Is this the poker world?Ada thief!

"DOMO, Caesar=san, Eddesu."

Speaking in a strange Japanese accent, Ed looked at his opponent, Marufuji Ryo, and greeted him politely. Greetings before a duel are a sacred and inviolable etiquette for duelists, and this is also recorded in the Kojiki.

However, after hearing Ed's greeting, Marufuji Ryo, who had officially debuted as an outstanding graduate of the Duel Academy after the graduation model duel with Hayato and entered the professional duelist circle under the name "Hell Caesar" for quite some time, glanced at Ed with a rather strange look.

I have to say, looking at people with a sidelong glance can really create the aura of a villain: "Heh, is that nonsense popular among professional duelists? Those weaklings were like this, and I didn't expect that last year's 'Lucky Champion' was also like this."

The so-called "Lucky Champion" is a term that has been circulating for some time now, and it refers to the Ed in front of Caesar. The reason is that his victory last year was too fluky and lucky. Every time he met an opponent, he could be restrained by the cards he had. However, the legendary duelists who could duel with the restraint at the same time did not meet him or did not participate in the competition due to their own reasons.

As a result, the 2005 Professional Duelist World Championship has become a very low value in the eyes of most people. To make an analogy, it is like TGA awarded the Game of the Year to Dragon Age: Inquisition, but the competitors for the Game of the Year are Bayonetta 2, Rivals, World of the Lord of the Rings, and Dark Souls 2.

It's not that it's not good, but its "championship" is far less valuable than "Sorceress 4: O-Gear Solid", which won the best game of the year last year by competing with "A Dog's 5", "Super Mario Maker", "The Yharnam Stranger Who Can't Get an Exclusive PC Even with PS5 Pro" and "Metal Gear Solid 3: The Hurt".

The "lucky champion" of Ed is in a similar situation. This name is even more popular. There are many people on the Internet who take advantage of their anonymity and call him "Paralympic Cup champion" directly because they don't know who they are.

He spoke in English. Not to mention that he had trained in the "Electronic Flow" gym in the United States with Samejima Sensei when he was a child, the Duel Academy also had language courses. After all, some people would join big companies like the International Illusion Society to translate cards, and mastering the Duel Monster card language and translating it correctly into another language was also a subject.

Caesar graduated with full marks in all subjects. He could even translate "the effect of the card is invalid", "the activation of the card is invalid", "the activation of the effect of the card is invalid", "the effect of the card activated is invalid", "the effect of the card when activated is invalid", "the effect of the card on the field is invalid", "the effect activated on the field is invalid", "the card cannot be activated", "the effect of the card cannot be activated", "the effect activated on the field", "the effect is not applicable" and "the effect is not processed" into English, let alone communicating in English.

Although Ed has always behaved like a very elegant gentleman in public and is a very polite person, that does not mean that he can still smile and greet Caesar when he is provoked in person.

"It's not a trend, it's just basic courtesy." Looking at Caesar, Ed said coolly, "Because you are an opponent that you can only meet once, how can you not take this last chance to greet him properly?"

"After all - after losing to me in this duel, you will probably never have the courage to fight me again. You won't even be able to fight a normal duel. You will become someone who can only fall into the hell called 'failure', right?"

Ed tapped his temple and said mysteriously, "This is what I know about your 'fate' - to be completely defeated in front of me."

Ed was not talking trash before a match to mess with people's mentality, but was just stating the facts honestly. The basis for his statement came from the divination that his friend and professional duel agent, Saiou Takuma, would perform before each duel of Ed.

Unlike most people who do divination just for the sake of ritual, the professional duel agent is just a hobby that Saiou Takuma has developed for the sake of love, and being a fortune teller is his main job. He does have quite magical abilities when using tarot cards for divination, and his accuracy rate so far is as high as 99.99%! If he hadn't met Jonouchi Katsuya at the Duel Academy a year ago, Saiou's accuracy rate would have been as high as 100%.

