Is this the world of card dealers? Yada thieves!

The message stated that Edward, the champion of last year's World Professional Duel Tournament, still enjoys immense popularity despite losing to the popular newcomer Ryo Marufuji at the beginning of this season. He has received an invitation from the Duel Academy to appear as an invited professional duelist, and they asked Edward if he would like to accept the invitation.

Ed could have joined the Duel Academy as a first-year student even if he hadn't accepted the invitation, but Saiou mentioned that invited professional duelists seemed to enjoy certain privileges and that it would be helpful to his professional activities. Considering this, Ed immediately replied that he would accept the invitation.

"Yesterday's defeat is like a thorn in my side!" Edward's morale soared. He thought to himself, "Thanks to your advice, I've indeed grown tremendously at the Duel Academy. Prepare to witness this completely different me, Caesar Ryo!"

"I'm not particularly interested, especially since this event requires you to accept the first challenge of the day. I wonder how much time I'll waste playing against opponents I don't want to face," Misawa said with a helpless expression. "I'd rather spend that time studying Grand Unified Theory. Luckily, Professor Bein Stein is giving lectures, and I can exchange ideas with him—"

"Professor Bein Stein's name is also on the list of invitees," Fubuki interrupted when she saw that Professor Bein Stein's name, which Misawa had mentioned, was on the list.

Misawa's face stiffened. He quickly looked at the flyer and found that Professor Bein Stein was indeed on the list of invitees. He paused for a moment, then continued, "--But then again, wouldn't it make me seem like a loner and have no presence if I didn't participate in this kind of school-wide event? Hmm, I guess I should still participate, hmm."

"Ah, speaking of which, when we were on the island, didn't we see many people that Hayato-sensei invited acting as 'safety officers'?" Jaden suddenly remembered something and said with some doubt, "They could have come with us on the ship to the Duel Academy and participated in the GeneX tournament together, right?"

"They probably have something to do on the island, otherwise they wouldn't have left Hayato-sensei there and told us to take the ship back to school first." Manjoume shrugged. "But anyway, the teachers at the school have probably already realized that Hayato-sensei is like a slacker to the Duel Academy. He seems important most of the time, but once he takes leave, it becomes clear that he doesn't make much difference. It won't matter if he comes back to school a few days later."

Upon hearing Manjoume's words over the phone, Saiou couldn't help but reveal an expression of ecstatic joy.

"Hmph, hehe, hahahahahaha!"

(Change your expression in a second without getting pimples)

(Caused by Yu-Gi-Oh!)

"It went surprisingly smoothly! Not only did my plan to influence the mind of the Southern Branch Principal through duels and get him to put me in the Duel Academy go smoothly with Kobayashi Hayato, but I also managed to add Auchin Mizgaren's name to GeneX's list through him. Furthermore, Kobayashi Hayato will not be returning to the Duel Academy for the time being for other reasons!"

"How smoothly things are going! Fate is guiding my path, and with this guidance, what can stop me!" He flipped over the cards in front of him, and the tarot reading revealed the result. "Soon, soon I will gain that absolutely terrifying suppressive power and complete the transformation of the world!"

After Samejima handed over GeneX's proposal to Hayato, and Hayato approved Saiou's eligibility to participate, Saiou Takuma, upon learning this news, immediately set off for Duel Academy. He was currently on a private seaplane provided by the principal of the Southern Branch School and was about to arrive at Duel Academy.

And a plan he had long hoped for was about to be realized. The necessary tool was one that could bring absolute dominance. He had previously set his sights on Yugi Muto's deck, which had been sent to the Duel Academy for exhibition, but now he had found a more suitable option—

The laser device carried on the satellite launched into space by the Kingdom of Mizgarzon is said to possess the powerful destructive force to burn the world!

"That thing... is the constraint I, Saiou, am planning to impose on humanity! The future of the world will be changed through my guidance!" Saiou laughed wildly, stood up, and abruptly pulled back the curtains, letting light stream into the room. "Humanity's inherent flaws... that darkness will be banished, and then the world will be dyed pure white!"

