I'm playing cards in Yu-Gi-Oh!

On January 16, 2022, when I typed the last character and saved the document, I still felt an unreal feeling that this book was really finished.

From the release of the first chapter on July 29, 2020, to the official completion in 2022, the story of our Duel King Youyu has finally come to an end. The book has more than 3.8 million words. It is undoubtedly a heavy book and a long journey. I must sincerely thank everyone for your companionship so far, especially those readers who have accompanied this book to the end.

Without you, You Yusang wouldn’t have been able to go this far.

This is the longest book I have written since I entered the book. To be honest, I never thought that I would one day be able to complete a super long novel of nearly four million words.

This book is a new challenge for me in terms of subject matter, length, and achievements. It is a milestone of extraordinary significance on my creative path. There were honors and regrets during this period, and there are too many things I want to summarize.

Let’s talk about honor first.

As you can see from the work details page of this book, the book has accumulated more than 200,000 in collections, received the Glory One-Star badge, was included in the Qidian boutique channel, and has been subscribed to more than 10,000, and has won the Qidian home page. I blocked the recommendation and got the startup splash screen recommendation of Qidian APP.

Oh yes, of course I also received my first silver alliance since I entered the creative world. Here I must give special thanks to CLV Orange, the leader of the Silver League, which means a lot to me.

And here I must once again express my special thanks to my editor-in-chief, Madoka, who has resigned.

After I wrote the beginning of this book and submitted it to her, Madoka took the initiative to chat with me privately on QQ and asked in disbelief: "Yu-Gi-Oh! Seriously?"

She said that at least in her career, she had never seen even a Yu-Gi-Oh fan that suddenly emerged from Qidian. She was not optimistic about this subject and advised me to think carefully because the prospects of this book are not optimistic.

But despite her suggestion, when I finally insisted on sending out this book, she still provided me with resources throughout the process. Including the book's best-selling selection, homepage promotion, and APP startup splash screen promotion, all of which she helped me obtain.

The subsequent performance of this book completely exceeded everyone's expectations.

At the starting point, books with an average order of more than 3,000 can be included in the premium channel. At least as far as I can tell, no Yu-Gi-Oh! article has ever been included in the premium channel on Qidian.com.

In fact, my initial small goal for this book was to get more than 3,000 orders and get a premium badge. I never expected that it would attract so many pundits, and I would immediately receive over 10,000 subscriptions. During the book’s peak period, it was a frequent visitor to the top ten best-selling light novels for several months. It was really unexpected.

My gratitude to all the duelists is beyond words. I will ask the Dark Magician Girl to bow to everyone in a moment.

In short, as of this chapter’s conclusion, this book still maintains the record for the highest number of subscriptions for Yu-Gi-Oh! articles, which is already a miracle for a card-playing article that is rare among online articles. Thank you all again!

But of course, there are still many regrets.

For me, the biggest regret of this book is that the pace failed to stabilize in the later stages due to personal issues.

From the beginning to the completion of this book, it took nearly a year and a half to complete, with more than 3.8 million words. It was updated three times a day, including the Spring Festival, except for the time I asked for leave in July.

I really couldn't bear it at that time.

Old readers who have been following updates may also find that the pace of this book has become a bit out of control since I took a break and came back to update.

First let’s talk about the plot. After all, poker writing is relatively niche, and there are limited books that I can refer to and study during writing. I am also exploring and improving the rhythm of this book.

Generally speaking, I am quite satisfied with the pace of the early part of this book, especially in the DM chapter.

When the DM chapter ended and I entered the GX chapter, I had actually foreseen some problems, mainly problems caused by the power system of the original Yu-Gi-Oh!

Unlike most other hot-blooded comics, the general power system of other anime works is constantly expanding. The protagonists and enemies of the next game are often much stronger than the previous one, but this is not the case with Yu-Gi-Oh!

Although Yu-Gi-Oh's cards are getting stronger with each generation, in terms of the power system setting in the animation, the first generation is the ceiling. The first generation Duel King Muto Yugi, Pharaoh Atum, and the three illusory gods under Atum's command will be difficult to surpass in future works in terms of strength and style.

Then I will encounter a very real problem when writing fan fiction. That is, after the protagonist has cleared the DM dungeon, acquired the strength to match the protagonist group and wave SS in DM, and even won the trump card of the Three Illusion Gods, the subsequent dungeons will feel like a nuisance.

But overall I'm quite satisfied with my handling of the GX chapter, although maybe it could have been done better.

