Is this the poker world?Ada thief!

Chapter 1822 Post-Event Work
The event of the transfer to the Spirit Realm may seem to have ended, but the cleanup work following the event is far from over.

The subsequent repairs to the facilities affected within the academy were secondary—because of the spatial transfer, the main campus was relatively okay, but the underground structures of buildings like the Red Dormitory, which were moved to other locations, were basically destroyed. Even if they returned to their original locations after the Great Transfer, the severed water pipes and cables would not regenerate on their own.

The students' mental state is also a major issue. Although less than a week has passed since they were transferred to the Elf World, the experiences during this period have left many students with severe psychological trauma.

—After all, they didn't even know about the existence of Card Spirits before that. In the blink of an eye, they were asked to risk their lives to fight against fierce and dangerous Card Spirits. If Hayato hadn't held a large-scale event called "Duel-Links" two years ago to let them get used to a similar environment in advance, the students might have been scared out of their wits.

Besides that, Hayato also needs to handle the things that happened before he entered the Spirit World and before the Great Transfer began. For example, he needs to explain Professor Cobra's death to Paul Mackenzie, who has been promoted from Dean of Studies to Principal at the Western Branch School. After all, Professor Cobra was on loan from there to participate in academic exchanges, even though the Duel Academy does not bear any responsibility for his death and it is more due to Yubel.

Similarly, the matter of the only missing person—John Anderson—also needs to be reported to the relevant parties, such as Principal Fumio Ichinose of the Northern Branch School, and John's guardian, Raphael.

"Hayato Kobayashi!" Raphael's angry voice came through the phone. "Aren't you the strongest person in the world? Why, why can't you even protect a student!"

"Don't make things sound so simple, Raphael. Do you think I only need to protect John Anderson? I'm responsible for hundreds of students across three dormitories and three grades at Duel Academy. Whether I've fulfilled my responsibilities is none of your business!"

Although he was informing Raphael that John Anderson, whom he had adopted, had stayed in the Elf Realm and had not returned, Hayato did not let the other party vent his emotions: "I left a bunch of people at the academy to protect them. Besides my brother-in-law and brother-in-law, even Amelda is at the school, but what can I do if John insists on going outside the school!"

“Ameruda? But what's the point of saying that now!” Raphael said angrily on the other end of the phone. “John is dead, I have no interest in right or wrong anymore. Was the spirit who harmed John named Yubel? Such an inherently evil spirit, I will—”

Who said John is dead?

Hayato's sudden interjection startled Raphael: "What did you say?"

“All I’ve told you from the beginning is that ‘John ​​Anderson stayed in the Elf Realm,’ right? I never gave you any death notice.” Hayato reiterated, “You can rest assured about John’s safety. He’ll be fine for now, but it’s unlikely he’ll be able to return to the human world before the end of this semester. I’m just here to let you know that.”

"So what secrets have you found out this time, Hayato Kobayashi?" Raphael had a clear memory of Hayato's past behavior, knowing that this guy often knew secrets that others didn't, and he didn't know where his intelligence network came from. "How did you know that John wouldn't be in trouble?"

After a pause, Raphael changed his tune, saying, "...No, anyway, even if I asked you, you probably couldn't explain it in a way I could understand, and you'd just ramble on about random things. I've heard Yugi Muto and the others say that you often say your information comes from a guy named Takahashi."

"No, my information really did come from Takahashi-sensei, and sometimes it was provided by Takahashi-sensei's apprentice, Kageyama Naoyuki," Hayato admitted. "The latter's GX manga also provided a lot of helpful information."

"Tsk, that's why I said it, it's all nonsense." Raphael said somewhat irritably, "Anyway, please give me a guarantee—a guarantee about what you just said about John being alright. Believing those nonsensical things would be an insult to my intelligence, but if it's a solemn promise from you, Hayato Kobayashi, I can trust it."

