Divine Celebrity 104 (Patreon)

It didn’t take long for them to finish setting up the new setup. Ten boards, lined together, with larger gaps between them. No chairs on one side — on the black side, which was my request, claiming that they needed all the advantage they could get. 

“ … and lastly, we will be using a modified clock system to make sure there will be no confusion about remaining time,” the referee finished explaining, going through the modified rules of an exhibition match. 

I didn’t have even the slightest concerns, especially when I received two notifications as I walked toward the boards. 

[Intelligence V, Acquired]

[Wisdom V, Acquired] 

Making a commotion truly helped, creating a wave that was even greater than the game, and with no obligation to share. As I received those two new traits, I could feel that my mind was working even faster. 

Even without testing, I could feel that it was a more comprehensive improvement than Pattern Recognition or Tactics. 

I felt that the poor and conflicting understanding of what it meant to be smart was helping me greatly. Maybe I should thank all the movies that lazily used chess as a shortcut to show the intelligence of the characters. 

To make it better, those two overpowered traits were hardly the limit of my gains. With each mental touch, I could feel that the System was slightly stronger, the connection slightly stronger. 

The system was self-repairing. 

It also gave me an interesting perspective. Without it, I might have decided to play the event calmly, maybe a long, nip-tuck event in that I barely eked out seven or eight victories. Spectacular, yet still underwhelming enough to stay under the radar. 

Unfortunately, the world was repeating to me that staying under the radar was not an option —  be it in the form of incorporeal assassins, apparently mysterious disappearance of my old teammates, spy new recruits, or the old German men with limited magical capabilities. 

No, I needed to be more spectacular.  

I need to do so, even as I walked the tightrope between revealing my true abilities and getting enough power to stand on my own, and the exhibition match offered me that chance. 

I stood in front of the first board, and watched the player in front of me open D3, moving his Queenside pawn just one step. 

An interesting move. A touch outdated, and certainly not optimal, but it was interesting nonetheless. I raised my gaze to catch the gaze of their chess coach — a poor man in his fifties that had been ignored up until that moment, looking vindictive. 

Curious, I responded, then moved to the next board without losing any time. 

Only for him to play G4, which was the pawn in front of the knight, by two moves. Another unconventional opening, giving me an inkling about their tactics. I moved down eight boards, only to receive a range of complicated, unconventional openings. 

A good way to make me lose control of the game. 

Combined with their arrogance for their win which I could read from their faces — after all, it was ten simultaneous games against a football player with meager success, no matter how big the commotion around the game was — it meant that they didn’t want to just win. 

They wanted to humiliate me. 

“If that’s how you want to play,” I muttered as I started moving down the boards again and again, responding to their unconventional attacks with complicated responses, the kind that would create long, drawn-out games if they could respond accurately. 

Unfortunately for them, not all of them succeeded in doing so. They were mediocre players, to begin with, and five minutes were far from enough to prepare for such complicated openings. Things might have been different if I responded with standard variants, but now, with each move, their smiles slipped a bit more. 

As I started making my fourth move, my attention wasn’t even on the game. My attention was focused on the flow of the Intent, already dipping down after the earlier peak. The idea of a one-against-ten chess game was more interesting than the reality of it for the public. 

Their interest was waning. 

I decided to spice things up a bit. “Hey, coach, your players suck, and I get bored while waiting. Do you mind getting a board so we can play a rapid game on the side as well?” I offered, triggering a chain of gasps along the saloon at yet another breach of etiquette. 

Too bad for them I cared more about the spike of the Intent I received. 

“H-how dare you, you arrogant child!” their coach gasped. 

“It’s alright if you’re scared,” I said, taunting him easily, ignoring the fact that talking like this would have been enough to kick me out of any other tournament. 

As the coach was busy doing a good imitation of a tomato, I looked down at the board, made a move, and smiled. “Four forced moves, and a checkmate,” I said, my smile wide. The poor player looked shocked, and looked at the referee, who nodded reluctantly. 

“Sorry, coach, you don’t need to bother picking a board, you can come here,” I said with a chuckle. 

“It’s a fluke,” the next player muttered, trying to encourage himself to focus on the game. I just shrugged and played a move, not even bothering to engage with him before I returned to my game with the coach… 

Three minutes later, another two players had lost due to early game mistakes. Under normal circumstances, such a speedy defeat was never supposed to be the case, not in classical chess. There were too many defensive openings that could bog down the game, making it more of an even game. They would have lost still, but not in such a spectacular fashion. 

Meanwhile, the coach had managed to lose two rapid games in succession, driving the humiliating situation even more. 

The Intent flowed, getting more and more intense as the game turned exciting. From a professional perspective it was pure garbage, the kind even a casual chess enthusiast would catch — especially as the remaining players started to lose their focus and started making stupid mistakes. 

Luckily, for most watchers, there was no context, but just victory. For them, every piece loss was a nice play, and every victory was another score, giving them a beautiful victory before Sunday. 

The flow of Intent got stronger and stronger, and the sensation of the System in my mind got more and more vivid…

I wondered just how long it would take to repair. I still remembered the explanation of my guide about the System, how the text that was informing me about my progress was nothing more than the way my mind chose to interpret it. 

I closed my eyes for a moment, focusing on the sensation of System’s recovery, trying to put a number to it. 

[Repair - Phase One - Progress - 47%]

Excellent, I thought as I made another move, pushing another piece forward. I had no idea how many phases there were, or what kind of benefits would I receive after the first phase, but I was sure that I wanted to complete it. 

Pity that it was not possible to complete it today. Even if I assumed that the Intent worked linearly to repair, and the repair relied entirely on the Intent I had managed to collect, the event wouldn’t be enough to actually push me more. 

The Intent the viewers were providing was already in decline. My early victories created elation, but along with it, a sense of complacency. 

Even worse, I had no hope of actually creating a more even game for them to enjoy, simply because they had no real context about the challenges of chess. 

Since I could not milk the event too much, I decided to finish it spectacularly. “Come on, coach, I thought you guys could play. Maybe I shouldn’t even go to the field this Sunday. It’ll be too pathetic if your football team is as weak as your chess team,” I said, acting particularly smug. 

The viewers loved it, rewarding me with another flood of Intent, even more intense than the previous ones. Pity, it was one of the last waves I could get under the circumstances. 

[Repair +0.6%] 

Still, at least it gave me a rough idea of how much more Intent I needed — far more than I could get from the chess event. 

I abandoned my thoughts of repairing the System for the day, and instead focused on finishing the game. “T-that’s enough,” their coach muttered and stepped back after two more games — bringing less and less Intent with each repeat. The remaining players didn’t manage to last long either, not with their morale broken, overwhelmed by the situation. 

As a side benefit, during the game, I could see the Dean on the phone, talking with an increasingly intensifying fear and passion. 

But, just as I won the final game, the student of the German professor stepped forward. “I think you have warmed up enough, it’s time to play for real.”