"The fate of humanity is in my hands!"

The light illuminated the room, the faint white mist surrounding Saiō, and the strange expression on his face—half his face was wet with tears, the other half was laughing wildly.

Chapter 1526 Duel Energy

"What's the point of keeping us here, Hayato Kobayashi?" Keith crossed his arms, looking annoyed, and crumpled a blade of grass on the ground with his boot. "He already sent those kids away, didn't he?"

"I don't even know where the end of the universe is, how could I possibly know the answer you're looking for?" Ameruda replied casually to Keith's question with a blank expression.

"Tch, didn't that guy say he just wanted me to be a safety officer? Now he's assigning me other things?" Keith kicked away the tangled clump of weeds with annoyance. "I'm not his subordinate!"

"Um... even though it's an uninhabited island, I still think we should protect the environment."

A weak voice sounded behind Keith, making him even more impatient. He arrogantly pulled out a cigarette and lighter from his pocket, turning around as he said, "What's it to you? I'm not only going to trample the grass, I'm going to smoke—"

Looking at the white-haired youth behind him with a weak and timid expression, Keith's eyelids twitched violently. There was no other reason than that he recognized the person in front of him, but not as a celebrity under the Kaiba Entertainment Group, but as a Dark Duelist.

Although undeniably male, his appearance has become increasingly androgynous since adulthood. Coupled with his long, slightly frizzy white hair and delicate expression, he always gives off a subtle girlish vibe. It's like—someone easily bullied, tricked out of money to play pachinko, and left alone with an empty wallet, dropping pearls all by himself.

"...Bakura, what are you doing here?" Keith looked at the harmless-looking young man warily, seemingly unaffected by his appearance.

Amelda also glanced at Bakura. Although he had investigated Bakura, the transfer student in the same class as his four classmates Kaiba, Yugi, Jonouchi, and Hayato, he had never heard of any connection between Bakura and the thief Keith.

"I don't know what's going on, but Keith, what are you doing? Are you trying to scare people?" Kajiki Ryota, who had just arrived nearby, immediately spotted Bakura, who was somewhat intimidated by Keith's aura. Recognizing everyone except Ameruda, he immediately stepped between the two to mediate. "That's so tasteless. Bullying ordinary people who have nothing to do with Duel Monsters like this."

"Ordinary people? Don't act recklessly out of a sense of justice if you haven't figured out the truth, Kajiki Ryota." Keith glanced sideways at Kajiki Ryota, who had stepped forward, behind his sunglasses, and sneered, "You have no idea what kind of evil person the guy you're protecting is."

"Could anyone be more evil than Hayato Kobayashi?"

"..."

Keith suddenly fell silent, and even Ameruda, who was standing next to him, couldn't help but join the conversation to express his agreement: "That's true."

"Hayato-kun is a good person!" Bakura defended his good friend after hearing others' negative comments about Hayato. "He's not an evil person at all."

"Heh, is it because you're the kind of guy who can hang out with those manipulative people and pull all sorts of tricks that you think Kobayashi Hayato is such a good person?" Keith pointed at himself with his thumb. "I was once known as a 'thief,' and I was an unpopular guy like a hyena in the professional dueling world, but even so, I can only admit defeat in the face of Kobayashi Hayato's evil."

"He can even do things without any malice, like releasing his own monster in exchange for victory, which shows that what others consider extremely evil is as simple as breathing to him!"

After a pause, Keith said through gritted teeth, "Even his students inherited his innate evil, causing me to lose face so much!"

"Hey, doesn't that last sentence completely expose that you're just taking your anger out on and slandering Kobayashi Hayato because you lost to those students?" Kajiki Ryota retorted. "Anyway, we were just here to participate, and we weren't really serious during the duel. Is it really necessary to care so much about winning or losing?"

Seeing Keith suddenly fall silent and not answer, Kajiki Ryota raised an eyebrow and asked curiously, "Wait a minute, you didn't actually get serious in the duel and lose to Kobayashi Hayato's students, did you? Pfft—Pfft hahahaha, you're too slow, Keith! No wonder you slandered Kobayashi Hayato, saying he was some kind of evil guy."