The Chariot. In Tarot divination, the upright Chariot represents complete victory. This is the result of the divination made by King Sai for Ed's duel, which means that Caesar will be defeated in the duel with Ed. The subsequent divinations made by King Sai to provide Ed with relevant information about Caesar's deck continued to confirm this conclusion.

The reversed Fool represents a sharp drop in academic performance; the reversed Magician represents weak willpower and failure; the reversed High Priestess represents excessive self-esteem and biased judgment.

Combining and interpreting various symbols, Saiou told Ed about the future fate of Marufuji Ryo that he had learned from divination - as an outstanding graduate of the Duel Academy, Marufuji Ryo, a self-important "academic" duelist who has long developed an arrogant mentality, will be defeated by the "practical" duelist Ed and fall into complete defeat.

He will find it difficult to recover from this setback due to his pride and arrogance, and his status as a supernova in the professional duelist circle will plummet. He may even make wrong judgments inadvertently due to a major defeat and fall into a dangerous desperate situation.

The card drawn for the final ending is the Nine of Wands, which represents injury, a desperate struggle, and energy that cannot be released. I'm afraid that Marufuji Ryo's ending will be just struggling and dying in a desperate situation where he cannot exert his power.

Looking at Marufuji Ryo who was sneering at him with a look of pity, Ed said, "In order to pay tribute to the legendary duel event - the 'Duel City' of Tojino City, every year before the official competition, the World Professional Duel Championship will hold a points accumulation competition to select 16 qualified duelists. In order to get a higher ranking, most people will choose opponents who have the highest possible ranking in the previous competition, on the premise that they can be defeated by them."

"But, you came to me just after defeating a few duelists at the bottom of the professional duelist circle and accumulating enough points to challenge me? What? Do you want to use me as a stepping stone on your way forward? Are you that confident?"

"Confident? No, I'm just tired of bullying those trash. Since I have enough points to challenge the top professional duelists, why shouldn't I choose the opponent who can help me rank up the fastest?" Caesar sneered, not taking Ed seriously at all. "Winning the world championship last year put you in the top 10 of professional duelists, which looks pretty good."

  (The original work does classify professional duelists into different levels. For reference, Jonouchi was classified as LV3 in Duel City and was also specially marked as an ordinary bone.)

"I see. Defeating high-level duelists or winning large-scale tournaments is indeed the fastest way to improve your professional level, so you came to me." Ed smiled and shook his head. "But no, although you are older than me, I am your senior in the field of professional duelists. 'Impatient people can't eat hot noodles.' You will have to pay the price for rashly choosing me as your opponent with your defeat."

"This is the 'fate' you are about to face!"

As Ed took the lead in raising the duel disk and getting ready for the duel, the competition venue where the two were located immediately erupted with enthusiastic cheers from Ed's fans!

"Wow! EDOsama's smile is so innocent!"

"Ounegai! Without EDOsama, Watashi!"

"Look here, EDOsama, we can do anything!" (As we all know, mygo has a ygo field)

However, although he entered the professional duelist circle later than Ed, Caesar's popularity is not inferior to Ed, an "innocent boy" who does not even have any academic qualifications and graduated from a "higher education institution" like the Duel Academy - although the Duel Academy can only be regarded as a "technical secondary school" in a strict sense, in this world of card players, even world-class universities such as Masheng University of Technology and Harbin Institute of Technology are not as valuable as the Duel Academy.

"Lord Caesar! Suki~"

"Love, Love, Love~"

While the number of fans is even greater than before, it has a natural suppressive effect on the generally younger fan group of Ed.

"Suwako! Didn't you say you were taking the money to attend a foreign language class? You actually used it to buy that Ed's shirt!"

"Gua! Sanae, don't come over here! Kanako, save me!"

However, the audience's enthusiasm did not seem to affect Caesar and Ed, who had already started to confront each other. Looking at Ed's actions, Caesar sneered and said, "You keep talking about 'fate'. Are you a slave to fate?"

