"Evil HERO… it actually looks pretty cool."

  "Mmm, as expected, men still love the darkness, huh?"

  Even two days ter, people at the academy were still talking about Evil HERO.

  On one hand, it… looked fine. On the other, as that student said, men just love the darkness.

  Before transmigrating, Hikaru also liked Bck Myth: Wukong, though unfortunately, he hadn't finished the game before crossing over.

  "Chazz-kun, here's your report card. Take it."

  The teacher handed out report cards and evaluations one by one. Chazz looked at the miserable numbers on his report card and felt like smashing his head into the floor.

  He had disgraced his master—staring at the evaluation, he recalled what had happened two days ago.

  After losing to Hikaru, while the Fusion Club students were either cheering or mocking him, Hikaru had simply collected his deck and told him calmly that his dueling wasn't pure enough, at least, not that day.

  "If you want to defeat Jaden, this won't be enough," Hikaru's words still echoed in his mind. "All you think about is beating Jaden. But Jaden… he's thinking about becoming the strongest Duelist."

  Shame burned through him!

  He finally remembered how, that day, his master had dragged him to the AI training room, cursing at him with a cold snort—

  "You fool! If you don't want to become the strongest duelist, you'll be nothing but a mediocre nobody for the rest of your life. Get that through your head!"

  Unfortunately, back then, his mind had been filled with the frustration of losing to Jaden and the pain of being ridiculed.

  But that Hikaru…

  He turned to look in Hikaru's direction.

  Despite being the Fusion Club's representative, opinions about him within the club were highly porized—those who respected him really respected him, while those who disliked him absolutely despised him. Outside of the club, while ordinary students were amazed by his dueling style and deck design, they found it hard to approach him.

  After all, he was a Fusion Club member!

  "How'd you do, Jaden?"

  "Hahaha! Over 80 in practical exams!" Jaden ughed heartily, conveniently hiding his written test scores.

  'An 80 in practical exams!?'

  Chazz felt like he'd been struck by a hammer.

  He only got 40—

  [Overly fixated on using ace monsters to decide the match. Should first use low-level monsters to test traps.]

  [Trap card usage is highly inconsistent—sometimes brilliantly disrupting the opponent's strategy, other times recklessly taking control of a monster like Fme Wingman without considering the situation.]

  [Extremely disrespectful toward opponents, spending the entire duel looking at the audience.]

  [Only focused on HEROes, completely ignoring everything else.]

  With a loud sp, he smacked himself in the face.

  Staring at the evaluation and the points deducted, his face was filled with despair.

  'Don't tell me… Am I going to lose to Jaden even in exam scores!?

  'If Master finds out, he'll kill me!'

  ***

  "Hikaru, how did you do?" Bastion, sitting behind Hikaru, leaned forward curiously.

  He still hadn't forgotten what Hikaru had said earlier.

  "Ah, don't bring it up. I didn't do well."

  "Eh?"

  "I messed up, I messed up. I shouldn't have done that at the time. Ahhh…"

  "???" Bastion's face was full of question marks.

  "Ah, Hikaru, you didn't do well either? Hahaha, well, it's fine! Let's work hard together next time!"

  Hearing Hikaru say that, Jaden's face instantly lit up. He eagerly patted Hikaru on the shoulder, ughing cheerfully—almost as if this somehow erased the fact that his own written exam score was trash.

  "Uh… Jaden," cold sweat ran down Bastion's forehead. "No matter what, we all saw that duel that day. There's no way Hikaru's dueling could've been bad, right?"

  "Yeah, Jaden! Even I wouldn't believe that!"

  "Hikaru-kun must be joking with us, right?"

  "...Eh?" Jaden was stunned. "Wait, Hikaru, you lied to me!?"

  "What reason would I have to lie to you for fun?" Hikaru shrugged, pulling out his evaluation sheet and showing it to them. "Look, only 97 points."

  "..."

  "?"

  'Wasn't the full score 100?'

