CHAPTER 12

It turns out that even the pros of the scene were bad at the game.

Well, they weren't all too bad per se; it was just that their strategies were horrendous.

Who even plays Dinosaur decks? They were just beat sticks with an average of 2000 ATK at most; cards these days had more ways to get over them.

And no one used special summons or ritual summons at all; it was as if normal summoning were the main meta in this era.

Ken just sighed as he ordered Erebus to go for the game. He had been grinding this game a few times a week for over a month now and was just about to hit the rank of Professional 1.

Curse this game and their rating gain per game. Ever since he entered a 30-game winning streak, his gains dropped from an average of 30 to an average of 10, with every rank needing 200 rating points to advance.

He told Pegasus this, to which he just responded.

"Well, this would make it more interesting for the viewers, no? Ohohohoho!"

Darn it, Pegasus, this wasn't funny at all.

He had to win about 20 plus games to level up, and since he was now Advanced 3, the number of players in the queue significantly dropped since Novice and Intermediate held most of the player base.

That meant that his queue timers were 10–20 minutes, even though most pros were in this queue as well. Coupled with his decreased rating gain, he had to take a week to rank up to the next level, which was infuriating to him.

They should fix the rank system, dammit.

Watching Erebus deal the final blow, he adjusts his cap before leaving the match, waiting as his rating increases by 6, an unfortunate roll of luck as his total rating for Advanced 3 hit 197 out of 200.

Looking over at his chatroom, he just sighs at the number of "LOL"s and "F"s in the chat.

His fan base had surprisingly increased, now being one of the most-viewed streamers for the Nexus with an average viewer count of 10,000 viewers per stream.

The streaming function has been a blessing, as people could donate through the stream in the form of SP (streamer points) by converting BP. Usually BP cannot be taken out into physical cash, but SP can, with the conversion rates being $0.5 per SP, which was really nice.

His eyes suddenly noticed a very funny comment from the chat.

=x=x=x=x=x=x=

[CHAT ROOM]

Anonymous: If you show me your face, I'll donate 500 BP!

=x=x=x=x=x=x=

He guessed that his viewers were sticking to watching his streams since no one knew who he was and that he was destroying Japan pros left and right.

People have been commenting to show his face, with some people insulting him for hiding his face, saying that he must be "ugly" in real life to need to cover up his face.

The internet, ladies and gentlemen, even in a peaceful world with basically no political pressure against each country, cyberbullying still exists on the internet.

Well, he thinks that he looks hot in real life, even if he hasn't hit puberty yet (oh god, puberty). With his appearance, he thinks that he would be a supermodel if this was his old world.

Now that he thought about it, people in this world could be supermodels too, especially the main cast of Yugioh. Even with his crazy ass hair, Yugi pulled it off somehow. It makes you really think that the anime world is weird, doesn't it?

Shaking his head to snap himself from existential crisis, he decided to end the stream; he had been streaming for over an hour now, before sighing once the prompt of his stream ending appeared.

As an introvert, seeing people watch his every move as he dueled was really nerve-wracking, even though they couldn't see him. That's why he didn't talk at all except for when he was dueling (which needed speaking).

Glaring at his rank's ratings one last time, he logged out of the Nexus. A few seconds later, the sound of hissing made him open his eyes as he walked out of the pod, stretching.

In this month alone, he earned a total of 31,000 SP, which was about $15,000. And he gets 10%, meaning $1500. And plus his salary of 500,000 yen...

Damn, 700,000 yen.

And add the boxes of Duel Monster booster packs that he kept...

Holy shit, he was filthy rich.

... He heard that one can get a custom-made Duel Disk with money... He should ask Pegasus about this.

Having a unique Duel Disk would be so sick.

GROWL~

...

And some food to feed his stomach.

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Breathing a sigh of relaxation, Ken adjusts his cap before enjoying his walk down Domino City. Sure, playing Duel Monsters is fun and all, but too much can cause burnout, so he usually takes walks to enjoy the scenery.

He was wearing a simple black sleeveless hoodie with a dark blue cap covering his face, along with a pair of jeans and sneakers that he really needed to change. In fact, he should change his whole wardrobe; he is growing a little fast these days and has the money to spend.

Since this world had a more efficient power generation system, that meant that the air was fresher than any other world country combined, and it feels so nice to breathe the air in Domino City.

Though he had to now wear a cap to hide from fans and duelists that wanted to have a duel with him, he still enjoyed his walks.

Watching through the windows of a game store, he watched as people from kids to adults were enjoying their time, playing Duel Monsters without holograms; they were casually playing on a table.

That was when his eyes wandered upon a girl, about 6 years old, looking like a kitten without its mother, frantically trying to make a conversation with a deck in hand but eventually stopping due to being socially awkward.

Understanding her pain, he decided to just yolo since he was in a disguise, walking into the game store before getting a structure deck from the cashier to only cringe at the remaining structure deck left in the store.

"Ugh... Toon World..."

Damn it.

Buying it, he then rips it out of its packaging before heading towards the girl.

"Hi, wanna play?"

She jumped at his sudden invitation, looking at him before nodding.

"But I-I'm new at the game, so..."

She said it with a downcast look.

"Ah, no worries; I'll teach you then."

Using a hand gesture to signal her to come closer, they sat on an open table before he explained.

"May I know what deck you're playing?"

She looks at her cards before tilting her head, to which Ken just chuckles.

"OK, a real beginner. Have you watched any Duel Monster games? Or is this your very, very first time?"

"Um, my very first time."

She said it meekly.

"No problem, no problem. Ahem, so each deck has an archetype. Example: This is a Toon deck."

He then showed his cards to her, explaining the archetype.

"This archetype of cards allows me to directly attack your life points; more on that later, while some other archetypes of cards allow for other unique interactions. The names of the archetype are usually repeated multiple times."

She then shows her deck, displaying her archetype.

"Oh, Lightsworns. And from your cards, you got the structure deck, right?"

This era doesn't have Tuner monsters, yet the cards that were meant to be Tuners for sychro-ing were right in front of him. Even the description of the cards did not include the word Tuner amongst the types like Spellcaster or Dragon.

Super funky.

"M-My friend and I wanted to try Duel Monsters out; we're playing against her friend in the next few days, and I wanted to surprise her..."

"Ah, I see. Now, may I?"

He took the deck after getting her permission. Thumbing the deck, he whistles at the number of monster cards. Its boss monsters, Judgement Dragon and Gragonith, Lightsworn Dragon weren't in here, but some good cards like Celestia, Lightsworn Angel, and Wulf, Lightsworn Beast were in it.

Placing all of her cards on the table, he separates the cards to show her what every individual card does.

"Now, in order to play, you must first learn the type of cards."

Showing her what monster cards, spell cards, and trap cards were, along with their variants, he then continued with the phases.

"We then move on to the game itself. Are you following?"

She gave a nod as he quickly explained the phases for each turn. Draw, Main 1, Battle, Main 2, and End.

This was going to take a while since this game was as complicated as it is with fast Effect Timings and horrible card PSCT text.

...

Fuck, he was friends with the creator himself. He should talk with Pegasus about the font and PSCT text after this.

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