In a deep, ancient chamber, the stone walls all around were cold and damp, as if they could drain every last trace of warmth from a person's body.
The air was thick with a rancid, old dampness, mixed with a faint herbal scent, creating a suffocating sense of oppression.
The floor was paved with thick stone bricks, each one carved with complex runes that flickered faintly in the eerie green light.
The black-robed man at the head of the group slowly approached a stone stele covered in intricate symbols. His robe stirred in an unfelt wind, as if merging with the darkness of the chamber itself.
He began to chant an ancient incantation, his voice low and hoarse, echoing in the sealed room.
"We've already infiltrated the Four Great Dojos, but besides us, the Gravekeeper Clan, the Ghouls, and even those bastards from the Upper District have slipped in as well."
The black-robed leader suddenly spoke, his tone filled with grim resolve.
"We don't have much time left. We must awaken the slumbering power. Only then can our people of Prana ascend to the higher dimension!"
"But the power of the gods is too great. How can mere mortals control it?" one of the black-robed figures asked in a trembling voice.
"Do not worry. I will grant you the power of the Cubics," the leader said slowly. "Before this power, even a god will kneel!"
"Go. Be wary of the Ghouls lurking in the shadows… and that Fujiwara from Lion King Dojo. He was sent from the Upper District. As for that Yusaku, we still don't know who he really is…"
"But he's a threat all the same. Eliminate him first, so he won't hinder our plan…"
…
Satellite District, B27 Underground, Takeuchi Dojo Duel Square.
"Alright, people, we're back with more Yu-Gi-Oh today!"
The one speaking was "Cheese Burst," one of the players selected for the closed beta—by day a popular streamer with a decent following.
Her stream had only just started, but the chat was already flying.
"Hahaha here to watch Cheese-nee get stomped!"
"Came to see Cheese-nee get bloodily beaten by NPCs!"
"I remember Cheese-nee joined Asahi Dojo, right? Why is she wearing a Takeuchi Dojo uniform today? I heard there's a super famous NPC called Yusaku here lately. Cheese-nee, you're not here just for him, are you?"
Seeing the barrage of comments flooding the screen, Cheese Burst laughed.
"Yup, we're not dueling today. I'm here to check out that NPC who's been blowing up on the forums. They say his duel is up next, so we got here just in time."
Because she was distracted by the chat, she accidentally bumped into someone. She was just about to apologize when that person glanced at her, then pulled up the hood over his head and walked away.
"This NPC is so arrogant! Cheese-nee, wait for me, I'm logging in to duel him right now!"
"Don't. You'll get turned into paste."
"Eh? That outfit… isn't that the Ghouls' Rare Card Hunters? What are they doing here, not afraid of getting mobbed?"
"No, seriously, that is a Ghouls getup. I saw a forum post with info on them. They hunt rare cards. If you lose to them and don't have any rares, they get pissed and just take your entire deck!"
"…"
The little incident was just a short interlude. Cheese Burst didn't think too much about it, chatting idly with her viewers as she headed toward the duel stage.
As soon as she reached the edge of the ring, her eyes lit up.
Damn. He really is that handsome.
She'd assumed the clips on the forum were all glam-edited. Turned out they weren't edited at all—he looked exactly the same as in the videos. Not a single trace of beautification.
This NPC called Yusaku looked like he'd been photoshopped into reality; his presence was on a totally different level from everyone around him.
"Streamer, go closer! According to some analysis posts on the forums, this NPC Yusaku is suspected to be a 1.0 main character, possibly spanning multiple versions. If you get close enough, you might trigger a hidden quest!"
Seeing that comment, Cheese Burst's eyes shone, and she hurried forward.
Just as she came up beside Yusaku and opened her mouth to speak, he beat her to it.
"You must be the new kouhai who just joined our dojo, right? As your senpai, I don't have much to give you, but you can have this card."
A reward without even accepting a quest?
