Kira slowly opened his eyes, bewilderedly surveying the unfamiliar surroundings.
A room he had never seen before, yet it gave off a strangely familiar feeling. Sunlight streamed through the window lattices, sprinkling the soft floor with dappled patterns like twinkling stardust. Even the air seemed light and transparent under the warm sun.
His head ached with a dull, hazy pain, while strange images and unfamiliar fragments flashed through his mind. Some instinct deep inside seemed to tell him of the extraordinary situation he was facing—
—He had transmigrated.
Kira looked around the room, and his gaze was quickly drawn to the computer on the desk.
The computer was on, displaying a search engine's homepage, but it wasn't any search engine he had known before.
The search bar had big, clear letters: "Kaiba Search."
What struck him even more was the trending news below the search bar.
["East Capital University Research Team Discovers New Form of 'Summoned Skull', Demon Decks May See Huge Boost!"]
Kira: "?"
Curious, he clicked to take a look. The article said the research team, after days and nights of work, had developed new potential for the famous Fiend monster "Summoned Skull", and had already published a paper in an authoritative international Duel Monsters journal.
The team's spokesperson said they had spoken with Pegasus J. Crawford, CEO of International Illusions Inc., who was already assisting them in developing new cards.
If he still couldn't recognize what world he'd transmigrated into, then all those years spent playing cards had been for nothing.
This was the world of Yu-Gi-Oh—a dimension where everything revolves around dueling, and society's very foundations and rules are built upon the game.
There was an even more outrageous headline under the trending searches:
["International Conflict in the Middle East Eases; Leaders of Two Countries Decide to Negotiate Through a Duel"]
Kira: "..."
Upon reading the title, a vivid image sprang to his mind: on a battlefield shrouded in smoke, two armies faced off, guns and cannons pointed at each other.
At this moment, the generals from both sides step out from their ranks, revealing duel disks and decks strapped to their arms, choosing to resolve their territorial dispute with a tense and exciting game of Yu-Gi-Oh.
That's just too absurd.
But that's exactly how this world operates.
Duel Monsters is the only way to reach the pinnacle of this world, to wield reality-altering, transcendent power.
His mind gradually cleared, and new memories seemed to slowly settle in. Kira quickly figured out his identity in this world.
Fujiki Kira, male, current status: Duel Dojo apprentice?
Though called a "dojo," it's basically a card game training class for the public. Unlike the formal Duel Academies, duel dojos are open to anyone willing to pay the fee.
In the Yu-Gi-Oh world, playing cards is hardly considered a waste of time. On the contrary, if you can master dueling, your future is bright.
Duel Monsters cards have become so intertwined with every industry that even starting a business now requires a corporate dueling agent to handle all business-affairs that must be settled through duels. In Domino City, known as the City of Duels, it's said that under Kaiba Corp's policies, you can't even register residency without submitting your deck list.
But that doesn't mean the road is easy. His predecessor, despite working part-time to pay for his studies and striving to become a true duelist, knew—just like everyone else around him—that his hopes were slim.
Because he sucked.
Being a duelist promises a bright future, but the competition is brutal. Unlike his previous life, dueling here is universally acknowledged as a talent-based career—not everyone has what it takes to become a master.
To put it simply: if you can't even draw the card you want, how can you call yourself a duelist?
Kira thought about it and decided that his predecessor's choice to persist, no matter how tough, wasn't wrong.
In this world, whether you seek the extraordinary or just want to make your mark in the city, Duel Monsters is the top choice.
So, if he was going down this path, his greatest asset would be the years of experience he'd accumulated as a hardcore card player in his previous life.
Thinking this, Kira immediately sat down at the computer to do some research.
First, he needed to figure out what era and setting he'd transmigrated into. There are many Yu-Gi-Oh series, and the later the anime, the closer it gets to the real-life card game environment, which means less advantage for a transmigrator.
A quick search gave him the answer he needed.
This is the classic foundational dimension—the starting point of dreams—the world of Yu-Gi-Oh DM and Yu-Gi-Oh GX.
The current time point should be after DM ends, but before GX begins, or in the early part of the GX story. Now Kira had a rough idea of the current card meta.
Next, let's check out his predecessor's deck.
Are you serious with this deck?
Spreading out the cards, he saw a bloated 60-card deck—no, this thing couldn't even be called a deck; it was just a pile of cards.
First, the monsters were a bunch of vanilla monsters—no effects at all. Card players usually call these normies.
And the whole build was a mishmash, with almost no synergy between any two cards. Whatever six cards you drew as your opening hand, they'd each do their own thing. Kira seriously doubted whether this deck had any fighting power at all.
But after another look, he got a sense of his predecessor's deck-building logic.
It was mostly useless—mainly expensive.
It felt just like those two rich, clueless brothers who showed up in the GX anime. They had money to burn but zero dueling skill, believing that the priciest cards were automatically the best.
So, they spent like crazy, bought a bunch of the rarest, most expensive cards to build a pay-to-win deck, and challenged Manjome. In the end, they got crushed by Manjoue's deck made out of junk cards he picked up from a dried-up well behind the school.
His predecessor made the same mistake as those two rich fools in the anime. Many of the cards in the deck were probably bought with money he earned from backbreaking part-time jobs. Seeing their outrageous market prices, Kira suspected that the reason he transmigrated was because his predecessor worked himself to death.
But looking at these so-called ultra-rare cards that meant nothing to him, he couldn't help but feel sorry for his predecessor.
Many powerful cards are indeed expensive, but expensive doesn't always mean good. In this world, many cards are pricey simply because they're rare—for example, some are made from excavated artifacts, and some are crafted with diamonds and gemstones.
Some are just popular because the monsters look beautiful, but they're in short supply—especially certain well-endowed yet skimpily-clad female spirit types.
So, after flipping through the whole deck, Kira estimated that only a few of the expensive trap cards were somewhat useful.
Looks like he'd have to scrap the starter deck and rebuild it from scratch.
Kira thought for a moment, then used the internet to watch some current pro duelist matches, getting a sense of the current meta and popular strategies.
Sure enough, just like in the anime, duelists of this era mainly pursued raw power, aiming to summon their high-attack signature monsters to dominate the field.
After watching a few match videos, Kira couldn't help but feel nostalgic.
What a pure world.
In short, it seemed like most duelists nowadays shared a common problem—
—It's too sunny.
The world's darkness index is only eight out of ten, with the legendary Duel King, Yugi Muto, holding two all to himself, and the rest of the world owing him their share.
Now that Yugi has retired his cards, all duelists look up to Seto Kaiba, the legend who pursues crushing power, and the meta is filled with sunny optimism.
So Kira decided on his deck-building strategy.
He was going to bring a bit of dark flavor to this sunny card world.