Magical Scientist.
A LV 1 Monster with an ATK of only 300.
It has the ability to pay 1000 LP to Special Summon a LV 6 or lower Fusion Monster directly from the Extra Deck, with the "restriction" that the Monster cannot attack directly and returns to the Extra Deck at the end of the turn.
This Monster has left an indelible mark on the history of Yu Gi Oh—Magical Catapult Turtle Deck.
As long as you Summon Catapult Turtle and Magical Scientist, you can easily achieve an FTK to defeat your opponent in the first turn using Magical Scientist's effect!
The existence of this card turned Yu Gi Oh at one point into a pure coin flip game, where players only needed to go first to win. Moreover, the appearance of this card and the envoy of the Black Luster Soldier made many Yu Gi Oh players gradually realize something—what is the use of LP? As long as you aren't dead, it's fine.
What's more, with the development of Yu Gi Oh, the emergence of Synchro, Xyz, and even Link monsters, the power of Magical Scientist has grown stronger. Following the birth of some Monsters that "aided and abetted," in Unlimited tournaments, there even appeared extremely vicious Decks where "only Magical Scientist and the Extra Deck were needed to achieve an FTK," without main Deck accessories.
Until a certain Deck symbolizing the new era of Yu Gi Oh emerged, the Magical Scientist FTK Deck still had a fighting chance in Unlimited tournaments, able to contend with all sorts of fierce opponents and even advance to the semifinals.
Tenjo Hikari followed Magical Scientist to a factory with a style completely different from Secret Village of the Spellcasters, and upon entering, Tenjo Hikari saw a familiar person sitting on a chair.
"Huh? Umi?" Tenjo Hikari was quite surprised to find that Mitsuzawa Daichi had the same final destination as himself.
"Tenjo!? You're here too?!" Mitsuzawa Daichi was a bit shocked to see Tenjo Hikari, then quickly recovered, saying, "Oh, right, Magical Scientist is a Monster proficient in direct [Polymerization], which certainly suits you."
After saying this, he quickly lowered his head, lying on the table, writing furiously on a large stack of papers, while a Mathematician beside him stroked his beard, nodding continuously, appearing quite satisfied.
Tenjo Hikari sneaked a glance, and they seemed to be doing some math problems.
With this momentum, he might not even need a Duel for the Mathematician to follow him, right?
"We do have quite a few science-type Mages here," Magical Scientist said as he led Tenjo Hikari, "That Mathematician has lived here for a while and is thinking about going out to explore."
The two passed through a corridor, where Tenjo Hikari saw several more Mathematicians engaged in heated calculations on a blackboard.
"Impossible to succeed!" "There's a 1% chance of success!"
It seemed that the two Mathematicians did not agree.
There were many "similar" Spirits at Secret Village of the Spellcasters, but just as Dark Magician had distinctions such as black armor and red armor, these Mathematicians were naturally not identical.
"Mr. Magical Scientist!" "Director." Occasionally, busy Spirits would encounter Magical Scientist and greet him hurriedly, appearing very respectful.
Was this Magical Scientist actually the "Director" of this research institute?
Tenjo Hikari was both excited and slightly disappointed.
He was excited because this Spirit of Magical Scientist likely had high strength, but disappointed because if there were his own forces or teams, no Spirit would abandon their subordinates to aid the humans. In such a situation, they'd be either all in to help or, even if very interested, would stay to fulfill their duties.
This was also the "rule" of Spirits.
However, because there was no Catapult Turtle here, using Magical Scientist wasn't of particularly great use, so it wasn't all that disappointing.
He knew that since Magical Scientist had brought him here, there must be some "resources" to provide.
Tenjo Hikari continued following until reaching an office filled with numerous computers, each screen displaying various information, including surveillance and calculation data. On the desk sat a framed photo, which featured the Monster Card Kozaky.
On the other side were some experimental setups and a simple assembly line experiment device, and at the end of the line were the results.
These were cup noodles decorated with green patterns and the word "FUSION," along with packaged foods painted with yellow patterns and "FUSION"—in other words, "Instant Fusion" and "Ready Fusion." In the card image story, these two things were both inventions of Magical Scientist.
Of course, from the perspective of Yu Gi Oh's development, it was K Society wanting to make money but being unwilling to release a vicious card like Magical Scientist, so they printed Instant Fusion. After even Instant Fusion was restricted, they devised an even lower-tier replacement, Ready Fusion.
With one cup of opened noodles, the fragrance reached Tenjo Hikari's nose, and he thought it smelled quite fragrant.
"If you like, before returning to the Human World, I can send you a few boxes," Magical Scientist said nonchalantly.
Sending a box of Instant Fusion?
Tenjo Hikari's eyes were a bit blinded.
Later, he realized—this wasn't a card, it was a real cup noodle.
