Is this the world of card dealers? Yada thieves!

"Gurus and all that has absolutely nothing to do with me!"

Across from Malik, Hayato narrowed his eyes: "How dare you, a former leader of the Gluths, say such a thing?"

"Uh, that's because... because..." Malik's eyes darted around, and an idea came to him. "Oh right, actually, Gruus was created by another personality of mine. Poor me and Rishid were manipulated by that other me. The leader of Gruus you're looking for is Dark Malik, so what does that have to do with me, the sunny boy Malik?"

"Go ahead and make up whatever you want, I won't believe a single word. Have you forgotten that I was the one who took down the other you?" Hayato looked at Malik, exasperated. "How come you can't even make up a simple lie?"

"Is that the point?" Malik muttered, slumping onto the sofa. "No matter what you say, brother-in-law, I really don't know what this 'Gluth' thing is all about. To be honest, the word 'Gluth' just means 'glutton,' it doesn't sound good at all, only someone with chuunibyou would choose such a silly name."

Noticing Hayato's gaze, Malik said with a deep expression, "Although I hate to admit it, these were all mistakes made because of my youth. But I am no longer the immature person I used to be; I am a reliable adult now."

Meanwhile, the computer in Malik's room was still on, playing the voice of a virtual YouTuber saying, "I'm cute, please give me money."

For a brief moment, Hayato and Malik fell into an extremely subtle silence.

"In short, brother-in-law, this Gurus you mentioned is most likely just some guy using Gurus's name to frame others. He has absolutely nothing to do with me," Malik assured him confidently.

Hearing this, Hayato took out his phone from his pocket, the screen of which was lit up, and asked, "What did you say over there, Ishio Kai?"

“The real-time monitoring results show that Malik Ishdar’s heart rate was stable except for the moment when the streamer’s voice came through. Theoretically, he wasn’t lying.” Adjusting his non-prescription glasses to look more mature, Guiping said, “Also, although it sounds like the name of a god, my name is Guiping!”

"Hey, don't worry too much about those details." Hayato moved the phone a little further away from Keihei, who was yelling about making him look bad, and looked at Malik. "But you've successfully passed Keihei's suspicions."

"No, brother-in-law, were you on the phone the whole time?" Malik said angrily. "I considered you my dearest friend, my brother, and you used this kind of method to spy on me!"

"I've recently taken a liking to a figurine—"

"You want more money, right? Is 200,000 enough?"

"Brother-in-law, do you need to install another camera in my room?"

Listening to the two's utterly shameless conversation, Keihei marveled at the excellent matchmaking mechanism of fate while reminding Hayato, "But Hayato-kun, if Malik Ishtar has nothing to do with 'Grus,' then who exactly is that organization that created the ability to hack into the Kaiba Corporation's Duel Disk, and why are they trying to pin the blame on Malik?"

“Good question, I’d also like to know who’s trying to frame me!” Malik rolled his eyes.

Hayato glanced at his phone and asked, "By the way, Keihei, why are you the one talking to me? Where's Seth?"

"My brother said he plans to use the data we got before as a reference, make some adjustments, and then build the power unit again. So he dragged me over here to be drafted," Guiping said, shrugging. Guiping, who was already in junior high school, hadn't joined any of the school's clubs, but was a member of the "Homecoming Club." After all, Kaiba always acted like a hands-off boss, and Guiping handled most of the things at the Kaiba Corporation.

Kaiba's side hadn't yielded any further information, and Malik's connection to the existing "Grus" clues meant that all the information Hayato had extracted from Ryuga was rendered useless and couldn't be further investigated. This made Hayato, who had rushed back to Domino City from Duel Academy Island, somewhat irritable.

"In short, my intuition as a duelist tells me that the 'Gurus' that Ryuga mentioned is not fictional, but a real organization that calls itself 'Gurus'. Moreover, according to him, he made the deal with them in Domino City, a place monitored by the Kaiba Corporation."

Standing up, Hayato gestured to Malik that he could go back to his room to change into a different suit and continue his solo run, while he himself walked outside. "I'll wander around Domino City from now on; maybe I'll find some relevant clues."

Hearing Hayato walk out, Sumire Kobayashi, who was chopping vegetables, looked up and said gently, "Going out again, Hayato?"

"Yes, but I'll be back for dinner. Is will be coming over tonight too." Hayato waved and left the house.

Hayato, after leaving the villa area, recalled what Ryuga had told him and headed to the bustling commercial street. He said that was where he had met the man who called himself "Gurus," and he planned to try his luck there to see if he could find any clues.

However, as the Duel King, his own goal is too obvious, so he needs to disguise himself a little.

