Is this the world of card dealers? Yada thieves!

Judging from this special "nickname," it's clear that the person sitting next to the game and speaking is none other than Kaiba. His attitude towards Jonouchi remains as rude as ever, easily provoking Jonouchi's anger with just a few words.

"Huh? What did you mean by that? You really want to fight me, you bastard!" Jonouchi said unhappily. "You said you could accept my challenge as a test for Shiraishi, but all you did was call me and Yugi here. You're clearly just looking for an excuse to avoid a fight, aren't you?"

"Hmph, is all that's increased in age these past few years? You're not even willing to wait for this little bit of time, so you shouldn't be called mediocre, you should be called a dehydrated trash." Kaiba said, completely ignoring the angry Jonouchi, and looked at the map projected by the portable virtual projection device. A yellow dot representing Hayato was approaching. "Kobayashi Hayato will be here soon."

"Hayato? Kaiba, did you call all three of us at once?" Yugi asked, somewhat puzzled. Kaiba had just finished dealing with the "Legendary White Stone" game pods and brought them back to Duel Academy Island when he ran into Jonouchi. Jonouchi, who had wanted to duel Kaiba a month ago to avenge his previous defeat, issued another challenge. Surprisingly, Kaiba accepted Jonouchi's challenge with ease.

However, at the same time, Kaiba also took the initiative to approach Yugi, who was being dragged by Kyoko and Rebecca to go to school to reminisce about school life, and invited him to join the duel. Yugi also quite decisively found a reason to leave with Kaiba's unintentional help.

I initially thought Kaiba was going to fight two opponents at once or use a tag team strategy, but with Hayato joining in, the game is now completely unpredictable, with no idea what Kaiba is planning.

When Kaiba heard Yugi's words, he knew that Yugi had a question, and casually said, "Actually, in my original plan, I was going to add Atem, but who knew that he couldn't use the 'Legendary White Stone' game pod to enter the virtual world. As a last resort, I reluctantly agreed to let a second-rate duelist with a third-rate deck join."

"The final test before putting it into use is to see how much pressure the 'Legendary White Stone' can withstand. The more powerful duelists the 'Legendary White Stone' game pods are tested, the better, as long as they are scrapped."

Kaiba paused, a smirk playing on his lips. "By the way, this is somewhat of a rematch of the Duel City semifinals from five years ago. I know Hayato Kobayashi's strength all too well, but have you let those boring women affect your card-drawing speed? Let me see how you and that mediocre guy have changed in the last five years, Yugi!"

Chapter 1264 Into the VRAINS!

"Not one-on-one, but a four-on-one free-for-all?" Hayato smiled with interest after meeting the group at Kaiba's invitation. "That sounds like it would be very interesting."

"It just reminds me of that terrible experience of having my perfect start interrupted. Even now, it still makes me very unhappy."

"Did anything happen back then? I can hardly remember." Jonouchi scratched the back of his head. "I just remember that someone suddenly took control of all the equipment on the airship and interrupted our duel. Was it someone called 'Noah' again?"

"It's not Noah, it's Noah, but the ace monster he used is indeed related to [Noah's Ark]. By the way, Hayato, you still remember that incident to this day?" Yugi reminded Jonouchi, then said to Hayato with a subtle smile, "Not only is your understanding of Duel Monsters top-notch, but your pettiness and grudge-holding are also top-notch."

"To be honest, anyone would be annoyed if their satisfying OTK (One-Turn Kill) was interrupted, especially if it wasn't interrupted by the opponent's card effect but by an external factor like a power outage. I'll remember this for the rest of my life," Hayato said, hands on his hips, with an air of self-righteousness.

“Hmph, I agree on that point too. Just thinking about a heated duel being interrupted by something boring is infuriating,” the seahorse leading the way said in agreement.

However, Hayato glanced at him and said, "Don't you have any idea how our first duel ended back in Duel Kingdom? How dare you say such a thing?"

"...The boring past cannot restrain me, who only has the brilliance of the future in my eyes."

"Don't think you can steer the conversation away with some cool lines, hey."

With a thick skin and a blank expression, Kaiba ignored Hayato's complaints and forcibly changed the subject, saying, "The situation where a duel is interrupted due to a power outage is absolutely impossible in the use of my new era dueling device - the 'Legendary White Stone' game pod, because I designed a total of four power supply systems for it."

