For some reason, from the start of the new round of duels, the various WRGP contestants began, intentionally or otherwise, to slot in some "counter cards" to duel their opponents.
For the sake of victory, duelists would always think up brand-new methods. And precisely because of this, the audience saw duels that had more "targeted" tactics compared to the previous round.
For example, tactics that restricted Levels, restricted Special Summoning, or even outright short-term locks on "Synchro Summoning."
Tactics like locking down Synchro were exceptionally useful in this dimension that centered on Synchro Summoning. But precisely for this reason, in Team 5D's round of duels, Akiza Izinski, using Quick-Play Spells, secondary-speed effects, and Trap Card effects to perform rapid Synchros, stepped past the "Synchro lock" tactics to complete a Synchro Summon. This restored many spectators' trust in Team 5D's.
On one hand, being locked down against Synchro yet still Synchro-ing anyway was very in keeping with Team 5D's philosophy. On the other, Akiza Izinski was beautiful.
Face value was also an important "stat" for gaining trust. In the current duel tournament, every stat was quite important.
Hikaru could understand counter tactics.
To be precise, dueling was itself a game of countering and counter-countering. Even Hikaru, when facing different opponents, would adjust his own deck for the duel. For example, back when he'd dueled Crow, he'd urgently swapped out his own deck to keep from being unable to even play cards.
That, in fact, was also "countering."
But actually, this wasn't a simple matter.
Because any duelist would definitely think of this thing. Just as when facing banish-heavy decks you'd prepare "Forbidden Lance," when facing decks that desperately needed graveyard resources you'd consider using "D.D. Crow." Anything a duelist would think of, to some degree or another.
But actually, this kind of scenario appeared very rarely in official duel tournaments. At most, you'd get something like Paradox and Tierra had done before, using cards like "Skill Drain" to "kick out everyone's good legs, then rely on more brute-play-oriented monsters" to win.
The reason was, on the one hand, this world's "hundred flowers blooming," and on the other, this world's "regret."
Because the decks at duel tournaments were too disparate!
In the world before Hikaru came here, whether at shop tournaments or big competitions, there were many "mainstream decks." Generally, whatever deck it was, so long as you were a competitor, you'd prepare some preparation cards in your deck.
For example, if the other decks were all Graveyard-piling decks like Tearlaments, then naturally many duelists would choose to put lots of "Bystial" or "Dimensional Shifter" cards into their decks.
But this world was different.
Powerful cards often existed only in certain people's hands. Much of the time, even if you had counter cards, you might not necessarily find someone to counter.
Even if you prepared cards to counter specific duelists, you might not necessarily face those opponents. Actually stuffing them into your deck would only degrade your own deck.
This was the reason for this world's blooming diversity of duelists, the reason all kinds of decks could appear, and the reason for the state of this world where duelists had difficulty assembling an invincible "multi-axis interactive, terminal-position enormous" deck.
Duelists like Yusei Fudo or Yuya Sakaki, with solid main axes and diverse endgame terminals, were actually rather rare. Most people played one series or one Type through to the end.
Furthermore, because in addition to deck construction this world also had this hidden stat of "dueling power," strong duelists could draw crucial cards at crucial moments. Pure countering wasn't easy to carry out. So unless it was as ridiculous as Darkness's level, or unless one simply kicked everyone to death like Yugi Muto, closed-off style decks were still quite rare.
Of course, even so, because of deck-info leaks, quite a few teams' win rates showed obvious swings, and some teams that had previously had little presence, thanks to the new round of dueling routine changes, gradually began to make their name.
One that caught Hikaru's particular attention was "Team Taiyou," a team that used low-level monsters and counter cards for specific dueling. Because the monsters they used were all fairly weak-looking decks, yet they still won several duels, they'd made a big name for themselves for a while.
Hikaru specifically pulled up video of this team's matches. Watching the duelists and duels inside, he confirmed his own guess in his heart.
That's right. This team really was the "Team Taiyou" from the original 5D's series. Their true trump card wasn't these low-level monsters, but Zushin.
Sleeping Giant Zushin. In the original series, a card said to be on par with gods.
After this card had appeared, it had brought Team 5D's a considerable amount of trouble. But that was originally.
If he encountered this team in this world, Hikaru only needed to give his teammates a reminder, and the Sleeping Giant would not be able to take the field.
And besides matters concerning tournament results, one thing more meaningful to him had happened.
Teacher Banner had concluded his investigation and returned to the Grand Cosmos Workshop!
