Alexander sat alone in his study.
The room was quiet, illuminated only by the warm glow of electric lamps. Outside the tall windows, the evening had already settled over the estate, leaving the world beyond hidden beneath darkness.
Only the soft rustling of paper and the faint ticking of a clock disturbed the silence.
Before him floated the familiar interface of the YGO System, and his gaze lingered on the shop menu.
Specifically, on two entries, the same two entries he had been staring at for several minutes.
_______________________________________
– Personal Upgrade: Spirit Capacity Enhancement
• Increases Ba reserves
• Improves Ka stability
Effect:
• Reduces strain from high-output actions
• Improves compatibility with high-tier entities
Cost:
• Next Level: 200 DP
– System Upgrade: Expand Card Database Series 2
• Unlocks additional card templates
• Expands accessible archetypes
Effect:
• Increases available card pool
• Enables creation of higher-tier cards
• Improves system recognition range
Cost:
• 200 DP
__________________________________
Alexander frowned while thinking, 'Both are important. Very important... The Spirit Capacity Enhancement will strengthen me directly. Larger Ba reserves and improved Ka stability would make future card creation significantly easier. More importantly, it is the key to eventually creating Level 9 prototype cards. It's a tempting prospect.'
Even now he could vividly imagine the impact such monsters would have, yet after a moment's consideration, he shook his head as he realised, 'The game isn't ready. Not yet at least.'
Level 8 monsters already occupied a position that bordered on mythical in the current environment. Most duelists were still struggling to fully understand proper deck construction, resource management, and advanced combinations. Introducing Level 9 monsters now would be like introducing a battleship to a world still experimenting with sailboats.
It was useful and eventually necessary, but not that urgent at the current moment.
The second option was another matter entirely as Series 1 was approaching exhaustion.
Alexander had spent months steadily expanding the available card pool. Every booster release consumed more of the database, and while there were still cards remaining, the number was steadily shrinking to one that wasn't enough to release a proper Booster Pack.
Soon he would face a problem.
Without access to new templates, new cards, and new strategies, Duel Monsters would stagnate.
Players needed discovery, they needed innovation, and most importantly, they needed to know that the game world was constantly growing larger.
Series 2 represented that future.
Unfortunately, both upgrades shared the same temporary flaw; neither could be purchased, not yet.
Alexander only had 101 Duel Points, far short of the required two hundred.
His eyes drifted higher, toward another cheaper item, one he had noticed before, and one he had intentionally ignored until now.
______________________________________
– Blueprint: Duel Monsters Card Microchips
• Encodes card data into physical format
• Enables compatibility with projection systems
Effect:
• Stores monster, spell, and trap data
• Allows activation within Solid Vision systems
• Required for advanced duel infrastructure
Cost:
• 100 DP
_______________________________________
Alexander stared, then stared some more before he thought, 'This one is different. The previous upgrades improved the present. This blueprint improves the future. Or perhaps more accurately... It lays the foundation for it.'
For a brief moment his thoughts drifted far ahead, to massive arenas with thousands of spectators, towering monsters roaring overhead, spell cards reshaping entire battlefields.
Monsters no longer confined to artwork on cardboard but appearing as living, moving projections visible to everyone.
Holographic duels.
The technology that in their home reality had transformed Duel Monsters from a simple card game into a global phenomenon.
His fingers tapped softly against the desk as his mind worked overtime, 'Preparation matters. Even if I can't immediately recreate the technology, understanding it now would save me years later. I can even start preparing for it, making the transition much smoother. And unlike the other upgrades, this one is within reach.'
At this point, Alexander once again glanced at his DP balance and quickly calculated how long it would take for him to gather the DP needed to purchase the desired upgrade using these last few days as a metric before concluding, 'Four days. Perhaps three if I'm lucky. That is all I would likely need to accumulate enough Duel Points for the Series 2 expansion...'
The delay would be negligible, especially considering his plans for the Christmas release and even if the upgrade arrived several days later than originally intended, he would still have more than enough time to create additional prototype cards and prepare a new booster set.
In the end, Alexander concluded that the benefits outweighed the costs.
His decision was made, and without hesitation he muttered, "Purchase."
