Once Alucard was inside the store, the crowd also quickly followed in. There were so many people that Alucard had to keep the doors open just so the hundred or so still outside could hear him.
He had to convince the system to sell him a megaphone. The system had suggested some speakers for outside, but he declined as he didn't want the people of this world to witness the installation that did not look like magic he could explain. Though he did consider buying them, but decided to wait until he built the venue next to the store.
Amidst the yearning and excited gazes, he brought out the megaphone from a hidden compartment in the counter, "Everyone, Good Morning and Welcome to Milky's card shop! I know that everyone has a lot of questions about this coming tournament, but please calm down first so that I may explain it clearly. Later on, I will also post additional posters inside and outside the store, as well as throughout the city so that I don't repeat what I say here. You can ask questions later if anything needs to be clarified." Alucard gazed at the crowd as well as the gathered people outside the store and found all of them quieted down.
"Registration starts right now! Today is the 25th of Yamju. The tournament will start at the 1st of Enju, people will have until the 32nd of Yamju to register.
In order to register, you only need to purchase a deck case, it is a magical storage artifact specifically for these cards and are bound to the owner once purchased. The binding process is simple, it also includes a pamphlet with instructions on the features of the deck case and how to use it.
There are two versions, one in red and one in blue. Each deck case costs 10 magicoins, which also serves as your registration fee."
He glanced at the crowd again and found that most were listening fervently, a few had scrunched faces, probably due to the cost of the deck case, but none dared to complain since the recognizable city guard's captain, LeFlamme family, and other nobles were part of the crowd that was in front of the owner.
"Now let's go on with the Deck rules! A deck consists of 3 main parts, a main deck, an extra deck, and a side deck. A main deck is made up of your monsters, traps, and spell cards. You can have a minimum of 40 cards in it and a maximum of 60." Alucard pulled out his fully pimped out Blue-Eyes deck from his blue deck case.
From the same deck case, he took out his relatively smaller extra deck, "An extra deck is where special kinds of monsters are placed instead, and right now there is only one type of monster you can place in the extra deck which are fusion monsters. Fusion monsters, as a few of you might know, have a purple frame and you can summon them using a fusion effect like the spell 'Polymerization' along with the required materials. You can have up to 15 cards in this deck." He spread out and showed all the possible fusion monsters he could summon with his deck like Metal Dragon, Black-Skull Dragon, and Twin-headed Thunder Dragon.
He took the last set of cards from his deck case, "Lastly, we have the Side Deck. The side deck is not included during the duel, rather it is a set of cards that you include as a back-up in case you want to make some changes to your deck during each duel. I'll explain how the duels go on later, but for now consider the side deck is for useful cards you might not want in your main deck, but could come in handy in certain situations. You can have up to 15 cards on the side deck as well."
"Make sure to craft the perfect deck for you with these limitations, know your cards and the cards that your opponent might possibly use. That's one of the things that make a great duelist. Let's go on with the qualifiers and match rules." Alucard unraveled a large poster behind him.
"Before the tournament proper starts, there is a qualifier period which lasts from the 1st of Enju to the 8th of Enju, so 8 days. In the qualifiers, players must win 5 matches in order to proceed to the tournament. A match consists of 3 duels, winning 2 duels equates to a match win. During the match, you can switch out cards from your side deck into your extra or main deck, you can only do this before each duel starts." Some customers who already played some games when they shopped yesterday had wry smiles, it seemed that they need to practice to get a good placing is what they thought.
Not too shabby, it seems that this young store owner had thought this tournament through, Derrick mused as he listened, he smiled lightly as he glanced at his sister who had a concentrated face and beaming eyes.
"I know that feels a bit difficult for some players, specially since you can only practice properly in the store. I now have another product called a dueling playmat! It has the same useful functions as the dueling tables here but just has a few limitations. Regardless, it is portable and enough for people to practice duels and help you craft the deck to win the championship! It comes with four designs, namely Dark Magician, Red-Eyes Black Dragon, Blue-Eyes White Dragon, and Relinquish. Each one costs 10 magicoins as well."
Alucard took out the sample playmats, they had all the card panels and zones clearly distinguished. Each playmat had a customized landscape art of the 4 boss monsters of the 4 main characters from the beginning of the series. The playmat was large enough for two players, was soft and comfortable to the touch.
"Now we can play at home! Or anywhere! Hehe even at school!" Nina jumped with joy.
"Wow, daddy would love this one!" Annie pointed at the sleek looking Dark Magician.
"Uncle would love this fearsome red dragon!" Failer gazed at the fierce Red-Eyes Black Dragon.
Jiji just stared at his father that was already drooling at the sight of the customized art of Blue-Eyes White Dragon.
Alucard nodded at the reactions of relieved customers who weren't able to practice dueling yesterday, "Moving on, on the 9th of Enju, All players who meet the requirements to advance will be given a Dueling Gauntlet, each gauntlet will come with one star chip already slotted." He took out a gleaming dark crimson glove with iron cuffs with 10 engraved star-shaped holes on it, 9 were empty and one held a golden star chip.
