70 CH 2: Exam

"Whoa, second? I just barely passed." Jaden grew amazed :"Wait, so if he's second, who's the first?" Syrus took on a thoughtful expression :"I think his name was... Ali... Alex... Alistair! Right, I remember. His name is Alistair Ashblossom."

"..." After a moment of silence, and Jaden staring at Alistair, he smirked teasingly, jabbing at him jokingly :"Damn, Al, didn't expect you to be a whiz-kid." Causing the noiret to chuckle :"It seriously wasn't much. You're exaggerating it."

He hadn't actually written the exam, nor could he remember writing it. But considering this era's cards, how could anything difficult come up in an exam for duels and cards? Jaden gave him the stink eye :"My written exam score says otherwise, pal. I just barely passed!"

"Yeah, me too." Syrus agreed, although shocked by Alistair's appearance, he didn't overreact. In fact, he looked tired and dejected :"My name is Syrus by the way. Nice to meet ya. I kinda have a thing where I get test anxiety. I don't know how I won my match..."

"So you're in!" Jaden slapped his back, smiling widely :"Congratulations! We'll be in too as soon as we win our duels!" Syrus was confused :"Wait, you two haven't dueled yet?" But Jaden was still happy :"Nah. What about you, Al?"

Alistair, raising an eyebrow :"What do you think, genius? Would I be in such a hurry to come here if I had?"

Jaden, smiling sheepishly :"Oh, yeah, you're right..."

Syrus :"Then you might have a problem! I think this was supposed to be the last one!"

Jaden :"Huh?! What do we gotta do now?!"

Alistair :"Don't worry, I'm sure it'll be alright."

Syrus :"You're really optimistic."

Alistair :"I guess. I mean, I'm sure they could spare a few minutes even if we were a bit late."

They noticed Bastion walking towards them, before taking a seat in front of them. "Tight duel, Bastion." Jaden said. The stoic boy looked back for a moment before replying :"Thank you."

Jaden :"From the looks of it, you might just be the third best duelist here!"

Bastion/Syrus :"Huh?"

Just as they were about to question him, an announcement was heard :"Jaden Yuki, please report to exam field 4." He immediately grew excited :"Go time! Wish me luck, guys!" But Bastion stopped him :"Hey, wait. If I'm the third best, who is the 1st and and the 2nd?"

"Heh, who else? Yours truly and his body here!" He pointed at himself and at Alistair :"It's what I'm best at! And Al here, like, seriously, does this guy look like he'd be a weak duelist? Anyway, I'm off to win my match!"

As he walked away, Syrus grew amazed :"Wow, he's so sure of himself. I wonder if he's really that good." Bastion wasn't sharing his feelings though. Taking Jaden's confidence as his arrogance. Especially when he saw his opponent :"He's going to need to be. Look who he's dueling." And where his opponent was supposed to be, stood Dr Vellian Crowler. The person who confused everybody with what his gender was with all the make-up on.

The duel began like the original, and went like the original. But while the duel was happening, Alistair's attention was somewhere else. His Master Duel System. He had already checked the deck and shop section, but didn't have time to see everything.

Clicking on the Storage, he checked if he had what he needed the most right now. A duel disk. All he physically had on him was his deck, nothing else. So the only place he could check was his Storage. And sure enough, when he clicked it telepathically, a new system tab with boxes appeared. All of them empty except a single one, where a bracelet and a ring was stored. Sighing in relief, he chose it, and a description and pictures of it appeared. It had an interesting design and color theme.

The design was like the scales of a dragon, with the edges protruding in a curved manner. It was also in layers, as if it could fold. Considering how it was a duel disk that was normally in the shape of a bracelet, it made sense. Mainly, it was blue and silver, looking like a duel disk carved out of ice, with crimson engravings on it. But on the edges and the protruding parts, it was a deep purple, with wisps of golden lines going around it. (Image:)

It certainly was interesting. When it wasn't unfolded into a duel disk, it was normally a bracelet, sharing the same color of the duel disk, and with a ring of the same color that was magically connected to the bracelet and could remotely awaken.

Smirking, he didn't waste a moment before equipping it. Immediately, he felt a tightness around his left wrist, under his sleeve, and the pinky finger of his left hand. Rolling up his sleeve, he took a good look at them, smirking at how beautiful they were :'Looks good.'

With the issue solved, he decided to check his system carefully. 'I can't buy structure decks with my level, but what about crafting cards separately? After all, Master Duel was mainly used that way. So if this is a Master Duel System, then that must be how it works, right?'

Exiting the Storage, he clicked the plus button he was all too used to. Choosing the "Create New" option, he was met with the good old deck building section. On the side, he could see the cards in his Darklord Despia Deck. There weren't any other cards, but seeing the option to include cards he didn't own in the upper right corner, he bumped his fist quietly :"Yes!"

When he clicked it, numerous cards appeared, and no matter how much he scrolled down, it was like the cards wouldn't end. They weren't just the cards of this old era though. All the cards of his era were also there. Be it the Branded, Shaddoll, Snake-Eye cards, and everything else, they were all there.

He covered his mouth with his hand, hiding the excited smile. He couldn't wait to get them all. The best thing was that there wasn't a limit to any cards, and neither were there any forbidden ones. After all, they didn't exist here, so how could they be restricted?

