Carl and Donut continue spending hours in the mock battle arena to learn Donut’s deck. After easily beating challenge difficulty by drawing Shi Maria immediately, they unlock Secret Challenge Mode, where they can face another deckmaster for free up to three times. Donut is distracted when she learns Empress D’Nadia has sold her sponsorship to Long Haul Biological Waste Management Solutions, upsetting Donut’s sense of status and branding.

Carl reviews what they have learned from repeated practice fights. Shi Maria is their strongest totem by far, terrifyingly efficient but sadistic. Asojano is powerful but hostile and untrustworthy; Uzi Jesus is useful but unreliable and evasive; Raul is strong and obedient but servile and easily intimidated; Geraldo is a sturdy melee fighter but hates Raul; and Skylar Spinach is strange, quiet, and tactically useful, especially after splitting into separate temporary cards. These results convince Carl that Donut’s deck is powerful but dangerously hard to control.

The new Secret Challenge match begins on grassy hills against Der Schachmeister, a young deckmaster with a faster card draw cooldown and a disabling deck. Donut summons Raul, but the opponent quickly summons two level-100 wolf totems, locks Donut’s ability to summon, reveals Donut’s hand with a mystic card, and burns Shi Maria out of the battle with another card. Carl realizes their assumption about deck timing was wrong and that future opponents may have more varied rules than expected.

Raul destroys one wolf with his Bris spell but is soon killed by the other. Donut cannot recover in time because the opponent’s disruption has stripped her options. Samantha briefly rises and begins to glow with a powerful blue energy that frightens Der Schachmeister, but the effect fizzles because Samantha has used up whatever power it required. The remaining wolf hits Donut, ending the simulation in failure.

Afterward, Donut complains that the opponent cheated and that the match should not count because she was distracted. Carl concludes that Shi Maria’s aggressive approach is the correct strategy: they must attack the enemy deckmaster immediately, with Carl and Mongo rushing the target while Donut’s totems act faster and more decisively. Remembering that Katia may give them a totem and that they may need to discard one of their own, Carl decides they need more practice before time runs out.