Chapter 55: The Strongest Duelist (1)

That couldn't be right. "Duelling Fairy Tales" clearly recorded cards belonging to Labrynth. The fairy tale plots could be made up, but the cards themselves surely couldn't be purely imaginary.

He continued searching for terms such as "Tearlaments", "Tenpai Dragon", "M∀LICE", and "Rikka", but without exception, the search results were completely blank.

For a large portion of archetypes, it wasn't a matter of price; they simply did not exist on the market.

Driven by curiosity, Li Guanqi kept throwing his questions at the AI.

"Why can't certain cards be bought on the exchange?"
"Does the Silver Castle truly exist?"
"Full text download of 'Duelling Fairy Tales'."
"What materials are required to craft cards?"

Most of his questions were answered, except for the information regarding the Silver Castle, which indicated insufficient authority to access.

In summary, the cost and circulation of cards were restricted by something known as an imprint. The Alliance did not possess the imprints for cards like "Tearlaments", and naturally could not list them on the exchange.

Furthermore, the generation of imprints was subject to extreme instability.

The complete description was as follows: the Aether present in the environment would record the stories of the main actors, engraving them in the form of imprints upon the Holy Steles.

To give an example:

A very long time ago, a stone underwent hundreds of years of wind and rain, and miraculously hatched a Blue-Eyes White Dragon.

The Aether in the environment also found this miraculous and recorded the story of the stone.

It carved an imprint upon a stele—[The White Stone of Legend].

Subsequently, humans discovered this stele, made a rubbings of the imprint, sealed the imprint into a blank card, and thus created a spiritually blank magical card—[The White Stone of Legend].

Blank cards, elemental pearls, and other card-crafting materials were available in abundance; only imprints were hard to come by, and with a limited number of fidelity readings, every time one printed a card, the remaining chances decreased by one.

"Let's take it one step at a time," Li Guanqi sighed, lifting his head and calling out toward the doorway, "Shier——"

The maid Shier quickly walked into the room and smiled, [What service do you require?]

Li Guanqi softly said, "Teach me how to use the computer and the helmet. I want to go online to duel."

He intended to observe the dueling environment here and then construct a suitable starter deck.

[Very well.]

Shier smiled as she taught Li Guanqi how to operate these high-tech devices.

To his amazement, strictly speaking, it wasn't called network duelling; it was known as Metaverse duelling.

[Neural link successful.]
[Please connect the supercomputing ring.]

Following the prompts, Li Guanqi connected the data cable to the supercomputing ring, causing it to light up.

[Data loading...]
[Please select the account to log in with.]

"Huh?" Li Guanqi was momentarily stunned.

The Metaverse was bound to the supercomputing ring, and the supercomputing ring recorded human genetic information.

His genetic information was bound to two accounts?

On the left was a newly registered account, with an icon shaped like a silkworm.
On the right was an unfamiliar account, with an icon shaped like an ancient tree.

"Why are there two accounts?"

Li Guanqi took off his helmet and asked Shier, not daring to click randomly.

Shier smiled and said, [I apologize, account information belongs to personal privacy, and Shier cannot answer.]
[My young mistress has called for me; I must leave for a moment.]

"Oh, right." Li Guanqi put the helmet back on, moved the cursor, and clicked on the ancient tree on the right.

The icon's projection enlarged dozens of times, making every branch and leaf of the ancient tree clearly visible.

[Please enter the password.]

A pop-up window appeared, and the cursor automatically moved to the topmost fruit on the ancient tree.

There were five fruits on the ancient tree in total, and each fruit seemed to require a password.

"A password..."

Li Guanqi frowned deeply, racking his brains to recall, and remembered the eerie sense of familiarity he felt when using [Yubel] during the league.

A bold conjecture arose in his heart.

"Could it be..."

He gently raised his head, faced the scanning frame, and whispered, " [Super Polymerization]. "

The artwork of [Super Polymerization] embedded itself into the fruit. With a chime, the surrounding area lit up brightly.

