Chapter 53: Pot of Greed in the Shop
After completing registration, Amano's group boarded the floating train again, heading toward the dormitory building Finesse had already arranged.
The dormitories were located in Academy City's East District. According to Finesse, most Fusion Academy students chose to move into the East District.
Academy City had no explicit zoning regulations, yet students had autonomously carved out their own territories. This clearly showed just how tense the relationship between the three great academies really was.
Fortunately, everyone in their group had registered for Fusion Academy. Living in the East District wouldn't be a problem.
From the Academy City Service Center to the East District dormitory building, the floating train took about half an hour.
Throughout the journey, Amano kept scrolling through BiliBili on his Eva terminal.
"Brother's completely addicted."
"Why are you watching that person's boring videos this whole time, Rei? Wait, don't tell me you actually became a fan?"
Not exactly a fan.
In the end, Amano never mentioned the Exodia head piece to Mizuki.
After all, they'd only just met. Even if Amano didn't dislike Mizuki's personality of stubbornly chasing her dreams—
When you're out in the world, you can't be too trusting.
Besides, Amano now understood that not every character the system opened affection levels for would necessarily become his "good friend."
When necessary, it could even serve as a danger warning.
Kaiba Chiha was a perfect example.
After carefully watching several of Mizuki's duel recordings, Amano could confirm something.
This person only had Spellcaster-Type monsters, and probably possessed only [Exodia the Forbidden One]—just that one sealed piece.
If she had all five Exodia pieces, she wouldn't use the head to block attacks every single time.
And if she had the complete set of five, she definitely wouldn't be a streamer with zero views and popularity.
As legendary card pieces, having just the head should've sparked discussion in videos.
But looking at Mizuki's popularity, Amano guessed that duelists in this world probably didn't even know about these five cards.
As for Mizuki herself... with only one head piece, she couldn't accomplish anything anyway.
Since they'd both be academy students in the higher division from now on, they'd exchanged VSN contacts. Finding her later shouldn't be difficult.
Incidentally, VSN was basically this world's combination of WeChat and Instagram—currently the hottest social media app.
Right now, Amano's top priorities were still the entrance exam, income sources, and that most critical matter.
Amano hadn't come to Academy City to enjoy life.
—Puppeteer.
After formal registration, Finesse had also been fiddling with her Eva terminal constantly.
Unlike Amano getting addicted to scrolling videos, the young miss had different concerns.
After registration, you could use ranking points to view the complete student roster for Academy City's higher division.
Amano could roughly guess why Finesse kept staring at that list.
"Is Puppeteer among them?" Amano asked in a voice only the two could hear.
This was the "enemy" Finesse had pursued for ten years. That obsession was terrifying enough that Amano didn't want to think too deeply about it.
Otherwise she wouldn't have been staring at the list nonstop since receiving it.
Even if she couldn't figure anything out, Finesse's obsession was forcing her to do this.
"Did you find any clues from those fake cards Lutz had?"
"We've basically narrowed it down—it's a student at the academy, not a teacher."
"A student? How did you narrow it down?"
This completely overturned Amano's assumptions. Initially, he'd suspected academy teachers or other staff members most.
After all, that was a terror incident from ten years ago.
Finesse explained: "According to the card 'trading records,' the [Dark Ruler Ha Des] in Lutz's possession flowed out from the Academy City dormitory district."
Within Eden Tower, every card, every transfer of ownership, had "trading records."
Ordinary people couldn't access them, but major family influence obviously had different methods.
For regular people, "trading records" only affected them through one thing—the "trade cooldown period."
Cards sold or gifted to others entered a month-long "trade cooldown period," during which the card couldn't be sold or gifted again.
Eva system established this annoying restriction to prevent "sharing" decks.
Without cooldowns on card trading, entire families, even groups or companies, could share one strongest deck.
Like for entrance exams—if no "trade cooldown period" existed, Amano could directly borrow Shio's Cyber Dragons or Kikawayu's Sacred Beasts and easily pass.
Could only say that in this world full of duelist brains that had developed for hundreds of years, every loophole ordinary people could think of exploiting had been plugged by Mainframe Eva.
Back to the main point—Academy City's dormitory district had extremely strict management.
Eva system wouldn't allow anyone except registered students to enter. Didn't matter if you were an academy teacher or principal—absolutely prohibited.
That's why Finesse had narrowed Puppeteer's true identity to the student range.
Well, at least the scope had shrunk. That was good.
Amano also opened the Academy City ranking points list.
His current ranking points were 0. His rank basically represented the total number of students in Academy City.
[Amano Rei] [Point Rank: 35,495]
Over thirty thousand people...
And this was just the higher division students eligible for ranked matches.
Academy City did occupy a third of the mid-level district's area—this population wasn't actually that much.
In Eden Tower, even wealthy and powerful major families like the Nanki'in clan still chose to send their children to the three great academies. The reason ultimately came down to this ranking system.
More precisely—the rewards Mainframe Eva placed in the ranking system.
Using ranking points, you could exchange for many ultra-rare Magic and Trap cards completely unavailable on the market.
The ranked shop's exchange cards had no quantity limits. As long as you had enough points, you could exchange directly. This was essentially exclusive welfare Mainframe Eva provided to students.
When Amano opened the points shop, he was genuinely shocked.
You could even exchange for eternally banned cards like [Pot of Greed] and [Graceful Charity].
Except the point exchange requirements—200,000 points to exchange for cards at that level, while Charity cost a bitter 350,000 points.
According to current ranking trends, you'd need to reach at least the academy's top 100 to afford exchanges.
Meaning Amano was just 35,395 ranks away from [Pot of Greed]!
Well, directly targeting [Pot of Greed] was way too unrealistic. Besides, putting [Pot of Greed] in his current deck would probably just mean drawing one more Normal Monster.
Amano figured he should use ranking points to exchange for cheaper cards that had miraculous effects in his deck—those "magical little gadgets."
Like this [Rebellion]—only 800 points required. Looked perfect for all those low-level small fries in his deck.
With it, even Eve could go toe-to-toe with Blue-Eyes White Dragon.
***
20+advance chapters at patreon.com/Eatinpieces