"Checkmate."
A calm male voice echoed in the tea room.
Next to the wafting aroma of tea, Su Mo flipped through a book with one hand, casually placing the final piece with the other.
Spread before him was a Shogi board.
On the board, with the final move, the black pieces, like a dense net, had completely checkmated the opposing king, leaving no room for escape.
"How could this be?!"
Across from the man sat a girl in a JC Uniform, with silver-blue hair and a delicate, pretty face.
Sora Gin-ko, known as the Naniwa White Snow Princess, had always been hailed as the strongest female Shogi player in Japan in a thousand years. At a young age, she had already earned the titles of "Queen" and "Female Gyokuza," rising to fame in the Japanese Shogi world.
And yet, a professional Go player of no small renown had lost to the man across from her in less than two minutes.
"How can this be?"
Sora Gin-ko collapsed to her knees, her hands propping her up on the ground. Her slender legs were spread to either side, and her delicate frame trembled slightly.
"Even with a handicap! I gave him the maximum—ten stones! He was reading a book while casually playing, and yet I couldn't even put up a fight. I didn't even last two minutes?!"
The young girl's face was etched with shock, completely devoid of her usual cold arrogance.
As a professional Go player, to be defeated so easily even with a ten-stone handicap...
Even if her skill wasn't top-tier, not even the strongest Dragon King in history could have suppressed her so completely under such circumstances.
Seeing the girl's dazed expression, as if her worldview had been shattered, it seemed that no matter what happened, she wouldn't be able to react for a while.
Facing this familiar scene, both the villa's owner, Su Mo, and the maid beside him, were already used to it.
The golden-haired, twin-tailed maid, having just learned how to make it, brewed some tea and served it. Su Mo nodded slightly, completely unfazed by the girl prostrating herself before him, and continued to flip through the book in his hands, which was marked with various mysterious symbols.
It wasn't until several minutes later that Sora Gin-ko finally recovered from the intense shock.
She bit her lip lightly, looking up at the man before her, whose appearance and figure were both impeccable. The shock in her eyes subtly transformed into reverence and admiration under the absolute suppression of his strength.
"As expected of the Kisei, unparalleled in history! Su Mo-sama, even looking across all of human history, you are undeniably the strongest!"
"A strong person like you must have also gone through unimaginable hardships to be able to stand at the peak, right!"
Having been proud and arrogant since childhood, she showed not a trace of arrogance when facing the man before her.
Because the man sitting in front of her was the one who spanned across Go, Xiangqi, International Chess, Shogi, and a series of other fields, even Artificial Intelligence bowed down before him, and he was hailed as the strongest Kisei in human history.
Facing such an existence, she could only feel reverence, like looking up at a towering mountain, without a single thought of challenge.
At this moment, her tone was also very serious.
In Sora Gin-ko's view, only those with a heart as clear as a mirror could reach the Kisei level of cultivation.
However, facing such praise, which was almost flattery, Su Mo just calmly shook his head.
"No."
"Eh?"
"Actually, I was just short on money at the time, so I went to get the prize money. Before that, I basically hadn't touched Shogi, let alone honed my skills."
"Ah?"
Sora Gin-ko was stunned. This wasn't what the news outside had been hyping up at all!
And also—
"Someone who's never played Shogi, just because they wanted the prize money, became a Kisei in such a short time?"
Was that even possible?
Seeing the new maid's dumbfounded expression, Su Mo casually explained,
"As a professional player, you should know that your character has nothing to do with your skill. It's not related to spiritual cultivation either. So-called skill is just a game of wits that tests your calculating ability."
Stripping away all the pretense, the man's words went straight to the core.
"As a game that tests calculating ability, although Shogi has upgrade rules, its overall complexity is far less than Go. And the complexity limit of Go is only three to the power of three hundred and sixty-one."
"As long as the computing power is sufficient to cover Go, winning in other chess domains is the simplest thing imaginable."
Hearing Su Mo say such a shocking statement in the calmest of tones, Sora Gin-ko was stunned again.
"Without relying on set patterns, but purely on computing power to cover all variations of a chess game?"
