The work of the Go master

“That kind of thing can’t be destroyed by normal means,” Yabu said.

The boss shook his head, his mouth moving constantly and making strange noises.

"That's a real shame. It means you've missed the best opportunity to destroy it. You... are destined to coexist with it."

"You!" Yabu grabbed the other person's bathrobe collar and stared at him fiercely.

But to be honest, given the boss's broad chest muscles, Yabu probably couldn't beat him, and he couldn't beat both of them either.

"You can't be violent, we're people of the chess world, we have to settle things on the chessboard." The boss easily pushed the other person's hand away and straightened his clothes.

"Think about it, this is all your mistake. When you first used it, you already had a premonition of how harmful it would be, right? But you still couldn't help using it because it was just too wonderful. What Amakusa Pill can compare to it?" The shopkeeper coaxed patiently, like the demon king in "The Demon King," slowly luring the child away from his father's arms.

“I…I have to get out of it now,” Yabu said in a low voice, pleadingly, though he was very reluctant.

In the first few days after using it, his garden began to wither and die inexplicably. All the flowers had been watered and carefully cultivated by him, but they all died after he used the product.

Just yesterday, the canary he had been raising also fell into eternal sleep in its cage.

This morning, he received devastating news: a close friend of his had suddenly encountered an accident and was now in the hospital.

That thing was a man-eating monster; everything related to it and valued by it suffered severe damage.

Not long ago, he finally dealt a heavy blow to that thing, but he didn't expect it to survive. No matter how he tried to kill it, he couldn't kill it. Only then did Yabu realize that it was no longer worthy of being killed, at least not by normal means.

Now, he has no choice but to ask his boss for help again.

That's how the devil's deals work; there are only two kinds: zero times and countless times. Decades later, people will be surprised to find that women's clothing also has this magic.

“You’ve already made a mistake, and you’ll have to keep making mistakes. Are you prepared for that…?” The boss took a step back and gestured for Yabu to proceed.

Ask him to go straight to the room in the drawer wall.

"All of our collections will be available to you," the owner said.

Chapter Seventy-Seven: The Embers of Summer

Summer colors fade quickly. After a hot and humid August, September arrives in the blink of an eye, with temperatures gradually dropping and the cicadas' chirping disappearing.

Students reappeared on the platform, and the office workers felt a little better because the temperature had dropped.

But temperature is not a problem for professional chess players. As the saying goes, a calm mind brings coolness. As long as they are deep in thought, they can be completely unaware of the heat.

Okay, actually, the uniform has a special effect; it has a hidden function of regulating temperature when worn, but this function is not displayed.

On September 1st, the preliminary rounds of the Rising Star Tournament had already been underway for several days at the chess academy. Similar promotional banners were posted and hung everywhere in the academy, encouraging the newcomers to fight harder and harder.

The Rising Stars Tournament is a title specifically designed for newcomers and women. Only male players who have been professional players for less than two years and all female players are eligible to participate.

Those who have won the New Star Battle title in previous years are also ineligible to participate.

Since its restriction only requires that the period of rank attainment not exceed two years, and there is no set rank, theoretically, if a genius teenager were to reach the ninth dan within two years of rank attainment, he could indeed participate in this title battle prepared for newcomers. However, this is only in theory, and in reality, no such person exists.

The preliminary rounds were held at the chess academy, which served as a venue for students to attend classes, professional chess players to train, and retired staff to relax, as well as for the competitions.

At this moment, Ke Zhiguang was also sitting in front of an opponent. Before the match officially started, the two had enough time to talk.

"Looks like my path to stardom has come to an end." Yamaoka said listlessly, sitting opposite Koji Mitsuhiro.

"To be honest, the match schedule was handed out two days ago. To be precise, you were eliminated two days ago." Ke Zhiguang took a sip of his strawberry milk for breakfast.

"Pfft." Yamaoka choked.

Yamaoka's opponent in this round is Koji Mitsuhiro. Knowing that he would be facing him in this round, Yamaoka immediately took it easy and had a very relaxed time these past two days.

He also decided that in the future, he would communicate with Ke Zhiguang in advance about which competition Ke Zhiguang would participate in, and he would quickly cancel his participation in that competition.

In short, I won't participate in any competition featuring this person!

A month has passed since Ke Zhiguang successfully achieved his goal of qualifying for the top tier of university. He has also worked diligently for a month and received his first full attendance bonus. However, since he has already qualified, he is no longer entitled to the rent discount. He paid the rent for the month at the original price, went out for some first month's expenses, and then found that... well, it seems that's about enough to get by.