————Disguise Divider————

The shopping street in Domino City has become increasingly prosperous due to the increase in the number of permanent residents after Domino City itself was almost completely taken over by the Kaiba Group and underwent a complete transformation.

Large shopping malls are a given; they're just the most basic facilities. On the commercial street of Domino City, you can even see advertisements for many dueling training institutions.

—After all, in today's Domino City, apart from the natives, no outsiders can even enter the Sixth Ring without registering as duelists. Due to the influence and promotion of the Kaiba Corporation, Domino City has seen a faster rise in the social status of duelists than other places.

This is why duelist training institutions have fertile ground to thrive here. Although the Haima Group has established advanced dueling academies that are comparable to high schools and intermediate dueling academies that are comparable to junior high schools around the world, shrewd businessmen have their eyes on the elementary school age group that the Haima Group has not yet entered, and have opened so-called "Duel Academy Intensive Tutoring Classes" under the banner of "making sure your child doesn't lose before the card draw begins".

Among these, two duelist training institutions are the most famous and the largest: the "Electronic Flow Training Institution" and the "Psychic Flow Training Institution".

Yes, that's right. Their predecessors were actually the existing "Electronic Flow" and "Psychic Flow" dojos. It was precisely because they had experience in training young teenagers that these two long-established dueling dojos were able to stand out and take the lead among the many duelist training institutions in the market.

As for whether it's beneath our dignity to relax the requirements of dueling dojos that originally had certain skill levels for apprentices and open training institutions for duelists that accept all comers, well, it's about making money, there's nothing shameful about it.

Moreover, the Duelist Training Institute is a training institution, and the dojo itself still exists. In addition to serving as the vice principal of the Duelist Academy, Samejima also frequently returns to the dojo in America to instruct students. On the other hand, there is no way he can come to the Electronic Flow Training Institute in Domino City; there is someone else in charge.

But let's leave the Electro-Style Dojo aside for now and turn our attention to the Nen-Style training institution, which has always been at odds with Electro-Style, even when it comes to running duelist training programs.

"While the Android - Psychic Shocker isn't as rare as the Cyber ​​Dragon, it's still a core card in our 'Psychic Style.' Even though we set up a duelist training institution to cover expenses, we in the 'Psychic Style' only give one card to each graduating student as a memento."

Inside the training institution, a burly man wearing a robe with the words "Psychic Flow" printed on it looked at the group of people in front of him and said, "My only answer to requests to buy the [Homunculus - Psychic Shocker] card from me is refusal. If that's all you've come here for, then please leave. It will be time for the students to come to class soon."

The two men opposite the burly man concealed their appearances and wore black robes. When he heard him refuse their deal, one of them spoke in a somewhat sinister voice: "Can you make that decision? Won't you reconsider?"

“Although I am only the head of the Nen-ryu training institution in Domino City, and I have not yet achieved the rank of ‘Master’ or higher in ‘Nen-ryu’, my brother is a contemporary Nen-ryu master. I, Makoto Inozuma, am capable and qualified to make my own judgment.” The burly man stood up and said, “I’m not making this up. My brother once dueled with that legendary duelist, the King of Duels, Hayato Kobayashi, so please stop bothering us.”

"Aluminum plant, see the guests out!"

"Yes!" Behind the burly man, a green-haired youth said to two men, one tall and one short, dressed in black robes, "Gentlemen, please leave."

If Hayato or Manjoume Seiji were here, they would most likely recognize that this green-haired youth is none other than the Psycho-Aluminum from Duel City many years ago, who had his younger brother cooperate with him to cheat by using a trick called "superpower" to peek at other people's cards!

From the very beginning, of the two people who came to the Nen Power training institution, only the shorter one spoke. The taller one had been silent the whole time. But when the person in charge of the training institution, Pig Claw, was unwilling to cooperate with them, causing the deal proposed by the shorter one to fall through, the taller one finally spoke up and said impatiently, "That's why I said from the beginning, just do it directly. Isn't that how we've always done it before?"

"Idiot, how many times have I told you? The past is the past, and the present is the present. Times have changed!" The shorter man said irritably to his companion who had spoken up. "If we start making a move anywhere, the Seahorse Group will find out!"

"Make a move? What do you want to do?" Makoto Inuzuma frowned. "The entire Domino City is under the surveillance of the Kaiba Corporation. Do you want to go to jail?!"

Upon hearing Makoto Inuzuma's words, the two men in black robes stood up, looked at the young Makoto Inuzuma who was no more than eighteen or nineteen years old, and said contemptuously, "Of course we know that the entire Domino City is under the surveillance of the Kaiba Group, but what do you think we talked to you for so long just now?"

