A dim secret chamber.
Right now, a mysterious figure holding a golden staff and wrapped in a black robe was gently stroking a stone stele covered in complex runes standing before him.
"Any news about the fragments of the Millennium Puzzle?"
A low voice echoed through the chamber.
As his words fell, another shadowy figure in a cloak appeared, dropping to one knee.
"Reporting, my lord, we've already found three fragments. As for the others, there are currently no leads."
"A bunch of useless trash. After all this time you've only found three?"
The kneeling man hurriedly prostrated himself, trembling.
"We'll find the remaining fragments very soon. We've discovered that the fragments can attract each other. As long as we carry one, we can sense anyone else who has a fragment on them, and the range is extremely wide!"
"I'll give you a little more time. Now get out."
Hearing this, the prostrating man scrambled to his feet and retreated.
As he left, the gloomy chamber fell back into silence.
The golden-staffed man continued to caress the stone slab in front of him.
"Damn Pharaoh… even after returning to the underworld you still left behind something like this. Soon… it won't be long before the fragments are assembled again. The three Egyptian God Cards will once more appear in this world…"
…
Old District commercial street, inside a 24-hour card shop.
"Tch, another vanilla monster. Forget it, I'm done opening…"
Putting down the booster pack in his hand, Yusaku called up his system panel. He remembered that after his last Duel, the system had notified him that he'd leveled up.
Name: Yusaku
Class: ?
Level: 7
Charm: 95
Luck: 21
Stamina: 52
Quest: [Fame Across Satellite]
Forbidden Card Shards: 0
Crystals: 3300
After so many Duels, his level had finally reached 7.
His Stamina had gone from 45 to 52, Charm was still 95, and as for Luck, it was the same as always at 27.
"Only 3300 Crystals, huh?"
Looking at the Crystals on the panel, Yusaku couldn't help sighing.
Of these 3300 Crystals, 600 came from two quest rewards, 600 were earned, and the remaining 2100 were from level-up rewards.
"With 3300 Crystals I can pull 33 packs in total… whatever, I'll just spend them."
Thinking this, Yusaku opened the shop interface.
Originally he'd wanted to save up his Crystals and pull once he had more. After all, given his luck, it was totally possible to go through dozens of packs and still get nothing.
But leaving them there was leaving them there. It was only 33 packs anyway. He might as well pull them all and see how his luck was today.
[Draw!]
As Yusaku pressed the button, his Crystals dropped by 1000, and ten booster packs appeared in his field of view—but not a single one was glowing, which meant there were no SR cards.
He opened them all and sure enough there weren't any UR cards either. Out of the 50 cards, most were R, a small portion were SR.
The system text popped up right on cue.
[Because the ten booster packs you have just drawn contained no UR-rarity cards, your next draw is guaranteed to include at least one UR-rarity card.]
Looking at the prompt before his eyes, Yusaku's eyelid twitched slightly. He knew his luck was bad, but he hadn't expected it to be this bad.
Refusing to accept it, he spent all his remaining Crystals. This time, he finally saw golden light.
As the packs were opened, golden radiance flooded his vision and all the cards revealed themselves.
Looking over the cards floating before his eyes, Yusaku raised an eyebrow and thought to himself:
"I knew it. With 21 points of Luck I'm not that cursed."
From these final 21 packs, he pulled 11 UR-rarity cards. Among those 11 were Nibiru, the Primal Being, Infinite Impermanence, and Predaplant Verte Anaconda.
These three cards could be slotted into the Decks he was currently using. Whether it was Dark Magician or Branded, they could all run them.
However, even these three weren't what surprised him the most. The most unexpected was the last UR card—
a monster that could Special Summon itself from the hand, had search power, could even banish the opponent's cards, and didn't come with any self-restriction at all. (You veterans can probably guess which card this is.)
The rest of the URs were some old cards—like Blue-Eyes White Dragon. It was a vanilla, but it was still UR rarity.
He dismantled all of those. After all, three UR cards' worth of shards could be fused into any UR card he wanted, as long as it wasn't on the Forbidden list.
"You're Yusaku?"
A voice drifted in from outside.
Yusaku turned his head. When he saw the uniform on the newcomer, his eyes lit up slightly.
Looked like this time he wouldn't have to go looking for the opponent for his quest—the uniform alone screamed Red Sun Dojo.
Right now, a blond boy wearing a red-and-blue uniform, with sunglasses on his face and a red headscarf wrapped around his head, walked in.
"You're Yusaku, right?" The guy took off his sunglasses. "You beat our Dojo and took a whole Deck plus an extra card."
"So?" Yusaku gave him a once-over. "You here to save face or something?"
The guy unfolded his Duel Disk and looked at Yusaku.
"Same rules as always. If you win, you give back our Dojo's cards. If you lose… the cards in my hand are yours to choose from. You're not going to turn that down, are you?"
"'Choose any card I want', huh?" Yusaku smiled faintly. "Even if I can pick freely, at most I'll get a few cards out of you. Trying to use a few cards to trade for a whole Deck from me is a bit impossible, don't you think?"
"If you beat me, you can have the whole Deck."
He shook the Duel Bracelet on his wrist.
"I've already knocked out five people. One of them was even from your Dojo. If you win, all my points go to you. My points plus yours will definitely be enough to place in the top twenty. You got the guts to come or not?"
Hearing that, Yusaku rose from his chair.
"Let's go. This isn't a good place to Duel. We'll take it outside."
Soon, the two of them walked outside and put some distance between each other.
The pack-openers inside the card shop, along with nearby tournament participants, seeing that a Duel was about to happen—
and that one of the Duelists was Yusaku, who had already won two Duels and was currently the center of attention—
immediately dropped what they were doing and rushed over.
"Careful, senpai. His Deck's pretty nasty—it can combo on the opponent's turn."
One of the guy's companions called out behind him.
Hearing that, the blond Duelist smiled confidently.
"It's fine. I already looked into his Deck before I came. Don't worry."
Once they were far enough apart, the two of them didn't waste words. They raised their arms and activated their Duel Disks at the same time.
"Duel!" "Duel!"
[Yusaku, LP: 8000]
[Kazuki, LP: 8000]
Kazuki took out a coin and looked at Yusaku.
"Are you flipping, or am I?"
"You flip it." Yusaku said flatly.
He had a clear understanding of his own luck. He always ended up going second anyway, so it didn't matter who flipped.
"Heads, I go first. Tails, you go first!"
Kazuki tossed the coin into the air.
With a clear ding as it hit the ground, the result was revealed.
Seeing the coin on the floor, Yusaku was a bit surprised. It was tails—meaning he would be going first.
"In that case, I'll gladly take first turn."
(End of Chapter)
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