Chapter 128: You've Had a Scientific Breakthrough in Your Calligraphy Practice?
Chapter 128: You've Had a Scientific Breakthrough in Your Calligraphy Practice?
"You Xuan certainly seems calm and collected," remarked Professor Da De Temple as he sat in his alchemy lab, cradling his feline companion, Pharaoh Wang, while casually stroking the chubby cat's fur.
Since joining the Duel Academy, Professor Da De Temple had been coasting by, doing the bare minimum. The lab, which was supposed to be his research facility provided by the academy, had been gathering dust over the years, left largely untouched.
After all, Professor Da De Temple's persona within the academy was that of a slacker who was just going through the motions, and this image had to be maintained, both in front of the students and the academy itself. Thus, no one had ever seen him engage in serious scientific endeavors, and this lab had essentially been left to deteriorate.
Until now.
The first time You Xuan pushed open the door, he was greeted by a musty odor. The floor was covered in dust, and sunlight seeped through the gaps in the windows, creating beams of light that illuminated the countless dust particles floating in the air.
You Xuan spent some time cleaning the lab, and from then on, it became his primary workspace.
"Hmm?" You Xuan, who had been focused on his work at the experiment table, lifted his head briefly.
"It's about the team duel," Professor Da De Temple said, tilting his head while continuing to stroke the cat. "You don't seem nervous at all."
"Oh, that," You Xuan replied, keeping his head down as he continued his work. "There's nothing to be nervous about."
"And the Tenth seems pretty relaxed, too," You Xuan added casually. "I invited him over yesterday to help me research deck strategies for the team duel, but he turned me down, saying something about his dad, Hayato, visiting. Anyway, he had other plans."
You Xuan then recalled the incident that Tenth had mentioned. It seemed that Tenth's roommate, Koala, had a father who thought his son was wasting his time at the academy and wanted him to drop out and return home.
Afterward, Hayato had dueled his father, and although he lost, he managed to change his father's mind, convincing him to let him stay at the academy.
Hayato's father had used some sort of drunkard deck, a theme that had not yet been physically released and whose significance remained unclear.
According to Professor Da De Temple, Hayato's father was allegedly an inheritor of the "Samo Dimensional Flow" style and was said to be a world-renowned duelist. This style was rumored to be a one-hit-kill dueling technique derived from renowned sword techniques, possessing the formidable ability to instantly defeat opponents.
However, based on the duel depicted in the anime, the performance of Hayato's father's deck seemed underwhelming. You Xuan found this puzzling, as the skills demonstrated by a supposed world-renowned duelist did not seem to match their reputation. But then again, he thought, it might be too early to pass judgment.
After all, in the anime, Hayato's father had only summoned two monsters, and the viewers had no knowledge of the rest of his deck. Perhaps he had intentionally gone easy on his son.
Over the years, K Corporation had proven time and again that with a few overpowered releases, even the most outdated and lackluster decks could be catapulted to the top tiers of competitive play across multiple generations.
One should never underestimate the prowess of a world-renowned, top-tier duelist.
"Haha, the Tenth is a special case," Professor Da De Temple chuckled. "That kid has innate talent, and there are few things that can ruffle his feathers.
But I've heard rumors that your opponents in the team duel might be no pushovers. Have you prepared any countermeasures?"
"Well, sort of," You Xuan smiled.
He had a bold idea in mind. If all went well, and with a bit of help from the Tenth's legendary luck in drawing cards, he should be able to bring double the trouble to the Labyrinth Brothers.
"But let's put that aside for now; I'm done here," You Xuan said as he stood up and handed a card to Professor Da De Temple.
"Please give me your guidance, teacher."
Professor Da De Temple took the card and adjusted his glasses. "Let's see."
You Xuan was relatively new to the card crafting classes, but he had already displayed exceptional talent and benefited from Professor Da De Temple's extra tutoring. However, his skill level was currently limited to "replication."
