"Checkmate."
A calm male voice echoed in the tea room.
Beside the wafting tea fragrance, Ryuga held a book in one hand while casually placing the final piece with the other.
Before him lay a shogi board.
On the board, with that last move, the black pieces formed a dense net, completely checkmating the enemy king with no room for escape.
"How is this possible?!"
Sitting across from the man was a middle school girl wearing a JC uniform, with silver-blue hair and delicate, beautiful features.
Sora Ginko, who held the title of "Naniwa's Snow White Princess," had always been hailed as Japan's strongest female shogi player in a thousand years. Despite her young age, she had already earned the titles of "Queen" and "Women's Meijin," rising to fame in Japan's shogi world.
And such a renowned professional player had lost to the man across from her in less than two minutes.
"How could this happen?"
Sora Ginko sat powerlessly on her knees, hands pressed against the floor, her slender legs spread to either side of her body, her delicate frame trembling slightly.
"Even with a handicap - the maximum 'ten-piece drop' handicap - while he read a book and played casually, I still had no ability to fight back, unable to last even two minutes?!"
The young girl's tender face was filled with shock, showing none of her usual cold pride.
As a professional player, to be so easily defeated while being given a ten-piece handicap - even if her skill wasn't at the peak, even the strongest Dragon Kings in history couldn't suppress her so completely under such conditions.
Seeing the girl in this state, as if her worldview had been shattered and she was dazed from the blow, it seemed that no matter what was done to her, she wouldn't react for a while.
Faced with this familiar scene, neither the villa's owner Ryuga nor the maid beside them found it strange anymore.
The blonde twin-tailed maid served the black tea she had just learned to brew, and Ryuga nodded slightly, completely ignoring the dejected girl in the "orz" position, continuing to flip through the book covered in mysterious symbols.
It wasn't until several minutes later that Sora Ginko recovered from the intense shock.
She bit her thin lips lightly and looked up at the man before her, whose appearance and physique were flawless. The shock in her eyes gradually transformed into reverence and submission under the absolute suppression of strength.
(T/N: Took you 2 minutes to become submissive as well gng)
"Truly worthy of being called the unprecedented and unparalleled Sage of Chess! Ryuga-sama, even looking through all of human history, you are undoubtedly the strongest!"
"Someone as powerful as you must have undergone unimaginable trials to stand at the pinnacle!"
The girl, who had been proud and arrogant since childhood, showed not a trace of arrogance only when facing this man.
Because the man sitting before her was the existence who dominated go, Chinese chess, international chess, shogi, and other fields, making even artificial intelligence bow down, hailed as the strongest Chess Sage in human history.
Facing such an existence, she could only look up in reverence, unable to summon even a thought of challenge.
At this moment, her tone was extremely serious.
In Sora Ginko's view, only those with minds as clear as mirrors could reach the level of a Chess Sage.
However, facing such near-flattering praise, Ryuga simply shook his head calmly.
"No."
"Eh?"
"Actually, I just needed money at that time, so I went to claim the prize money. Before that, I had basically never touched shogi, let alone undergone any trials."
"Ah?"
Sora Ginko was dumbfounded - this was different from what the outside news had hyped up!
And moreover—
"Someone who had never touched shogi became a Chess Sage in a short time just for prize money?"
Was that even possible?
Seeing the newly recruited little maid's stunned expression, Ryuga casually explained.
"As a professional player, you should know that chess character has no relation to personal character, and even less to spiritual cultivation. So-called chess skills are ultimately just puzzle games that compete in computational power."
Stripping away all pretense, the man's words went straight to the essence.
"As a game competing in computational power, while shogi has promotion rules, its overall complexity is far less than go. And go's complexity upper limit is merely three to the power of 361."
"As long as computational power is sufficient to cover go, winning championships in other chess categories is the simplest thing."
Hearing Ryuga speak in the most calm tone about the most shocking words, Sora Ginko was stunned again.
"Without relying on joseki, but depending purely on computational power to cover all variations in chess games?"
