In the bathroom, filled with white mist, the sound of rushing water echoed.
Sonia was in the bathtub, hugging her knees.
Recalling what Yide had just said, she lowered her head and unconsciously pouted.
It’s not that heavy…
It’s just right…
No, Sonia, what are you thinking?!
The girl suddenly realized, her face flushed with embarrassment, and she plunged her head directly into the water, leaving only her “ahoge” (a strand of hair sticking up) exposed on the surface.
Only when bubbles gurgled did she re-emerge from the water, resting her chin on her knees.
Her mind was already a bit muddled.
It was simply because the events of this evening had been too convoluted.
First, she was forced to leave her home by the Mad Heart Gang, hitting rock bottom, and then she saw hope in a soul.
Speaking of which, even now, other than knowing his name was Yide, Sonia knew nothing else about that person.
From his voice, the other party seemed to be quite young.
But judging a soul’s age by its voice seemed a bit unreliable.
However, he could even control a body; who exactly was he?
Sonia tilted her head, looking towards the door.
Yide didn’t know that his new host was already curious about his origins.
At this moment, he was suspended directly above the desk, looking at the deck of cards Sonia had spread out on the tabletop.
While Sonia was taking a bath, he also wanted to find something to do.
So he asked Sonia to place the deck on the table so he could look at it for a while.
He didn’t necessarily have to play; whether it was Sonia or him playing tomorrow, they would be using the same deck, and that deck was naturally the most crucial factor influencing tomorrow’s victory or defeat.
He glanced at the average level of the deck; most of them were E-rank.
This also proved that Sonia was currently an E-rank duelist, the lowest level among duelists.
But that didn’t really matter.
In Yide’s view, there wasn’t much difference between E-rank and D-rank.
The former was like a beginner’s tier; you could climb up with a little effort.
But there seemed to be too many problems with this deck.
“How is it, Mr. Yide, are there any problems?”
Just as Yide was deep in thought, Sonia came out, took off the hanging pendant and put it around her neck, then sat back down at the desk.
After a brief reflection in the bathroom, Sonia decided to add “Mr.” after Yide’s name as a sign of respect.
After all, she had prayed to the gods back then.
Although she wasn’t sure if he could truly help her, summoning such a soul must have been a divine manifestation, right?
Yide didn’t know that Sonia had already linked him with the gods.
At this moment, he was still contemplating the deck’s issues.
“Problems? More than I imagined. Lend me your body for a moment.”
“…Okay.”
Once it happened once, it happened again.
After the initial embarrassment, Sonia’s resistance was significantly less the second time.
Mainly because only the two of them were alone at the moment, with no outsiders, so Sonia wasn’t afraid of being seen.
After gaining control of the body, Yide instinctively leaned back in the chair, pinching his chin, adopting his most accustomed posture.
“Let’s talk about the most important one first.”
“You shouldn’t be a fire-element duelist, so why are you using a pure fire-element deck?”
“Don’t you know that forcibly refining cards that don’t suit you will severely reduce their power?”
The cards in this world are divided by element, with five in total.
Light, Water, Dark, Fire, and Nature, corresponding to the colors white, blue, black, red, and green.
There are no usage thresholds between the five elements; if one wished, stuffing a deck full of all five elements wouldn’t be an issue.
However, there is a threshold to obtain cards of different elements.
“The main way for duelists to obtain unlocked cards is to summon their own Refinement Catalog and then choose to randomly refine them using the magic power within their bodies.”
“And the quality of the cards obtained is related to the duelist’s personality.”
“Just like extremely rational duelists find it difficult to accept the negative effects brought by randomness, extreme pacifists would deeply loathe killing.”
“This rejection will truly manifest in the refinement of the cards. Therefore, refining a card that doesn’t suit one’s personality is often a disadvantage for a duelist.”
This is why some say the first step to becoming a duelist is finding an element that suits you.
Regarding the fire element, Yide once heard a saying: seventy-seven percent of fire-element duelists can’t even do basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division within one hundred.
This saying was, of course, just a joke, but it highlights the most intuitive characteristic of fire-element duelists.
They rely purely on brute force.
Whatever they can get their hands on, they throw it at the opponent’s face.
In a duel, this translates to minion cards that are all about aggressive rushes, and spell cards that deal direct damage, more than any other element.
This is why Yide said Sonia shouldn’t be focused on the fire element.
Yide looked at Sonia: “The fire element represents sensibility, following intuition, and the chaos that doesn’t obey order.”
“Rather than believing that meticulous calculations can plan a duel several turns ahead, it’s better to trust instantaneous inspiration, to act first and think later.”
“Although your performance just now was quite jumpy, and you made decisions very decisively, your personality doesn’t actually fit the fire element very well, does it?”
“So, why did you choose the fire element?”
Although his previous tone was incredibly certain, Yide was genuinely confused about Sonia’s choice.
Even after only an hour or two of interaction, this girl didn’t look like those pure fire-element brutes at all.
Only when she was cornered by those two weaklings did her tone sound a bit tougher; now that she’s had a bath, she’s back to being that timid girl.
And the fire element, no matter what, is an element that requires the duelist to have a strong personality.
Since Sonia had attended a dueling academy, her teacher should have told her this.
The only reason Yide could think of was that Sonia’s parents or ancestors had left her powerful fire-element cards to inherit.
However, Yide hadn’t seen such cards when he just looked through them.
But he had just looked through the cards Sonia currently possessed and didn’t see any similar ones.
At Yide’s questioning, Sonia lowered her head, as if recalling something from the past.
After a while, she bit her lower lip and explained the reason.
“Because my father once said that when the strength of individual cards is generally not high, in duels of the same level, aggro decks are more likely to gain an advantage than other types of decks.”
Hearing this, Yide couldn’t help but be stunned.
Aggro decks refer to defeating the opponent as quickly as possible before resources run out; Yide, of course, knew this.
But why did that sentence sound so familiar?
Seeing that Yide didn’t speak, Sonia continued: “I also heard this from someone else.”
“Reportedly, this was said by a princess of the Kingdom of Sissel a year ago during a duel with an A-rank duelist.”
“I was already behind my peers because I didn’t have a dueling spirit, and I didn’t want to fall further behind.”
“So, I chose the fire element.”
Sonia’s eyes drooped as she spoke.
But Yide only felt that something was increasingly wrong.
Kingdom of Sissel, princess, a duel with an A-rank duelist a year ago…
Wait, wasn’t that what I said before?
Holy cow, the case is solved.
He was the one who caused Sonia not to summon a dueling spirit and thus be expelled from the dueling academy.
He was also the one who led Sonia astray into playing fire-element decks.
The war criminal is actually me?
Lmao