Card Advance
William looked at his ten floating packs of [First Forage into Greatness] in the shop window. Trembling with excitement, he slowly unraveled the card packs.
< Opened Card Pack >
Monsters
Common-
Hitotsu-Me Giant
Aqua Madoor
Three-Headed Geedo
Flying Kamakiri #2
Drill Bug
Feral Imp
Spells
Common-
Block Attack
Sword of Deep-Seated
Rare-
Share the Pain
Trap
Common-
Jar of Greed
"Seems like I didn't get much on pack 1," William noted. The only thing that had caught his eye was the common Aqua Madoor, which although only having an attack value of 1200, had a respectable defense of 2000 points.
William of course, had already noted that the 1200 attack point Hitotsu-Me Giant had been slightly stronger than him in terms of cultivation level, so any monster with that much defense would be welcome in his deck for now.
The spell card block attack could be slightly useful. After seeing Stop Defense deactivate Li Fei Yuan's shield mid fight, William could guess that this new card could help him shave off attacks from a stronger opponent.
Unfortunately, both cards were only normal spell cards, so he wouldn't be able to use them during an opponent's turn.
After experiencing seeing that the first pack seemed to be pretty mediocre, William quickly lost any interest in analyzing the cards one by one, so he decided to open the rest first before looking through them all.
< Opened Card Pack x9 >
Monsters
Common-
2x Celtic Guardian
6x Hitotsu-Me Giant
4x Mystical Elf
2x Aqua Madoor
1x Reaper of the Cards
5x Giant Soldier of Stone
2x Basic Insect
1x Three-Headed Geedo
2x Cyber Falcon
3x Bubonic Vermin
2x Girochin Kugawata
1x Spikebot
2x The All-seeing White Tiger
1x Science Soldier
1x Lady of Faith
1x Star Boy
2x Milus Radiant
1x Lizard Soldier
1x The Dragon Dwelling in the Cave
2x Seven Coloured Fish
2x Koumori Dragon
Rare-
2x Curse of Dragon
1x Skull Redbird
1x Succubus Knight
1x Mantis Empress
1x Flame Swordsman
1x Mystic Tomato
1x Wall Shadow
Super Rare-
1x Yamata Dragon
1x Luster Dragon #2
1x Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer
Ultra Rare-
1x Soul of Purity and Light
1x Red-Eyes Black Dragon
Secret Rare-
1x Barrel Dragon
Spells
Common-
2x Block Attack
1x Stop Defense
2x Shield and Sword
2x Stim Pack
1x Magical Labrinth
1x Gravekeeper's Servant
1x Heart of Clear Water
1x Second Coin Toss
1x Spiritualism
2x The A. Forces
2x Infinite Cards
1x Black Pendant
2x Curse of Fiend
1x Darkness Approaches
Rare-
1x After the Struggle
1x Magic Reflector
1x Upstart Goblin
1x Rush Recklessly
1x Offerings to the Doomed
Super Rare-
1x Swords of Revealing Light
Secret Rare-
1x Monster Reborn
Traps
Common-
1x Infinite Dismissal
2x Type Zero Magic Crusher
1x Shadow of Eyes
1x Solemn Wishes
1x Castle Walls
2x Reinforcements
2x Robbin' Goblin
1x The Emperor's Holiday
1x Disappear
1x Deal of Phantom
1x Gamble
2x Minor Goblin Official
1x A Feint Plan
Rare-
1x Michizure
1x Trap Hole
1x Skull Invitation
1x Tornado Wall
Super Rare-
1x Magic Jammer
1x Blast With Chain
1x Magic Cylinder
Ultra Rare-
1x Horn of Heaven
William looked through each of the cards he had gotten, and knit his eyebrows. One of the immediate problems he had realized upon looking through the multiples of cards were their viability in an actual fight.
He hadn't noticed this at first when he had obtained the Beginner's Structure Deck from the system, since all of the cards there seemed to make a certain amount of sense.
Take example the Shift card. Shift is normally a trap card that activates when an opponent targets exactly one monster with an attack, trap, or spell. The player can activate it to switch the target of the attack, spell, or trap to a different monster that the player controls.
The opponents William encountered, of course, would not have spells or trap cards. Otherwise the spectator's reaction to his first duel wouldn't have been so exaggerated. However, William expected that the Shift trap could still be used since any opponent could still choose to fight one monster when William had two on the field, which would allow him to successfully activate the Shift card.
However, glancing at the Horn of Heaven trap card, William felt a bit dumbfounded. The Horn of Heaven in a regular game of Yu-Gi-Oh can be quite effective: when a monster would be special summoned, the player can tribute one of their monsters to prevent the summoning of that monster.
However, how was he supposed to use Horn of Heaven against his opponents in this world? He was quite confident that they couldn't also summon monsters like he did. Did the system count people as monsters? But humans just existed, no one needed to "summon" them at all.
"This is feeling more and more like a gatcha game". Even though there were a lot of cards that came out of the ten packs, William surmised that a scant few of them would actually be useful in a shadow duel.
After checking the stats and effects of the cards one more time, William entered the Deck Building Interface to make some changes to his deck.
