Moreover, his Ojama core had already been purchased earlier from the Academy Department. The cards he selected here were only scattered support pieces, which made his plan even harder to guess.
Still, she knew this junior often came up with unusual strategies, so she did not try to stop him.
When she packed the cards into a box and handed them over, she could not help asking, "Junior, are these for some new tactic?"
"You have good instincts," Yugen said with a grin as he took the box.
"Can you tell me what it is?"
She could not hide her curiosity.
Yugen looked at her for a moment. "Want to know?"
"Yes." She nodded quickly.
"Then be sure to watch next week's team Duel."
He put away the card box and smiled.
"You will understand when you see it."
With a casual wave, he left.
The senior host stamped her foot in frustration, her shoulders shaking.
He refused to say and even teased her with suspense.
Now she was even more curious.
But next week's team Duel.
She suddenly had a feeling.
Some unlucky pair was about to suffer badly.
"Yugen sure looks calm."
Daidouji-sensei sat in his alchemy lab chair, holding his cat named Pharaoh Atem and lazily stroking its round body.
Since entering Duel Academy, Daidouji had mostly kept a low profile. The laboratory was listed as research support provided by Duel Academy, but in truth it had been unused for years. He had always maintained the image of someone drifting through his days, both in front of students and the academy, so no one had ever seen him take research seriously.
That changed only recently.
When Yugen first pushed open the door, a musty smell rushed out to meet him. Dust covered the floor, and sunlight slipped through gaps in the windows, forming beams filled with floating particles.
He spent some time cleaning the place thoroughly. From then on, the lab had essentially become his workspace.
"What?" Yugen looked up from the workbench where he was focused on his task.
"The team Duel," Daidouji said, tilting his head while continuing to pet the cat. "You don't seem nervous at all."
"Oh, that. There's nothing to be nervous about."
Yugen lowered his head and kept working.
"Besides, doesn't Judai Yuki look pretty calm too?" he added casually. "I invited him yesterday to help research a Deck for the team battle, but he turned me down. Said something about Hayato Maeda's dad coming to visit. Anyway, he had something to deal with."
When Judai Yuki mentioned it, Yugen remembered the plot. Their dorm's Koala guy had a father who thought his son was wasting time at Duel Academy and wanted him to withdraw.
In the end, Hayato Maeda dueled his father. He lost, but still managed to convince him to let him stay at Duel Academy.
Hayato Maeda's father used something called the Drunkard Deck, a strange LV Series that had never received real world prints.
According to Daidouji-sensei, he was also the inheritor of the Satsuma Dimensional Style, a world famous Duelist. It was said to be a one strike style derived from swordsmanship, capable of ending a Duel instantly.
But judging from that animated Duel, the performance of his Deck looked underwhelming.
It was a bit strange. A world famous Duelist should not have shown that level of strength, yet it was hard to make a firm conclusion.
After all, in the animation he only summoned two monsters. No one knew what else remained in his Deck. Perhaps he held back on purpose since he was dueling his son.
Over the years, Kaiba Corp had proven more than once that if they wanted to, even the oldest and weakest Deck could leap several generations in strength with just a few powerful new cards.
It was unwise to underestimate a top Duelist with global fame.
"Haha, Judai Yuki is different," Daidouji said with a smile. "That child has a natural gift. Very few things make him nervous.
"But there are rumors that your opponents in the team Duel might not be simple. Do you have a plan?"
"More or less." Yugen smiled.
He already had a bold idea. If things went smoothly and he borrowed a bit of Judai Yuki's topdeck luck, he could probably bring double the joy to Meikyu Brothers.
"Anyway, I've finished here."
Yugen stood up and handed a card to Daidouji.
"Please give me your guidance, Sensei."
Daidouji adjusted his glasses and took the card. "Let's see."
Yugen had not been studying card creation for long. Although he showed unusual talent and received private guidance from Daidouji, his skill was still at the replication stage.
At this point, he was only attempting to copy relatively low rarity Card. More advanced design would come after mastering the basics.
Daidouji glanced at the card. "This time you tried copying a bike? I heard you really like this one. Not bad. You managed to replicate it so quickly. Hmm?"
His usually narrowed eyes widened slightly, and his glasses almost slid down his nose.
He had clearly seen the effect of the Twin Bike Mech.
"This card can attack directly."
Wait. Wasn't it supposed to lose five hundred ATK?
He looked up at Yugen in surprise, suddenly realizing something.
I told you to practice copying. Did you just achieve a research breakthrough instead?
Yugen simply smiled.
He had confirmed a hypothesis he had long held.
Many fans of Yu-Gi-Oh! knew that in the animation, the same card often showed contradictory effects in different scenes.
A classic GX example was Jinzo. In DM, its effect was that while it was on the field, all face down and face up Trap Card were Destroy, and the activation and effects of Trap Card were negated.
In GX, however, when Jinzo appeared again, its effect matched the real card version. Trap Card could not be activated and their effects were negated, but it did not automatically Destroy all set cards like in DM.
There were many other examples.
Back when he was only a viewer, such inconsistencies were just minor entertainment. Now that he was living in this real Yu-Gi-Oh! world, that explanation was no longer enough. Especially after studying the principles of card creation, a new thought had formed.
As he had learned, a card's effect was not something written freely by the designer. It was a manifestation of the card's inherent power.
What if, when designing the same card, one designer only awakened part of its ability, while another designer unlocked more of its potential? Wouldn't the resulting versions naturally differ in strength?
Or perhaps some cards possessed hidden potential that had never been fully explored. During replication or redesign, could there be room for improvement?
While learning from Daidouji, he had been researching this idea.
The results suggested he was right.
For example, after persistent experiments, he found that Twin Bike Mech was relatively easy to modify. It was not a particularly strong card to begin with. All he had done was remove the restriction that reduced five hundred ATK. It was not a huge enhancement, so development was manageable.
But it proved his theory.
Some animation cards that were weaker than the versions in his memory had room for further development.
"Remarkable," Daidouji-sensei said quietly, adjusting his glasses again. When he looked at Yugen this time, there was a faint light in his narrowed eyes.
Removing five hundred ATK from a bike was not a massive change. But it was still a research breakthrough. Achieving that at the beginner stage of card creation was something even Daidouji had rarely seen.