As soon as he clicked "Confirm," Kaien locked his eyes onto the screen.
No matter how many times he had drawn before, the moment always made him nervous.
And it had been a while—his hands felt a little rusty.
The classic draw animation played again.
On the screen, streams of starlight began to converge across a starry sky—ten stars in total.
Soon, each one would fall from the sky, turning into colored streaks, and the color would represent the rank of the card.
The early stars were all low-grade, shooting down like meteors. Kaien didn't pay them any mind.
His focus was on the ninth star.
The ninth star determined the minimum rank of the tenth.
If it was purple, then the tenth star would be at least purple.
While Kaien loved golden-tier characters, purple ones weren't bad either.
Take Ace, for example—sometimes he was more practical than golds, since gold cards cost a lot to use.
But all that only applied when you didn't get a gold. As the saying went, if you can get gold, who'd want purple?
Even the most useless gold could be recycled for far more XP than a purple.
Blue!
Kaien's heart sank as the ninth star turned blue.
Once again, he'd have to put all his hopes on the final card. This was too much excitement for one night.
Whoosh—!!
A golden streak of light shot down from the heavens like a meteor.
"Golden pull!!!"
Kaien shouted in excitement, completely forgetting there were others in the house.
"What's wrong, Kaien? Are we under attack?!"
Natsu, Gray, and Erza all burst into the room.
Kaien felt awkward instantly. "No, no—it's nothing. Just go back to bed."
"You sure?" Lucy gave him a suspicious look.
"Really, it's nothing!" Kaien waved his hands quickly. Seeing there was no threat, the others slowly returned to their rooms.
Kaien turned back to his screen. The cards were flipping over one by one… and then the golden card finally revealed itself.
"It's him!!"
This time, Kaien made sure to lower his voice.
But no amount of self-control could hide the joy in his heart.
On the card was a man with blond hair and blue eyes, a handsome face, clad in a blue outfit with pants, the standard flak vest of a Konoha ninja ranked chunin or higher, and over it—a white cloak with red flame trim, inscribed on the back with five large kanji:
"Fourth Hokage."
That's right!!
Kaien had drawn none other than the most handsome man in the Naruto series, the perfect ninja, the perfect husband—
…just not the perfect father.
The man known as the Yellow Flash—Minato Namikaze, the Fourth Hokage.
"This is huge! Jackpot!!"
Kaien could barely contain his excitement.
Minato was one of his all-time favorite characters from Naruto.
A gentle, radiant, kind man. Handsome and composed. In many ways, he was just like Kaien himself.
And beyond all that, the Fourth Hokage was powerful.
With his Flying Thunder God Technique, he could soar freely through time and space.
As Jiraiya once said of him:
"Compared to the Fourth Hokage, no one else even comes close."
And Minato's performance in the anime proved that statement true.
In terms of raw talent, only Kishimoto's beloved "chosen one" Itachi could stand on equal footing.
As for Hashirama and Madara—those guys were just inhuman.
Right now, Kaien wanted nothing more than to activate and receive Minato's powers, to feel what it was like to move through time and space at will.
But after a moment's thought, he decided to hold back.
Receiving a card wasn't exactly subtle—it would definitely attract attention.
He'd wait until he was alone to try it out.
Meanwhile, even the system felt a little speechless.
What, does this guy have a thing going on with Lady Luck or something?
Otherwise, how could someone keep pulling golds in tenfold draws when the odds were barely 10%?
And not just any golds—super strong ones.
This just defied logic.
Magic Council – ERA Headquarters
Bang!!
"This is outrageous! Absolutely outrageous!!"
Org slammed the newspaper down onto the table, his face furious as he read about Fairy Tail and Phantom Lord's upcoming showdown.
Siegrain chuckled. "What's so outrageous? I actually think it's a great solution.
Settling a dispute through competition avoids casualties and still resolves the conflict. What could be better?"
Org snapped, "Isn't this just a sneaky loophole around the guild conflict ban?!"
Siegrain shrugged. "Then tell me what we should do. This all started because Phantom Lord destroyed Fairy Tail's guild.
If we don't give them a proper resolution, it could lead to something even worse."
Org slammed the table again. "A resolution? What resolution? Fairy Tail's been nothing but trouble for us—they should be the ones answering for their behavior!"
Michello chimed in, "That's right! If you ask me, a guild like Fairy Tail should just be disbanded outright!"
"Hmm… While it's true Fairy Tail causes a lot of headaches, they've also made major contributions.
And in this case, they're the victims. If we forcibly disband them, things might spiral even further."
Makarov's old friend had no choice but to speak up—he couldn't watch his friend get crushed under all this hostility.
"A Fairy Tail bound by rules… or one completely out of control. Which would you rather deal with?"
"Fairy Tail isn't your average guild."
"..."
Everyone suddenly remembered—Fairy Tail had a lot of dangerous talents.
One wrong move, and they could become a serious threat.
Especially Kaien.
The world might not know who he was, but the Council did.
If people like him ever defected to a dark guild, it might pose an even greater threat than the Balam Alliance, the largest dark guild network on the continent.
Just then, Council Chairman Gran Doma spoke up:
"Magical duels are, in essence, a way for mages to improve their abilities.
Fairy Tail may have a motive for revenge, but so far, everything falls within the rules.
As for Phantom Lord… we'll discuss disciplinary action after the match concludes."
Hearing that, Yajima let out a small sigh of relief.
Fairy Tail was always causing trouble.
Of the ten council members, more than half were fed up with them—leaving him worried about his old friend Makarov.
Three days passed in the blink of an eye.