Here's the extra Chapter!
As Kira had expected, both Misawa and Alexis accepted his invitation.
When he showed them his modified "Machine Angel Ritual" and "Carboneddon"—cards belonging to each of them—they were both so shocked they joined immediately.
Printing cards is not just about knowledge and skill; fate also plays a part. Some upperclassmen may have more knowledge at this stage, but they can't match the main characters in Destiny Power.
Misawa needs no further explanation—a top scholar who learns fast. In the original, he even turned to researching Duel Physics, going down the science route. Honestly, Kira always felt he was born for research, not dueling.
Alexis, too, had considered staying at the academy to teach and do research after graduation. Kira sometimes thought if they'd gone into research instead of dueling, maybe their reputations wouldn't have suffered as in the original.
Since card printing seems to involve fate, Kira felt the best people to work on cards were those closely linked to the deck itself. So, for the Cyber Angels project, Alexis was the ideal candidate. The source of this content ɪs novel✦fire.net
Besides Cyber Angels, he also thought HERO and Cyber Dragon decks could be greatly improved.
Cyber Dragon would have to wait since he hadn't even met Zane Truesdale yet. He might invite him later, but the Cyber Dragon deck is much stronger in real life than in the anime, and developing new cards would be much harder.
Of course, his lab was still just a prototype. The lack of current tech doesn't mean he won't have it in the future. When his team and budget grow, maybe they could even design whole new archetypes.
As for HERO, Masked HERO cards are much stronger in the real game than in the anime, but Jaden currently only has Elemental HEROs.
And it'd be tough to get Jaden to do research anyway—he's the type who can print cards live if the mood strikes, but usually skips or sleeps through class. Research just isn't his thing.
A few days later, Kira finally got a message from KaibaCorp's research team.
The team leader was extremely excited, telling him that thanks to the spiritual hints he'd provided, the Chaos Warrior theme had made a breakthrough—he should come and see.
The leader was so hyped he called late at night and wanted to send someone to pick Kira up immediately. Kira said he'd get permission from the academy and come the next day.
So, early the next morning, a KC-branded helicopter landed on the academy island. Kira boarded and flew straight to the legendary Duel Capital—Domino City, home of KaibaCorp HQ.
As soon as he landed, the lab-coated leader greeted him, tugged him inside, and chattered about how the team had been working around the clock.
But Kira could already tell from the leader's even darker eye circles that they'd gone all out.
He wanted to tell the guy to pace himself—he still needed him for more Chaos upgrades—wouldn't want him to work himself to death.
But the leader seemed energetic enough, quickly leading Kira to the lab, where the whole team was waiting anxiously.
A researcher quickly went to a cylindrical device at the far end of the lab.
The leader and another person each took out a key, inserted them into two separate locks, and turned them in opposite directions. With a click, a keypad popped out.
They each entered a code and then did iris and fingerprint scans. The cylinder rumbled, slowly spinning and opening.
Inside were several cards.
"These are the ones we just finished."
The leader handed them to Kira with something like reverence.
"The test field is ready."
Kira glanced at them.
Just as he'd described:
[Beginning Knight, Level 4, ATK 500, DEF 2000]
In short, when used as a ritual material to summon "Black Luster Soldier," it grants two effects: once per turn, banish an opponent's monster; also if it destroys a monster by battle, it can attack again.
Similar to BLS-EotB, but even stronger—using "Dimension Slash" limits BLS's attacks, but with this card as material, there's no such restriction.
This card is a LIGHT attribute; there's also a DARK version.
[Evening Twilight Knight, Level 4, ATK 500, DEF 2000]
Like Beginning Knight Knight, but when used for ritual, BLS gains: first, "Dimension Slash" (banish a monster); second, it can randomly banish a card from the opponent's hand, with that card returning at the end of their next turn.
If you use both as materials, BLS gets all the effects—banish an opponent's monster, extra attack, and banish a hand card.
This would make the "legendary warrior" finally worthy of his title.
They'd also developed new Ritual Spells from Kira's descriptions, two in fact:
[Super Soldier Ritual]—BLS exclusive. While this card's in the graveyard, you can banish it and one LIGHT and one DARK monster to Special Summon a BLS Ritual from your hand, ignoring conditions.
So, with this in the grave, any BLS Ritual can be summoned as easily as BLS-EotB.
[Super Soldier Synthesis]—lets you use one LIGHT and one DARK monster from hand and deck as material to Ritual Summon BLS. The most powerful Ritual Spell in the system.
Printing new cards from scratch is much harder than just making real versions of anime cards, but Kaiba's top team, they managed it.
Kira had also hinted at more BLS forms, but the leader said they were still trying, with little luck so far.
This matched what Kira learned about card-making: the stronger the monster, the harder it is to print—even with a top team, only support monsters and spells/traps had been made so far.
The real powerhouses were still out of reach.
The research team was eager for Kira, who possessed the BLS spirit, to use the new cards in a ritual summon and gather data for further development.
This was easy—like running drills with his Duel Disk.
After assisting with the test, Kira returned to the control room, where Kaiba's right-hand man Mokuba had arrived.
"Looks like development's going well. Thanks," Mokuba smiled. "When these results go public, it'll be a breakthrough."
They exchanged some polite words, and then Mokuba got to the point: "Later, I'll take you to check out our inventory. Don't get your hopes up, though—rare cards like Dark Magician or Red-Eyes Black Dragon are out of the question."
"No worries, I just want to look," Kira replied.
"Oh, and about the surprise I mentioned before..."
Mokuba grinned mysteriously.
"The 'Link System' we talked about last time is almost finished. Want to try it?"