On how PhDs become human evil

Misaka Mikoto sighed deeply at Bai Jie's shamelessness and drew a card from her deck.

"Hmm... Monsters of one to four stars can be summoned directly, monsters of five to six stars require one sacrifice, and monsters of seven stars and above require two. So now I can only summon the Magician's Twin Souls."

"Wait a minute, this effect... Hmph, I get it."

Misaka Mikoto put down the beginner's guide she was holding.

"Activate the effect of Magician's Twin Souls: If this card is in your hand, you can send 1 Level 6 or higher Spellcaster monster from your Deck to the Graveyard, and then activate one of two effects. I send a Level 7 Spellcaster monster to the Graveyard, then send this card to the Graveyard, and Special Summon 1 Dark Magician from the Graveyard!"

"Wait a minute! Didn't you just send in... Masaka?!"

"Yes, I sent the Dark Magician from my deck into the room."

Holy crap!

Bai Jie was shocked.

After placing the Dark Magician, whom she had just sent into the graveyard, into the battle zone, Misaka Mikoto continued her summoning: "Then, I summon the Spirit Swordsman from my hand and activate the Equipment Spell: Magic Spellbook from my hand to increase the Dark Magician's attack power by 700, bringing the Dark Magician's attack power to 3200!"

"Hmph, but even so, your Dark Magician's attack power is still inferior to my Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon!"

“Solvadokana.” Misaka Mikoto smiled. “I’m activating the Continuous Spell I just drew, Dark Magician Circle, from my hand!”

A black magic circle?!

Bai Jie was startled. Masaka...

"Activate the effect of Dark Magician Circle, and reveal 3 cards from the top of your Deck. If any of them are Spell/Trap Cards with the name Dark Magician or Dark Magician, you can reveal 1 of them to your opponent and add it to their hand. Return the remaining cards to the top of your Deck in any order you like."

"Of course, that effect doesn't matter. I want to activate the second effect!"

"Wait! The effect of the Black Magic Circle—"

"The card clearly states that each of its two effects can be used once per turn," Misaka Mikoto laughed. "I'll activate the second effect! If you have a Dark Magician Summoned or Special Summoned on your field, you can target one card on your opponent's field and banish that card! I'm banishing your Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon! That way, you won't have any monsters on your field!"

"Dark Magician! Elf Swordsman! Attack the player directly!"

"What?!?"

Bai Jie (Malik's face): 4000LP → 0LP

Complete defeat.

P.S.: Those who get punished by a lucky draw don't shuffle the deck.

Section 523, 23. Misaka Mikoto: Just watch, my transformation!

"Alright! You lost. As agreed, hand over my belt!"

After defeating Bai Jie in one round, Misaka Mikoto eagerly urged Bai Jie to give her the Kamen Rider belt she had been dreaming of.

Bai Jie glared at Misaka Mikoto angrily in response to her urging: "If you hadn't drawn that Dark Magic Circle, how could a beginner like you have defeated me in one turn!"

"You, who summons a top-tier monster in a single turn, dare to talk back to me? You don't even shuffle your cards when you play, how shameful!"

Puff!

Misaka Mikoto's words felt like another arrow had been pierced Bai Jie's chest. Indeed, he was the one who didn't play by the rules, so there was nothing he could do about being punished by the unpredictable player.

To this, Bai Jie could only say one thing: "Damn that god-tier player."

"Enough talk, hand over the belt!"

Misaka Mikoto stretched out a hand.

With a sigh, Bai Jie put away his Yu-Gi-Oh! cards and stood up: "Come with me, I have a research lab in the basement, your belt is there."

------------------

Following Bai Jie to the basement, after going through a series of complex identity verification procedures including pupil verification, fingerprint verification, voiceprint verification, and magic property verification, Misaka Mikoto arrived at Bai Jie's private research institute located underground.

Standing in the research room, which was nearly a thousand square meters in size, Misaka Mikoto's mouth dropped open in astonishment: "The chairman actually gave you a research room as a gift?"

"How could that be? That guy just gave me a villa; I built this research lab myself."

Misaka Mikoto was even more shocked: "Where did you get so much money? You built your own research lab?!"

