A Game of Chess

"The sword is a double-edged killer. It has the ability to hurt yourself and the enemy." This was the first statement made by Mo Wuxue in the class.

***

After 2 weeks of class, Mo Shen had basically grasped the 44 classes he attended. He decided to drop some to create time for himself. He dropped 20 classes and left 24 important ones, including Alchemy, Acupuncture, Medicine, Study of herbs, Artifact refining, Formations, Swordsmanship, Essence of martial techniques, All about the Dao, Zither class, Divination, Chess, Calligraphy, Painting and a few others related to comprehending a supreme dao.

At this time, he also had an idea of the Endless Dao Formation he was going to create. He had spent all of his free time in the past 2 weeks studying the World reviving formation. It was also one of the reasons he dropped some classes. On one hand, he didn't feel like he could learn much useful things from it, on the other hand, he needed time.

He had a premonition that he will barely be able to spend one year here. Although he had a year before his marriage, there might be other things coming up in this one year, so the earlier he creates the formation, the better.

He wasn't sure of how long the formation creation would take either, but he felt like he at least needed to attend the formation class for a few weeks before he could succeed. Only then could he get a glimpse of the Myriad Formation Dao. Right now, he was only making simulations in his mind. Although he had created a basic idea for the formation, he still needed extensive research to see how it goes.

As he was deep in thought, he was going to his next class. This class was the Chess class. The moment he attended the first class here, he knew he couldn't run away from the class.

Most people see the game of chess as a relaxation, hobby and a way to test your mental strength. But Mo Shen saw more than that.

With Chess, he could see the general situation of things, taking the Dao universe as a board, and all top factions in the world as chess pieces. He could see that someone was playing a game of chess with this world and would destroy anyone that tries to act out of his role as a pawn.

Some higher level cultivators had taken this world as their playground/battleground. They were probably related to the absence of the innate dao aura in the Dao universe.

It was one of the reasons he wanted to thoroughly learn the game of chess. He needed to understand the rules, and create his own style of playing that could crush any opponent.

Another reason for learning the game was because he could see that it was a great help to formations. He felt that with the help of the game, he could create his formation faster and could create a stronger one.

One more thing was that the game could give him a direction for his study of the dao and could properly plan out his cultivation. Using the chess-board, he could see the effect of each move. He needed to see the cause and effect of every dao he comprehended in the Dao universe.

He had already arrived at the class. The instructor was an old-looking man who had an aura of wisdom around him. He wasn't the instructor for the previous classes Mo Shen attended, so he was seeing him for the first time. His eyes seemed to contain the world, as if he could see the general situation of the world. At the same time, his eyes also contained a great despair which was so well hidden that only Mo Shen could see it.

"It seems he is the grand ancestor of the empire". Mo Shen thought. "And he should be able to see the game of chess that the Dao universe is subjected to." Mo Shen speculated as he noticed that the man was at the 9th stage of the Empyrean realm, and the despair in his eyes which was masked by a chess game showed how much of the world he could see.

As Mo Shen entered the class hall, the grand ancestor's eyes fell on him. And for the first time in his over 100,000 years of life, his eyes revealed confusion. He who could see through anybody at a glance, could divine anything, and could manipulate anything was helpless against this white-haired student.

He couldn't see through him at all. In fact, he felt that he was naked to the other party's eyes. He also felt that if he tried to divine anything on him, the backlash would annihilate his soul immediately.

Mo Shen calmly looked at the other party. He couldn't be bothered with knowing the other party's thoughts. He only held a bit of respect for him as he was one of the very few people who were aware of the situation of the world.

"From now on, I'll be your instructor for the chess and divination classes for the next 3 months." The old man announced. "My name is Mo Xuan."

The number of students in this class was only about 500. Compared to other classes, it was quite small. So the instructor could see everyone clearly. But his attention was on Mo Shen almost throughout the class. He even called Mo Shen out to have a chess match with another student.