The key to being a professional Go player is job stability and easy work that allows for some slacking off. Only top-tier Go players can achieve extremely high incomes, comparable to those of financial professionals.

Besides the full attendance bonus, extra income mainly comes from winning and losing games against other chess players.

People here seem very keen to challenge him to a match, reasoning that they need to win a few games against him before he gets too strong, otherwise they might never have the chance to get a single point from him in their entire lives.

This is how they treat newcomers – very kind and friendly.

So far, Ke Zhiguang has played 28 games at the Go Academy, with a score of 18 to 10. He didn't expect these people to be so strong, managing to reduce his win rate to just over 60%. After he defeated Sasahara Noriyuki and Narita Shunji on the first day, those two guys quickly adjusted their form, and they went back and forth for the next few days.

However, his opponents reacted in the same way: "We didn't expect you to be so strong, young man, that you could bring our win rate down to below 40%!"

Generally speaking, when a newly promoted professional player faces a seasoned veteran, their win rate is usually below 20%, with better players reaching 30% and the highest record being 50%.

Most people thought that Kezhiguang could challenge the 50% mark, but thought it was impossible to exceed 55%. Unexpectedly, he broke 60% in one fell swoop!

But this only strengthened the resolve of many to challenge him to a match—hurry up and challenge him now! If you wait too long, he'll grow stronger and you won't be able to beat him!

That's why he hasn't paid any game fees in the past month; at most, there have been some back-and-forth financial transactions.

Incidentally, the one who set the record of 50% was Zhudao Tuan, who set it the year before last. He was also the holder of last year's Rising Star title and cannot participate in this year's Rising Star Battle.

This person suddenly went silent a few months ago, supposedly because he went back to the deep mountains and forests to cultivate in seclusion.

Upon hearing this news, Ke Zhiguang hesitated for a long time.

How exactly should I politely convey that I sent him to a secluded retreat for spiritual cultivation?

If I had to put it that way, it should be that I and Shi Xin worked together to send him in. Shi Xin first used the Great Mighty Heavenly Dragon to crush him, and then I kicked him away completely.

Hopefully, when he comes out again, he will be completely transformed. After all, he is a man who bears the name of Asura, and he should be the type who becomes stronger with each setback.

"This Rising Star Championship title should be yours by now, right? You have such a high win rate against those fifth, sixth, and seventh dan players, so dealing with us newbies should be a piece of cake," Yamaoka said casually, that's how confident he is when he's already done with it.

His win rate during this period is 30%, which is quite good. He is expected to reach level three in the next promotion tournament.

"That's not necessarily true. I still have targets I'm wary of," Ke Zhiguang said, looking around the arena. His gaze fell on orange-yellow targets, with very few flashing orange-red ones.

These orange-red flashing ones are all "newcomers" who successfully achieved professional status two years ago but are still eligible to compete now.

Ke Zhiguang also did his homework before the match. On the surface, his biggest threat is a 19-year-old Korean named An Yongxin, who is currently a sixth-dan.

Yes, it really is a Korean.

According to official history, there were quite a few Koreans who came to Japan to learn Go during that era, and some Korean players were already dominating the Japanese Go scene. However, in the world today, there are very few such people. Ke Zhiguang spent a long time looking through the list of Go academies and couldn't find a single fellow countryman, and there were very few Koreans.

“You mean An Yongxin? I’ve played against him before. Although I lost, I don’t think he’s too much of a threat to you. As long as you don’t act recklessly or have a seizure, everything will be fine.” Yamaoka also understood who Koji Mitsu was referring to, but he quickly added in a low voice, “This guy has a terrible personality. Please be sure to deal with him with the same intensity you showed when you punished Yabu.”

“No problem.” Ke Zhiguang gave an OK sign. “To be honest, I’m quite good at fighting Koreans. I’m a professional at resisting Koreans… oops, I’m a professional at being resisted by Koreans.”

"Speaking of Yabu, did Yabu participate in this Nova War?" Ke Zhiguang suddenly asked, looking around.

Only after officially entering the professional ranks did he realize how strong Yabu was. Many newcomers who had successfully achieved professional status for two years only had a mix of red and orange, while Yabu was a striking deep red.

"I don't know. He hasn't come to the Go Academy since he became a professional. Even if he did come, he probably wouldn't be very competitive. You defeated him at the very last hurdle of becoming a third-dan player. He's probably traumatized by you now," Yamaoka said with a smile.

"They've never been to the chess academy before..." Ke Zhiguang had a bad feeling.

The relationship between Yabu and the boss remains shrouded in mystery, and Yabu's sudden disappearance is highly likely to be related to the boss.

