"Yugen, you really seem calm, huh~"
Teacher Dade Temple sat in his chair in the Alchemy Laboratory, holding his cat named Pharaoh in his arms, petting the chubby feline with one hand.
Since joining Duel Academy, Dade Temple has pretty much been slacking off the whole time. The laboratory was supposedly funded by the academy for his research, but in reality, it's been collecting dust over the years.
After all, Dade Temple's persona in the academy is that of a laid-back, easygoing person, maintaining this image both in front of students and the institution. So, no one has ever seen him seriously engaged in research, and this lab was more or less abandoned.
Until now.
When Yugen first pushed the door open, a musty odor almost overwhelmed him. The floor was covered in dust, and sunlight streaming through the glass cracks formed streaks of light, with countless dust particles dancing in the beams.
Yugen spent some time cleaning up the lab, and since then, he's been the one using it.
"What?" Yugen, focused on his work at the experiment table, looked up briefly.
"The team duel, you know." Dade Temple tilted his head, continuing to pet the cat. "You don't seem nervous at all."
"Oh, that... nothing to be nervous about."
Yugen said, as he continued to busy himself.
"And Judai doesn't seem nervous either," Yugen casually remarked. "I invited him yesterday to study card decks for the team duel, but he turned me down. Something about... his dad coming over or something? Anyway, he didn't come because he was busy."
However, judging from Judai's mention, Yugen did recall the plot. It seemed like it was about their dorm mate, Hayato, whose father thought his son wasn't making progress at the academy and wanted him to quit and return home.
After a card game match with his dad, although Hayato lost, he managed to convince his father to let him stay at the academy.
Hayato's dad used some sort of Drunken Master deck, a still-unrealized card series with unclear meaning.
According to Teacher Dade Temple, Hayato's dad was supposedly an heir of the "Samo Dimension Stream," said to be a world-renowned duelist. Allegedly, it's a sudden victory style derived from swordsmanship, boasting the power to defeat opponents instantly.
Yet, judging from that animation duel, the deck seemed somewhat weak...
Yugen found it peculiar. The so-called world-renowned duelist didn't seem to perform as one might expect, but then again, he couldn't completely deny the possibility.
After all, in the animation, there were only two monsters summoned by Hayato's father, and the rest of the deck's content remained a mystery to the audience. Perhaps he went easy since he was dueling his son.
Over the years, K Society has proven many times that an old and seemingly inferior deck can leap several eras forward with just a few amazing power cards, as long as they desire it.
It's still unwise to underestimate the world's legendary top duelists.
"Haha, Judai is different." Dade Temple laughed. "That child has an innate talent that rarely leaves him feeling nervous about anything."
But there's a rumor that your team duel opponent might be no easy rival. Do you have a strategy?"
"Well, something like that." Yugen chuckled.
He already had a bold plan. If things go well, with a little help from Judai's Divine Drawing Power, they might just double the fun for the Maze Brothers.
"Enough about that... I'm done here."
Yugen stood up and handed a card to Dade Temple.
"Teacher, please have a look."
Dade Temple took the card and adjusted his glasses: "Let me see..."
Yugen hasn't been in the card creation course for long, but he's shown exceptional talent. Despite the extra coaching from Dade Temple, his technique currently remained at the "replication" stage.
This involved attempting to replicate somewhat easier-to-copy, low-rarity cards. Once proficient, he could consider advancing to more intricate card creations.
Dade Temple glanced at the card he handed over: "This attempt is with the Bicycle card? I heard you genuinely like this card. Not bad, not bad, you managed to replicate it so quickly... huh!?"
Dade Temple's ever-squinted eyes nearly popped open, and his glasses almost slipped off his nose.
Because he saw the effect of the "Double-Rider Bicycle Robot" that Yugen handed over.
"This card can attack directly."
Wait a moment, wasn't it supposed to lose 500 attack points...
He looked up at Yugen, appearing somewhat startled, realizing something.
Instead of just copying, have you made a research breakthrough?
Yugen simply smiled.
He successfully confirmed a suspicion he had earlier.
Many early Yu-Gi-Oh enthusiasts know that it's common for the same card in the animation to have contradicting effects in different contexts.
An iconic example in GX would be the well-known monster "Artificial Human - Telekinesis Intimidator," which had discrepancies between its effect in the GX animation compared to its DM appearance.
In DM, Soga had the effect of "destroying all cover and face-up Trap Cards on the field, and negating the activation and effect of Trap Cards" when it's on the field.
But by the GX era, Soga, appearing twice in the early and late parts, was aligned with the effect of the physical card, which is "Trap Cards cannot be activated, and their effects are negated," but wouldn't scan and destroy all Cover Cards on the field like in DM.
Then there's "Future Fusion," with different effects between when it was used by Caesar and its later use by Mr. T's minions under Darkness.
There are countless examples of this.
Previously, as an audience, you could laugh off the numerous inconsistencies and bugs in the animation. However, now that he's in this real-world Yu-Gi-Oh World, he can't simply be satisfied with that notion. Especially, after understanding and researching card creation principles, a new idea emerged.
As previously mentioned, card effects aren't randomly written, but rather manifestations of a card's power.
So is it possible that, when designing the same card, one designer only awakened part of its capabilities, while another tapped into a greater potential? Thus, would it be natural for the same card designed by different designers to display varying effect strengths?
Or, do some cards inherently have more potential that hasn't been discovered, which could offer room for enhancement if the card undergoes a remake?
During the past period, he had been learning to print cards with Dade Temple, while trying to study this topic.
The evidence suggests he might be right.
For instance, through persistent experiments, he found that the relatively easy-to-modify "Double-Rider Bicycle Robot," though not a very strong card, had potential increased merely by removing the "reduce attack power by 500" restriction, albeit not by a significant margin, making it easier to develop.
But it was enough to prove his hypothesis.
The animation cards that were weaker than the remembers the physical card versions still appear to have room for further development.
"Truly astonishing."
Dade Temple adjusted his glasses, looked at Yugen again, and his permanently squinted eyes seemed to have a gleam in them.
While removing 500 attack points might not seem that impactful for a bicycle, a research breakthrough is still a research breakthrough. Achieving a research result at the start of card creation learning is a rarity, even for Dade Temple.
Could it be that this fabled genius really defies all logic?
"Perhaps you genuinely have a talent for alchemy."
"You're too kind, Teacher, I'm simply treating cards with care, as you taught me," Yugen said with a smile.
Though it's largely because he knew which direction to strive for, while others wouldn't even know which card might have latent potential worth developing among the countless cards out there.
"By the way, Teacher, I also tried creating some other cards."
Yugen quietly pulled out a few more cards.
"Look, here are two more that are somewhat different from others..."
Dade Temple: "???"
There's more?
Even the well-informed Dade Temple was momentarily silenced.
After a long pause, he looked up and spoke slowly.
"Yugen."
"What is it, Teacher?"
"Have you considered becoming a professor?"
"?"