The interface flickered, and the number in the corner immediately dropped. 101 DP became 1.
A moment later, another notification appeared.
[Ding!]
__________________________________
[Blueprint Acquired. Duel Monsters Card Microchips Blueprint is now stored in the database. Holographic projection available.]
__________________________________
Alexander smiled and confidently muttered, "Excellent."
Then he made a mistake, a very understandable mistake but a mistake nonetheless; he assumed he was prepared.
After all, he had anticipated this day for months.
Long before the blueprint had even become available, he had begun quietly collecting technical literature. Not because he knew exactly what the future would require, but because he knew eventually he would have to bridge the gap between fiction and reality.
Without hesitation, he picked up the telephone resting nearby and dialled the internal number, and after a few moments of waiting, he asked, "Roland?"
The response came almost immediately, "Yes, Master Alexander?"
"Could you bring me the books I had set aside?"
A brief pause followed before the voice on the other side asked, "The engineering books?"
"All of them."
There was another pause, longer this time, before the trusted butler repeated, "All of them?"
Alexander considered, then nodded despite knowing Roland couldn't see it and confirmed, "All of them."
"...Very well."
Twenty minutes later, his study resembled less an artist's office and more a university research department.
Several carts occupied the room, books filled chairs, books covered tables, books occupied entire sections of the floor.
Roland entered alongside several helpers pushing heavily loaded carts.
The butler surveyed the room, then the carts, then the rapidly disappearing floor space and wisely, he chose not to comment and simply asked, "Will there be anything else, sir?"
Alexander was already reaching for the nearest stack, "No, thank you."
Roland gave a small bow before retreating.
The moment the door closed, Alexander turned his full attention toward the hovering blueprints and then focused on one stack of books marked with: Semiconductor Fundamentals. Then he thought, 'Okay. This is exactly where I think I should begin.'
Then he quickly took a closer look at some of the titles.
Introduction to Semiconductor Physics.
Practical Silicon Device Engineering.
MOSFET Design and Applications.
Fundamentals of Integrated Circuit Fabrication.
Principles of VLSI System Design.
Solid-State Electronics: Theory and Practice.
Modern Semiconductor Materials.
A small smile appeared on his face as he thought, 'Perfect. Everything required to understand a sophisticated integrated circuit.'
Confidently, Alexander opened the blueprint, and the confidence lasted approximately seven minutes; then it began to crack.
His brow furrowed; he reread a section, then again, and a third time.
Slowly, he reached for one of the textbooks and several pages later he discovered the first problem.
The manufacturing tolerances described within the blueprint were impossible.
The precision demanded by the design exceeded the capabilities of modern fabrication equipment by a margin that made comparison almost absurd.
Alexander blinked, then continued while hoping, 'Perhaps the next section would make more sense.'
It did not.
The blueprint moved into architecture design, and Alexander focused on another stack of books.
Custom Integrated Circuit Architecture.
Digital Logic Design for High-Density Systems.
Advanced CMOS Circuit Design.
ASIC Development Methodologies.
Microprocessor Design Fundamentals.
Every relevant reference sat within arm's reach, and Alexander consulted them all.
Hours of preparation paid off.
He understood every principle being discussed, but that was not the problem.
The problem was that the blueprint appeared completely unconcerned with those principles.
Several calculations later, he discovered that the amount of memory contained within a single Duel Monsters card exceeded what should physically fit inside its volume, and not by a small amount, but by enough to make him question whether he had made an arithmetic error somewhere, so he checked again and again, but the numbers remained unchanged.
His frown deepened.
More hours passed.
The room slowly vanished beneath notes, sketches, calculations, and open books.
Each new subject followed the same pattern.
Data Storage.
Magnetic and Optical Data Storage Systems.
Compact Memory Technologies.
Data Compression for Embedded Systems.
Information Density and Storage Limits.
Alexander would identify a concept, locate the corresponding reference, study the relevant theory, compare it against the blueprint, and then discover that the blueprint casually exceeded every limitation discussed by modern science.
As though those limitations had never existed in the first place.
Materials Science proved no better.
Advanced Polymer Materials.
Industrial Composite Structures.