"In addition to the main power supply that can be remotely controlled via the network, the game pod is also equipped with another power supply that cannot be controlled by hackers and can only be disconnected by physical means, as well as a backup power supply for use in case of external power failure, and a backup power supply for the backup power supply to be activated in case of an accident!"

"That sounds quite cautious. But why design four power supply systems instead of adding one more? Is it because five wouldn't be enough?"

With the support of high technology, the construction team of Haima Group has an astonishingly high level of work and efficiency. In a very short time, they cleared a huge open space in the original jungle of the island and used the splicing materials transported to the island to build a super-large building that is tens of meters high and covers an area of ​​nearly 50,000 square meters. This only took a short day.

Leaving aside the students in the academy, even Jonouchi and Yugi were startled when they saw this building suddenly appear on the island after leaving their residence this morning.

Moreover, despite the short construction time, the building's strength is by no means low. According to Haima himself, it is more than capable of withstanding a magnitude 7 or 8 earthquake, and its strength can be further enhanced by adding more materials later.

The only drawback is that the building is empty, since it was built with patchwork materials and it was impossible to complete the interior decoration as well. However, since Kaima only intends to use it to house the nearly 10,000 "Legendary White Stone" game pods he brought to the island, a simple renovation will suffice.

However, even at the fastest pace, the installation of nearly 10,000 game pods and some interior decoration will not be completed until this afternoon. Currently, the newly built venue is still under the control of security personnel brought by Haima Group, and even curious teachers and students on the island cannot enter it.

Without any identification, Kaiba led Hayato and the others to the entrance of the arena and passed through the security personnel's check directly. After all, their faces were the best proof. Even people who didn't know much about Duel Monsters could easily recognize them as the "legendary duelists".

Although the interior decoration is not yet fully completed, a considerable number of the game pods have already been installed and are ready for use. Haima led the group to a private room in the venue to avoid being disturbed by other staff, and pushed open the door to introduce the pods: "Please use your admiration and astonishment to compliment this epoch-making invention. You will be the first to experience the 'Legendary White Stone' game pods!"

However, despite Kaiba's passionate speech, when Jonouchi saw the game pods in the room Kaiba led them into, he couldn't help but feel a strong sense of déjà vu and complained, "Wait a minute, this scene gives me the feeling... are we going to fight the Five Divine Dragons later?"

"You call it an invention? Seahorse, you didn't just modify the game pods that the 'Five Elders' used back then, changed the name, and call it your own, did you?"

"Hmph, that's enough of being an idiot, you mediocre person." Kaiba glanced at Jonouchi with displeasure. "Not to mention that the game pod that the 'Five Elders' made me use back then was originally my invention, the current 'Legendary White Stone' is completely different from that half-finished product."

“Back then, the gaming pods relied entirely on massive external power supplies to operate, and the virtual world connection devices themselves were enormous. They were complete failures, and even the experience of connecting to the virtual world was quite terrible and unstable.” With a wave of his hand, Kaiba remotely controlled several gaming pods to power on and open their covers via the network. “But the current ‘Legendary White Stone’ no longer needs an external power source. It can operate continuously for over 100 hours on its own, and the connection device has been miniaturized to the extreme!”

"This is the 'cocoon' from which future duelists and spectators can fully enjoy the fun of dueling monsters and continuously grow stronger!"

"In the end, you finally revealed the original name of this game pod. Why not just call it 'Cocoon'? Why did you have to call it 'Legendary White Stone'?" Hayato complained, stepping forward to examine one of the four-body devices. Having seen the experimental model a month ago, he sat down in the game pod with considerable skill. "But to be fair, it does feel better than before."

"After all, it is a device that can work continuously for 100 hours. In order to prevent the body from becoming weak, in addition to a special massage device to revitalize the body, I have also installed a life support device to provide the energy and nutrition needed by the human body, so that people can enjoy the duel without leaving the game pod."

Upon hearing Kaiba's words, Jonouchi also showed a surprised expression: "Really? Such a large device can allow people to go without food for so long? Won't they suffer from nutritional imbalances?"

"There's even an instruction manual for the nutrient solution... It seems the nutrient solution provides more balanced nutrition than most people's regular diet?" Game, who had come to the game pod, looked at the instruction manual posted on the outside of the pod and said in surprise after a few glances, "It even has the function of detecting the human body's condition and providing treatment at the same time? It could be sold as a life support pod rather than a game pod, right?"

“Although the Haima Group already had the technology for life support pods, after acquiring Shadowmaru Pharmaceuticals, it still acquired some derivative technologies related to life support pods, which is why we have this game pod, right?” Hayato said with a smile. “Alright, hurry up and bring the game up, I can’t wait.”