The kids at the front gasped, the gauntlet looked so cool that they were mesmerized, the adult crowd were affected as well. Now everyone had another motivation to do good and qualify, aside from the alluring cash prize. If this gauntlet that was given for free towards the tournament qualifiers was already so impressive, then what about all the other goodies that the champion and those placed 100th get? Those cloaks must be very dashing!
Alucard saw the fire in their gazes and thought that so far, all of his hooks are getting bitten, He put the glove on and raised it toward the crowd. "As you can see, there are 9 empty star slots. Each player must fill these slots with 9 other star chips they earn by defeating other players! To get one, you need to win a match. So to fill all ten slots, a player has to win nine matches without losing!"
He then demonstrated how to slot a star-chip, with a click, the star-chip was embedded and it gleamed a bright gold flash before turning back to normal, "This is how you slot the star chip. The tournament qualifier duration, which goes from the 9th of Enju up to the 22nd of Enju, is the only time a player can fill out these slots. If a player fails to fill out the star slots then they are eliminated, those who do will advance to the final round!"
Wow this is shaping to be a fierce tournament already! I'll buy more boxes and study hard to win this whole thing! He he... I'll look so majestic with the champion's cloak. I hope it's as cool, No! Cooler than the dueling gauntlet! A bright-eyed Divian clenched her fists and exhaled a deep breath as she eyed the sleek yet heavy looking gauntlet.
"Players who failed to advance can still keep the gauntlet and star chips they collected, as a reminder of the fierceness of the tournament and hopefully the fun memories you experience during it." Alucard grinned lightly as he remembered the time in his childhood where he joined a local tcg tournament, he placed last and only got a chocolate bar, but still it was a memory he held dear.
"All the players who advanced will now be part of the Finals, and the brackets will be arranged depending on how many will advance so there will be a rest period from the 23rd of Enju up to the 25th of Enju, the Finals will then begin from the 26th of Enju with the Grand Final on the 32nd, where we will crown our first Kalamar's Duel King!" He announced in a grand voice, the crowd went wild and a lot were pumped to be the first-crowned duel king.
Alucard waited for their hype to settle down and continued, "All prizes will be distributed the day after, Priority will be given based on your ranking, so do your best and fight on! Now let's begin the registrations!" Some of the hesitating people in the crowd grit their teeth and registered anyway, in their minds, 10 magicoins for a deck case and to register(aside from buying the cards) is worth if it means that they can place at least top 100.
Some were not able to truly afford the cases, much less buy packs, but were equally determined to gather funds before registration ends. Pober and the rest of the kids from the slums looked at their well to do friends and were thinking of ways on how to join in on the tournament when the store owner announced another thing.
"I'm also looking to hire a few staff members to help with the store and the tournament, please wait a bit after the shop closes today." The ragged clothed kids were hesitant, Pober glanced at them, the ones he considered siblings, then made a decision in his heart. No matter what, I will join this tournament! Even if I have to sweep floors or scrub tables.
Or...
even that...
... I'll find a way! his heart beat with a firm resolution.
``
"Quite a big event you got here huh kid?" James leaned on the counter and whispered to Alucard. "You got any discounts for the city guards? I plan on buying a bunch of cards so that we can have at least 2 to 3 platoons can have a full deck they can use for real world emergencies."
"No discounts for now, I'm already taking a huge loss on this tournament. But why so many? A city guard platoon in Kalamar is at least 50 people right?" Alucard asked.
"Well, thing's confidential, kid. But if you remember I was suspicious of you last time right? It's related to that matter, besides with a huge tournament going on, you'd want some tighter security right?" James retorted.
"Ah... Well, I can handle the tournament's security, I can summon a Blue-Eyes White Dragon and I'm pretty sure that's all I would need." The young store owner grinned as he whispered back.
The knight captain blinked wordlessly, "Kid, you've got a point. But I'm just talking about the common thugs and petty thieves... Anyway, even then you still need some boots on the ground just to improve deterrence. It's best to prevent and deter than react to danger" James seriously suggested.
Alucard put his hand on his chin and thought for a while, a tall young man with a head of messy and glossy black hair went up to the two and joined in on the conversation interrupting his thoughts.
"Senior, May I?" James made way as Derrick went forward, Divian right behind him. "How about I buy the.. uhh card packs?"
'Buy the booster boxes brother! They're more worth it since we're buying a lot and you get cool boxes too!' Divian whispered behind.
"Yeah! Those booster boxes, I'll buy some enough for 3 platoons to make a deck for each soldier, senior you can just buy the remaining if that's not enough, or if they want to join the tournament, you can buy them the deck cases instead." Derrick said to the store owner and the city guard captain, the gruff James patted his junior's back and thanked him profusely.
"We'll be buying more boxes too! OH! and the playmats plus deck cases as well! Give us 5 of each design for the playmats and 10 of each color for the deck cases!" Divian couldn't help but burst out and pointed at all the products she wanted to buy.
James coughed while Derrick gave a stiff smile, clearly used to this routine.