10 -.-.-Chapter 10-.-.-

After finishing my examination duel rather quickly I exited the duel arena by the same elevator that I had entered by and was directed to return to the stands and wait until the rest of the duels were finished.

Soon enough I was back at my seat and slipping my deck back into its deck box and my duel disk back into my bag, all the time feeling multiple eyes boring into me from all directions after my extremely quick duel.

Could I have drawn the duel out some more? Sure I could have. I could have maybe drawn it out a couple more turns, let the proctor try and put up a defense, maybe let him flip the tables on me only to flip things back on him and pull out a win that way, but that wasn't my style. I preferred to do things quick and clean, and that win was about as quick as you could get.

Thinking back to the duel I pondered just how I could have done it better, or how at any time he could have flipped the tables on me. The first that came to mind was any spell negation cards, had he had something like Solemn Judgment, Dark Bribe or any other counter trap that negates spell effects. Had he had something like those on the field at the start then I might have been in trouble.

The next flaw in my combo was the fact that a better deck would have had cards that could be special summoned, or even ways to summon two monsters on the same turn, had he pulled that off then the duel would have gone on longer and I would have had to pull out a few more of my decks combos in order to win.

Thinking about it as long as I did, I understood that the only reason that I won so easily was because I went in hard and fast, by drawing every card I needed right from the start. I knew my deck wasn't the most advanced out there, hell I had only maybe four or five ways to summon my Dark Magician to the field and the highest single attack I could pull off was only thirty two hundred. A good starting base for now but I knew I was going to need to really up my game before the real stuff starts. Even with Ailsa stacking my deck for me, if my deck's best cards didn't have what I needed to get the job done I was screwed either way.

"Upgrades are definitely needed," I muttered as I looked at my deck box

"Don't worry partner," I heard Ailsa say from within my deck, "we've got plenty of time from what you've told me, we'll be ready when the time comes."

I sighed and nodded, I knew she was right, we had time and worrying would do me little good right now. My deck was good enough to get me in the doors of Duel Academy and that was as good as it needed to be right now, improvements, upgrades and totally new decks could wait. I already had several ideas for future decks and a couple of cards that would work with them.

And so relaxing back in my chair I resolved myself to watch as the rest of the entrance exam duels took place, not really seeing the point in doing anything else. While I could have gotten up and gone in search of some familiar faces from the show, I honestly had no interest in doing so.

One because I knew Jaden would arrive at the very end of things, two the only real main cast characters applying this year were Cyrus and Bastion, and to be honest out of the two of them the only one I'd even be interested talking with was Bastion, but I figured since we'd both be in Ra Yellow that I'd have plenty of opportunity to talk with him.

That only left Cyrus, and I had never really liked his early series character, while I knew his personality wasn't entirely his own doing, thanks to his big brother's lackluster treatment, he still rubbed me the wrong way with his lack of any kind of spine.

And so I just watched on as duel after duel took place down on the field, making note of the memorable ones, such as Bastion's Ring of destruction finishing move in his duel which was about the height of things until the very end when Jaden had finally showed up and had his canon face off with Dr Crowler.

'Say what you want about the man, but his Ancient Gear Golem is one big boi' I mused to myself as I watched the summon of the goliath first hand, only to see if come crashing down only two turns later at the hands of Jaden's Elemental Hero Flame WingMan to pull out a perfect win.

Seeing the end of the duel I just smirked, 'Clearly the good Doctor doesn't know the first thing about the elemental hero cards, if he had he'd have tossed that Polymerization from Jaden's hand instead of Monster Reborn, had he done that he could have bought himself time and denied Jaden quick access to his fusion monsters for a time' I mused.

With the final duel over, the staff on hand started to call for us to form a line to go through processing. As I got into line I thought 'Though even if he had, chances are Jaden would have pulled off some kind of Heart of the cards draw out of his ass and still won. It's in both our names after all, the plot armor of those with Yu, in their names in the Yu-Gi-Oh world, hopefully until my deck is up to snuff the same plot armor will apply to me too'

Chapter Word Count: 986