"Shut up, you seafood idiot! The brat who defeated me wasn't some ordinary person."

Keith stubbornly started making excuses, and with his extraordinary wisdom, he quickly came up with a solution—if the person who defeated him was strong enough, wouldn't that make him seem less weak? This was the main way most "legendary duelists" went out these days.

After all, when it comes to their past achievements, there are only characteristics worth boasting about, such as "having made Yugi Muto suffer a tough battle", "having fought Seto Kaiba", "having put Katsuya Jonouchi in danger" and "having been beaten by Hayato Kobayashi".

"Having fought against two generations of Duel Kings, Yugi Muto and Hayato Kobayashi, and now being the sixth-ranked professional duelist in the world, I, 'Thief' Keith, can make a professional judgment based on my personal professionalism: that kid who defeated me is no ordinary person, and might even become the next Duel King!"

“Even if you don’t want to admit defeat to a student, you don’t have to be this overprotective, do you? Your intentions are too obvious, Keith,” Kajiki Ryota complained. “And you haven’t even explained why you’re targeting Bakura like this.”

Although Kajiki Ryota wasn't a fan of celebrities and only knew that the other person was a star, considering that the other person was Jonouchi's classmate and that he had a good relationship with Jonouchi, Kajiki Ryota felt that he should help the other person out since no one else was protecting him.

"Did you have any conflicts with Keith before, Bakura?"

Hearing Kajiki Ryota's words, Bakura shook his head in confusion: "I don't recall ever having a conflict with Mr. Keith. I don't even have many memories of meeting him..."

"Probably because that guy saw me meeting you, hmm."

A new voice joined their conversation. Looking over, the others didn't react much, but Keith's eyelids twitched wildly.

"Malik-kun, it's been a long time." Bakura greeted him warmly upon seeing him. Because Malik had been staying at Hayato's house for a long time after the Duel City event ended, he had inevitably run into Bakura and the others several times when Hayato invited them over, and they all knew each other.

“Malik?” Kajiki Ryota thought for a moment and said in surprise, “Could it be that you are Malik Ishtar?”

"If you're talking about the strongest user of the Millennium Scepter in history, the former leader of 'Grus,' the brother-in-law of Hayato Kobayashi, the number one player on the 'Live☆Twin' leaderboard, the international version master of 'Duel Monsters League,' and the top eight player in Duel City, then it's me!" Malik arrogantly pointed at himself with his thumb, not at all shy about saying what he was talking about.

"It really is you, Malik!" Keith frowned, shielding Kajiki Ryota in front of him with an unfriendly expression, while inwardly cursing, "Damn it, damn it, damn it."

His aversion to Ameruda stems from the fact that when Hayato sealed Ameruda's soul, she accompanied him to supervise Kobayashi Hayato, who genuinely joined Doma as a supervisor. His aversion to Bakura stems from the fact that he witnessed Bakura's deal with an evil leader. However, the person who made the deal with Bakura at that time was none other than Malik. In fact, Keith at that time existed as a puppet whose mind was controlled by Malik, only able to watch his actions but unable to change anything!

Although Malik currently appears lazy and is dressed in "vintage" clothing with anime prints, looking like an innocent anime character you could find anywhere in Akihabara, in Keith's eyes he is more terrifying than a billion serial killers!

*American profanity*, why did he even accept Hayato Kobayashi's invitation to come here? Why am I running into so many people I don't want to see? Is this place some kind of hell?!

"That title's a bit long, but it really is you. I've heard Jonouchi mention you before." Kajiki Ryota's expression was slightly subtle. "There's something that's been bothering me..."

Malik raised an eyebrow: "International arrest warrant?"

"No, I'm curious how you managed to reach the Master rank in the international version of Duel Monsters League." Kajiki Ryota looked troubled. "When I team up with Jonouchi and Ryuzaki, we can only reach the Diamond rank. Is it even possible for a human to reach the Duel Master rank?"

