"The Evil Hero, it actually looks pretty cool."
"Yeah, yeah, guess guys really do like darkness, huh?"
Even after two days, people at Duel Academy are still discussing the Evil Hero.
On one hand, it... looks good, on the other, just like what that classmate said, guys like darkness.
Before Shou Tenjo crossed over, he also liked Black Myth: Wukong, but unfortunately, he didn't finish it before crossing over.
"Manjome-san, here's your report card, take care of it." The teacher handed out report cards and evaluations one by one. Manjome looked at the miserable scores on his report card and wished he could bury his head in the floor.
He's embarrassed his mentor—
He looked at the evaluation on the report card and recalled what happened two days ago.
After he lost to Shou Tenjo, while the students in the Fusion Department were either cheering or mocking him, Shou Tenjo just calmly put away his Deck and told him that his Duel was not pure enough, at least not that day.
"If you want to defeat Judai, this isn't enough." Shou Tenjo's words echoed in his mind, "You're just thinking about defeating Judai, but Judai is thinking about becoming the strongest Duelist."
Shame!
He finally remembered how that day his mentor grabbed him and tossed him into the AI room, while sneering and scolding him, "Idiot, if you don't want to become the strongest Duelist, you'll just be a mediocrity your whole life. Understand that point clearly!"
Unfortunately, at that time, his mind was filled with unwillingness after losing to Judai and the pain of being criticized.
But that Shou Tenjo...
He looked in the direction of Shou Tenjo.
Although he's the representative of the Fusion Department, the internal evaluation of him is severely polarized, with some respecting him deeply while others intensely dislike him. And outside of that, although ordinary students are amazed by his Duel strategies and Deck composition, they find it hard to interact with him—after all, he is a member of the Fusion Department!
"So, Judai, what score did you get?"
"Hahaha, got over eighty on the practical!" Yuki Judai laughed heartily and conveniently hid his written exam score.
Over eighty in practicals!
Manjome felt like his head had been hit with a hammer.
He only got forty—
[Too focused on using trump cards to decide the outcome, should have used lower-level Monsters to probe for Traps first] [Trap Card usage extremely unstable, moments of brilliance in disrupting opponent operations, but also rash actions like controlling Flame Wingman without considering circumstances] [Showed complete disrespect towards opponent during the Duel, looking at the surroundings the whole time] [Focusing solely on Heroes, neglecting others]
He slapped his face with his hand.
He looked at the evaluation and the points deducted on the score sheet and was filled with anxiety.
Could it be, that even in exam scores he has to lose to that Yuki Judai?
If the mentor knows, he'll kill me!
"Hikari, how did you do?" Mitsuzawa Daichi, sitting behind Tenjo, leaned forward and asked curiously.
He hadn't forgotten what Tenjo said.
"Ah, don't even mention it, didn't do well."
"?"
"Made a mistake, made a mistake, shouldn't have done it that way at the time, ah."
"???" Mitsuzawa Daichi's face was full of question marks.
"Ah, Hikari, you didn't do well either? Hahaha, hey, no problem, let's work hard together next time!" Judai, hearing Tenjo Hikari say this, immediately beamed with joy, patting Tenjo Hikari's shoulder with laughter, as if he had just written off his embarrassing written exam score.
"Hey, Judai," Mitsuzawa Daichi's forehead was sweating, "anyway, we all watched that Duel that day, there's no way Tenjo's Duel could be bad, right?"
"Yeah, big brother! Even I wouldn't believe that!"
"Judai, Tenjo-san is probably joking with us, right?"
"Eh?" Judai was taken aback, "What, Hikari, you actually tricked me?"
"Why would I waste time tricking you?" Shou shrugged and showed the evaluation sheet to his friends, "Look, I only got 97 points."
"..."
"?"
Full score is 100, right?