In fact, in the original outline design, You Yu's journey was supposed to end in the GX chapter. So you will find that the final wave of this book is Darkness, which is obviously the wave of the final chapter of GX.

However, many people in the book review area have been expressing their desire to see stories about the 5DS, and many book friends have privately messaged me asking if I would write about the 5DS. In addition, 5DS is indeed my favorite game in the entire Yu-Gi-Oh series, so after thinking about it, I added this extra chapter.

But now that I think about it, I think maybe we should stick to the original outline and end it in the GX chapter. There are three reasons.

First, I overestimated my ability to control long-form works. I have never written a long story like this. In the later stage, the rhythm of the story was a bit beyond my control. It obviously lacked stamina and the quality declined compared to before.

Second, it is also due to personal physical reasons. I haven't recovered since I asked for leave, and the 5DS chapter was not included in the original outline. While maintaining updates every day, I also have to supplement the story outline and complete the outlines of the duel designs one after another, which is indeed a bit overwhelming.

So you will find that in the end, the story can only be driven by one duel after another, because I only had time to complete the outline and duel design of the overall direction of the story, and I was really unable to perfect the details.

Third, there is the issue of duel design. Although the card pool of Yu-Gi-Oh is very large, new cards and new summoning methods can emerge endlessly. If I continue to write about super, pendulum, link, etc., I may be able to write 10 million words, but I cannot avoid aesthetic fatigue.

I can keep adding new cards and new systems, but there are only a few types of routines for duels. The number of duels written in this book is already more than any other Yu-Gi-Oh animation, and the frequency of duels and card games is too high, so aesthetic fatigue is inevitable. So this may be one of the reasons why it should have been finished long ago.

Then someone may find that there are more and more bugs in the duel composition in the later period.

But the fact is that the number of bugs is not that there have been more bugs in the later period, but that there have always been so many bugs.

The system of Yu-Gi-Oh is too huge and complicated, and the card pool is bottomless. The animation production team has a whole week to design a duel structure for just one episode. There are also a lot of duel bugs in previous animations. The author has to update three chapters every day, so it is normal for bugs to appear.

The reason why there are fewer bugs in the early finals is because after each chapter is released every day, the author will repeatedly check the comment backend from morning to night. When someone says that there are bugs, he will fix them as soon as possible. It often takes a long time to fix a BUG.

But since I came back from that leave, the author's physical condition no longer allows me to keep browsing the background from morning to night. In addition, the outline of the 5DS chapter must be supplemented while writing, and the final outline must be written while maintaining the update every day. Therefore, the only way to correct bugs is to rely on the author to check it repeatedly before sending it out. After sending it out, if you randomly see comments If there is a reminder in the area, it will be modified. If something is missed, it may be over.

Although there are regrets, overall this is still a book that means a lot to me. I have learned a lot in this year and a half, and even if I regret it, I can still learn from it. I am confident that I can do better in the next book.

Speaking of which, I would like to mention something about the new book that everyone may be concerned about.

The content of the new book has not yet been fully decided, there are only a few ideas at the moment.

But I definitely have to rest and adjust before publishing the book. After all, the current situation is obviously not suitable for continued serialization (laughing and crying). I hope it can be adjusted as soon as possible, and a new book is expected to be released after the year.

As for the subject matter of the new book, to be honest, I still want to write about playing cards. But the book that can be written by a fan has basically been written. To design a novel protagonist who travels back to DM to start over, even I feel like it’s a bit of a waste of time, haha.

And as analyzed before, I have basically written all the routines of Yu-Gi-Oh's final structure in this book. Even if I open a new pit and change a new deck, the similar sense of déjà vu in the final structure will probably be lost. People are tired of aesthetic appreciation.

In fact, when I saw Mr. Qingquan Ryu Hibiki transitioning from a Pokémon fan to writing an original Pokémon style, I had a bold idea. Maybe I could learn from Mr. Qingzumi and create an original card-playing book similar to Yu-Gi-Oh?

This idea made me very excited, but after the excitement, my reason told me that it was too difficult, hahaha. It’s true that there are no books on card summoning, but I haven’t seen many original online articles about playing cards.

If I do decide to write, it would be a courageous decision to quote a line from the famous British TV series Yes Prime Minister.

Anyway, the new book has not been decided yet. Personally, I still hope to try something original, but it’s definitely not easy to transform.

If fellow duelists have any ideas or suggestions for the new book, you can leave a message here.

So the journey of this book really ends here. Once again, I would like to thank all the duelists for your company for a year and a half!

See you next year with a new book!