The Match

His appearance was quite similar to what one may expect, old, with a bald head and a long white beard that reached down to his knees.

His eyes were a bit unfocused as he played against his opponent, constantly letting out yawns, as if ready to just head to bed.

However, despite his lazy appearance, he kept stomping out his opponents, no match lasting longer than a few minutes, most of that time spent while he waited for his competitor to make their move.

Watching each game closely, Minos couldn't help but nod his head in approval, the old man being the best player he had ever seen.

Back on the Alephora Continent, while he wasn't much of a player, he had still played against all sorts of people, none of them comparable to this old man.

"Next." The Chess Grandmaster said in a bored tone, his opponent grasping at his hair in frustration, wondering where he went wrong.

After a second or so of contemplation, the man finally got up with a long sigh, shaking the old man's hand before walking off with a forlorn back.

At this point it was finally Minos's turn, so walking up slowly with a crutch, he made his way towards the table, the guard stopping him before he could take a seat.

"The challenge fee is 10 Nux Stones."

"I've got him." Jena said, handing the money to the guard before he allowed Minos through.

Nodding towards the guard, Minos took a few more slow steps towards the seat before finally sitting down, his body creaking like rusted metal.

"It's not too often I play against someone your age, this may be interesting." The Chess Grandmaster said with a smile, most of his opponents having been young or middle-aged men.

"Despite my appearance, I'm young at heart." Minos said with a smile, causing the Chess Grandmaster to laugh, having no clue that Minos was being 100% genuine in that statement.

"Good, a young heart reflects a young mind, and only a young mind can excel at a game like this." The Chess Grandmaster said in response, before beckoning towards the board, allowing Minos to make the first move.

Smiling, Minos reached up towards a piece at random before making a move, the Chess Grandmaster rubbing his beard in interest as he pondered the move.

At the heart of chess, beyond being a game of strategy, it was one of memorization, each move having a counter, every strategy having a weakness.

Theoretically, if one simply memorized every move possible, they could win 100% of the time without any strategy involved, of course such a thing was impossible even for the greatest cultivators and chess masters.

So instead, most chess masters utilized a fusion of memory and strategy, combining movements into sets which were easier to remember, before using the best strategy at hand to deal with it.

All this said, the reason the Chess Grandmaster was so confused was because Minos's first move was a relatively rare one.

Of course with only one move made so far, it was impossible to tell which way Minos was heading, so the Chess Grandmaster just hedged his bet and made the most neutral move available to him.

However as the game progressed, the Chess Grandmaster couldn't help but feel like he was playing against an amateur, Minos moves having no natural flow or rhythm.

Rather, like flipping a dice, each move seemed to be random, having no connection to the one made previously.

Such erratic behavior caused the Chess Grandmaster to grab his beard tighter grip, his eyes getting serious for the first time.

"Who is that old man?" A person in the crowd couldn't help but ask, noticing this was the first time the Chess Grandmaster seemed to get serious.

"No clue, I've never seen him around, but it looks like he came with Jena from the Joyata Clinic."

"Joyata Clinic? I heard the doctor there is one of the best in the city, I wonder if this old man is one of his friends."

"Seems likely, I just wonder what his true origin is for him to be so capable. He shouldn't be an unknown figure…"

While the people down below were chatting, the ones up in the private rooms were having similar conversations, wondering who this strange old man was.

"Tolan, you said you gave your spot to this old man?" A distinguished looking middle-aged man asked the younger man beside him.

"That's right! I just had no idea he'd be this good." Tolan said honestly.

"Since you already know him, I want you to go call him up here after the game is over, whether he wins or not."

"No problem, but what if he says no?"

"Do I really need to explain everything to you?" The middle-aged man said with a scowl, causing Tolan to gulp before quicking shaking his head left and right.

With a nod, the middle-aged man looked back down towards the game with interest, his mind running as he internalized the board, trying to understand both players' perspectives.

…

Back on the field, the Chess Grandmaster couldn't help but start sweating, Minos's moves having reduced his extremely organized mind into chaos.

More frustrating than Minos's unexplainable moves were the strength behind them, none of them having any obvious weakness to exploit.

Usually players of this nature were filled with gaps and holes, making them incredibly easy to exploit, but Minos's moves were like an iron-wall, not a single gap in sight.

The combination of chaos and strength made him the hardest opponent he had ever faced by far, leaving him confused for the first time in decades.

For the first time since the Chess Grandmaster had started his march across the continents looking for a worthy opponent, had the tides shifted.

It was no longer him watching with bored eyes as his opponents grasped desperately for a way out, like drowning men, instead he was the one suffocating.

Seeing the Chess Grandmaster frozen in place, trying to come up with a move, everyone couldn't help but be shocked, having never seen him pushed so far.

In fact, it was starting to appear that Minos was the Chess Grandmaster, and it was instead the Chess Grandmaster himself who was the strange old man looking for a challenge.

"My heaven's, is someone actually about to beat him!?"

"No way, absolutely impossible! It's said the last time the Chess Grandmaster lost was half a century ago, having never been challenged since then."

"The worlds a big place, besides isn't it more interesting for a new great to appear rather than an old one to just stay in the same place?"

"Shut up!" The Chess Grandmaster suddenly shouted, the cacophony of chit-chat like drums in his ears, making his thought process even more chaotic than it already was.

"..."

With only two words, everyone instantly went silent, no one foolish enough to further annoy an already frustrated Chess Grandmaster.

With the entire hotel going quiet, the Chess Grandmaster took a deep breath before finally making his move, his hand shaking erratically as he slowly placed the piece onto the board.

Almost immediately after the Chess Grandmaster made his move did Minos make his own, as if he had already predicted what was to come.

However as Minos placed his move, the Chess Grandmaster finally noticed his fatal error, his pupils dilating as Minos said the words he feared the most.

"Checkmate."

"He did it, he really did it!"

"My heaven's, the legend has finally been defeated!"

"One legend was defeated, but a new one was born!"

Despite the Chess Grandmasters' demands for everyone to be quiet, his defeat immediately sparked the crowd into an uproar, the loud voices once again flooding the room.

At Minos's side, Jena was looking at him with glittering eyes, her admiration towards him soaring.

However at this point the Chess Grandmaster had nothing to say, just looking down at the board as he murmured something, replaying the game over and over to see where he first went wrong.

But no matter how he looked at it, he just couldn't understand, all of Minos's moves having just been too far out of his understanding for them to make sense, causing him to finally swallow his pride and ask Minos personally.

"H-How did you beat me…"

"I didn't beat you; I beat your memory." Minos replied, causing a light to go off in the Chess Grandmaster's mind, everything suddenly making sense.

"My memory… That's right, my memory! How did I not see it! But that still doesn't explain your moves, it's not like anything I've ever seen before!"

"That's because you were playing from experience, and I was playing from strategy. Your moves were dead, whereas mine were alive, so how could you have won?"

"Dead… My heaven's, how could I be so blind. Here I thought I understood the game, but I had been playing it wrong from the very start."

"It's not that you were playing wrong, you were simply using what worked best for you. The technique I use isn't suited for regular people." Minos said, referring to his own Aptus.