Interesting. More so than other things.

This was the thought that crossed Zoe’s mind after spending just over ten minutes briefly learning the basics of chess and playing a couple of games against a simple AI.

Chess was not merely a game—it was a battle of intellect, a fusion of strategy, calculation, and foresight. It required a player to possess a keen tactical vision, precise computational ability, and profound insight.

She found it to be an engaging challenge, one that provided a rare sense of difficulty.

The first two games were a struggle, an unfamiliar sensation for her.

However, after playing a couple more rounds against the AI, Zoe began to gain a deeper understanding. She absorbed every move, every strategy, committing them to memory, and soon grasped the fundamental principles and standard strategies of chess.

Next, she played a few rapid matches against the AI, stopping only once she could steadily defeat it.

After more than an hour had passed, Zoe nodded in satisfaction.

In that short span of time, she had gone from a complete beginner to a player competent enough to handle the basic AI on the chess platform. For many, this was a progression speed they might never reach in their lifetime.

Numerous so-called chess prodigies from schools or small towns, despite years of effort, often found themselves stuck before achieving even a national ranking.

For them, being one of the best players in their towns or city was the pinnacle of their chess career—an achievement that already marked them as a rare talent.

But that was merely the limit of the ordinary.

To go beyond that, to enter the ranks of professional chess players, was akin to being one of the those that spend most of their free time in chess.

The true endgame of chess was reserved for only a handful of prodigies.

And Zoe was destined to be one of them.

Or rather, far beyond them.

What was an unattainable height for others was merely a casual starting point for her.

After all, it was just calculation and analysis—how difficult could it be?

With that thought, Zoe glanced at the advanced AI mode, which required a certain number of real-player matches to unlock. Resigned, she clicked on the matchmaking button.

To be honest, she much preferred playing against AI.

It was well-known that humans had long been outmatched by AI in chess. Ever since Deepmind had crushed human grandmasters in a matter of dozens of moves, the debate had all but ended. Even those outside the chess world had heard about it.

Given the choice, she had no interest in playing against human opponents.

The online platform she was using was the largest in the country, featuring a powerful chess AI. Its computational ability was on par with the engines used by professional players at elite chess academies.

After all, the AI that professionals trained against was provided by the very same platform, making it one of the most advanced in the world.

However, due to computational resource limitations, players had to meet specific conditions before gaining access to stronger AI opponents. It wasn’t feasible to provide world-class AI training to every user for free.

Thus, Zoe needed to win three real-player matches and defeat the current AI level before unlocking the next tier of AI. Each subsequent level would have its own set of conditions.

To unlock the next AI level, she figured that playing against human opponents wouldn’t be too bad. Perhaps she could learn something from them.

With this thought, she matched with her first opponent.

She felt confident and intrigued, ready for the game.

…

After a long time, having played three real-player matches with the intent of learning and improving, Zoe sat deep in thought.

Ugh…

She leaned back in her chair, feeling as though her mental database had been contaminated.

She had approached these games with a mindset of learning and progressing.

But…

Human players took ages to make a move, often stalling until the very last second—something she could tolerate.

What she couldn’t tolerate was how terrible their moves were.

The opponents on the other side of the screen made her question whether they were even human.

What on earth were those blunders?

Could a person truly play like that?

The rules of chess had been clear enough—so how were these players making such outrageous mistakes?

It was like telling someone that 1 + 1 = 2, and yet they still couldn’t solve a basic algebra problem.

Even if they couldn’t solve advanced mathematics, how could they struggle to grasp something as simple as basic endgames when they had the rules right in front of them?

After a long moment of reflection, Zoe concluded that her low beginner ranking was likely the reason she had been matched with such players.

These newcomers couldn’t possibly compare to her, a beginner who had already surpassed the average casual player.

Without hesitation, she switched back to playing against the second-level AI.

To her disappointment, it wasn’t much harder than the first-level AI. Within two matches, she was already dominating.

After a brief moment of contemplation, Zoe endured the agony and forced herself to match with human players again. She had to meet the conditions to unlock the next AI level, after all.

…

At 8:50 PM, as the night deepened and the world was draped in a tranquil blue, a phone call interrupted Zoe’s focus. A crescent moon ascended quietly in the night sky, like a pearl set in velvet, casting a soft and clear glow.

It was a call from an old high school classmate.

A quick search through her memory revealed that it was her former class president.

She cancelled the matchmaking and answered the phone.

“Hello? Zoe, are you coming to the high school reunion?”

The familiar yet distant voice of her class president echoed through the receiver.

It had been a long time since she had heard that voice. Over the years, people’s voices naturally changed, making it feel somewhat unfamiliar. Yet, with her exceptional memory, she could still detect traces of familiarity.

“A high school reunion? It’s been over five years since we graduated. What brought this up all of a sudden?” Zoe asked.

To be honest, high school felt like a lifetime ago.

She hadn’t been in contact with her classmates for years, let alone considered attending a reunion.

In reality, most people, aside from a few close friends, rarely kept in touch after graduation.

For Zoe, the disconnect was even more extreme.

It was as if she had vanished after graduation, having no interactions with her high school classmates at all—except for a single reunion a week after they had graduated.

Because she had only a few close friends in high school, though their contact information was still retained, they hadn't been in touch for a long time.

"Do you remember that girl who had the thickest glasses in the middle of the class rankings? The one who's organising this reunion," said the class leader on the other end of the phone.

Upon hearing this, Zoe raised an eyebrow. Her memory, at least, wouldn't let her forget.