He looked travel-worn. His originally crisp robes were riddled with holes, and many places even had some red pollution on them. No telling which dimension he'd gone to, or what kind of crisis he'd encountered.
But whatever he'd been through, since Teacher Banner had returned, of course as his student Hikaru had to help, and take the chance to exchange intel too.
Upon learning that "Selfless Painting School" itself was an enormous "spirit," Banner showed obvious moments of dazedness, and what came right after was "sudden enlightenment."
He'd been to Selfless Painting School once more before. When he'd gone to that dimension in a spirit's body, he'd been able to experience the fear and oppression different from as a human. But looking deeper, it hadn't been that frightening. It had been more a kind of dazedness and confusion.
Now knowing this, Banner's thinking had suddenly opened up. He instantly understood how to go to Selfless Painting School, how to truly, within Selfless Painting School's dimension, have a proper conversation with that "Azathoth."
However, at present there was still some difficulty.
If he carried the Philosopher's Stone, he could still manage it. But he'd already passed the Philosopher's Stone down to Hikari. So at present it was still somewhat difficult.
Fortunately, his friends combined could probably just barely manage the same thing. So the choices for exploring the "red light" had increased next.
On top of this, Professor Banner also told Hikaru another piece of news. That was that the "El Dorado" dimension had made its preparations. If Hikaru was interested afterward, he could go take a look.
El Dorado was also an old friend of his, and being in the same alchemy line, was very suited for Hikaru to visit. The "red light pollution" over there had also been thoroughly isolated and cleaned up by El Dorado, so it could now accept duelist trials.
Hearing this news, Hikaru was very excited. After all, El Dorado also had Fusion Monsters, which would be quite useful at necessary moments. All-Dissolving Alchemist even directly slipped over quickly, ears pricked up listening intently, looking quite eager too.
Gold!
This was its lifelong goal!
Aside from these things, there was one thing more important to Hikaru, and one he could conveniently ask Professor Banner about, and that was what the voice he'd heard in the "Star Wars dimension" had said before.
He seemed to still be incomplete.
"That's not how it is, meow." Hearing Hikaru's words, Professor Banner shook his head. "You are of course complete, Hikari. It's just that complete doesn't mean full. This is very normal, meow.
Just like Armed Dragon has LV3 through LV10, and Elemental HERO Flame Wingman needs Elemental HERO Avian and Elemental HERO Burstinatrix, very normal, meow!"
As the saying goes, those in the game are blind, those watching from outside see clearly. As the finest alchemist, upon hearing Hikaru's question, Professor Banner understood the situation.
But this didn't seem to be any serious problem. It was a kind of slow harmonization. There was no need to specifically worry.
More importantly, Hikaru himself didn't know how to improve on it, and Banner couldn't think of anything either.
Although Banner was Hikaru's teacher, when Hikaru had completed the "Philosopher's Stone," Hikaru's alchemy abilities were no longer that different from Banner's.
The limit of alchemy, the finest alchemy, Hikaru had already mastered. Compared to other minor details, those miscellaneous "small tricks of alchemy" no longer affected Hikaru's title as "unrivaled alchemist" of his generation.
Banner might still have plenty of nifty little skills to teach Hikaru, but if Hikaru himself didn't know how to complete his own "fusion," then Banner had no way to help either.
After all, alchemy was Fusion, but Fusion was not simply alchemy.
Compared to these matters, Banner was actually more curious about something else.
He glanced at Tierra, who was a bit bored beside them, listlessly propping her chin as she looked at Hikaru.
Very, very early on, perhaps even at Hikaru's first proper "great war"-tier duel, his opponent had been him, Banner.
At that time, he'd already noticed Tierra's existence. But at that time, he'd only taken Tierra to be "Midrash," and moreover, Tierra hadn't paid much attention to Hikaru either. So he hadn't looked deeper into his disciple's emotional matters.
After all, at that time, the two of them looked very distant.
And yet now, she was even showing hints of impatience.
Whoa.
He grew interested. The corners of his mouth curled like a cat's.
He had just finished his investigation. He still needed to wait for his companions to regroup. They had already discovered the method to reach the red-light dimension.
Of course, this too was only their guess. They had only discovered a passage. That passage was composed entirely of red light. But as for the specific situation on the other side of that passage, they had no idea at all.
No magic could directly penetrate the passage. So in the short term they couldn't investigate further. They could only take turns keeping watch for now, then gather their subordinates for investigation and research.
In any case, the Three Sages still needed some time to prepare, which gave him enough time to rest and prepare.