"If you're bad at the game, just practice more! You can play for sixteen hours a day like me and still reach the Master rank," Malik said smugly, his face radiating an air of superiority.

"Then what about Yugi Muto, Seto Kaiba, and Hayato Kobayashi's 'King of Glory' rank?"

“There’s definitely something wrong with that. Even I can only reach Master rank. First, the designer himself cheated, and the despicable operator left a backdoor.” Malik didn’t hesitate to slander others with higher ranks than him. “As for my brother-in-law, he’s not human.”

"Oh!"

Hayato flicked Malik on the head, making him crouch on the ground clutching his head. Hayato wasn't worried at all that he would make Malik stupid, since Malik's intelligence was already close to zero; you can't make something that doesn't exist disappear.

"So, it's best not to talk badly about others behind their backs, because the person involved will hear it. That's basic logic." Withdrawing his hand, Hayato looked at everyone present and first greeted his best friend, Bakura, "Long time no see, Bakura."

"Ah, Hayato-kun." Bakura's cheeks flushed slightly as he waved to Hayato in greeting. "Long time no see... Eh? We just met in Domino City a month ago."

“A month is a long time,” Hayato said with a laugh, then looked at Malik, who was still squatting beside him. “Aren’t you done yet? Do you want me to do some pain transfer therapy? I mean, I’ll hit you somewhere else on your body, and your head will definitely stop hurting.”

“Let’s skip that kind of thing.” Malik stood up quickly upon hearing this. “So, brother-in-law, why are you telling me and these people to stay away from here? Isn’t your ‘survival in the wild’ game over?”

Hearing Malik's words, the others also looked at Hayato, equally curious about the answer to this question.

"I let the students choose the name of the event; 'Wilderness Survival' was their choice, but for me, this event is still called 'The Great Expedition.'" Hayato paused, then looked at everyone: "You guys don't think I specifically called the students to this island just to let them experience a wild battle and grow up, do you?"

“It seems they’ve grown a lot and benefited greatly, but actually I’ve also obtained some very important data.” As he spoke, Hayato pulled out a test tube-like object containing some kind of golden liquid. “This is it.”

"What's that?" Ameruda looked at the object in Hayato's hand and immediately noticed the Kaiba Corporation logo on it. "Is this another new gadget that Seto Kaiba came up with?"

"On the surface, it is true that I bought this uninhabited island, but in the actual construction process, Kaiba also put in a lot of effort on the island. His main purpose was to find a place where there weren't many left to test his newly developed 'new element'." Hayato flipped the test tube in his hand, the liquid inside flowing and rising with countless bubbles. "His naming talent is really terrible. He can only come up with such a lame name as 'Kaiba Element'. I think 'Duel Energy' sounds much better."

"Duel energy? That sounds ridiculous. It's like Duel Monsters are some kind of human-powered power plant," Keith said dismissively. "And what does that have to do with us?"

“Of course it’s related, because this is something you produced yourself.” Hayato thought for a moment and then elaborated a little more, “It’s in all your duel-related activities on this island.”

"Hmm?" Keith raised an eyebrow, then suddenly realized something and looked at his Duel Disk. "Wait a minute, could it be because of this Duel Disk?"

“Bingo! I’ve placed a Duel Energy Collector, specially provided by the Kaiba Corporation, in everyone’s Duel Disk. It collects the Duel Energy that you unconsciously generate and waste during each duel, and the final product is this tube of ‘Duel Energy’,” Hayato said with a smile. “Not only you, but even my students who came to the island have collection devices in their Duel Disks.”

"However, the collection device cannot yet remotely transmit and concentrate energy; instead, it will be temporarily stored in the Duel Disk for people to use in some way."

Ameruda seemed to realize something and pointed to the ground: "So the Duel Monsters materializing isn't because of this island? But because of that so-called 'Duel Energy'?"

"As expected of Ameruda, you guessed the answer right away. In reality, what exists on this island is just a range activator that activates the Duel Energy Collector that lands on the island. The fact that the students on the island were able to materialize their Duel Monsters is actually just by using the Duel Energy in their Duel Disks."