Hearing Raphael's words, Hayato replied earnestly, "Then as a teacher, as the headmaster of the Duel Academy, as a duelist, and as the Duel King—yes, I can promise John's safety and safe return."

"Alright, that's enough. I've heard about the students who went missing from Duel Academy a few years ago. One of them, named Tenjouin Fubuki, has returned to Duel Academy, just as you promised when the students went missing."

Raphael was truly calmed and relieved after receiving Hayato's solemn promise. He then said, "But don't contact me again until John returns to the human world—I don't want to be filled with hope only to hear that John hasn't returned yet."

As he spoke, Raphael hung up the call. Hayato sighed and complained to the person in front of him, "After all, it's bad news, and unsurprisingly, I wasn't welcomed. But Raphael's attitude was colder than I expected, which is really disheartening."

"Hmph, I think it's just because you've never been very popular." As he spoke, the person who spoke didn't have the usual cold expression on his face. Instead, he curled the corners of his mouth and mocked Hayato, "Especially since your emotional intelligence is so low."

"Huh?" Hayato raised an eyebrow. "Yugi has the right to say that, Jonouchi has the right to say that, but what right do you, a guy who's still single, have to say such things, Seth?"

Seto Kaiba, who was just giggling, stopped giggling and returned to his usual self. He snorted and said with a sour face, "Hmph, I'm going to become the world's number one duelist. Women are just a hindrance."

"Yugi Muto, that mediocre guy, and you, all three of you are tied down by the women around you. Especially Yugi Muto, who even has two women by his side, and Hayato Kobayashi, you also have the added burden of the Duel Academy. Heh, while you won't necessarily regress, the speed at which you become stronger has definitely been greatly affected."

"Let's stay like this for now, and then I'll take this opportunity to become stronger to a level that you can never surpass, hehe, hehe hahahahahaha!"

Seeing Kaiba burst into laughter, Hayato suddenly pointed in a direction: "Huh? How did the Blue-Eyes White Dragon materialize?"

"Where!?" Kaiba turned his head sharply and said subconsciously, then suddenly realized that he had clearly fallen into Hayato's trap. When he turned back, he saw Hayato's expression that said, "Your ego is as weird as ever." He was so angry that he couldn't keep his cold expression and cursed, "You tricked me!"

"And what's with that expression? Do you think your own XP is any better?!" "What's wrong with my XP? My XP is perfectly normal, okay?" Hayato retorted, then added, "Alright, we can talk about those unimportant things later when we have time. Let's finish the important things first."

"First of all—about the dueling disk that John Anderson used."

The Duel Disk that Hayato mentioned for John is not the Duel Disk he originally used. Before the Great Transfer, after Marufuji Sho and the others collapsed due to the "Death Gauntlet," John and the others used their Duel Disks to fight. Even after going to the other world, because John and the others fought the most, Marufuji Sho and the others did not switch back to their original Duel Disks but let John and the others continue to use them to maintain their fighting ability.

Even when John teamed up with Jaden to duel Yubel, he was still using the Duel Disk, which had a built-in Duel Energy Storage Device, giving him and Jaden a certain ability to protect themselves during the duel.

Meanwhile, the Duel Disks with built-in Duel Energy Storage Devices are not something that can be easily accomplished by simply finding a place inside the Duel Disk to put the device in. They have undergone special internal adjustments, and Kaiba also made sure to install some small devices he left behind in each Duel Disk, such as data collection, GPS, and vital sign monitoring.

Raphael assumed that Hayato couldn't provide any evidence to prove John's safety, but in reality, if he had persisted a little longer, Hayato could have sent Raphael the vital signs data collected by Kaiba, allowing him to clearly see that John's physical condition had always been quite healthy, even excessively healthy.

“This data is quite unusual.” Kaiba casually retrieved the data Hayato needed and tossed it aside. The interactive virtual projection displayed the data in mid-air, allowing Hayato to clearly see all the indicators. Then, Kaiba pointed to one of the lines, “Although all the vital signs are good, this one is the only abnormal one.”