Cheese Burst hastily took the card and checked it.
A single [Kuriboh].
She had only started playing after pulling a closed beta slot, and didn't yet know what most cards did.
She froze a bit as she read its effect—
"When your opponent's monster declares an attack that would inflict battle damage to you: You can discard this card; you take no battle damage from that battle."
Then she immediately turned to the chat for help.
"It only has 300 ATK. Is this card even good?"
The barrage exploded.
"WTF, that's a GOD card!"
"Do you not understand Kuriboh's value? Every main character in every series has their own Kuriboh!"
"Don't be fooled by the 300 ATK. With the right support, it can pump out thousands of damage easy!"
Reading the comments, Cheese Burst confirmed that this was a strong card.
Realizing she had just gotten a rare card right at the start, she couldn't help feeling excited. She looked at Yusaku and said, "Thank you, senpai!"
"No need," Yusaku replied with a light smile, waving his hand. "Now that you've joined the dojo, we're family. No need to be so polite. If anything happens, you can come to me."
Watching from a distance, Kazetaro and Kouki both wore confused looks.
Why didn't they get treatment like that?
"New dojo members all get a reward," Kazetaro said, rubbing his chin. "Kouki, should we try it? Maybe we can get something too."
Kouki nodded.
The two of them walked up next to Yusaku. Kazetaro started:
"Senpai."
Hearing that, Yusaku turned his head.
"What is it?"
Kazetaro blanked. This wasn't going like he imagined.
Before he could think of what to say, Kouki spoke up.
"Senpai, I heard that new dojo members all get a reward."
Yusaku made a show of sudden realization.
"Ah, right. I did prepare gifts for you two, but you've been so into dueling lately that I never had the time to give them to you. I was planning to wait until the dojo tournament ended."
"But since you brought it up, I'll give them to you now."
The two of them were instantly moved. So senpai had prepared a reward long ago—he just hadn't had a chance to hand it over.
But when they took the cards and saw the text, they both froze.
Each of them held one card: [Millennium Shield] and [Labyrinth Wall]. Both were Level 5 monsters with 0 ATK and 3000 DEF.
Seeing what they'd received, the other Takeuchi Dojo students let out envious exclamations.
"Whoa! [Labyrinth Wall] and [Millennium Shield] with 3000 DEF! Yusaku-senpai is so good to you guys, giving away such rare cards. It's a pity we joined so long ago. Otherwise I'd want those cards too!"
Kazetaro: "…"
Kouki: "…"
Watching their expressions, Yusaku couldn't help laughing inwardly.
For the sake of his long-term "harvesting players" plan, there was no way he would just give out anything too valuable casually.
He already knew all about this "Cheese Burst" girl from before he got isekai'd. She was very pretty and loved to play sadistic little mini-games on stream.
Because of her looks and the way she frequently "tilted" on camera while playing stressful games, she gradually blew up in popularity. Then, under her viewers' suggestions, she got into Yu-Gi-Oh.
For some reason, all her matchmaking opponents used insanely toxic meta decks—burn stall, lockdown, and cursed netdecked Eldlich brews.
So she tilted over ten times a night. People cut those clips together and uploaded them, and she exploded in popularity. Later, she even became one of the "Top 100" on that little streaming site, with over 100,000 viewers watching her live at any given time.
Yusaku's focus on her wasn't because she was pretty, of course.
He was after her traffic.
And besides… female players meant more Duel Spirits waifu flavor.
After this little "card gifting" event, he was sure that once the open beta dropped, tons of players would come looking for him.
Then he could use those players to farm up huge amounts of Gems, roll for Forbidden Card fragments, and grind out meta decks like Thunder Dragon, Thunder Dragonhawk, Kashtira, Tearlaments, and Spright as soon as possible.
[The Top Ten have been decided. Contestants who have advanced, please come to the stage. The matches will begin shortly!]
The announcement echoed over the square's speakers.