Who knows, the evil object that suddenly appeared in the drawer on the wall of that music store might have been meant for Yabu.

Ke Zhiguang first ruled out the possibility that the boss himself used this evil object to fight. Although they had only met once, Ke Zhiguang could sense that there was still a distance before he would have a direct confrontation with the boss, and that it would not happen so soon.

For more than a month, Ke Zhiguang had been visiting that audio-visual store, but no matter when he went, the owner was never there, the store was always open for business, and there were indeed signs of it being open for business.

It was as if the boss knew Ke Zhiguang was coming, so he immediately ran away, and then sneaked back to open the shop after Ke Zhiguang had gone far away.

Ke Zhiguang also launched a few surprise attacks, but none of them worked. He felt like his boss was watching his every move from high above.

From the most scientific point of view, the entire surrounding area is equipped with cameras, and the boss is sitting in a large screen space that resembles a war room, monitoring every move of this entire area.

But when I looked up, there was nothing there.

The only thing that seemed rather mysterious was the streetlight at the entrance of the alley, which flickered uneasily but no one ever came to fix it.

Ke Zhiguang stood there for a long time. Based on his years of experience playing puzzle games, he concluded that there was definitely something wrong with the streetlight.

To this end, he even specially rubbed an "Event Trigger Scroll" under a street lamp, but nothing happened.

Yabu is now like a ticking time bomb, lurking in the shadows, waiting for his chance to explode.

The treasure map quest is also stuck. The treasure map I found at Deer's house on Sunny Island is the latest one so far.

【Curse Attack Effect】 and 【Sacrifice Power】 are his two current trump cards.

Speaking of which, it's been quite a while since Harushima Kashima has been around. The Women's Cup has a very long schedule, from early August to mid-September, which coincides with the Rising Stars title match. I guess he didn't have time to come here.

Although we can't see her in person, she appears quite frequently on TV, in newspapers and magazines, giving unscrupulous interviews, being treated like a darling by her fellow Daoists, and playing the post-match sticker game with other girls.

Her record in the Women's Cup can be described as overcoming all obstacles. So far, she has made it into the top four, and she only needs to defeat two more opponents to lift the trophy.

Previously, Shiorijima told Koji Hikaru that if they were lucky, they could meet on the field of the Rising Star title. So, in this situation, it should be considered that they were unlucky.

As I said before, let's work together first.

Soon, the referee's announcement to start the game interrupted Koji Hikaru's lapse in concentration, bringing his thoughts back to the chessboard. Yamaoka also tightened his facial muscles; although he didn't think he could win, he at least couldn't afford to lose.

The sound of chess pieces echoed throughout the chess academy all afternoon, as the games came to an end one by one.

Koji Mitsuaki accepted the game as a matter of course, while Yamaoka took it in stride. After finishing the game, he carried his suit jacket and swaggered to the Go Academy's restaurant, ordering barbecue skewers. He treated it as a way of celebrating a funeral, and Koji Mitsuaki also went up to mooch some food under the pretext of celebrating getting admission tickets.

Back at Peach Blossom Studio, the next step was to pack our bags. The official competition venue was a high-rise hotel in Jiangdong District, a place with a view of the sea, which had always been the location for the New Star Battle.

The competition is divided into six days. The first day's competition is held in the lobby on the first floor, the second day on the fifth floor, and the third day on the tenth floor. As the contestants advance through each round, their height increases by one round, which is quite similar to an obstacle course game.

Only the two finalists are qualified to sit in the luxurious game room on the top floor of the hotel, playing their game in front of the incredibly spacious floor-to-ceiling windows, with the entire ocean as the backdrop.

Although the background may seem unimportant and not affect the performance of either party, it is an essential part of the solemnity of the ceremony.

The simplest example is playing Street Fighter or King of Fighters; don't you have to choose a map and background?

After packing his luggage, Ke Zhiguang sat quietly on the bed for a while, thinking about whether he had forgotten anything.

As I was thinking, my gaze drifted to the various items on the desk.

The first item on the table is the small trophy from the high school team competition, followed by the certificates for the third division, and then to the right is the original banquet photo album, taken by Quantum Mechanics.

There are more to the side; they are photos from the summer festival two weeks ago, which was also part of the trip I arranged with Bai Meng and the others.

He wore the blue haori from the Shinsengumi directly into the summer festival ceremony, thinking that since the garment could also be worn as a yukata, there shouldn't be any major problems.

The three girls in front of them twitched at the corners of their eyes, unsure of what to say.

Maybe he thought this outfit was too cool, haha.