"So that's why their Duel Monsters consume a lot of stamina after materializing," Kajiki Ryota suddenly realized. "Is it because they're using stamina instead of 'Duel Energy'?"

"But then how did those Duel Monsters on the island manage to materialize?"

"Why do you think they would accept my control and be confined to this island?" Hayato raised his Duel Disk. "I'm never one to show favoritism. The same Duel Energy Collector exists in my Duel Disk, and I can supply all the Duel Monsters on the island with materialized power in the long term by myself."

"Eh? Then Hayato-kun, are you very tired and uncomfortable?" Bakura asked with concern after hearing Hayato's words.

“Absolutely no problem! And you have no idea how excited I was when I found out that Kaiba finally figured this out!” Hayato held the tube of “Duel Energy” in his hand with satisfaction. “Now that we have a device to collect Duel Energy, all we need to do is add ‘Astrop Particles,’ and maybe in two years I’ll be able to play cards on a motorcycle!”

Chapter 1527 So beautiful! Oh dear, isn't that an elf dragon? Let's look at the white stone in the distance instead.

What exactly is the essence of so-called "duel energy"?

According to Hayato's understanding, it is actually closer to the metaphysical "emotional energy," which is the illusory willpower condensed into a material form that exists in reality. However, as everyone knows, Seto Kaiba is superstitious about science, and as the inventor, he insists on calling it "Hippocampal Element," which can be generated by human brainwaves. What can Hayato do?

However, in reality, the appearance of this energy was not too ahead of its time. In fact, even Hayato felt it was a bit late, because in his memory, in another timeline, at this time next year, [Yubel], who was affected by the light of destruction in the universe, was treated differently from [E·hero Neos] and [N] when he returned to Earth. He was rubbed almost all of his body by the atmosphere that suddenly became scientific. He had no choice but to find someone on Earth and bewitch him, inducing him to collect duel energy for him to repair his body.

In other words, even if the seahorse didn't research this area, a Duel Monster would bring this technology to Earth within a year, to the point that humans could master and mass-produce it.

Kaiba brought this technology to Earth a year ahead of schedule, not because he wanted it—if he had truly dedicated himself to researching this area, he could probably have done it five or six years earlier, instead of so late. The main reason was that he had never stopped trying to replicate the "D-Wheel" over the years. However, no matter how many times he tried, due to the dormancy of "planetary particles," the perpetual motion machine system driven by the "D-Wheel," based on "active planetary particles" and the "duel energy collection device," could never be completed.

This is the helplessness that arises when even if Hiba's talent surpasses the times, he is still forced to be limited by them. It's like sending Einstein back to a primitive society that uses stone tools. Let alone making nuclear bombs by hand, it would be good enough if he could make homemade guns.

—That was what Hayato originally thought, but even though he had tried his best to overestimate the seahorse's abilities, he found that he had ultimately underestimated the seahorse's talent in the field of scientific research.

The reason was none other than Kaiba's research on his own cards. Through data reconstruction of the "Truth" card left by Paradox, he discovered that many Duel Monster cards had undergone different changes in future records. These changes didn't refer to the reduction of "Survival Treasure Card" from drawing three cards to drawing only one, a change from the Forbidden/Limited Card List, nor to the differences brought about by "alternate art cards" introduced by Mirage International. Rather, it referred to the emergence of a classification system in monster categorization, similar to "Double" or "Toon," called "Adjustment."

Hayato's "Hellfire Machine Decimal" has the special potential to become a "Tuner" monster in future records. Kaiba discovers that although Jonouchi and Yugi don't have many cards with that potential, his own "Legendary White Stone" and "Blue-Eyes Girl" also possess the same special potential—the potential to become a "Tuner" monster!

This discovery thrilled Kaiba. According to Keipai, Kaiba exclaimed that he was indeed the only one with the talent to catch up with Kobayashi Hayato and the only one qualified to defeat him. He then laughed wildly and began further experiments.