[Password accepted.]

It really was Super Polymerization!

However, the account still could not be accessed; the passwords for the other four fruits were still required.

Four passwords—he had completely no clue.

"Four card names? Just how many combinations could there be?" Li Guanqi smiled, shook his head, and sat back in his chair, leaning slightly backward.

Suddenly, as if frozen in place by something, his pupils shrank violently.

A wooden door, an ordinary wooden door, was suspended abruptly in mid-air without any warning, as if it had suddenly broken into this world from another dimension.

Shier had been nowhere to be seen before, and the door had only appeared after he entered the password for [Super Polymerization].

"What is this..."

Li Guanqi's heartbeat accelerated. He thought about calling Shier, but immediately stopped himself.

A voice was calling out to him.

He took off his helmet and, as if guided by some mysterious impulse, slowly reached out toward the wooden door.

"Boom——"

A powerful gravitational force sucked Li Guanqi into the door.

Frowning tightly, Li Guanqi slowly opened his eyes, only to find himself astonished in a secret realm.

Looking across the realm, there were only three things to be seen.

The water surface beneath his feet, the boundless night all around, and the moon suspended overhead.

"Where is this..."

He stepped cautiously onto the water's surface and discovered that he was not sinking, as if he were stepping on jelly.

The moon overhead was also bizarre, dynamically rotating with uneven illumination that cast patches of light and shadow across the water.

Li Guanqi heard the call once more, and he followed the moonlight forward.

A blurred figure gradually emerged. His heartbeat quickened, and he quickened his pace.

The figure in front of him gradually became clear.

It was a gigantic, ancient tree, withered and old.

Its trunk was thick and twisted, with several patches of dark brown bark peeling off to reveal dry wood. Although its branches and leaves were still lush, they lacked vitality, and its five fruits glowed with a dim light.

A surging wave of sorrow washed over his heart. Li Guanqi's pupils trembled as he reached out toward the ancient tree in a daze.

It felt as though he had finally found a close friend forgotten for many years, only to discover that the friend had grown old, decayed, and was on the verge of death.

Footsteps suddenly echoed from the depths of the night, shattering the tranquility of the secret realm.

"Someone?!" Li Guanqi frowned, looking over in high alert.

The moonlight fell like snow upon the calm water. Amidst the silvery-white brilliance, a figure quietly appeared.

She wore a long black robe that fluttered gently in the night breeze. The woman's long hair draped over her shoulders like a waterfall, pitch-black as the night, smooth and lustrous.

Above her mask, a pair of deep blue eyes seemed like an abyss capable of piercing human hearts.

An orange cat followed closely at her feet.

She lifted her chin slightly, tilted her head up a fraction, and with a sharp flick of her hand, threw out a Duel Disk.

The Duel Disk traced a graceful arc through the air and landed steadily in Li Guanqi's hand.

"Who are you..." Li Guanqi appraised the person before him, remembering the dungeon bounty board, and his eyes widened abruptly.

"The Soul-Detainment Enforcer's Chief?"

Her appearance matched the top-ranked avatar on the bounty poster—though the possibility of a copycat couldn't be ruled out.

That Chief whose bounty was even higher than the Water Enchantress?

The world's strongest dueler was inviting him to a duel?

The woman in the black robe did not reply. She activated her Duel Disk, which flashed with blue light and emitted a crisp beep.

"I don't have a deck," Li Guanqi stated honestly.

Of course he wanted to have a match with the world's strongest dueler, but even the cleverest housewife could not cook a meal without rice.

The woman in black flicked her wrist once more, tossing out a black case that landed in Li Guanqi's hand.

Her tone was flat, devoid of emotion like snow.

"Pick one you're most proficient with."

This was not mockery; she wasn't targeting Li Guanqi specifically. She said the exact same thing to everyone.