"If you don't even dare to fight against fate, how can you talk about fighting for victory? What a boring man." Caesar said disdainfully, and raised the duel disk, "Let me use the 'electron flow' to destroy the so-called 'fate' you mentioned!"

Caesar's words made Ed very dissatisfied and unhappy: "If it is so easy to change, then what is 'fate'?"

At the same time, the two of them realized a fact - that is, although they both had arrogant personalities, their inner selves were full of contradictions and conflicts, and they were incompatible at all.

No matter how Caesar's dueling style changes, whether in the "Electron Flow" period, the "Inner Electron Flow" period, or even now when he begins to explore "Eternity", he always has a strong will as a duelist and never believes in things like fate, which is inconsistent with Ed's thoughts;

Ed was the exact opposite. Caesar had no idea what kind of thoughts were filling his heart under that elegant appearance, but deep in Ed's heart he was full of obedience to fate, which Caesar could not stand.

If this were a music or dance show, the two people with conflicting ideas would probably only be able to fight each other or dance in the rain, but this is the world of card players, so for Caesar and Ed, who happen to be opponents, the best thing to do at this moment is to -

  "Duel!"

In the newly built duel venue of Kaiba Entertainment Group - the "Blue-Eyes White Dragon Hall" filled with the personal preferences of a certain president, the duel between two "supernovas" in the professional duelist circle officially begins!

[Ed Phoenix: 4000LP, 5 cards in hand]

[Ryo Marufuji: 4000LP, 5 cards in hand]

Compared to the "wild duels" of regular duels where "whoever draws first or shouts first" gets the first attack, professional duels are obviously much more formal. The intelligent referee system awarded the first attack to Ed's side. He drew a card from the deck: "I have the first attack. It's my turn. Draw a card!"

As Ed, who attacked first, drew a card from his deck, Caesar suddenly recalled someone who had come to him not long ago.

"Destiny's hero, [D·hero]? It sounds like a card related to [E·hero]?" Looking at the information in his hand, Caesar subconsciously read out the name of the card written on it, "[D·hero Blood Devil-D], release any three monsters to special summon, can equip the opponent's monsters and seize their effects, and with [D-Power], it can further negate the effects of all monsters on the opponent's field, and gain unlimited times of target selection magic trap."

"Is it in compliance with the rules to directly reveal the specific effects of my opponent's cards like this, Principal Hayato?"

"What is Kobayashi Hayato? There is no one with this name here. Just call me Pantyhose Falling Off or Kathy Ting." Someone said, making up a name at random, "And it's just revealing which cards the other party has and what effects those cards have. There's nothing illegal about it. It's not like you're flipping open the other party's deck for you to peek."

  (Brother IV who caught a shark while fishing: Indeed)

"If you must say, this can only be regarded as basic intelligence gathering. This work is usually done by your agent. It's just that your opponent didn't need to collect intelligence before."

"But even if that's the case, there's no need for you, Principal Hayato, to come to me on purpose, right?"

"I've already said it before. I'm not a strong duelist as gentle and kind as Hayato Kobayashi." The man who lied with his eyes open rummaged through his card box. "I just wanted to disgust a certain 'Fate' enthusiast, starting with his duelists."

"As for the title, is it a graduation gift to make up for it? To celebrate your tenth consecutive win since your debut? Anyway, I got this card when I was drawing cards a while ago, and instead of selling it to a store and letting the profiteers make a profit, I decided to give it to you."

"Please use it well~"

Caesar, who was looking down at the card he received at that time, overlapped with Caesar who was looking down at the card in his hand at this moment. He looked up again at Ed who seemed to have made up his mind and was about to play the card. Caesar sneered: "Come on, Ed Phoenix. I will use you to test my "capacity" and "

"Is the 'eternity' on that card just a fantasy or a real 'infinity'?" (End of this chapter)