< 1st Deck >
Monsters
Common-
3x Mystical Elf
3x Bubonic Vermin
2x Gilasaurus
2x Koumori Dragon
2x Seven Coloured Fish
Rare-
2x Skull Redbird
1x Kuriboh
1x Mystic Tomato
Super Rare-
1x Luster Dragon #2
1x Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer
Ultra Rare-
1x Red Eyes Black Dragon
Secret Rare-
1x Barrel Dragon
Spells
Common-
2x Block Attack
2x Stop Defence
2x Shield and Sword
1x Black Pendant
Rare-
1x Upstart Goblin
1x Rush Recklessly
1x Magic Mallet
Super Rare-
1x Swords of Revealing Light
Ultra Rare-
1x Pot of Greed
Secret Rare-
1x Monster Reborn
Traps
Common-
2x Reinforcements
1x Jar of Greed
Rare-
2x Trap Hole
Super Rare-
1x Magic Cylinder
1x Blast With Chain
William looked at the renovated deck. If he had been in control of Zhang Chun Wu's body, he would have nodded, and then smiled.
Although the current deck list was still incredibly far away from the present power levels of Yu-Gi-Oh decks, it was a much-needed upgrade from the basic deck he had received earlier in the day.
Firstly, the monsters in the basic deck were replaced by other monster cards with either higher defense or attack points. Aside from this, three copies of Bubonic Vermin and two copies of Koumori dragon were added in to help decrease the size of the deck.
This was because bubonic vermin were capable of special summoning other bubonic vermin when flipped face up. Meanwhile, Koumori Dragons were the strongest targets William would be able to summon with Mystic Tomato's effect, which would also help with deck thinning.
The spell cards were also used to assist in deck thinning, but there were also a few spells that increased attack points, just in case he ran into a cultivator at a higher cultivation rank.
Finally, most of the trap cards were the cards that William thought would probably work to his advantage in an actual fight.
Magic Cylinder, Reinforcements, and Blast with Chain were all cards that could be useful in a prolonged battle where blades and swords were hurtling around.
Of course, there were still some experimentation that had to be done, like how William couldn't be sure if the Trap Hole spell would actually function properly.
Finally, Jar of Greed was another source of deck thinning for William to use.
"I should be able to draw into the bigger monster cards in a shadow duel with this much deck-thinning", William thought. This concept, was of course, not a new one for William. Yu-Gi-Oh had always been a game of efficiency at the higher levels of gameplay, so using cards that could remove other cards from the deck to make it more consistent was considered pretty standard for the transmigrator.
The smell of food suddenly snapped William out of his contemplation. He refocused his vision to the world outside his consciousness and noticed that Zhang Chun Wu was slowly consuming a bowl of rice, along with some pieces of pork.
There seemed to be nothing wrong with the pork, but Zhang Chun Wu had his eyes furrowed tightly. Although he was still eating from the bowl, every once in a while, a piece of pork would run into his cheek instead of going into his mouth.
Within Zhang Chun Wu's sea of consciousness, William cracked a smile at the silly situation.
"Something wrong?" William posed. Upon hearing him, Zhang Chun Wu placed down his chopsticks.
"You're finally back. Could you tell me what's the deal with these strange runes floating around in my head?" Unlike what William had suspected, Zhang Chun Wu was currently having difficulties eating because these strange letters kept appearing at random in his eye-sight.
"Runes? What Runes?" Zhang Chun Wu was quite confused. He didn't see anything strange in his own head.
In response, Zhang Chun Wu grabbed a nearby sheet of papyrus and began drawing on it. Soon, a few crudely written letters were etched out onto the archaic paper. William peered at it, and was struck by a realization.
"You can see the system as well?"
"What system?" Zhang Chun Wu asked, slightly annoyed. Why did this guy always speak in such a strange way? It was like trying to speak to someone in a different language.
William thought for a moment, and then asked, "Can you write some words for me on the papyrus?"
"Wait, that doesn't answer my question".
"Just do it, dude. It's not hard to write."
Zhang Chun Wu, feeling slightly miffed, began to write words on the used papyrus. Once he was done, he waited for a response.
A moment later, he heard one.
"Ah, shit".
If William had a face, he would have looked completely astounded. It had never occurred to him that even though Zhang Chun Wu and him were able to converse normally, they wouldn't be able to read each other's languages.
"I see…" William thought internally.
A moment later, he explained his hypothesis to Zhang Chun Wu.
"The runes you're seeing is a different language. It's actually the activation requirement for your Prime Artifact."
Zhang Chun Wu could clearly see the system and cards when William opened his interfaces, but since he couldn't read English, he didn't connect them to the fact that they were related to his Prime Artifact.
Upon hearing the news, Zhang Chun Wu had become quite excited. He had thought that only William could operate the Prime Artifact within him, but it turned out that he just needed to learn the language in order to use it as well.
"Please teach me!" Zhang Chun Wu almost blurted out loud. His excitement spread towards William infecting him with excitement as well.
"Alright, alright, calm down." William said. The truth was, he wanted to learn more about this world as well, and realizing that he couldn't read this world's language made him quite desperate for knowledge as well.
"Let's do it this way, you'll teach me about knowledge about this world, and I'll teach you knowledge about your Artifact."
William smiled.
"Is that a deal?"