It looks like... he could see some quite interesting things?
Because he'd learned about the "One God" war from Hikaru, he also had some conjectures and judgments of his own.
Now it seemed, his rest time wouldn't be too boring.
Soon, his conjecture was confirmed, though it did diverge slightly from what he'd expected.
As dueling proceeded, the preliminary duels gradually drew toward their end. Under such circumstances, it finally came time for Team 5D's new match.
This was a rather special round.
Because...
This match was "Team 5D's" versus "Team Moonwind Bird"!
Although Team 5D's had lost one match, the WRGP tournament's official matches were, after all, multi-person contests. Losing one round couldn't fully determine victory. They were still favored for the championship, so this duel would attract quite a few people to watch.
And for both sides of the duel, this match held special meaning.
After all, the members of these two teams all knew each other. Yugo and Rin considered Team 5D's Jack an idol. Yugo, more than anyone, had been hoping every day to duel Jack in an official match.
Beyond that, when Serena and Lulu saw this random pairing result, they excitedly gathered together and let out a cheer.
For them, the chance to face off against Hikaru in an official duel tournament was a matter well worth celebrating.
But this created a problem.
That was: who would go up?
If only one went up, that was the end after the duel. According to the "consecutive duel" rules, they might not be able to face the senior they wanted to challenge at all.
For example, Yugo especially wanted to challenge Jack.
Although after asking Yusei they'd learned Jack wasn't around, so today they probably couldn't challenge Jack, if possible, dueling other seniors was also fine.
The four kids at the team base argued back and forth for a long while, but none of them could out-argue the others. Aside from Lulu holding back in the end and not fully entering the "duel rights" contest, none of the other three wanted to give up.
If time hadn't forbade it, they might have simply just dueled right there to determine the order.
In the end it was Lulu, unable to watch anymore, who sighed and proposed: "How about we just tell Amagi to make it a 3-vs-3 best-of-three format."
This proposal was excellent, and could be implemented.
Preliminary matches could be conducted based on both teams' discussion. As long as they made an agreement with Team 5D's, then even if the first two rounds were won by one side, the third duel would still go through.
This was a very good idea. Moreover, the WRGP officials also allowed dueling to be conducted this way. On top of that, Team 5D's members not only needed the duel-count exposure, but were also quite eager to see the growth results of their juniors after this stretch of matches. So they directly accepted this match rule.
And for the opening match, Serena naturally volunteered in a rush, without a moment's hesitation charging to the ready position.
Then, as a matter of course, her opponent would be Hikaru!
"Eh!?"
"Whoa, Hikaru and Serena's duel!"
The Fusion Dimension people almost instantly noticed the content of this match and got excited.
"Oh! Kite, look, quick, it's that Hikaru you share a surname with, dueling!" Yuma was the first to notice this scene, calling out to Kite Tenjo.
"Hikaru's duel... with only one match's chance left, he's directly taking the field?" Kite Tenjo also noticed Team 5D's movements.
The preliminary matches were nearing the end. A key duelist appearing again naturally drew the attention of quite a few teams. Not only Kite Tenjo, but other people paying attention to Team 5D's saw this scene too.
Three single duels, best of three, until all were finished?
Why choose this match rule?
Many people were confused. But whatever the case, both sides of the match had taken the field one after another.
Professor Banner watched this scene from the shadows.
His own disciple and his disciple's disciple dueling?
That was quite interesting.
"Haha, Serena, huh?" Tierra floated beside Hikaru, watched Serena take the field, with an as-expected look on her face, seeming quite pleased.
"Big sister Tierra, Master!" Serena excitedly watched Hikaru take the field.
Two years. She'd finally gotten the chance to duel Hikaru on a real duel field!
She had waited for this moment too long!
"Serena, right now, we're merely duelists." Hikaru smiled.
"Yes, Master!" She grew even more excited.
"Then, let's duel."
The two got ready. The traffic lights began to flash. Along with the final countdown ending, the two burst out of the arena. Serena floored the gas pedal with all her strength, not caring at all whether she could drive or how. Watching her go this all-out, Hikaru gave a helpless smile, then voluntarily slowed down. Seeing this, Serena's eyes lit up. She instantly switched to full auto mode and began preparing to duel.
Vrrrooom.
"Duel!" x2.
Team Moonwind Bird, Duelist 1, Serena, LP: 4000.
Team 5D's, Duelist 1, Hikaru, LP: 4000.
...
STONESSSS
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