After Hayato, Jonouchi and Yugi also got into the game pod. Kaiba also got into the game pod after closing the outside door and said, "Compared to the old model that required external activation, 'Legendary White Stone' has added a voice activation function that can be activated by the user. The default command is, 'Link-Start'."

As soon as the seahorse finished speaking, the door to the game pod he was in immediately closed and tilted back slightly, changing his body from a sitting position to a lying position that put the least pressure on his spine. Two sensors unfolded on the backrest of the pod and hung on either side of the seahorse's temples. Blue light shone from them, allowing the seahorse to enter the virtual world quite calmly without any special reaction.

"It definitely looks much more advanced than the old device." Jonouchi recalled the exaggerated scene of overflowing lightning when he used it before, and the extremely long delay experience when entering the virtual world, which was almost like being under the spell of the Gold Experience Requiem. He also tried out the new "Legendary White Stone" game pod with great interest. "Link, you big jerk!"

As expected, Jonouchi, whose English level is still not very high, managed to forcefully memorize the pronunciation and pronounce the activation command in a way that sounded like he was biting his tongue. Surprisingly, the game pod actually started up smoothly. After a flash of yellow light in front of Jonouchi's eyes, it took him into the virtual world.

Instead of rushing into the virtual world, Yugi and Hayato exchanged a glance and then tacitly adjusted the various parameters of the game pod. Unlike Jonouchi, who would "Skip" all the plot and skip all the settings when playing games, they both had the habit of setting the game to their most comfortable state, especially Hayato, who could even spend two or three hours customizing his character's appearance in some RPGs.

As for the seahorse? The reason he didn't set any parameters for the game pod was simply because the game pod was set with preset parameters based on the conditions that he, the inventor, was most comfortable with.

While setting parameters such as reclining angle and massage function on/off, the gamer also caught a glimpse of the function names marked inside the game pod: "'The Duel-Links world is built on virtual reality artificial intelligence network technology, reproducing 99% of the five senses in reality', sounds really impressive."

"However, besides duels, this virtual reality AI network technology might also be used in other fields, such as allowing blind people to see the world clearly again, or allowing frail patients to travel around the world without leaving home?"

“It’s possible, but you know Kaiba’s habits. Even if there’s some technology that can make things easier for people, he’ll prioritize using it for duels before it’s widely adopted, and he might even disregard the cost.” Hayato replied to Yugi while setting the parameters.

“That’s true, Kaiba is still as pure in his duels as ever.” Yugi smiled, looking at the first letters of Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence, and Network System, muttering, “Such a long name, let’s shorten it,” and completed the final startup message setting.

“Well then, I’m going in too, Hayato.” After greeting him, Yugi placed his hand on the armrest inside the cockpit, looked straight ahead, and called out the activation phrase, “Into-the-VRAINS!”

"What Prey card selling?" Hayato, who had also completed the setup and entered the virtual world after watching the red light flash before his eyes, complained, "Link's four heads are such an old joke. The doujinshi world has been taken over by Genshin. Can't Kaiba keep up with the times?"

"If I had to set the startup phrase, it would definitely have to be—"

"Yuan Shen, activate!"

The round, chubby "Legendary White Stone" game pod lay down, and a soft golden light flashed before Hayato's eyes. When he looked again, he found himself no longer in the game pod, but standing in an open space.

The white clouds rushing past him all around him instantly reminded Hayato where he was—it was the St. Anne, the airship that Kaiba had specially created for the top eight contestants to travel to Alcatraz, the location of the finals, and the dueling stage for the qualifying matches along the way!

By now, Hayato is really going to complain about Kaiba's naming habits. Why does he have to name his vehicle something like that? He should have just called it something as nonsensical as "Blue-Eyes Airship."

"Even though you haven't said anything, you wouldn't be talking bad about me in your heart, would you, Hayato Kobayashi?" Kaiba's voice came from behind Hayato. He turned around and saw Kaiba with his arms crossed and an impatient expression. "The wait has been too long, the game and you too. That mediocre guy has been bothering me the whole time."

"It's a rare opportunity to reminisce about the past. I've chosen this airship as my landing point. Let's restart the Duel King competition from five years ago right here, and I'll defeat you and claim the title of Duel King, Kobayashi Hayato!"