Even the most advanced supercomputers now couldn't perform calculations of this magnitude, right?
Most people in the outside world believed the Chess Sage defeated AI by exploiting its weaknesses, but hearing Ryuga say this - could it be that he didn't use any strategies at all, but simply crushed the AI with pure computational power?
Was this really something humans could achieve?
"If even this is considered simple, what in this world could be called difficult?"
Sora Ginko complained speechlessly.
This sentence was meant as a sigh, but unexpectedly, Ryuga immediately provided an answer.
"Of course there is!"
"What?"
"For example... surpassing humanity!"
(T/N: Ah shit, here we go again)
This was said with a slightly complex tone.
"Ah?"
Hearing this completely unexpected answer, Sora Ginko looked up at the Chess Sage before her, discovering that Ryuga's attention had already focused on his book.
Unlike his casual expression when facing the board, when facing the book in his hands, Ryuga's expression was obviously much more serious.
Looking at the various books scattered around his seat and the mysterious symbols on the covers, Sora Ginko showed a puzzled expression.
...
"Hermeticism: Psychological Alchemy Society," "The Emerald Tablet," "Book of the Dead"... Why was Ryuga-sama so interested in mythological religions?"
Sora opened her mouth, remembering the maid rules she had just memorized, didn't ask more questions, but fulfilled her maid duties. After reheating the tea that Eriri-senpai had brewed, she cleaned up the chess board and bowed with Eriri-senpai before leaving, giving her master a quiet environment.
Several minutes after Sora Ginko left, Ryuga turned to the last page of the book in his hands, shook his head, and set it aside.
"The theoretical framework has no problems, but practical application still has no effect... Even Hermeticism, which is condemned as the evil of evils and heresy of heresies, shows no response. Could this world really have no possibility of the extraordinary?"
Clearly, Ryuga was a transmigrator.
Having transmigrated to this daily zongman(Anime Crossover) world, aside from his brain becoming more useful and his comprehension improving, he hadn't gained any extraordinary cheat.
In modern society, just with superhigh comprehension, it was enough for him to thrive.
Actually, the Chess Sage title that Sora Ginko valued was just one of Ryuga's most insignificant achievements.
With his powerful comprehension, he had achieved unimaginable accomplishments in economics, politics, culture, and technology, gaining power sufficient to influence the world, even reaching a level where even the Shinomiya family zaibatsu dreamed of sending their daughters to serve him as maids.
After reaching the pinnacle of worldly power, Ryuga's gaze turned toward the extraordinary.
Since he could transmigrate, it proved that some mysterious power must exist.
Unfortunately, no matter how he studied this world's religions and history, or how he contacted the knowledge of hidden sects, he couldn't find even a trace of the extraordinary.
So far, he had gone through all existing mysterious materials in this world, having thoroughly understood various mystical theoretical systems, becoming a master-level figure with the most comprehensive understanding of mysterious knowledge in the world.
However, he still hadn't found any hope of transcendence.
This world seemed to be an ordinary world without magic.
No matter how heaven-defying his comprehension was, in a place where world rules didn't allow the extraordinary to appear, it was impossible to achieve transcendence.
"Could it be that even after transmigrating, I can only live and die like ordinary people?"
After sighing in his heart, Ryuga didn't become discouraged.
To pursue the extraordinary, how could he give up so early?
Even if he couldn't find a path forward, he would carve out one himself!
With his comprehension, even going against heaven, there might not be no opportunity.
Just as Ryuga was about to reorganize his materials, a mechanical voice suddenly rang in his mind.
"Respected group member, welcome to the Dimensional Chat Group."
[Madoka: "Welcome newcomer!"] [Kanae: "Welcome newcomer!"] [Tohsaka Rin: "Welcome newcomer!"] [Erica: "Welcome newcomer!"]
Looking at the semi-transparent screen that suddenly lit up before his eyes, and the repeaters on the screen, Ryuga's breathing slightly stagnated as he tightly clenched his palms.
The extraordinary opportunity he had been longing for and dreaming of had actually come so suddenly?!
To be continued...