Chapter 47
Evening settled over the Slifer Red dormitory.
Rowan sat on his bed fresh from the bath, toweling his hair dry, already changed into loose, comfortable clothes.
He had to admit -- the facilities at Duel Academy were genuinely impressive. There was even a hot spring on the grounds.
The only real downside was how aggressively sparse the Slifer Red dorms themselves were.
On the bright side, his private luxury cabin being built next door was already a third of the way finished after just a few days. The Chazz Corporation's construction crew truly lived up to the family name.
Rowan had only one thing he wanted to say to Chazz.
Your family's builders and budget are extremely convenient.
"Achoo!"
Out on the ocean beyond the Academy island, a dark-haired figure with a spiky hedgehog hairstyle stood on the deck of a departing ship, backpack in hand, and sneezed.
"Damn it! It has to be that infuriating Rowan talking behind my back. Or Jaden." Chazz turned to glare back at the island he'd left behind, expression stormy. "Just you wait. I'll return in a whole new form -- Black Lightning -- and settle every score! Rowan! Jaden Yuki!"
"The name of Chazz Princeton doesn't end here!"
...
"Tch. So he actually left."
Back in the Slifer Red dormitory, Rowan had just finished toweling off when the round Kuriboh drifted back through the door -- passing straight through it -- and reported what it had seen at the island's edge.
Rowan clicked his tongue once in mild disappointment, then let it go.
Chazz would be back. Barring some unforeseen deviation, the guy would return eventually, ready for a rematch. There'd be more opportunities to squeeze resources out of him when the time came.
"Kuri kuri!"
But the round Kuriboh had also brought back a second piece of news -- something it had stumbled onto by chance.
"You're saying the blonde woman I was with earlier took a small white flower to the abandoned dormitory building deeper on the grounds?"
Rowan looked at the little spirit sitting in front of him and repeated it back to confirm.
The blonde woman he'd been with was obviously Alexis. She'd taken what sounded like a memorial flower to an abandoned building somewhere on the far end of the Academy grounds.
He figured it out immediately.
That would be the old special-student dormitory -- long since shut down, tied to one of the Academy's buried secrets. The place where Alexis's older brother, Atticus Rhodes, had disappeared a year ago.
"Shadow Duels showing up this soon, huh..." Rowan's mouth pulled to one side in a vaguely pained expression.
Then again, with a location tied that closely to Shadow Duels sitting right on the same island, it was only a matter of time before he ran into one. The events that followed were inevitable.
Fortunately, today's generous contributions from Bastion had stocked him up nicely on Emotion Value. He had more than enough to exchange for the ability he needed to deal with Shadow Duels.
Rowan pulled up his status panel.
[Name: Rowan] [Skills: Still Mirror Heart / Spirit Sight (perceive duel monster spirits and channel the power of resonance)] [Current Decks: One Turn Kill Dark Magician Deck / Lava Golem Deck (Cursed Prison Build)] [Emotion Value: 4800]
Compared to the 2200 points he'd had that morning, Bastion alone had delivered a full 2600 points. Nearly enough for the Red Dragon Mark on his own. Rowan couldn't help but smile.
He was prepared to nominate Bastion Misawa as the single most productive resource in the entire Academy.
[System Shop (refreshes randomly every two days, four options per cycle)]
Today's options: [Deck: Ritual Force Deck (Sartorius Version)] -- 500 points [Deck: Morphing Jar Deck (Cursed Mill Build)] -- 1000 points [Deck: Stealth Bird Deck (Cursed Burn Build)] -- 1500 points [Skill: Red Dragon Mark -- Dragon Head Seal (Red Dragon's protective power, nullifies negative damage from Shadow Duels)] -- 3000 points
With his balance more than sufficient, Rowan exchanged for the Dragon Head Seal without hesitation.
A surge of heat flared from his wrist.
He raised his right hand and found a vivid crimson mark glowing there -- a sketch-like dragon head seal, radiating light against his skin.
Through the Spirit Sight ability he'd acquired earlier, he could sense something within it: a powerful duel monster spirit energy, deep and contained. Present, but clearly incomplete.
There was nothing aggressive in what he felt. No offensive quality. No other nature beyond protection.
"So it really is purely a defensive force," Rowan muttered, clicking his tongue faintly.
His hopes of finding some exploitable loophole seemed to be off the table.
That said, having now felt the ability directly, he was fairly confident this Dragon Head Seal was just one piece of a larger set. There were other components out there, waiting.
More importantly -- after sensing the sheer strength of the protective force housed in the Dragon Head Seal, Rowan found he had absolutely zero concern about whatever physical harm Shadow Duels were supposed to inflict.
If anything, he was a little curious.
Genuinely, he found himself wanting to locate a Shadow Duelist as soon as possible. To demonstrate, in the most hands-on way available, exactly what "nullifying the negative damage of a Shadow Duel with the Red Dragon's protection" looked like in practice.
And to share with said Shadow Duelist the same gentle, healing experience he'd been providing to everyone else lately.
"Kuri kuri."
The round Kuriboh drifted over to the edge of his blanket and blinked at the glowing dragon head mark on his wrist, clearly sensing the power within it.
With a small shift in focus, Rowan let the mark fade. The crimson light dimmed and vanished, leaving his skin looking exactly as it had before.
An ability that didn't leave a permanent mark like a tattoo. That worked just fine for him.
PS: Image reference -- the Red Dragon Mark, Dragon Head Seal.