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"Evolution? It's become a second dragon-family card spirit?!" At the trial plaza, the moment Drake watched Guilmon evolve into Raidramon, he shot to his feet, eyes locked dead upon the light screen and the blue-black-armored Raidramon within it.
"?! Old Drake, is there any real need to get this worked up?" Startled half out of his skin by Drake's sudden lurch, Tobias watched the popcorn in his hands scatter across the floor, and he rounded on the man without an ounce of good humor.
"Not get worked up? You're telling ME not to get worked up?" Spittle flying, Drake jabbed a finger at the Raidramon in the screen. "A single dragon-family card spirit that can, through the form of evolution, become two separate dragon-kinds with different shapes and different abilities. Do you have the faintest idea what that represents?"
"A genius. This is, beyond any shadow of question, a genius!" Naked excitement blazed through Drake's eyes. "Luke's talent for crafting dragon-family cards runs far, far beyond anything imagination allows!"
Raidramon and Growlmon X might each fall a touch short in raw strength, but the thinking behind Luke's design held not a single flaw.
Drake could already see it plainly: if a method like this could be spread across the whole of Dragon's Valley, then the Valley's strength would double outright. Even if it still couldn't rival the three great empires anchored by their Supreme Realm powerhouses, it would shrink the distance between them by another full stride.
This was practically a way of fighting tailor-made for dragon-family card spirits!
"And what of it?" Tobias said, entirely unmoved. "Old Drake, don't go forgetting. Luke is a Card Master of our Ancient Kingdom, not one of your Dragon's Valley clansmen."
"Besides, the cards in Luke's hands that carry the evolution trait are hardly limited to this one dragon-kind, Guilmon. Do you remember the Sistermon Ciel he sent ranging out earlier? That card spirit carries the evolution trait all the same. It is not the exclusive property of your dragon-family spirits!"
Gack!
Drake, riding the full crest of his excitement, choked like a duck seized by the neck, his voice cutting off dead.
A long moment later, Drake heaved a drawn-out sigh. "True enough. Luke is, in the end, no clansman of Dragon's Valley."
Watching that, a swell of smug satisfaction climbed Tobias's face. However great a genius Luke might be, all Dragon's Valley could ever do was look, never eat. And beyond that, Luke was Lilith's student. On that single pass alone, even if their Dragon Lord came calling in person, it would be tossing a meat bun to a dog: whatever was sent would simply never come back!
"Hah! Old Wren, you think I don't know exactly what's turning in that head of yours?" In a place Tobias's eyes couldn't reach, a fine gleam slid through the bottoms of Drake's own. "Luke may indeed be your Ancient Kingdom's Card Master today. But the days to come are another matter entirely. I refuse to believe that Dragon's Valley holds no pull whatsoever for Luke."
Those two are absolutely scheming something again. Exchanging a glance, Selene and Moira each read the same thought in the other's eyes.
Well, let them. It wasn't as though either of them could reach a hand into whatever it was anyway.
---
Packing away the Trial Crystal, Luke swung himself up onto Raidramon's back and gave it a pat. "Let's move."
As for Dark Magician Girl and the other card spirits, Luke had recalled them for the time being into the Eternal Land, and the stronghold positions of the marked examinees still remaining on the Trial Road, he had already obtained in full from Sistermon Ciel.
With a long, keening cry, Raidramon launched into its charge toward the first target under Luke's guidance, and in the space of a blink it had left the original stronghold far behind.
Carrying the special skill Thunder Speed, Raidramon's movement and attack speed had both been doubled outright. It held only Five-Star strength, true, but in pure speed, Raidramon had already overtaken the Six-Star card spirits who made no specialty of it, pressing close upon the heels of certain Seven-Star spirits besides.
This was also precisely why Luke hadn't summoned the black dragon to carry him instead. The difference in speed came to a hair, while the difference in consumption came to a great deal, and even with the Eternal Sun standing by as his reserve of energy, no one could say what manner of enemy might come next. Keeping a card in hand never went amiss.
---
"He's left his stronghold? And on that heading!" Watching Luke's movements through the screen, an odd expression crossed Moira's face. "Don't tell me Luke intends to clear out the others right now, and bring the Trial Road to its end ahead of schedule?"
Another two or three rounds of forced battles would end the Trial Road on their own, but this move of Luke's made it plain he had no intention of waiting out even that much time, which was exactly why he'd chosen to leave his stronghold: to raise his hand against the others here and now, and wrap the entire trial up early.
If it truly was as she guessed, then this Luke had nerve enough to spare.
And it wasn't only Moira. Selene watched with much the same look, murmuring inwardly all the while. Good grief. Has this little junior brother's imagination slipped its leash entirely? I can never quite seem to keep pace with his rhythm.
"The Trial Road's rules never said it couldn't be done this way." Open appreciation sat on Tobias's face, though what filled it more was the anticipation of a good show. "Taking command of the entire battlefield is, in its own right, one more way of participating in the trial."
Off to the side, Drake, however sour he found the cheap grin on this old man's face, nodded along all the same, and in the depths of his heart, the notion of luring Luke away to Dragon's Valley only burned the fiercer.
---
"We're here. Though, this first opponent. Isn't this a bit too much of a coincidence?" Atop Raidramon's back, Luke gazed at the flower-and-grass domain spread before him, the corner of his mouth pulling despite himself. Of all the targets randomly chosen, the very first had turned out to be someone he knew perfectly well.
"The Queen sensed signs of an intrusion into the flower-and-grass domain not long ago, but the intruder withdrew almost the moment she noticed, and I thought it odd at the time. So the intruder back then was your card spirit all along." Elise regarded Luke with a look of pure speechlessness, though her gaze was very quickly pulled down to the Raidramon beneath him. "A new card?"
By its look, yet another dragon-family card spirit. Counting Timaeus and Red-Eyes Black Dragon, this now made the third dragon-family card, and Elise no longer even knew where to begin her complaints. If she hadn't known Luke from early on, she'd genuinely have suspected that he was this cohort's new student out of Dragon's Valley.
"Mm." Luke nodded, though his own gaze had likewise been drawn to the card spirit standing behind Elise, the Lethe Spider Lily. Her presence runs about level with Iris's Polaris Star Whale, which would make her a Seven-Star card spirit as well? Though a touch below Red-Eyes Black Dragon, and below even Violet's Skywing Dragon.
Sensing Luke's gaze upon her, the Lethe Spider Lily lightly lifted one corner of her long skirt and dipped Luke a princess's curtsy, a thread of open curiosity flickering in the depths of her eyes as she studied him.
In the ordinary run of days, she often traded words with the Queen, with the Crystal Orchid, and with the Dragonmaiden Flower, and so she had come to know a thing or two concerning this Luke.
"Am I to understand, then, that your appearing here means you intend to clear everyone out, one after the next?" Drawing back her gaze, Elise wore a decidedly subtle expression. Her own luck, it seemed, could not exactly be called good.