Jim half-knelt on the ground, raising his head with some effort.
At this moment, the 3D hologram system on the Duel field had just shut down, and the afterimages hadn't completely faded yet. Black smoke slowly rose from the field, and through that smokescreen one could barely make out the upright silhouette of the King. His actual appearance was unclear, leaving only the feeling that he was so distant, yet so towering.
So strong...
That was the instinctive reaction that sprang up in Jim's heart.
Of course, it wasn't just strong.
It was also infuriating...
Jim didn't know if it was a coincidence, but everything the other side pulled out today—Valley of Eternal Rest, Great Cosmos—were all Underworld-tier cards that hammered his weak points to death. Calling this the worst possible opponent for Jim wouldn't be an exaggeration.
But on second thought, Jim figured this was his first time meeting the King today. While he did have some reputation in his own branch school, that only extended to that tiny patch of land, and he was hardly some internationally famous Duelist.
He didn't think his strength was any worse than some of the widely renowned Professional Duelists, but in terms of fame, he felt he shouldn't be qualified yet to draw the attention of top-tier experts on the Duel King's level.
So the notion that "the other side deliberately targeted me" flashed by for a moment and was quickly pushed out of Jim's mind.
This was the supreme King, after all. He was just teaching some student from another school; would he really go so far as to do background checks, dig for information, and then formulate a targeted strategy?
How could the King be that petty?
Coincidence. Definitely a coincidence.
Jim quickly convinced himself.
Great Cosmos, Royal Valley of Eternal Rest—those were already powerful generic suppression cards to begin with. While they were especially outstanding against his Fossil Card Deck, they weren't exactly weak against many other common Card Decks either.
Besides, Jim was the one who initiated the challenge to the King. He knew that even if he came to the Academy's main campus, he might not necessarily get a chance to witness the King's style in person, so he'd specifically scouted out all the places Yugen often visited beforehand and waited a long time to finally ambush this challenge opportunity.
Faced with a sudden challenge like this, how could the other side have had the time to do prior background investigation and prepare counter-tactics?
If this person really had the ability to foresee the future, to calculate every opponent he'd encounter and all their Card Deck tactics and weaknesses, then that would already count as part of his strength. If that were truly the case, Jim felt that even if he was targeted, he'd have no right to complain and would admit defeat wholeheartedly.
It had to be that he'd just had bad luck and walked straight into the muzzle, that was all.
To be fair, Yugen had indeed taken into account that Jim played Fossils and used this opportunity to let his friend from another school experience the cruelty of society, but he really wasn't bored enough to investigate every potential opponent's tricks one by one.
The only reason he targeted Jim was simply because he happened to know Jim played Fossils.
Oh right, and also to test his Card Deck while he was at it.
In fact, the Card Deck Yugen was using now was also a work‑in‑progress and not fully completed. Royal Valley of Eternal Rest and Great Cosmos were both means of sealing off the Graveyard, while the Champion Card Deck "Sword Fighting Beast" he'd only recently obtained was a powerful system that could almost fight without needing the Graveyard at all.
Dimensional Sword Fighting was a common build back in the heyday of Sword Fighting, the idea being to use cards like Dimensional Rift and Great Cosmos to blow away both sides' Graveyards. Then the entire Sword Fighting Beast family's effects revolved around battling, returning to the Card Deck and Special Summoning from the Card Deck—constant Fusions, constant Explosive Cards, and constant back‑and‑forth jumps between the Card Deck and the field. Even without Graveyard resources, they could still maintain both strong offense and sustain.
On top of that, the Sword Fighting system itself had great synergy with a large number of generic traps, and with the Red Pits that disrupted the opponent, it could easily blast the opponent until they couldn't function in daily life and trap them until they questioned their existence.
As for sneaking in a few Emperor Cards, that was purely Yugen testing the upper limit of his Destiny Power.
This was something he'd been trying all along. With the acquisition of many new Elves, constant practice, and the tempering of facing the "momentum" of all kinds of top‑tier masters in Duels, Yugen's Destiny Power was now nothing like when he had first enrolled. Precisely because of this, his builds had grown bolder and bolder.
The Emperor Card Deck had been the champion of the 5th World Championship in 2007, and Sword Fighting Beast just happened to be the champion of the next one, the 6th in 2008.
Yugen had long had a fun thought.
If one day his Destiny Power reached a level like Ousama's, where even a random pile of unrelated series shoved together could run perfectly—and even after shoving in Kaiba's pile, which was also constructed from a bunch of different series, it could still operate...
If he had that level of Destiny Power, couldn't he cram multiple World Champion Card Decks from different years together and play a "Champion Mix" build?
Draw a blind box of past champion Card Decks, and whichever system he pulled, that's what he'd play. The more he thought about it, the more interesting it sounded...
But that was something for later.
Daring builds were also a way to explore his own limits. And the more he brushed against that limit, the more he could remind himself that the road ahead was still long and there was still a lot of room to grow.
"I lost."
Jim didn't get discouraged; he only sighed regretfully.
"There's always someone better—that really is true. I thought that with the King as my opponent, even if I couldn't win, at least I'd have the capital to put up a fight. But now..."
He shook his head with a wry smile.
This was probably the most miserable Duel he'd ever played in his life.
He even had this weird illusion that he wasn't sure whether what he'd just done counted as playing a Duel at all...
He basically couldn't play a single card that mattered.
But Yugen just smiled. "I can tell your strength is quite good."
"Are you comforting me or mocking me?" Jim said helplessly.
Of course he'd think that. He felt that in this Duel he'd barely had any room to show what he could do at all; he'd been toyed with by the invincible King's Valley and Great Cosmos...
No, judging from the terrifying burst power his "Sword Fighting Beast" showed when Mr. Yugen got just a bit more serious in the final turn, Jim suspected that even without those Underworld‑tier locks, he might not have been a match anyway.
Yugen shook his head.
"I'm serious. Speaking of which... you actually didn't go all out either, did you?"
As Yugen spoke, he glanced at Jim's sealed eye.
Jim touched his eye, stunned for a moment.
Then he shook his head with a smile.
"That, huh. When I was a kid, the person who gave it to me said this was a power that would only awaken someday when I fought for important friends. I'm actually not even sure how to use it..."
Yugen nodded.
He wasn't only interested in Jim's Card Deck; this eye also intrigued him. This was a Divine Artifact that could instantly grant an ordinary person "momentum" on par with the Overlord. Although it ultimately still lost to the Overlord, it didn't seem to be low‑tier by any means.
It definitely had research value.
The Fossil Card Deck went without saying.
With that in mind, Yugen smiled mysteriously, reached out, and clapped Jim on the shoulder.
"Have you ever considered transferring to the Academy's main campus and joining our lab?"
Jim froze.
"Huh?"