Thin-Film Electronics.
Durable Electronic Packaging.
Flexible Substrate Technologies.
The card substrate specified by the blueprint possessed characteristics that no known material should be capable of simultaneously achieving.
Durability, flexibility, conductivity, data retention, all within a structure thinner than a playing card.
Then came manufacturing.
High-Volume Electronics Manufacturing.
Industrial Cleanroom Operations.
Precision Lithography Techniques.
Wafer Processing and Yield Optimisation.
Quality Control in Semiconductor Production.
The blueprint assumed fabrication capabilities decades beyond current industry and perhaps more.
Alexander wasn't entirely sure anymore because at some point the gap had become difficult to quantify.
By the time he reached the final stack, most of his earlier confidence had evaporated.
These books represented the cutting edge, the future, something unique of his world created by the brilliant minds of the likes of Howard Stark, Hank Pym, Henry Philip McCoy, and others.
Research so advanced that much of it remained purely theoretical.
Emerging Trends in Nanoelectronics.
Experimental Computing Architectures.
Molecular Scale Electronics.
Submicron Semiconductor Research.
The Future of Integrated Computing.
Seeing that final stack, Alexander thought, 'Finally! Something that might be able to bridge the gap.'
Alexander settled into his chair and resumed reading, and for several minutes everything appeared promising, but then the blueprint introduced: Quantum-State Memory Stabilisation. Self-Organizing Data Lattices. Dynamic Crystal-Layer Encoding.
Alexander froze, his eyes slowly lowered toward the book in his hand, then returned to the blueprint, then back to the book.
Silence filled the study.
Somewhere nearby, a clock ticked.
Alexander stared at the page for several more seconds before finally muttering, "...Not one of these books even explains the terminology used in the introduction."
The words hung in the air.
The realisation was strangely painful, not because he had failed but because he had prepared correctly; he had anticipated the challenge, he had acquired the necessary literature, he had studied the relevant fields, he had done everything right, and yet the gap remained enormous.
For the first time, Alexander began to understand the true scale of what he was attempting.
The YGO System wasn't handing him advanced technology, but it was handing him the endpoint of an entire technological civilisation.
A civilisation that had already solved countless problems his world hadn't even discovered yet.
Hours later, he finally leaned back in his chair as exhaustion tugged at the edges of his mind.
Around him rested enough technical literature to educate an entire engineering department, yet he still couldn't fully understand the introductory sections of the blueprint.
The problem wasn't intelligence, the problem wasn't effort, the problem wasn't even the blueprint itself.
The problem was time, as the world simply wasn't ready and neither was he.
For several minutes he sat quietly as his gaze wandered across the mountains of books, then toward the floating blueprint, then toward the System interface.
Suddenly a hopeful thought occurred to him.
Slowly he reopened the shop and this time he paid attention, but not to the expensive upgrades or to the tempting rewards, to everything.
Every category, every description, every note, he read them all carefully and methodically, and eventually he found it.
_______________________________
– Technology: Solid Vision Knowledge
• Grants access to holographic projection principles
• Enables creation of interactive combat simulations
Effect:
• Allows projection of monsters using card data
• Converts encoded card information into visual constructs
• Enables integration with compatible devices
Note:
• Requires compatible hardware to operate
Cost:
• 500 DP
____________________________________
Alexander froze then laughed, a long laugh, the kind that escaped when a puzzle suddenly clicked into place as he thought, 'So that's it. So that's it! The blueprint had never been intended as the starting point. It is the endpoint. The microchip isn't the foundation. The Solid Vision Knowledge is!'
Trying to understand the card chip without understanding Solid Vision was like trying to build a computer before discovering electricity.
The blueprint assumed entire fields of knowledge that simply didn't exist yet.
Fields that would likely be explained by the technology package sitting in front of him.
His gaze then lingered on the price: 500 Duel Points.
It was expensive, painfully expensive, yet for the first time that evening, he no longer felt frustrated; instead, he felt excited, because now he knew where to start.
He had identified the missing piece, the true foundation.
Alexander closed the shop and glanced once more at the mountain of books surrounding him.
The future of Duel Monsters had just become considerably more expensive and considerably more interesting.
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