic card.
"Magic Card: [Magic Fitting Room] activated!"
[Magic Fitting Room] [Magic Card: Pay 800 LP. Reveal the top 4 cards of your Deck, Special Summon any Level 3 or lower Normal Monsters among them to your field, then shuffle the rest back into the Deck.]
Amano LP: 1000 → 200
Trash monsters calling their friends.
Time to set up some little things to block attacks next turn.
Amano flipped four cards consecutively.
Calculating returns, if this card revealed 2 monsters, it was already quite profitable.
[Yuyu] [Yuyu] [Yuyu] [Double Spell]
Except for [Double Spell], all three others were monsters meeting Special Summon conditions.
Except all three monsters were identical—this situation was pretty rare.
"I Special Summon three [Yuyu] to my field in Defense Position!"
[Yuyu] [DEF: 100] × 3
Accompanied by "boom~" smoke effects, three perfectly square tofu blocks materialized floating above Amano's field.
-_-?-_-?-_-?
Amano seemed quite fated with these little things.
In Eva terminal's "Normal Monster" pack draws, Yuyu was what Amano drew most frequently.
Even though decks could only contain three copies maximum of the same card, that didn't stop Amano from owning over a dozen [Yuyu] cards.
Speaking of which, looking at the three tofu blocks floating on his field, Amano's blurry eighteen-year-old memories recalled something.
These three things could Fusion Summon, right?
But since Amano couldn't remember clearly, it must be some recreational monster without much strength.
Precious Fusion cards couldn't be wasted on three tofu blocks.
Besides, this duel couldn't use Fusion anyway.
"I Set one card. Turn end."
Amano's counterattack left even academy students who witnessed countless duels in daily life struggling to evaluate.
Those three Yuyu with 100 DEF were literally trash pulled onto field purely to block attacks.
The entire deck's Magic and Trap cards also seemed specially designed to work with "Normal Monsters," looking cheap and impoverished.
Yet that Blue-Eyes White Dragon standing with Yuyu—its exorbitant price made up for the deck's cheapness.
So Amano's current field looked both expensive and poor simultaneously, making evaluation difficult.
"My turn, draw!"
Drawing her card, Kaiba Chiha looked at Amano with intensified fury.
"You District 32 pauper, how dare you use the same Blue-Eyes White Dragon as Big Sister! Don't think this lets you enroll—I'll make you crawl back where you belong!"
Another bombshell revelation dropped. The exam venue's already unstoppable discussion now boiled over completely.
"District 32—isn't that the tower's bottom level?"
"People from the tower bottom are even qualified to register for Duel Academy?"
"No wonder his deck looks like it was picked from a garbage heap."
"But he has Blue-Eyes White Dragon."
Glancing at this turn's drawn card, Kaiba Chiha raised it high overhead as if displaying it to everyone present.
Though even raised over her head wasn't particularly high.
"Class gaps can't be crossed so easily! Just like this card—Amano Rei, you could never possibly own it!"
"Magic Card: [Pot of Greed] activated!"
Exchangeable for 200,000 academy ranking points, one of countless card game enthusiasts' dream cards.
In the Eva market, prices had skyrocketed to tens of millions. Completely priceless—could only appear occasionally at top-tier auctions.
After all, in this world without a ban list, if you were wealthy enough, you could even stuff three [Pot of Greed] into your deck.
[Pot of Greed] [Magic Card: Draw 2 cards.]
The more powerful the effect, the simpler its description.
As the pot resembling Professor Chronos from Yu-Gi-Oh! GX anime shattered, Kaiba Chiha gained two more cards in hand.
As if flaunting wealth, Kaiba Chiha again displayed the two cards drawn from [Pot of Greed] to everyone.
The holy cross card face was equally recognizable.
Two [Monster Reborn] cards.
"You've already lost any chance to win, Amano Rei! I activate [Monster Reborn]'s effect, reviving [Paladin of Photon Dragon] from my Graveyard!"
[Paladin of Photon Dragon] [ATK: 1900]
1900 ATK would be excellent in other entrance exam test duels. Yet in this duel, it seemed completely inadequate.
"[Paladin of Photon Dragon]'s effect—I can Tribute itself to Special Summon [Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon] from my Deck!"
Without hesitation, Kaiba Chiha directly had [Paladin of Photon Dragon] replace itself with a second 3000 ATK [Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon].
"I activate the second [Monster Reborn], reviving [Paladin of Photon Dragon] again, and Tribute it to Special Summon the final [Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon] from my Deck!"
Effects without once-per-turn restrictions could be used this arbitrarily.
"Avatars of light, gather and descend!"
Like galactic light infinitely expanding toward the universe's edge.
On Kaiba Chiha's field, three [Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragons] simultaneously erupting with triple dragon roars cracked the duel field beneath their feet with genuine fissures.
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