  "The evaluation says I precisely capitalized on my opponent's mistakes, immediately recognized monster effects and evolutions, was willing to take direct attacks from powerful monsters for the sake of victory, accurately noticed my opponent's ck of focus, seized on their psychological shifts and executed a fwless reversal—securing an instant kill with no room for counterpy. I didn't give my opponent any time to react and performed nearly perfectly."

  "…That all sounds like praise!" Syrus stared at his own evaluation sheet, his face stiff. "Jaden, I got scolded so badly by the teacher…"

  "That's strange. Then why did you get 97?" Bastion asked curiously.

  Hikaru sighed. "Professor Sartyr said my deck composition was poor, that I had too few monsters and not enough bance!

  He was the only teacher who deducted points—every other teacher gave me a perfect score!"

  "..."

  They leaned back in unison.

  'Isn't that right though?'

  A normal deck is definitely focused on monsters, unless it's a rather introverted spell/trap deck, isn't it mostly centered around monsters?

  But thinking about it, since Hikaru was aiming for the ultimate fusion, he filled his deck with fusions and even the monsters he included just to complete the fusion materials were only around seven or eight, which is indeed too few.

  Nonetheless, when Hikaru said it, it seemed like he was extraordinarily dissatisfied.

  "I believe everyone has already seen your evaluations. This is only the early part of the first academic year, and you still have plenty of time to correct your issues, so don't be discouraged. As for the final grade sheet, it has already been posted on the academy bulletin board, and interested students can go take a look.

  The top ten students then can apply for a schorship from Professor Crowler."

  Schorship—might as well call it a "bonus."

  Pying cards is ultimately a competition, and the students' future paths are either to become teachers or duelists. So, familiarizing oneself with duel tournaments early and understanding how duelists can make money in society is what Duel Academy aims to teach the students.

  'Grades…'

  After css, Hikaru went to the academy gates. On the bulletin board, a list was posted.

  He took a gnce at it between the crowd.

  "Hmm…"

  'Good!'

  First pce.

  "Ahhh, how can you be ahead of me by ten points!?" Bastion, standing next to him, went crazy, rubbing his head hard. "Impossible—when we checked the answers, weren't we almost identical? Could it be alchemy!"

  "Ahhh—!" Bastion screamed like Tom from Tom and Jerry.

  Bastion, who had long been at the top of the written exam rankings and was quite rational in actual duels, nearly screamed out loud for the whole academy to hear when he saw that Hikaru had actually beaten him.

  Moreover…

  He had 96 in actual duels!

  In duels, he could accept that Hikaru and Jaden were better than him and just try to win back ter, but his written exam score... How could it be this much lower?!

  "Ha..." He inhaled deeply. "Looks like I was too arrogant before, Hikaru! Next time, I won't let you have first pce!"

  With that, he took heavy steps and walked in another direction—seeming like he was going to find Teacher Banner, no longer caring about applying for the schorship.

  Hikaru smiled.

  'Heh, too unsophisticated, Bastion! If we were comparing math, culture, physics, and chemistry, you could easily crush me, a transmigrator who left all knowledge behind in high school. But when it comes to card knowledge, you're not yet in my league!'

  Laughing inwardly, Hikaru quickly ran to the professor's office to apply for the schorship.

  To be honest, it wasn't much.

  After all, it was only the first-semester exam, not even the final.

  But for a prestigious "company" like the Duel Academy under KaibaCorp, even if it's "not much," it's enough for Hikaru to splurge on different fvored bread for a year—of course, the money wasn't for that.

  After becoming the representative of the Yellow Dorm, hearing that Hikaru's financial situation was poor and that he could only live on bread every day, Professor Sartyr from Yellow Dorm gave him the privilege to eat at the Yellow Dorm's cafeteria for free as long as he kept performing well, ensuring he wouldn't starve at the academy.

  So, Hikaru had other pns for the money.

  Buying card packs, and... trying alchemy!

  To be precise, experimenting with "Super Fusion"!