Upon hearing the short man's words, the tall man extended a hand from his cloak, revealing a duel disk. The arena area on the duel disk was open, and a card was already placed on it, emitting a strange red glow.

"Hmph, the card the master who recruited us into the organization gave us has a magical, special power. It can effectively interfere with the Kaiba Group's surveillance. With the power of this card, we've been able to evade the law for far too long." As he spoke, the short man raised his head, revealing his face under the hood of his cloak, but his face was still covered by a half-moon shaped white mask with a smiling face. "We've been staking out this place for a long time, waiting for the perfect opportunity when no one is around to make our move."

"Even if we take your cards and kill you here, the Haima Group won't be able to trace it back to us!"

"Stop talking nonsense, Mask of Light. We don't have much time." The tall man also revealed his face under the hood. Similar to the "Mask of Light," he also wore a black crescent-shaped mask, but with an angry expression. "Since we were going to have to fight anyway, we shouldn't have wasted so much time earlier."

"But this is also the time required to activate that card. If you feel a bit rushed, let's just kill these two guys quickly, Mask of Darkness."

"You two!" Makoto Inuzuka's face turned serious and angry as he heard the conversation between the Masked Light and Darkness, who seemed oblivious to everyone else. At first, he thought they were just two low-level Yakuza thugs who had come to demand "protection money" because their training institution was doing well. Although he was slightly surprised to hear that their goal was to take the rare cards from him, he didn't deviate too much from his initial impression.

So, these two people were actually murderers?

"Aluminum plant!"

"I've already called the police, Brother Cheng! But the phone lines are down!" the aluminum factory worker replied from the side, but there was no signal on either the cell phone or the landline.

"Tsk, they actually blocked the signal here? Looks like these two have done this before." Makoto Inuzuma put on his Duel Disk and said, "But even so, we will not sit idly by and wait to be killed!"

"I'll help you too, Cheng-ge!"

Wearing Duel Disks, Aruba and Makoto Inuzuma stand side by side, facing the two Masked Light and Dark Masks, who also have Duel Disks on their hands. They have set up a 2 vs 2 doubles match, and the battle is about to begin!

Ten minutes later—

"Go, my monster! Attack that brat directly!"

"Wow!"

[Aluminum Plant: 2600LP→0]

"Aluminum plant!"

"Fool, you still have the mind to look at others?" Mask of Darkness waved his hand. "Attack the opponent's duelist directly!"

"Ugh!"

[Pig Claw Cheng: 2800LP→0]

With all his life points reduced to zero and knocked to the ground, Makoto Inozuka stared in disbelief at the figures of the monsters whose virtual images had not yet completely dissipated from the fields of the Light and Dark Masks, even though the duel was over. The power of those insect-like demons was simply too terrifying; his teamwork with Akiba was completely ineffective against their opponents.

More importantly, for some reason, neither he nor Alumina could use magic cards in the duel. Fusion, Field, Equip, Continuous, Quick-Play – not a single card could be played successfully; they were all stuck in their hands. However, the two opponents could use magic cards normally!

Even though they were in charge of deploying the traps and the aluminum field was in charge of calling them up, the two of them still lost to the two mysterious opponents.

"We won faster than expected. Is it because we're too strong, or is the item that person gave us just too useful? We're definitely too strong, aren't we, Kufufufufu~"

"But that person's tool has also sped up the time considerably, shortening the time it would take for us to defeat these two weaklings and take the cards from them." Hearing the strange laughter of his companion, Mask of Light, Mask of Darkness also sneered as he walked towards the two lying on the ground, about to seize the cards and kill them to silence them. "Now, it's time to reap the rewards."

"Yes, it's definitely harvest time."

Suddenly, the Mask of Light and Darkness heard a voice, and the surrounding environment quickly changed from the room where they were located to be covered by a layer of black, transforming into a deep darkness.

"Clang~ Clang~" The sound of metal clashing rang out from the direction from which the voices had come. Without even bothering to pick up the cards of Makoto Pig's Claw and Aluminum Field from the ground, Hikari Mask nervously turned around.

They had been observing the Nen Power Flow training institution for several days before choosing to make their move today. No one should be here at this time. Who could possibly be showing up at this moment?

Under their gaze, a golden light suddenly shone in the darkness, revealing the golden Millennium Wisdom Ring hanging on his chest. Hayato glanced at the pointer of the Millennium Wisdom Ring pointing towards the Mask of Light and Darkness, and nodded in satisfaction: "As expected, the Millennium Wisdom Ring is much more useful."

"See, it helped me find the clues with ease."