Although she hadn't done any specific research, Misaka Mikoto knew that building a research institution was definitely no cheaper than building a skyscraper, and in some ways even more expensive. After all, the instruments needed for research could easily cost hundreds of millions of yen, and the total cost would certainly be greater than that of a skyscraper.

Misaka Mikoto herself has visited some research labs. While Bai Jie's lab isn't as large as some of those, it's still of medium size, and the construction cost is definitely not low!

With a smile, Bai Jie said, "I've told you before, I'm also a researcher in the Kamen Rider world, and the top brain in Japan. With that kind of status, is it strange that I have a private laboratory?"

"Wait a minute, you didn't move your research lab from another world here, did you?"

"You're quick-witted. You're right, I just moved the Kamen Rider research lab here. After all, if we're designing a belt for you from scratch, we'll definitely need data from other belts, and this lab has information and data on every Heisei Rider."

Whether it's the Kuuga belt, an ancient legacy, or AgitΩ, which involves gods, or Drive, a purely technological product, all the data and information on the twenty Heisei Riders have been collected in Bai Jie's research lab. This is partly due to Bai Jie's collecting obsession, and partly because Bai Jie had previously envisioned designing a completely new belt for himself. However, as his strength grew rapidly, he realized that it was better to use other people's belts instead of spending time designing one.

"Hmm? This belt... isn't a fake, is it?"

Misaka Mikoto pointed to a belt on the wall and said.

The Fault Driver II, a transformation belt that Haku Gon stole from Dan Masamune, is the only original belt in Haku Gon's possession that is not a copy. However, Haku Gon has already returned the Chronos cassette used for transformation to Dan Kuroto, since he has no use for it.

"Never mind that, I just put it there as a decoration. Instead, you should lie down on that bed over there. I'll collect your body data and input it into the belt, and then the belt will automatically generate the most suitable style for you."

Bai Jie pointed to a bed that looked like an operating table next to him and told Misaka Mikoto to lie down quickly.

.......

A few minutes later, after Bai Jie finished inputting all of Misaka Mikoto's measurements, height, ability strength, and other data, Misaka Mikoto finally obtained her belt.

Looking at the belt in her hand, and then at the replica models hanging on the wall, Misaka Mikoto exclaimed, "Isn't this the Build belt?! Didn't you say you designed it from scratch?!"

"That's right, it was indeed designed from scratch—that was my initial thought, but later I felt that designing from scratch was too troublesome, so I directly used Sento's belt. However, the only similarities are the outer shell and the transformation sound effect. The power and performance are far superior to the original version. After all, I am a genius scientist who has surpassed Dan Kuroto and Sento!"

Misaka Mikoto rolled her eyes at Bai Jie's boastful words. She had thought she would get a cute-looking belt, but it turned out to be something like this...

(Fine, I'll give it a try.)

She put on her belt, shook a bottle that looked like a cola can in her hand, and then tucked it into her belt.

"Railgun Princess!"

As the rousing music and sound effects began, a familiar background music immediately filled Bai Jie's laboratory.

(BGM: Be the One)

However, after the bottle was inserted, Misaka Mikoto stood there dumbfounded and didn't move. Seeing this, Bai Jie rushed forward and grabbed the handle next to the belt and shook it a few times!

"Bilibili Bilibili Bilibili!"

Blue and white lightning burst forth from her belt, countless bolts of electricity swirling and dancing around Misaka Mikoto like satellites orbiting a planet, completely enveloping her in a sea of ​​lightning. Upon closer inspection, the spherical spaces formed by these bolts even revealed frames resembling human limbs.

"Are you ready?"

"Eh...change—"

"Shout [henshin]!"

"hen shin!"

Misaka Mikoto, who was about to shout for transformation, was immediately pulled away by Bai Jie's shout, and the next moment—

"A railgun piercing the sky! Railgun Princess! Ciao!"

The spherical lightning space suddenly contracted, and each of the individual human frames fit perfectly onto every part of Misaka Mikoto's body. Dazzling lightning exploded in the laboratory, and Bai Jie hurriedly mobilized his magic to cover all the instruments with a magic barrier.

It would be disastrous if these instruments were destroyed by the electromagnetic waves that Misaka Mikoto is currently emitting.

