-.-.-Chapter 5-.-.-

Twenty minutes later and with two fist size stacks of packs later Jin nodded, before looking at the Dark Magician girl, "How about Ailsa as your new name?" He suggested, hoping she'd like it.

Pondering it for a moment she began to nod slowly, "Ailsa," she said as if testing how it sounded for herself before smiling, "yep, I like it, sure sounds perfect to me."

Jin nodded subtly back to her before the clerk caught his eye from the counter and waved him over.

Walking back to the counter he put his selected card packs down as the clerk gave him a smile, "alright kid the numbers came in for you, and this is the total you're looking at for all these" he said as he slid him a printed out list of his cards and the prices that he'd be getting for them.

Looking over the list and then the total Jin immediately had to stop himself from gawking at the rather large number at the bottom, even with a modern conversion rate from yen to dollars that was a very generous lump of cash.

'Guess that's what happens when a card game is so popular that people are willing to pay through the nose for pieces of card and ink,' Jin thought to himself before replying, "Looks good to me," trying to play it off as about what he'd expected, "would you mind subtracting the total for these from it?" He said gesturing to the card packs he'd brought up.

"Sure no problem, you looking to trade in any of the bad pulls from them while you're here?" The clerk said as he began to scan the card packs and run the numbers again.

"Yep," Jin confirmed before gesturing to the packs of card sleeves behind the counter, "mind adding two packs of them to the total too, the silver and clear ones."

"You got it," the clerk said as he turned and pulled the two packs of sleeves and put them next to the card packs before reaching below the counter to lift up a rubbish bin for him and gestured to the card packs he'd already scanned, clearly being used people coming in to try their luck this way.

Nodding his thanks Jin took and opened the card sleeve packets before he began cracking open the card packs themselves. Taking his time to go through each of the cards in them, selecting the cards that he'd use for his actual deck and sleeving them in the clear sleeves while any card he liked, extras he pulled of a card he'd need or thought he could use in a future deck went into silver sleeves for the time being, and the cards he had no use for went into a pile of their own to be sold back to the store.

It took him a good twenty minutes to sort through them all but at the end he was rather pleased to see he had over a quarter of his deck right there and a good two dozen other cards he saw potential in as well, and a handful of duplicates he could use in other similar themed decks.

The clerk whistled, "not a bad haul there kid, you're luck must be crazy good" he said as he took up and thumbed through the cards that would be traded in, "you going for a spellcaster deck, don't see many of them these days" he mused as he looked the spares over.

"What can I say, they speak to me" Jin commented seeing Ailsa giggle at the pun.

The clerk just nodded, "alright, I'll take these to the back and get one of my colleagues to run the numbers on them while I get your first cards out of the binder and sleeves and into our own sleeves, you good to wait?"

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Jim nodded, "Sure," he said before thinking, "You got a pen I could borrow?" he asked as he fished out his deck checklist, "I wanna cross off what I got."

The clerk nodded as he handed him a pen from behind the counter top, "Sure," he said with a grin, "if you're looking for any cards in particular we do sell separate cards, they cost a whole lot more though."

Taking the pen Jin shook his head, "thanks, but I think I'm gonna keep trying my luck at the packs for a bit longer for today, if I don't get all I'm looking for I'll come back tomorrow and take a look."

The clerk just shrugged, "Suit yourself," he said before taking his trade-ins and heading into the back of the store once more.

Jin watched him go before he began to work on his list, crossing out the card's he had already gotten and adding ticks to the ones he needed more of.

"We're making good headway," Ailsa commented as she looked over his shoulder.

Jin nodded as he looked over the list one final time. Out of the eight high level monster card that his deck would have, he still only had the two that the original Jin had, that being the Dark Magician duo, most of what he'd managed to pull from the packs had been the supporting spells and traps for his deck, he really hoped he'd have better luck in the next store that he went too, but he knew with Ailsa helping him to buy only the card packs that held the cards he would need.

It was another twenty minutes later that Jin was leaving the store, his deck box in one hand holding the contents of his unfinished deck, and his card binder in his other hand with all of his repeats and other cards. A plastic bag hung from his right forearm holding his left over card sleeves and a couple other packs of them that he had gotten to use if he needed them. His wallet was a whole lot thicker now after getting the remains of his trade in cash.

"Alright, let's head to the next store on the list, hopefully we'll be able to find the rest of the cards that I need for my deck before the day's out," Jin muttered to Ailsa who was floating beside him.

"Don't worry," Ailsa giggled, "I'm sure we'll find them soon~"

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-Time skip-

It was eight hours later that Jin found himself pulling his exhausted figure out of the taxi that dropped him off home after his long and tiring search.

"Soon, hmm" Jin groaned as he opened his front door and made his way inside, "we had to go to six of the seven stores that I looked up to find all the cards, eight hours of walking and opening card packs and now my feet are killing me" he said as he made his way over to the living room sofa and all but collapsed backwards into it with a sigh of relief.

Ailsa floated behind him, her head hung low, "I'm sorry, but how was I supposed to know that finding them would be that hard," she apologized after coming to terms that she had likely jinxed them after the fourth where they had found none of the cards needed for his deck.

"It's fine," Jin said after a moment to move his feet up and onto the sofa, "at the end of the day we came out on top," he said as he put his hand on top of his deck box and card binder that contained his now complete deck as well as a hundred other cards that were repeats of cards that he needed or saw potential in.

Jin wagered in the spare cards alone he had the foundations of at least another two or three decks, all of the spellcaster archetype or at least spellcaster themed. They'd gotten really lucky all things considered, and he still had over half his funds left from his first trade ins.

"So what now?" Ailsa asked as she floated down to the seat next to him, "you don't exactly have anyone to duel with to test your new deck out"

Jin nodded, "true, but there is more than one way to test a deck out, in my old world you could design a deck online and test it's draws to judge opening plays and see how long it would take to get specific cards for combos and such." he mused, remembering having used such things in his first life.

"I suppose that's a start, but it's not really a good replacement for actual duels," Ailsa said with a frown.

"I agree," Jin said with a sigh, "but for now it's all I can do. I've got two weeks to refine my deck and make sure it's working well enough to use for my entrance duel into Duel Academy." he added before his stomach grumbled in complaint.

Ailsa giggled, "I think you better eat first, you've been walking a lot today and you didn't even eat before we left earlier" she teased.

Jin chuckled, "Yeah, sue me, I was excited" he said as he pulled himself to his feet, "now lets see if the old Jin kept his kitchen well stocked, I hope he did, cause I'm starving" he said as he trudged his way to the kitchen.

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Chapter word Count: 1555