"The sheet says I accurately caught the opponent's mistakes, immediately thought of effects and evolutions when seeing the opponent's Monsters, willing to endure direct attacks from powerful Monsters for victory, and accurately sensed the opponent's distraction, capitalizing on their psychological changes to achieve a reversal, delivering a one-hit kill, leaving no chance for the opponent to react, almost perfect performance."
".... sounds like all compliments!" Shou, looking at his evaluation sheet, had a stiff expression, "Big brother, I got scolded miserably by the teacher..."
"Weird, so why is it 97?" Mitsuzawa also curiously asked beside.
Shou sighed helplessly, "Teacher Kabayama actually said my Deck composition is not good, too few Monsters, not balanced enough!
He's the only one who deducted points, other teachers gave me full marks!"
...
Everyone leaned back in unison.
Isn't that so?
A normal Deck certainly should be centered on Monsters, unless it's a more self-contained Spell Trap Card Deck, otherwise, aren't Monsters the main focus?
But thinking about it, to pursue the pinnacle of Polymerization, Tenjo filled his Deck with fusions, even the Monsters thrown in just to gather Fusion Materials were only about seven or eight, which is indeed too few.
But the way Shou said it made it seem like he was genuinely unsatisfied.
"I believe all students have seen their evaluations. This is just the early stage of our first year, so there's plenty of time to correct any problems, so don't be discouraged. As for the overall report card, it's already posted on the school's bulletin board, interested students can go check it out.
The top ten students can apply for a scholarship with Professor Cronos."
Scholarship—or rather, let's just call it "prize money."
After all, playing cards is essentially a form of competition. And a student's path is either becoming a teacher or becoming a Duelist, so getting familiar with Duel competitions and understanding how Duelists make money in the real world is also something Duel Academy wants to teach its students.
Grades, huh?
After class, Shou Tenjo went to the school gate and saw the list posted on the bulletin board.
He glanced at it.
Hmm—
Good!
First place.
"Ah, ah, I actually got over ten points less than you, Tenjo!? How is that possible—" Next to him, Mitsuzawa Daichi, seeing the report card, frantically ruffled his hair, "Impossible, right? When we compared answers, there were basically no differences, could it be Alchemy!"
"Ahhh—" Mitsuzawa screamed like Tom in Tom and Jerry.
Consistently topping the written exam scores, highly logical in practical Duels, Mitsuzawa, almost the model student in teachers' eyes, upon seeing that he'd actually been beaten by Shou Tenjo, shouted in agony.
He had 96 in practicals too!
In Duel, Judai and Shou Tenjo were stronger than him, which he'd accept and win back later, but how could his written exam score be so off!
"Hoo..." He took a deep breath, "Seems I was too arrogant before, Shou Tenjo! Next time, I won't give you first place!"
With that, he walked away with heavy steps—seemed like he was heading to find Teacher Daitokuji, not even in the mood to apply for the prize money.
Shou Tenjo just laughed.
Kekeke. Too naive, Yotsuzawa Umi! If it was about math, culture, physics, chemistry, you could easily crush this time-traveler who left his knowledge behind in high school, but if it comes to card knowledge, you're not there yet!
Laughing twice in his heart, Shou Tenjo hurried to the professor's office to apply for the prize money.
To say it's a lot isn't quite right.
After all, it's just the first exam of the academic year, not even the end of term.
But in Duel Academy, this "noble family" under Kaiba Company, even "not much" is enough for Shou Tenjo to splurge on different flavors of bread every day for a year—of course, earning the money isn't for that purpose.
Since becoming Yellow Academy's "representative," hearing about Shou Tenjo's poor financial situation subsisting on bread every day, Yellow Academy's Teacher Kabayama granted him access to the academy cafeteria for free, as long as he maintained his performance, he wouldn't starve at least in the academy.
So, Shou Tenjo has other plans for these funds.
Buying card packs, and... experimenting with Alchemy!
More specifically, experimenting with "Super Polymerization"!