Even the most advanced supercomputers today couldn't achieve that level of calculation, right?
Most people outside believed the Kisei had defeated the AI by exploiting its weaknesses. But hearing Su Mo say this, could it be that he hadn't set up any strategies at all, but had simply crushed the AI with raw computing power?
Could a human really do something like that?
"If this is all simple, what could possibly be considered difficult in this world?"
Sora Gin-ko couldn't help but retort.
Her words were originally a sigh, but unexpectedly, Su Mo immediately responded.
"Of course there is!"
"What?"
"For example... transcending humanity!"
This was a slightly complex tone.
"Huh?"
Hearing this completely unexpected answer, Sora Gin-ko looked up at the Kisei before her, and found that Su Mo's attention was already focused on the book.
Unlike the casual expression when facing the Go board, Su Mo's expression was noticeably more serious when facing the book in his hand.
Looking at the various books scattered around his seat, and the mysterious symbols on the covers, Sora Gin-ko looked puzzled.
"Hermeticism: Psychological Alchemy Society," "Emerald Tablet," "Book of the Dead"... why is Su Mo-sama so interested in mythology and religion?"
She opened her mouth, remembering the maid's code of conduct she had just memorized, and didn't ask any further questions. Instead, she fulfilled her duties as a maid. After reheating the tea that Eriri-senpai had brewed, she cleared the chessboard and, together with Eriri-senpai, bowed and left, leaving her master a quiet environment.
A few minutes after Sora Gin-ko left, Su Mo flipped the book in his hand to the last page and shook his head, placing it aside.
"The theoretical framework is fine, but the actual practice still has no effect... Even Hermeticism, which is denigrated as the evil of evils, the heresy of heresies, has no reaction. Could it be that there really isn't any possibility of the extraordinary in this world?"
Apparently, Su Mo was a transmigrator.
Having transmigrated to this everyday world of multiple anime universes, besides his brain becoming more useful and his comprehension improving, he hadn't obtained any extraordinary golden fingers.
And in modern society, relying solely on his high comprehension was enough for him to thrive.
Actually, the title of Kisei that Sora Gin-ko valued was just one of Su Mo's most insignificant achievements.
With his powerful comprehension, he had achieved accomplishments in economics, politics, culture, and technology that exceeded the imaginations of ordinary people. He had also gained enough power to influence the world, even reaching the point where the Shiomiya Family, a powerful financial group, dreamed of sending their daughter to serve as his maid.
After reaching the pinnacle of power in the secular world, Su Mo's gaze turned towards the extraordinary.
Since he could travel through worlds, there must be some kind of mysterious power.
Unfortunately, no matter how he studied the world's religions, history, or how he contacted the knowledge of those secret sects, he couldn't find any trace of the extraordinary.
Up until now, he had already read through all the existing mysterious materials in this world. He had also fully grasped numerous mystical theoretical systems and could be considered a master-level figure with the most comprehensive understanding of mystical knowledge in the world.
However, he still hadn't found any hope of transcendence.
This world seemed to be an ordinary, magic-less one.
No matter how incredible his comprehension was, he couldn't achieve transcendence in a world where the rules didn't allow for the extraordinary.
Could it be that even after transmigrating, I'll just live and die like a normal person, turning to dust a hundred years from now?
After sighing inwardly, Su Mo didn't lose heart.
How could he give up so easily on his quest for the extraordinary?
Even if he couldn't find a path forward, he would carve one out himself!
With his comprehension, even going against the heavens might not be without opportunity.
Just as Su Mo was about to reorganize his information, a mechanical voice suddenly echoed in his mind.
"Esteemed group member, welcome to the Dimensional Chat Group."
[Madoka: "Welcome, new member!"]
[Kanae: "Welcome, new member!"]
[Rin Tohsaka: "Welcome, new member!"]
[Erica: "Welcome, new member!"]
Su Mo's breath hitched as he looked at the suddenly illuminated, translucent screen, and the repeaters on it. He clenched his palms tightly.
The extraordinary opportunity he'd longed for, dreamed of, had actually arrived so suddenly?!
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