The lightning quickly dissipated, and after it did, Misaka Mikoto appeared before Bai Jie.

Although it uses Sento's driver template, due to Bai Jie's wicked sense of humor, the basic structure is that of the Snake Monster. Therefore, Misaka Mikoto's armor is almost the same as the first stage of the Snake Monster, except that the color is mainly blue and the upper body armor is much less. Instead, it is a thin veil formed by pure magic power that can withstand hundreds of tons of impact.

In addition, behind Misaka Mikoto are a pair of dazzling lightning wings—taken from White Knight Moonlight.

(How about we do that?)

Bai Jie, a brilliant idea popping into his head, cleared his throat: "Celebrate! She is the strongest and invincible Railgun Princess, who wields the power of lightning! This is the moment she dons her armor and announces the arrival of the Thunder God to the world!"

Section 524, Chapter 24: Accelerator Hangs Overhead in Danger

Several days have passed since Misaka Mikoto took the belt from Bai Jie. During these days, Bai Jie has heard thunderclaps in Academy City almost every day. In addition, the TV news reports every day about the "Power Outage in the ××th School District of Academy City". Bai Jie can easily imagine how much trouble Misaka Mikoto has been causing these past few days.

It's understandable, though. After all, no one can resist the allure of transforming into a Kamen Rider. Misaka Mikoto's excitement was within Bai Jie's expectations. He'll just have to wait for her enthusiasm to subside in a few days.

"Alright, let's see if there are any good games to play today."

Bai Jie sat down at the computer and skillfully opened Steam. As a researcher who loves games, Bai Jie's knowledge is very broad. He naturally knows all the eroge (adult games) that are a must-have for otaku, as well as Soulslike games that make you feel depressed after being beaten by the boss, fan-made games based on big IPs, multiplayer online cooperative first-person shooters, and so on. Bai Jie will basically play any game, the only difference is how long he plays it.

For example, games that are disguised as adult games but are actually match-3 puzzle games are usually played by Bai Jie once and then forgotten. However, for masterpieces like The Fire Link, Sekiro, and Bloodborne, which Bai Jie would love to drag the authors out and kill, his playtime often starts at hundreds of hours.

"But even though we're supposed to be playing games... there's nothing really fun about it."

Although the names are varied and often bizarre, games of the same genre often share similar gameplay. For example, Sekiro and The Burning Will both involve players getting brutally beaten by bosses, like Isshin the Gunslinger and Master Gundyr, leaving many players utterly defeated. However, the former emphasizes blacksmithing, even featuring techniques like the "shaking sword" skill. The latter... well, try blacksmithing yourself? You'll die.

As Bai Jie scrolled through the screen with his mouse, looking at the games that appeared in the store, he sighed deeply: "I've played all the well-known games. Those little games are basically just repackaged versions of the same thing. They're so boring... I can't just go back and play VenusBlood Frontier again, can I?"

Going back to play through an adult game that you've already completed might be something a hardcore otaku or a loyal fan might do, but for Bai Jie, it's something that makes him want to vomit.

Just as Bai Jie was feeling bored and was about to use his clairvoyance to see if there was anything interesting in other worlds, his phone rang.

"Dulu lulu lulu lulu lulu!"

Upon hearing the ringtone, Bai Jie immediately realized it was the phone Aleister had provided him. He reached out and grabbed the phone from the bedside table to answer it. "What is it, Chairman? You wouldn't call unless it's important," Bai Jie asked.

"What you've been doing with the Railgun lately is giving me a real headache."

"Huh? What happened with Misaka? What's wrong?"

Isn't it just about turning her from an ordinary middle school student into a Kamen Rider? Gentaro Kisaragi was also a high school student Kamen Rider.

"The Railgun doesn't play a major role in my plans, but your actions have given her the ability to directly threaten them. To be honest, I'm a bit troubled right now."

Hearing Aleister say that, Bai Jie couldn't help but curl the corners of his mouth: "Hey, the plan... Judging from what you're saying, Misaka Mikoto was originally involved in your plan, right? Tell me about it, shall we?"

Bai Jie's words silenced Aleister, who finally spoke after a long pause: "Are you planning to interfere in my affairs?"