Jing Xue was ranked 8th on the academy's beauty list. Although in terms of combat power she was average, but in terms of soul power and divination, she was top notch in the academy.

She was the top in divination class and chess class. On normal times, she hardly attended the chess and divination class since even the instructors couldn't beat her. When she heard that her great-grandfather, Mo Xuan, who was her idol was going to be taking classes from now, she decided show up.

So it came as a surprise to her that he arranged her to be an opponent to a new student. As someone that was highly intelligent, she immediately understood her great-grandfather's intention.

He wanted her to test the student in a low-key manner. And what better way to do that than a game of chess.

As Mo Shen sat in front of the class, opposite Jing Xue at the chess board, his whole attention was drawn to the board. He hadn't spared Jing Xue a second glance after he came out. He had heard that she was very good from the rest of the class, so he decided to use this chance to polish his skills.

To him, the best way to learn was to battle against stronger opponents while looking for a way to not get killed. It was what he did with the spirit of the Demon bones and ancient god heart. He also battled the will of the Phoenix and dragon when he was absorbing their bodies in the Undying Phoenix World.

If he had his way, he would love to find stronger opponents in various supreme Dao to battle.

In this game of chess, he made the first move. And on the second move of the other party, he lost a pawn. It didn't bother him one bit that he lost a pawn, after all he was playing his first game of chess.

On his third move, he took a pawn off Jing Xue. But with his intelligence, even if he wasn't good at chess, he could tell that Jing Xue deliberately let him have that pawn.

From there, he began to analyze her intentions. There could only be two reasons why she would do so.

The first would be that she was baiting him for a future move. That would be the simplest reason as she was looking at the bigger picture of the game. But it could also be said to be an overhanded move since he was just a beginner and she could defeat him without having to lose any piece.

The second reason was more plausible to Mo Shen. She was testing him. She was testing his character, his mind, his person as a whole. And that reason arrived from her connection with Mo Xuan. He had previously heard that she was the great-granddaughter of the empire's grand-ancestor. Others might be unaware, but he was sure that Mo Xuan was the grand-ancestor.

Even though he thought through all these, it didn't affect his play in the least bit. He didn't care if he was being baited or tested, or even both. He played at his own pace. As he was playing, he was also learning. He was learning to see the general picture of the whole situation and to see from both sides of the game. He was learning how each move affects the game.

It also helped in his general view of life, and he began to assess his methods of doing things, especially how he had dealt with the True Martial World. He thought of how he should have dealt with the problem better.

At this point in time, Jing Xue was sweating inwardly. They were halfway through the game, and she had purposefully lost 6 pieces, but she hadn't seen anything from her opponent. Initially, she thought she would lose a few pieces to be able to see through him, but she couldn't tell anything.

'I can't lose the game and also not get anything from him.' Jing Xue thought. Then she decided on an aggressive comeback. Maybe that would solve the 2 problems at once. If not, it will solve at least one of the problem.

As Mo Shen played, he saw that Jing Xue had stopped the fall play and had decided on a comeback. Unfortunately for her, it was already too late. If she had been like this from the beginning, he might not have had a chance of winning. But now that he had got the hang of the game, he couldn't lose even if he wanted to.

In a few minutes time, the game ended. Jing Xue's face was pale. It was like she had been through a tough war and lost. She lost thoroughly. But she had at least learnt one thing from Mo Shen. He was a confident and decisive person who would never hesitate for anything without minding anyone. He never cared for other people's opinion concerning him.

Mo Shen stood up from his seat, and without paying heed to Mo Xuan or Jing Xue, he walked back to his seat in the class. His eyes shone with a black and white light like the colours of the 2 pieces of the chessboard.

He had unintentionally comprehended a dao, the Divided Thoughts Dao. The dao used the game of chess as its base and could control lives, using other people's lives as pawns. It was divided into 2, the Black thought representing aggressiveness, and the white thought representing calm and subtility.

The people who were playing this chess game with this world were most likely on the path of this dao, and were using different universes as their pawns to comprehend the dao further.