"I don't understand such complicated things, stop keeping me in suspense."

Hearing Hayato's urging, Kaiba explained, "This data is a new indicator of the human body that I calculated using a newly written algorithm. It was based on past data collection on 'Planar' and is used to represent the level of special energy reserves in a certain life form. The higher the value, the more abnormal it is. Although the value may temporarily change during intense battles such as duels and cannot be used as a reference, the normal value is quite stable and can be used to make basic judgments."

“Take a mediocre person as an example. His normal value is 2400 points, while the reference value for an average person is 1000 points. This means that a mediocre person does have some special abilities, such as luck and perseverance that surpass those of ordinary people. Then there is your student named John Anderson. The normal value I collected before was 1700 points, of which 700 points seem to be provided by the card spirits around him.”

Hearing this, Hayato said in surprise, "This is really rare. I actually heard you mention 'Card Spirits'. I remember someone always refusing to acknowledge the existence of Card Spirits."

“Hmph, that’s because there wasn’t any concrete evidence to prove the existence of Card Spirits back then.” Kaiba paused. “However, the means to reliably travel to the Spirit World have been proven, and the existence of Card Spirits has been established. I’m not a stubborn person, so why can’t I believe in the existence of Card Spirits?”

"Anyway, let's get back to John Anderson. His current normal value collected from his duel disk is 3400 points, which is 1000 points higher than Yosuke Jounouchi, and even higher than mine." Subtly leaving his own words unfinished, Kaiba changed the subject, "Although other indicators are normal, I think something special has definitely happened to John Anderson."

"So they followed the same old procedure after all. Or maybe Yubel was provoked by the friendship John and Jaden showed in their duel, so he decided to go all out with the Minotaur?" Hayato remarked, turning his gaze from the data to Kaiba. "It's enough that we can confirm John's safety. Any anomalies will be resolved later."

"But before that, what's more important is to find a way to go back to the Elf Realm and bring him back—and you have that way, don't you, Seth?"

“Of course, who do you think I am?” Kaiba said confidently. “If you hadn’t returned early, the space transfer device I prepared could have been activated twelve hours later, opening the door between the real world and the spirit world.”

"Although back then, activating the device required coordinates from your Duel Disk, which was still in the Elf World, even now, the location data sent by John Anderson's Duel Disk can still be used as coordinates to open a passage through the world."

According to Kaiba, traveling through the world has become a fairly simple thing that can even be mass-produced. Although Kaiba is a bit lacking in card printing ability, he has always been far ahead of the world in scientific research.

"That's good, as long as it works." Hayato said, extending his hand.

But Kaiba just stared at Hayato's outstretched hand without reacting, then looked up at him and asked, "What are you trying to do with that hand?"

"Is it that hard to guess? What else could I possibly mean?" Hayato rolled his eyes. "Of course, I'm asking you for the way to travel between worlds. I was halfway through my exploration of the Spirit World when I was elbowed and crashed halfway. Now, if I go back to the Spirit World, I won't be burdened by my students anymore. I can continue my exploration and bring John back with me."

"So, leave the method of traversing the world to me, Seth."

But the seahorse simply sat there with its arms crossed and said, "While I do have a way and have explained it to you, I don't recall ever saying I would give you the way to use—compared to you, who has already explored the Spirit World twice, I haven't been to that other world yet. Perhaps I can find a way to become stronger or even surpass you there."

"If you want it, come and get it yourself. You know the rules."

"I knew you were pretending to be stupid just to wait here. No wonder you weren't in such a hurry to play cards with me when we met today," Hayato retorted, raising an eyebrow. "But judging from your confidence, could it be—"

"Hmph, who do you think I am?" Kaiba picked up several cards from the top of his pre-prepared deck, including some Fusion Monsters with purple borders and even some with white borders. He said smugly, "I'll use this to prove why the strongest evolved Dragon is [Blue-Eyes]!"

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