Chapter 1088 Demon Cells

A strange thing happened: the Millennium Wisdom Wheel had clearly disappeared underground in Atum's Gate of the Underworld long ago, and no one had dug or destroyed it. So how did Hayato obtain the Millennium Wisdom Wheel?

The same so-called "Prana" also has the same [Quantum Cube], and its connection with Egypt is even deeper than that of Blue God and Hayato. It also coexisted with the [Millennium Wisdom Wheel] for a long time and left a deeper impression.

If Ayaka could retrieve the Millennium Wisdom Ring from his past memories incidentally, there was no reason why Hayato couldn't do the same. In fact, he could clearly sense that the one he extracted was far more accurate than the original and much better than the one made by Ayaka, who had never even worn the Millennium Wisdom Ring.

It's not just about the material that's similar to gold but much lighter and harder than gold, which is common to all the [Millennium Artifacts], but also about the restoration of the [Millennium Wisdom Wheel]'s functions.

Blue God's impression of the Millennium Wisdom Wheel was merely that it was "an evil tool that harmed Shadi," so his recreation of the Millennium Wisdom Wheel naturally leaned towards a state overflowing with evil energy. Hayato, on the other hand, had a much deeper understanding of the Millennium Wisdom Wheel and even recreated its ability to "find desired items."

Although Hayato had previously used the power of the [Hellfire Machine Decimal] at Duel Academy to track the special fluctuations generated by the Dragon Fang Ring, he only found it during the second Dragon Fang duel. Even if "Grus," who provided the Dragon Fang Ring, was in Domino City, it was not certain that Hayato would be able to wait for the opportunity to use the ring and catch up with it.

However, the Millennium Wisdom Wheel is different. Although the original version only had the ability to seek out dark magic, Hayato's long-term use of it has developed the ability to find whatever he wants, just like a compass for a certain Sparrow Captain. And before long, it actually led him to the Nen training institution.

Hayato appeared relaxed, as if he were on a picnic, but the two masked figures opposite him, Light and Dark Masks, stared nervously at the Millennium Wisdom Ring on Hayato's chest, as if facing a formidable enemy.

"Although the style is different, it's definitely the same dark artifact as Lord Malik—no, that bastard Malik!" Mask of Light said with certainty, looking at the "Eye of Ugato" in the center of the Millennium Wisdom Wheel, which was exactly the same as the one on the Millennium Scepter, his eyes filled with undisguised fear.

The expression on the face revealed by Dark Mask was equally unpleasant. His body trembled as he recalled the painful memories of the past, and his face showed anger due to the humiliation he felt: "Although I don't know who you really are!"

"But since they've already interrupted our operation and brought that annoying prop with them!"

I will absolutely kill you!

Listening to the back-and-forth between the two, Light and Dark Masks, Hayato's expression remained calm. Besides using the Quantum Cube to recreate the Millennium Wisdom Wheel, he also performed a minor memory manipulation on himself. Just as others perceived Blue God as a long-time classmate, those who saw Hayato instinctively couldn't connect him with the "Duel King," even after he revealed his name as Kobayashi Hayato.

After all, if he hadn't done this, let alone successfully finding the Nen training institution, the bustling commercial street would have been an insurmountable obstacle for Hayato. Given his fame, if he walked down the street without any disguise, he would have been recognized and surrounded long ago. In that case, there would have been no point in talking about finding clues about the people hiding "Gurus".

"I deliberately opened the Dark Game's domain first because I was originally thinking of stopping you two from attacking those two. After all, in the Dark Game's domain, people without special abilities will be severely punished if they don't act according to the rules set by the setter."

After a pause, Hayato shrugged and said casually, "However, since your hands aren't exactly clean, I don't feel guilty about using them. What can I do? I'm just a kind-hearted person."

Hayato scrutinized the faces of the Masked Light and Darkness, and vaguely recognized them. He then asked, "But speaking of which, I think I recognize you. Aren't you the Masked Light and Darkness of Gluthus? Gluthus has been disbanded by Malik for so long, how dare you still operate in Domino City, right under the nose of the Kaiba Corporation?"

Hayato was able to recognize the Mask of Light and Darkness for three reasons. First, since he had heard about "Grus" from Ryuga, he had naturally tried to recall information about "Grus" that existed in the past, but he only knew a few people who were related to Grus.

Malik and Rishid have already turned to the light. The one codenamed "Puppet" is a true puppet whose will was erased and consumed by the power of [Ra] during the past "artificial God Card experiment" by Gurus. Malik had already sent it to the funeral home when Gurus disbanded. As for Keith, Yuga, Pandora, and others, they have either returned to the professional duelist world or have already died.