“I can’t pretend I didn’t hear those words, Kaiba.” Jonouchi said with fighting spirit, “Hayato is not an opponent you can defeat so easily. Besides, before that, it should be me who defeats you and avenges my humiliation. I still remember the damage that the [Giant Warrior] did to me back then.”

"But back in the castle, when you were defeated by Obelisk the Colossus with its infinitely powerful attack, weren't you just a little disappointed for a moment before you were bouncing around again? And you didn't seem to be hurt at all?" Yugi asked, puzzled.

"It's a metaphor, yes, it's a metaphor. What I mean is that the [Giant Warrior] left an unforgettable scar on my heart," Jonouchi explained, then continued to glare at Kaiba. "Anyway, since you've chosen a four-on-one battle, then I'll be keeping a close eye on you, Kaiba!"

"You're really full of fighting spirit, Jonouchi." Yugi smiled and looked at Hayato. "If everyone is so enthusiastic, I have to get serious too. Even if Aibo isn't here, I should at least try my best to perform for him."

"How about I try challenging Hayato alongside Kaiba?"

"I don't care, a noble family doesn't need teammates!" Hayato looked at the three people in front of him, a smile playing on his lips. "Even for me, the only time I've ever fought all three of you at the same time was when we were grouped together. Just thinking about being able to give it my all after so long makes me so excited I could practically raise the flag."

(Raising the flag confirms)

"This deck, which I acquired and has been gathering dust ever since, finally has a chance to be seen!"

Even in the virtual world, the card sprites can still appear freely. Behind Hayato, a blurry phantom of a female monster flashed by.

Even with Jonouchi's dynamic vision, he could only barely make out that the other person's lower body seemed to have a fish tail-like shape.

Chapter 1265 Ordinary Company Member Hayato Kobayashi

As soon as Hayato finished speaking, Kaiba introduced, "Compared to the old-fashioned 'Legendary White Stone,' even the function of logging in and using a deck has been completely enhanced and upgraded. There is no need to decide on the cards you need to use in advance; you can freely combine the cards you want by simply using the cards logged in to this virtual world 'Duel-Links.'"

"Even if a card hasn't been logged into this world, it can be automatically scanned and registered in the game pod simply by being carried on your person!"

As he spoke, Kaiba raised his hand, and countless cards appeared out of thin air above his head, converging towards his raised palm to quickly form a deck. Then he placed it on his left wrist, and the deck was fixed in place out of thin air.

Quite counterintuitive, as Kaiba put down his deck, a first-edition Duel Disk, originally released during the Duel City era, began to conjure up on his left wrist. Although he claims to be uninterested in things from the past, Kaiba still seemed somewhat nostalgic when using the Duel Disk.

Upon hearing this, Hayato suddenly put on a stern face and after a long pause, managed to utter a single word: "6".

The deck he originally planned to use was the kind that wasn't particularly outstanding on its own. In fact, when it was first released in another world, it was overshadowed by another deck released in the same box, which mainly featured Level 2, Rank 2, and Link 2 monsters. That other deck even became popular outside of the Duel Monsters community with a catchy tune, so much so that many people, even those who didn't play the game, could repeat "Stacking Giant Jet" when they were talking about it.

Initially, this deck was only loved by a few people because of its pretty female characters. Although it had strength, it wasn't very obvious. It wasn't until later, when another set of Earth-attribute Fairy-type monster cards—obviously Isis's Earth Angels—was released, that most people suddenly realized its terrifying strength, and it quickly accelerated the Duel Monsters environment into the new 2.0 era.

It has the power, the female cards, and the looks. Furthermore, as the world-building expanded, many more enhanced cards were added. No one can resist this powerful deck!

However, Kaiba's virtual world deck mechanics caught Hayato completely off guard.

First of all, because of his relationship with Isis, Hayato can borrow the Earth Angels from Isis at any time if he asks, so Hayato doesn't needlessly waste his many useful and never-enough DP points to exchange for Earth Angel cards to fill his inventory.

Secondly, due to his own habits, Hayato always used a card box as a cover to take out the adjusted deck from the system's warehouse. Although there were cards in the card box, there weren't many. He just carried awakened spirits like "Ra's Winged Dragon of Ra" and cards that he didn't like to go around and just wanted to stick to himself.

As a result, when he checked the cards that had been transferred from his personal card collection into the virtual world, only one monster from the deck he wanted to use had been successfully transferred in; the rest were still sleeping in the system's inventory!