Honestly, he had long wanted to try Ready Fusion and taste its flavor, so he didn't decline, saying, "Sure. Thank you, Mr. Magical Scientist."
Of course, he knew very well that even though these cup noodles weren't worth much money, they certainly wouldn't be given away for free.
If his performance didn't earn the approval of Mr. Magical Scientist, he might not be able to take these cup noodles away either.
"Well then..." Mr. Magical Scientist extended a hand, tapping away on the machine until suddenly the screen emitted a violent glow, and the surrounding environment began to slowly blur.
Individual grids and numerous cards floated around.
The ground was covered with a layer of black carpet, which upon closer inspection, seemed to be the imagery of Skyscraper.
A giant three-headed dragon appeared directly opposite Tenjo Hikari, and upon closer examination, it turned out to be "Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon"! On Tenjo Hikari's side, images of Thunder Giant and Burst Lady emerged.
Looking again at the Duel Disk, the opponent's LP was 6000, while his own Life Points were 1400.
Floating in front of him were virtual images of cards including King of the Swamp, Premature Burial, Wroughtweiler, Miracle Fusion, Wingman, and Polymerization. In the Extra Deck were Flame Wingman and Shining Flare Wingman.
"What's this?" Tenjo Hikari raised an eyebrow.
"Well, this is the puzzle I designed for you! You can only operate for one turn, and can check all cards on your own and your opponent's field, Graveyard, and Deck. You must finish the fusion puzzle this turn!
Total of thirty challenges, anyone in the entire institute who can solve ten is an elite, those who can solve twenty in a short time are truly rare, and those who can solve them all, well—none yet exist!"
Pointing to one side of the field, he gestured to numerous cards, which were the rare cards of his collection: "As long as you can solve the puzzle, I'll give you a card from my personal collection. If you can solve more than fifteen, I can exchange a Super Rare Card with you; if you solve them all, consider your challenge successful, and you can come here anytime!"
"Don't underestimate this puzzle, the key lies in the battle phase which is only once; if you want to..."
"I see, it's too easy." Tenjo Hikari didn't wait for Mr. Magical Scientist to finish speaking and already looked at the last card in the Deck, it was another Polymerization.
"Discard King of the Swamp, activate its effect to add Polymerization from the Deck to the Hand Card, then activate Polymerization twice, Fusion Summon Flame Wingman, and then fuse Flame Wingman to Fusion Summon Shining Flare Wingman. There are four Elemental Heroes in the Graveyard, so his ATK will be 3700 points, then activate Premature Burial to revive the King of the Swamp from the Graveyard with 800 ATK, Normal Summon Wroughtweiler with 500 ATK.
When Elemental Hero Monsters attack Monsters with higher ATK than themselves, Skyscraper's effect can add 1000 ATK to the Monster, while Shining Flare Wingman deals damage equal to the opponent's destroyed Monster's ATK during battle. So the final result is 4700 ATK for Shining Flare Wingman, 800 ATK for King of the Swamp, and 500 ATK for Wroughtweiler, finishing the 6000."
As Tenjo Hikari spoke, he quickly operated, while Tierra had just flashed in and was wondering if he could try himself when he saw Tenjo Hikari had already finished the simulation at light speed, moving on to the next puzzle.
"This—" Mr. Magical Scientist paused his words, staring blankly at Tenjo Hikari.
The puzzle wasn't difficult, many Spirits could solve this problem. Perhaps Warriors reacting like Tenjo Hikari were too rare.
Tenjo Hikari felt no pressure at all.
The reason was simple.
This is just "endgame puzzles," right?
K Society often adds such puzzle games in their own works, and when Tenjo Hikari played Master Duel before, sometimes solving endgame puzzles was truly more relaxing and enjoyable than fighting others.
However, solving endgame puzzles in the original world of Yu-Gi-Oh seemed to be a pretty difficult thing.
On one hand, everyone's information sources were limited, many cards were unfamiliar and required trials; on the other hand, different people had various duel styles and tendencies in choosing during the game—like in "Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's," the protagonist team encountered situations that had to solve endgame puzzles. Reliable Crow Hogan and power-focused Jack Atlas suffered in the puzzles, but ultimately Bruno succeeded by understanding all endgame details and keeping a calm mind.
Know this, Crow and Jack were already among the top duelists in their world.
Overall, in this world, due to insights and experiences, facing endgame puzzles often left most people flustered.
After all, they've never seen it—
For example, now, when confronted with the puzzle made by Mr. Magical Scientist, very few people had seen or faced the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, leaving them stunned for a moment.
But not for Tenjo Hikari.
Before his travels, he played cards using much more complex and cumbersome summoning methods for resolving scenarios and "calculating slashes." Compared to the hefty decks and fields with "negations," puzzles designed by Magical Scientist had already become far easier.