"Finally done, huh."
Yusaku muttered under his breath and headed toward the duel platform.
He had been the first to finish his match, and had spent the last half hour waiting for the others to end.
The next round would decide the Top Four.
As he approached the duel arena, Yusaku frowned slightly and glanced upward.
He wasn't sure if it was his imagination, but the air felt heavier, as if a faint pressure was weighing down on his body. It was uncomfortable.
"Cheese-nee, stop dueling already. Haven't you been stomped enough?"
"You've already lost like five times. Losing five duels in half an hour? I've literally never seen that before!"
"Stop playing around; Yusaku's duel is starting! Cheese-nee, get over here!"
"Yeah, go watch his match! We also want to see if Yusaku is really as broken as the forum says!"
Cheese Burst was the type whose skill was trash but whose presence was huge.
After leaving Yusaku, she'd been challenging other players non-stop. In less than half an hour, she'd already lost five duels.
Originally she was just waiting for Yusaku's match so she could record it and upload the video later to farm subs.
But since the tournament hadn't started yet and she was bored out of her mind, she'd started dueling to kill time.
Now, hearing everyone in chat yelling that Yusaku's match had finally begun—
She immediately shut down her Duel Disk and sprinted toward the arena.
Stepping onto the platform, Yusaku looked at his opponent for this round—another duelist from Asahi Dojo.
The guy wore their signature blue uniform, and even had deep blue hair.
Yusaku unfolded his Duel Disk and was just about to slide his deck into place when the system's voice rang in his mind.
[Ding! Hidden faction detected. Hidden Quest triggered!]
Quest Name: Challenge of Prana.
Quest Objective: Defeat Prana's Divana and prevent him from obtaining the power of the God Cards.
Quest Rewards: Gems x500, Forbidden Card Fragments x5.
Prana, huh?
Yusaku raised an eyebrow.
Wasn't that the name of Blue God's organization from the Yu-Gi-Oh movie?
If Prana existed, then the Gravekeeper Clan and the Ghouls were probably around as well.
Don't tell me this game is just stitching everything together.
And just now, did it mention God Cards?
While he was deep in thought, his opponent finally spoke.
"You're my opponent, then. No need for pointless talk—let's start. Only one of us is walking off this stage today."
"Come on, then."
Yusaku shook off the thoughts swirling in his head and extended his arm, fully opening his Duel Disk. He slid in a deck that glimmered with a pure, silvery technological sheen.
This was the deck he'd just built, using the Blue-Eyes core he'd received from the system as the main engine.
Of course, the pure system reward Blue-Eyes deck was completely unplayable as-is. To make it usable, he had converted every last UR fragment he had.
"Duel!"
"Duel!"
As their voices overlapped, the Duel Disk systems lit up and displayed the coin toss for turn order.
[First Turn: Divana]
Glancing at the prompt, Divana drew his opening hand.
"Then I'll take the first turn. Draw, Main Phase."
He pulled out a card and revealed it.
"First, I activate the Spell Card—[Pot of Greed], to draw two cards from my deck."
A green jar with intricate carvings appeared in front of everyone, its thick red lips splitting into a wide grin as yellowed teeth showed in a perverse smile.
After adding the two cards to his hand, Divana drew out another card and declared:
"Next, I activate the Spell Card—[Reasoning]!"
"This card's effect: you declare a monster Level from 1 to 12. Then I excavate cards from the top of my deck until I reveal a monster that can be Normal Summoned. If its Level is the same as the one you declared, all excavated cards, including that monster, are sent to the Graveyard."
"If the Level is different, that monster is Special Summoned, and the remaining excavated cards are all sent to the Graveyard."
Sliding the card into his Duel Disk, Divana looked up at Yusaku.
"Pick a Level from 1 to 12."
Yusaku thought for a moment, then went with the most standard choice.
"Let's go with four."
(End of Chapter)
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