Although Hayato could bring the other cards directly from the system into the virtual world if he wanted, without even needing to go through Kaiba's game pod "security check," there was no need for that. Even just one card would be enough for Hayato.

Hayato quickly retrieved several cards that looked rather ordinary from the virtual card pool, and, imitating Kaiba, assembled a deck. He then reached into his virtual avatar's waist and retrieved several cards whose data had been read by the game pod, completing the final deck.

Yugi, on the other hand, examined the virtual card pool with great interest. Compared to Kaiba, who was a developer, and Hayato, who had already experienced this kind of virtual card game in another world, Yugi had played physical cards the most. Although he could accept virtual cards, he couldn't help but feel a bit curious about them.

"Although it's confined to this virtual world, I can freely choose and use a huge number of cards, no longer constrained by real-world conditions like money. This world is wonderful."

"While I'm not sure how you interpret this world in the game, you've probably misunderstood something, right?"

Hayato stared at the deck that had materialized on his wrist, which even displayed the intricate details of the Duel Disk—it looked incredibly cool, like looking at the internal structure of a mechanical model—and said without looking up, “Seto, well, although he’s the type who’s really into ‘fighting! having fun!’, he has a younger brother who’s quite profit-conscious.”

"In the real 'Duel-Links' scenario, while new players receive a deck with only low-quality cards when they first start playing, acquiring subsequent cards requires using the virtual currency dropped during duels. And the types of cards obtained are similar to opening packs and gacha pulls in real life." Hayato shrugged and laughed. "In other words, in the end, just like in the real world, lucky players like Jonouchi and wealthy players like Seth can acquire powerful cards countless times more easily than the average person."

"Otherwise, you'd be like the gamer, relying on your family's influence to become a 'second-generation card player,' using real-world cards to unlock virtual-world cards. Unlike ordinary members like me from ordinary families, I can only rely on my own efforts to catch up with you guys."

Both Jonouchi and the game skillfully ignored Hayato's nonsense. What kind of ordinary family does Hayato come from? And what kind of ridiculous setting is "ordinary employee"? Does an ordinary employee just casually find a popular idol to marry?

Kaiba snorted: "Hmph, after all, the world of 'Duel-Links' also requires Kaiba Group to continuously invest funds to run the servers. Although the research and development of the human brain domain sharing network is still underway with the help of those so-called 'Planars,' it will take at least five or six years to achieve success. Unrestrained duels cannot be based on harming the interests of Kaiba Group. The reason that Guiping gave me successfully convinced me, so a basic pay-to-win system is necessary."

"Did you just blurt out something incredible? A human brain-sharing network sounds like a very dangerous thing. You're not going to research something that could easily destroy the world like those scientists in tokusatsu dramas, are you?"

“Creating a big dad is a classic part of the scientist persona, you can’t miss it.” Hayato said with a smile after hearing Jonouchi’s complaint. “But the reason we can choose cards freely now is mainly because Kaiba specially opened up the entire card pool of Duel Monsters with existing data for our game pods. This prompt is in the game pod’s settings interface, but Jonouchi, who went directly into the 'Duel-Links' world, probably didn’t see it at all.”

"All the cards are there? That sounds amazing!" Jonouchi exclaimed in surprise. He had only planned to use the deck imported from the real world, but out of curiosity, he waved his hand in front of him and opened the virtual card library. "It's real!? Not only are there rare cards like [Dark Magician] and [Dark Magician Girl], but even Baron's [Armor] deck data is there. Huh? Even [Blue-Eyes White Dragon] is there—wait, where did it go?"

"Seahorse, your virtual world isn't all that great either."

As he spoke, Jonouchi looked up and saw Kaiba waving his hand as if he had just turned off something, and saying to him with a dark face, "Because there wasn't a fixed system for who could use which game pod, I accidentally forgot to turn off your special privileges, you idiot. But it's okay, I've remembered now and turned it off for you, but being able to see a huge number of cards should be enough to satisfy you, right?"

"You said you only closed the castle, but you've also blocked all the Blue-Eyes White Dragon cards on our side, haven't you?" Hayato checked his own card pool and found that Blue-Eyes White Dragon was also blocked, making it impossible to obtain or use. He complained, "Your possessiveness has turned into a gravity field."

"Tch, you're still targeting me, Kaiba, what kind of elementary school kid are you?" Saying that Kaiba was an elementary school kid, Jonouchi, who was being specifically targeted, also got angry like an elementary school kid. "But it doesn't matter if there are no additional cards, my deck was originally edited in reality to deal with you!"