He quickly typed "Fallen of Albaz" in the search bar, and nearly swooned when he saw the card. 'Yes, yes, yes!' He bit his lip in excitement, but his expression immediately fell when he saw the "Generate" button not active :'No, no, no! Goddamn it!'

Below it, he saw the reason. "- 5,000 MDDP (Master Duel Duel Points)". Feeling the all too familiar feeling of wanting a card, but not having enough crafting material for it, he couldn't help but curse in his head. However, he could only sigh in the end. He couldn't do anything even if he was mad.

Now that he thought about it, he couldn't see the good old N, R, SR and UR in the upper left corner. There was only "Master Duel Duel Points: 0" written there. Although being broke hurt, he still was happy :'So instead of using crafting materials, I just buy cards with DP? That's actually better. If I can Dismantle cards, I can eventually get enough MDDP to craft cards of higher rarity.

When he clicked one of the cards he already had, a Normal rarity one, he grew happy seeing the Dismantle option with "+ 100 MDDP." 'Alright!' He bumped his fist again. Curious, he began to check something very important. The price of the cards. And quickly, he found the price for each rarity.

Normal Cards (N): 100 MDDP

Rare Cards (R): 500 MDDP

Super Rare Cards (SR): 5,000 MDDP

Ultimate Rare Cards (UR): 25,000 MDDP

He was about to cry. The prices weren't fair at all. Especially the prices of UR cards. A single one cost 25,000 MDDP. He didn't know if he could even get that much MDDP. He could only hope that the duelists in Duel Academy weren't like in the games, where they would only give a few DP.

'Wait a minute... hold on...' But thinking about it, he saw hope :'The price of generating a card and dismantling it are the exact same, so dismantling UR cards would also fish me 25k MDDP! Oh, thank God...' He sighed in relief :'This way, if I just get lucky with pulling booster packs in the Duel Academy, I can at least get some good cards, even if I can't make entire decks right away. After all, some decks are fucking pricy, damn it...'

Putting how broke he was aside, he checked the only thing left unchecked. His level, and how he could raise it. Going to his Personal Info section, he saw, well, his own information. But he also saw some interesting things.

=============

(Info)

-

Spirit Energy: Lv 1

Meta Ka: ???

Rogue Ka: ???

Post Rebirth Deck: Darklord Despia

DP: 0

MDDP: 0

=============

'Spirit Energy? Ka? What are those?' (A/N: What are those?!!?!) He grew confused. But couldn't think much about it, because cheers suddenly erupted around the stadium. Looking away from his system, he saw that Jaden had already won. Moments later, as he started walking back, another announcement was heard :"Alistair Ashblossom, please report to exam field 4."

"Oh, now it's your turn." Syrus turned to the boy a few feet taller than him. Hearing his name, Bastion looked back in shock :"So you're Alistair Ashblossom, the only person who beat me in the written exam score!"

Smirking, he closed his system and walked towards his first duel in this world :"Be prepared to watch one hell of a show." As he walked down the stairs, he met with Jaden. They didn't stop, simply smirked at each other, and high-fived. "Make me proud." Jaden said cheekily, making Alistair laugh.

When he was raised to the exam field by a platform, cheers and squeals erupted immediately. Obviously, the girls in the place couldn't contain their excitement when they saw such a handsome hunk. He was turning panties wet with how his muscles were stretching out his clothes. (A/N: In case you didn't know, I'm not writing these parts for a reason, it's just for jokes. "Oh, MC appeared, and the girls started taking off their panties!" Those kinds of dumb jokes lol.)

'Damn, stretch me out like that!' Almost all the girls thought. Along with a few boys. Looking at his distinct and handsome face, even a certain girl was amazed :"Whoa, look at that. I think that guy mistook this place for a modeling place, Zane."

It was very, very rare for Alexis to be amazed at a boy or even notice anything about them besides their dueling skills. But even she couldn't help but be amazed. She wasn't joking, she honestly did think he belonged to a model company or wherever a model worked.

But the boy with green hair next to the blonde was as stoic as always. Seemingly unimpressed as always. His expression didn't show his amazement and focus on the distinct muscles that would clench with every move of the noiret. More than his looks, Zane was more impressed with Alistair's body. (A/N: We all know where this is going. ಠ⁠◡⁠ಠ)

"I wonder if his dueling skills are as impressive and good as his muscles." He said stoically, confusing Alexis. But she just ignored the last part :"Considering his score in the written exam, I would say we might be in for a show."

When he was finally in the exam field, Alistair saw a very annoyed Dr Crowler standing on the other side. Obviously, the defeat he suffered just now put him in a very bad mood. However, he still tried to flash a tight smile :"Ah, Mr Ashblossom! It's such a pleasure to see a student as talented, smart and hardworking as you! However, don't think I'll go easy on you."

'Especially not after going through that humiliation! How could I have lost to a slacker like that?! I will wash away this embarrassment by mopping the floor with you! It's not like we have few geniuses in the academy!'

"Oh, don't worry, teach." His lips stretched into a dark smirk, sending a shiver down the doctor's spine :"None of us will be able to go easy in this duel. I'll make sure of it."

Dr Crowler/Alistair :"Duel!"

[Alistair Ashblossom LP: 4,000

Dr Crowler LP: 4,000]