This meant that he was attempting to replicate relatively easier-to-copy low-rarity cards, and only once he mastered this technique would he move on to more advanced card crafting.
Professor Da De Temple examined the card You Xuan had given him. "So, this time, you tried your hand at replicating 'Bicycle.' I heard you genuinely like this card. Not bad, not bad at all! You've managed to replicate it so quickly. Hmm?"
Professor Da De Temple's squinty eyes almost failed to reopen, and his glasses nearly slid off his nose.
You Xuan merely smiled in response.
He had successfully proven one of his earlier speculations to be correct.
Many longtime viewers of the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime knew that it was not uncommon for cards to have conflicting effects when they appeared in different contexts. A notable example was the famous monster, [Cyber-Jar], whose effect in the GX anime differed from its appearance in the DM anime.
In the DM anime, Cyber-Jar's effect was "As long as this card remains face-up on the field, negate the effects of all Trap Cards and destroy all face-up Trap Cards on the field."
However, in the GX era, Cyber-Jar's effect changed to match the real card's effect, which was "Negate the effects of all Trap Cards and prevent their activation," without destroying all face-down cards on the field, as seen in the DM anime.
Another example was "Future Fusion," which had a different effect when used by Kaiser than when it appeared later in the hands of Mr. T, one of Darkness's henchmen.
There were countless similar examples.
In the past, as a mere viewer, You Xuan would have simply laughed off the numerous inconsistencies and bugs in the anime. But now that he was in this real Yu-Gi-Oh! world, he couldn't just accept such discrepancies. Especially after learning about the principles of card design, a new idea had emerged in his mind.
As mentioned before, the effects of cards in this world were not arbitrarily chosen by their designers but were manifestations of the cards' inherent power.
So, was it possible that when designing the same card, one designer had only unlocked a portion of its ability, while another designer had managed to tap into its greater potential? If so, wouldn't the same card designed by two different designers naturally exhibit varying levels of effect strength?
Or perhaps some cards inherently possessed more potential than what had been discovered so far. Could there be room for improvement and progression when recreating and resetting such cards?
Over the past while, as he had been learning card printing from Da De Temple, You Xuan had also been secretly researching this very topic.
And it seemed his hypothesis was correct.
For instance, after relentless experimentation, he found that the relatively simple-to-modify [Double-Cycle Robot]—a card that wasn't particularly strong—had hidden potential beyond what was commonly known. By removing the restriction of reducing its attack power by 500 points, he had effectively unleashed its full potential without drastically altering it.
But this was enough to validate his theory.
The weaker anime cards, as compared to their real-life counterparts, did indeed have room for further development.
"This is truly astonishing," Professor Da De Temple said, adjusting his glasses and looking at You Xuan with a newfound respect in his squinted eyes.
The reduction of 500 attack points on the Double-Cycle Robot card didn't make a huge difference, but it was still a scientific breakthrough. And for someone to achieve such a feat at the beginning of their card-making studies was indeed a rare occurrence, even for someone as experienced as Da De Temple.
Was this what they called genius—so utterly unreasonable?
"Perhaps you truly have a talent for alchemy," the professor said.
"You're too kind, Professor," You Xuan replied with a smile. "I merely followed your teachings and approached the cards with sincerity."
However, a large part of his success was due to his knowledge of the right direction to take. As for others, forget about enhancement; they wouldn't even know where to begin with the myriad of cards in existence, let alone which ones held hidden potential.
"By the way, Professor, I've also tried crafting some other cards," You Xuan said as he quietly took out a few more cards.
"I also have two more here that are a little different from the usual," You Xuan added.
Professor Da De Temple was speechless. He was usually unfazed by anything, but this had truly taken him by surprise.
After a long pause, he finally spoke. "Student You Xuan."
"Yes, Professor?"
"Have you ever considered becoming a professor yourself?"
"?"
(End of Chapter)
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