Chapter 157:

"Since Professor Crowler seems to be missing today for some reason, I'll be covering this morning's theory class in his place."

The next morning, Nurse Fontaine, big hair and crisp white uniform as always, stood at the front of the lecture hall explaining the day's material.

Rowan gave her two polite glances out of respect, then went right back to propping his chin on one hand and stifling a yawn.

With nothing better to do, he decided to go through everything he'd picked up from the ruins expedition, tallying up the haul from the Gravekeeper clan's world on the other side.

[Name: Rowan] [Skills: Spirit Vision, Superior Still Water Clarity, Mark of the Crimson Dragon — Dragon's Head, Mark of the Crimson Dragon — Dragon's Heart, Mark of the Crimson Dragon — Dragon's Tail] [Decks currently owned: Dark Magician Deck, Lava Golem Deck, Stealth Bird Deck, Shadow HERO Deck, Ojama Deck, Buster Blader Deck, Herald of Perfection Deck, Gravekeeper's Deck (the cursed LP shaving build).] [Emotion Points: 4000]

After redeeming the Gravekeeper's Deck yesterday, Rowan remembered clearly that his remaining Emotion Points should have dropped to around 600.

Instead, the number now sitting in front of him read 4000.

Which meant the extra 3400 points had all come courtesy of the Gravekeeper Elder's generous contribution.

"There really is nothing like a good Shadow Duel against a Duel Spirit." A satisfied smile spread across Rowan's face.

Then, a heartbeat later, he felt a small pang of regret.

That Dark Scorpion Burglars gang, also genuine Duel Spirits, had already been mopped up by Chazz of all people.

He couldn't shake the feeling he'd missed out on a serious pile of Emotion Points there.

Clearly, going forward, if the opportunity presented itself, he really ought to step in personally against these Seven Stars Shadow Duelists whenever possible.

Rowan let out a genuinely pained little sigh at the thought.

Otherwise, how much easy money was he leaving on the table?

But then another thought occurred to him.

Since time apparently flowed differently in the Duel Spirit world compared to the real one, and he'd only spent a few hours there while two full days had passed back here...

Which timeline was the system shop's refresh cycle actually running on?

Curious now, Rowan pulled up his system panel to check.

Sure enough, four brand-new options greeted him, freshly refreshed.

[System Shop (refreshes once every two days)] Today's options: [Deck: Quick-Draw Deck (Kazuma Tachibana Edition)] 500 points. [Deck: Amazoness Deck (the cursed frame-job build)] 1500 points. [Deck: D.D. Warrior Deck (the cursed banishment build)] 1500 points. [Skill: Strip the Screws (When a duel is nearly guaranteed to be lost, once per day you may trigger your own Duel Disk to malfunction and explode, voiding the duel entirely. Note: usable only outside of Shadow Duels, and only when no Rule-based power is in effect)] 2000 points.

"Huh, it actually refreshed already." Rowan raised an eyebrow, muttering to himself, mildly surprised.

So the shop's refresh cycle really did run on real-world time, not whatever strange clock governed the spirit realm.

Worth keeping in mind going forward.

If he ever lost track of time mid-Shadow Duel and accidentally let a refresh slip by, missing out on something he'd actually wanted, like a skill tied to the Mark of the Crimson Dragon, that would sting.

No telling how long he'd have to wait for that option to cycle back around again.

With that settled, Rowan turned his attention properly to the four new options, looking for anything worth picking up.

His eye landed almost immediately on the new skill. Strip the...

Rowan couldn't help himself.

"Wait, hold on, what exactly is 'Strip the Screws' supposed to be?!"

He genuinely hadn't expected the shop to roll out something this delightfully questionable.

Sure, the effect itself sounded decent on paper. But as far as he was concerned, it was basically useless to him personally.

As a great duelist whose sacred mission was "healing" the people he faced, Rowan proudly noted that the phrase "guaranteed loss" simply did not exist in his personal dictionary.

Also, wasn't there a real risk his own hand would get hurt from an exploding Duel Disk...?

He decisively wrote off the strange little skill option without a second thought and moved on to the three remaining decks.

The first name, Kazuma Tachibana, meant absolutely nothing to him.

He genuinely wondered for a second whether such a person even existed anywhere in this dueling world.

But the moment he read "Quick-Draw Deck", his eyes lit up. He knew exactly what this was.

In a certain sense, this Quick-Draw Deck operated on the same "cursed" principle as Sartorius's Arcana Force deck.

The difference was that instead of flipping a coin to decide whether an effect landed positive or negative, this deck drew a specific card from the deck itself to trigger a correspondingly powerful effect.

Rowan privately decided to call it the cursed gambling addict deck.

And the odds were overwhelmingly in favor of the user getting cursed by their own draw.

Still, compared to a coin flip-based Arcana Force-style deck, for someone with a guaranteed perfect draw skill available once per duel, this one didn't seem entirely unworkable.

The corner of Rowan's mouth curled up.

And at 500 points, with his current "loaded whale" tier balance of 4000 Emotion Points, it was practically pocket change.

"Rowan..."

Just as he was happily weighing whether to redeem his new cursed deck, he heard Bastion's voice, pitched low, calling out to him from a few seats away.

Like he had something urgent to say.

"Bastion, I have to call you out for this. You're supposed to be paying attention in class!"

Rowan shot back immediately, voice full of righteous indignation.

He was, it should be said, thoroughly unimpressed at having his own train of thought interrupted.