One week later, in the Domino City, a duel gym.
"My turn!"
Yuei Vu drew a card from the deck, then swept his arm.
"I will tribute Elemental HERO Sparkman and Elemental HERO Clayman… Come out! Elemental HERO Bladedge!"
A warrior dressed in pure gold alloy appeared from the three-dimensional projected card. He had green eyes, and his body was structured like steel muscle tissue, reflecting a unique metallic luster under the lighting of the stadium.
[Elemental HERO Bladedge, ATK 2600]
The passerby duelist A in front of Yuei Vu: "What… what!? It's actually a monster with 2600 attack power?"
The passerby duelist B, C, D who were watching: "A card with a higher attack power than the legendary rare card, the Red-Eyes Black Dragon and the Dark Magician!"
Yuei Vu: "…"
The standard for judging the strength of cards by the duelists in this world was also very interesting. In the eyes of players, the most important monster effects were basically dispensable. But in local NPCs' eyes, not only were monster effects useless, but even S/T cards were not very popular.
Basically, what they valued was the monster's attack power.
And to be honest, the card pool in the era of Yu-Gi-Oh! DM was really not that deep. Blue-Eyes White Dragon, a Normal monster with an attack power of 3000, was already a monster that many duelists could not reach.
However, from the player's point of view, all the Normies were just drizzling. Known as "the highest attack power of dueling monsters", the Five-Headed Dragon with 5000 ATK, in the eyes of players, was just "trash monster that can't even be regarded as walls".
Of course, Yuei Vu, who was still in a serious shortage of cards, was not qualified to say that for the time being…
However, it was not difficult to defeat these nameless passerby NPCs.
"Battle!" Yuei Vu entered the battle stage directly, "Elemental HERO Bladedge, attack Marauding Captian!"
[Marauding Captain, ATK 1200]
The back of the golden metal hero shot out the engine flames, turning into a golden afterimage and swooping in front of the warrior holding the long sword.
Marauding Captain line gritted his teeth and raised his sword to try to defend, but his strength was almost negligible in front of the superior monster, the Bladedge.
The Bladedge easily cut the silver-white sword in the captain's hand into two pieces. The latter groaned miserably and died on the spot.
Passerby duelist A: "Uhhhhh!!!"
[Passerby duelist A, LP 1400 → LP 0]
The surrounding crowd began to burst into cheers.
"Elemental HEROes… a deck I've never heard of before, so strong!"
"What's the origin of this rookie duelist?"
"In this way, he has already killed twenty people in one streak, right?"
"It's too strong, it should be professional level…"
Yes, this week, Yuei Vu spent all his free time outside of work in this dueling gym, dueling with all kinds of duelists in the gym.
As we all know, Domino was basically a duel-based city in Yu-Gi-Oh. Thanks to the vigorous promotion of President Kaiba, half of the people in the city have become "dueling brain".
Because of this, a large number of dueling gyms have been built in this city. Duelists could go to any gym to play cards and duels with duelists in the same city. Sometimes there would be some small competitions held privately in the gym, and if you won, you could earn a little extra money.
But that was secondary to Yuei Vu.
He came here to play cards every day, regardless of rain or sunny, mainly to improve his experience quickly, so as to earn more crystals to exchange for the desired card in the system card pool…
The early level was the easiest to upgrade.
Although compared to the crystal that could be obtained per level in the later stage, it was also pitiful, but at least it is fast.
These days, Yuei Vu has already won a 20-game winning streak… The reason why he has only 20-game winning streak was because he has to work every day and he didn't have much leisure time, and second, because his number of consecutive duels was also limited by his Stamina.
Brushing NPCs in the dueling hall is one of the most common upgrade methods for players in the early days. Because the monsters in the local duelists' decks are basically all Normies, and the magic trap also likes to add a bunch of things that look handsome but have unclear actual meaning, most of which are completely useless card piles.
For players, even with a non-high-level pure entertainment deck, they could easily beat these NPCs.
So after playing for such a week, although Yuei Vu image in the eyes of passers-by has grown to the point where he is close to the God of War, he didn't have much sense of accomplishment.
What was the sense of achievement in bullying simple computer functions?
...Well, maybe, except for President Kaiba.
Judging from the Yu-Gi-Oh! DM animation, Mr. Seto Kaiba, because he can never beat the Dark Yugi, was fond of developing artificial intelligence that imitated the Yami Yugi to accompany him to play cards, so he won the title of "King of Dueling Bot". ...
Yuei Vu played this week's cards, and all the crystals he saved were thrown into the system card pool. However, most of the cards that were drawn out of the pack were either inexplicable cards, or they looked awesome, but they couldn't be. Throw in actual combat.
Only this Elemental HERO with an attack power of 2600, Bladedge, was barely considered a beatstick in this era (the era when even Bladedge was considered a monster seemed really simple now), and other cards were basically only lying in the library at this stage to eat ashes.
After this duel was over, today's stamina was almost exhausted.
Yuei Vu put away the Duel Disk, left the gym, and started to return to his current dormitory.
It was getting dark by now, and it was chilly on the street outside. Pedestrians roamed the streets in twos and threes, vehicles hurried across the road, and the taillights left a striking light path in the air.
When Yuei Vu returned to the door of the store, the maid was standing at the door of the store, trying to put up a poster on tiptoe.
But she's… a little too small, and it looked like she won't be able to stick it on without the assistance of a stool.
Yuei Vu walked behind her: "I'll come."
Only then did Itou Chika notice him, her cheeks blushed slightly, and she backed away with a hum.
[Favorability +2]
Yuei Vu was already numb to this.
Yuei Vu took the poster and helped her put it squarely on the door, then took two steps back and looked at the effect.
It was a promotional poster for a newly released card. The poster features a slew of newly-arrived cards, with a Dark Magician in a black robe in the background.
Yuei Vu was a little strange: "Is there a Dark Magician in the new card pack?"
He remembered that cards like Dark Magician should be the top rare cards not only among players but also among the native residents of this world.
"Of course not," Chika said lightly.
"So the picture of this poster…"
"Then when you eat instant noodles, are there really beef and vegetables in the noodle bucket that are printed on the pact?"
Yuei Vu: "…"
""
Shit, it makes sense, now I'm speechless.