Magic Card Era: Infinite Deck Enhancement — Chapter 18

Chapter 18: Red-Eyes Meteor Dragon!

“Phew!” Luke opened his eyes, a fine sheen of sweat clinging to his forehead. ‘Just as I thought. My current mental power isn’t nearly enough to support the creation of advanced Magic Cards.’

The simulation results were far from ideal. Pushing his mental capacity to its absolute limit, he had barely managed to complete the background lore and foundational settings for the Red-Eyes Black Dragon. He didn’t have a single drop of mental energy left to render the card art, let alone attempt the subsequent material Fusion phase. He hadn’t even caught a glimpse of that step.

If he tried to synchronize this half-baked creation into reality, the result would be exactly the same—a complete failure.

‘The ultimate form of Red-Eyes…’ Luke muttered inwardly, refusing to throw in the towel. Just because he couldn’t forge the original Red-Eyes Black Dragon right now didn’t mean he was locked out of the archetype entirely. He could pivot.

He could create its alternate forms and use their unique effects to eventually bring out the original through special summoning mechanics. In the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG, Normal Summoning was just the tip of the iceberg. Even though this was reality, he firmly believed those mechanics would translate over perfectly. The successful creation of the Spellbook and Magic Cylinder was all the proof he needed.

‘Black Metal Dragon, Red-Eyes Wyvern, Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon, and Red-Eyes Retro Dragon… they can all cheat out the Red-Eyes Black Dragon, but their raw standalone power is a bit lacking for what I need right now.’ Sifting through his vast knowledge of the archetype’s support roster, his focus eventually locked onto a specific target.

The Red-Eyes Meteor Dragon.

‘A Six-Star Red-Eyes Meteor Dragon definitely won’t lose out to the Dark Magician Girl in terms of sheer combat strength.’ It might lack the versatile spellcasting utility of his ace spellcaster, but in the Magic Card Civilization, Dragon-type monsters were universally recognized as apex predators. Top-tier existences.

He vividly remembered a recent news broadcast detailing the birth of a terrifying Nine-Star Dragon-type fierce beast—the Thunderbolt Dragon—within one of the Dimensional Planes anchored beneath Cang Capital.

The Thunderbolt Dragon was a mutant variant, its massive frame armored in soft, flexible scales forged entirely from thunder magnetic force ore. It possessed a specialized biological organ capable of generating devastating electrical discharges, rivaling the destructive force of natural lightning strikes whenever it hunted or defended its territory.

Its sheer power had vastly exceeded the structural limits of its native Dimensional Plane. Tearing through the spatial boundaries, the beast had invaded the Magic Card Civilization’s Main Plane, unleashing absolute havoc across the outskirts of Cang Capital. The catastrophe only ended when one of Cang Capital’s Vice Capital Lords personally intervened, suppressing the rampaging dragon before the casualty count could spiral out of control.

Shaking off the memory, Luke closed his eyes and fired up the simulated construction once more. A moment later, fresh sweat beaded on his brow, but this time, the process didn’t collapse. He successfully locked in the simulated framework for the Red-Eyes Meteor Dragon.

However, unlike his previous smooth runs with the Spellbook and Magic Cylinder, the progress bar didn’t instantly shoot to completion.

Luke already had a solid theory as to why.

The simulated construction feature was designed to iteratively refine the creation process. Forging a fully-fledged monster card was exponentially more complex than crafting equipment or counter cards. It demanded multiple simulation cycles to grind that success rate up to a guaranteed hundred percent.

‘Still acceptable.’Luke weighed the mental energy drain against the progress gained and nodded in satisfaction.’At this rate, I just need a few more days to push the Red-Eyes Meteor Dragon’s simulation progress to completion.’

This was a massive upgrade in efficiency. Back when he first decided to create the Dark Magician Girl, he had spent an agonizing amount of time painstakingly writing out her lore and settings from scratch.

A huge chunk of that effort went into establishing the overarching Yu-Gi-Oh! worldview to ground her existence. Now, the simulated construction system handled the heavy lifting, refining the background and settings automatically while guaranteeing a flawless card completion rate. It saved him an incredible amount of time.

‘Wait a second… can this thing run on autopilot?’ The thought struck him out of nowhere.

During the simulations for the Spellbook, Magic Cylinder, and the Red-Eyes Meteor Dragon, he had been completely immersed, actively driving the process. After all, he had only just unlocked this special function, leaving plenty of uncharted territory to explore.

Based on his limited testing, the system only required two things: a designated target and a steady supply of mental power. Once a cycle finished, the progress bar ticked up, and he absorbed the corresponding creation experience.

Theoretically, if it operated on those basic rules, he didn’t actually need to micromanage it. As long as his mental reserves held out, the system should be able to continuously simulate the designated Magic Card in the background.

Eager to test his hypothesis, Luke initiated another cycle.

Time ticked by. His eyes remained shut, but he could feel his mental power slowly siphoning away in a steady, rhythmic pulse.

‘It actually works!’ This background cycle took noticeably longer than his fully focused attempt, but when he finally opened his eyes, a wide grin stretched across his face.

The simulated construction was humming along perfectly, draining his mental energy at a constant, manageable rate, completely independent of his active focus.

‘My guess was right on the money. If I can maintain this passive state, the overall time investment drops drastically.’ Crunching the numbers, he realized that by keeping his mental drain hovering right at the critical threshold, he could shave off nearly a third of the time required to max out the Red-Eyes Meteor Dragon’s progress. It was a game-changing boost to his efficiency.

The impact would only multiply when he started tackling higher-level Magic Cards in the future.

‘Still, I just took it for a test drive. I’ll need some time to adapt before I can completely ignore the background drain.’ Shaking his head, he noticed a slight sluggishness in his movements. While the autopilot feature freed up his conscious mind to multitask, the continuous tax on his mental reserves slightly impaired his physical coordination.

Despite the minor drawback, he was thrilled with the discovery. It was a massive, unexpected win.

A moment later, the background cycle wrapped up, bumping the Red-Eyes Meteor Dragon’s progress bar up another notch.

Between the two simulation runs and his earlier exertions, his mental tank was completely tapped out for the day. He shifted his attention to the materials scattered across his desk. ‘Dragon-type materials… this is going to be a massive headache.’

He had plenty of generic resources, but his inventory was completely devoid of anything draconic. Even the academy’s reward vault hadn’t offered any. Thanks to their overwhelming combat prowess, hunting Dragon-type fierce beasts was a suicidal endeavor for most. Consequently, their materials were exceedingly rare, driving market prices to astronomical, borderline absurd heights.

They were permanently out of stock, suffering from massive demand and zero supply. He couldn’t even recall the last time he saw a public auction listing for authentic Dragon-type parts.

‘Forget it. I’ll see what the situation is when I head back to the academy tomorrow. I still have that pending reward from the City Lord’s Mansion to collect. Hopefully, I can score something usable there.’

Sighing, Luke gathered the materials from his desk and fed them directly into the Magic Card Editor’s internal storage.

While standard storage cards existed and came equipped with anti-theft mechanisms, they were far from foolproof. News of storage cards being swiped off unsuspecting victims popped up all the time.

For a Magic Card Master, trusting a flimsy piece of plastic over the absolute security of their bound Magic Card Editor was a rookie mistake. Since both served the same purpose, the Editor was the obvious choice.

With his workspace cleared, Luke stretched his stiff limbs and headed toward his bedroom to finally get some rest.