"Domingo? What's happened to him? Did his family suddenly get rich?" Zoe asked curiously.

Who, really, would want to gather a group of classmates they hadn’t seen in nearly a decade? Everyone had their own lives to fix and patch up; no one would bother with something like this.

There was hardly any emotional bond left after so many years.

It was more about showing off.

"Yes, his family got compensation from a demolition project, and they ended up with more than tens of millions."

"He gave me twenty thousand and asked me to help organise it. Are you going?"

The class leader explained, then asked Zoe if she was interested in attending.

Zoe fell silent for a moment, then slowly replied, "Forget it."

There was no point in attending such a reunion.

She had no deep connections with those high school classmates.

It wasn’t like Domingo, who wanted to show off how well his life had turned out.

Zoe thought back to the earlier hours of the day, when she had been holding a four-tonne, multi-million-dollar tungsten steel ball.

She understood deeply that she had already gone too far and too high.

"Pamela Viol Cruz is going too. She used to tutor you all the time. Don’t you want to see her again?"

"I heard she’s a teacher now. Aren’t you interested in attending one of her classes?"

The class leader said, laughing.

But Zoe, without hesitation, responded, "Forget it."

What had happened in the past was over.

The so-called crush—she had already seen her once when she returned to her home province.

And in this chaotic world, she was the only one who remained truly clear-headed.

There were far more pressing concerns in her life than clinging to the past.

After hanging up,

Zoe felt little attachment to high school or the concept of "crush".

Her emotions were always shallow.

She only really connected with a few people.

University friends were a different matter, but high school felt too distant.

Even though she could still clearly remember everyone from those days, there were no lingering feelings.

It wasn’t that she was heartless—it was simply that she, like most ordinary people, had evolved into someone who was alone.

Solitude suited her perfectly.

After a long period of contemplation, Zoe turned her attention to the computer beside her.

Having played all afternoon and most of the evening, she hadn’t even had dinner, but she couldn’t help smiling at the sixth 1800 elo-level AI in chess, which she had successfully unlocked.

As her progress had advanced, she mostly spent time playing against real people. After a few matches against opponents of this level, she'd immediately switch to real players to unlock the next tier of AI.

The players she matched with were growing stronger, but in Zoe's eyes, they were still just weak players—blundering through long, poorly executed moves, significantly slowing down her progress.

Still, chess was interesting and has massive playerbase worldwide, at least, compared to other board games.

The level-three AI required Zoe to play a couple of games to learn enough to defeat it.

The difficulty of level-four, level-five, and level-six AI increased as well, with each requiring two or three games before victory, which allowed Zoe to feel challenged again.

Unfortunately, this challenge wasn’t very frequent.

Perhaps higher-level AI would provide more of the intense, exhilarating combat she longed for.

Thinking about it, she glanced at the site’s highest level, the so-called ten-level AI that could reportedly crush grandmaster players umless they use strategies that are outside of conventional playing- cheats, intentional tie breaking to spot weakspots, time constraint strategy and other unfair advantages.

But Zoe wasn't going to use such shameless tactics of the weak.

Zoe smiled faintly.

She’d probably defeat it tomorrow or in the next couple of days legitimately. fair and ethically.

Then, she’d fully appreciate it and experience what it felt like for humans to declare "Chess is dead" in the face of AI dominance—hopefully, the experience would be thrilling.

As for now...

Zoe still had things to do.

She could skip dinner, but when it came to her scheduled workout time, that wasn’t something to neglect.

She gazed out the window at the moonlight.

After playing all afternoon and into the night, Zoe stood up from her chair.

Next, it was time to head to the Night Club for some training, and later, she’d visit the old factory to train her physical body with the tungsten steel ball.

·························

At this very moment, on the other side of the country, in a coastal city, a middle-aged man named Harris was reclining in a chair, unable to shake his doubts about life.

It was the evening of February 27th.

After paying his respects to his ancestors, he had spent the day lying down and now thought he might pass some time by revisiting the chess website, which he hadn’t visited in a while.

Harris wasn’t opposed to playing fast-paced, fun games; he had once enjoyed playing Counter Strike.

But ever since the last time he’d played, when a genius newcomer utterly demolished him in a match, he hadn’t touched the game.

Though he later learned that the "two minutes whatnot" player had risen to the top tier and would no longer encounter him, a casual player just wanting to have a little fun, Harris had sworn never to touch the game again for at least two months.

That feeling of being relentlessly slaughtered with a USP, without any armour, was soul-crushing.

During the match, he had even wondered if he was playing against a bot.

Who, after all, loses so consistently, like a gambler with no luck, or a child who always cries?

But when he faced that player, it felt as if bullets were magnetically drawn to him.

It had taken a long time for Harris to recover his spirits at work after that.

So today,

After staring at the Counter Strike icon for a moment, he decisively moved his mouse and clicked on the chess app instead.

He figured that with his past amateur level, even after a long hiatus, he should at least be able to hold his own against players rated 1700 elo and below.

After all, stronger amateurs with 1500 to 1600 elo often matched up with younger players aiming for the professional ranks, and sometimes, they even managed to win a game or two.

While Harris wasn’t quite that strong, he was still considered a talent in any small city.

He had trained in chess because of his talent and once thought of pursuing it seriously, but later realised that talent was merely a threshold to the world of chess.

Ultimately, he gave up chess to explore other paths.

With his current skill level, playing casual games with strangers online should be easy.

However, since he was playing for fun and not practising, Harris didn’t want to accidentally match up with a top player and be thrown into a high-level match straight away.

So, he borrowed a 1300 elo account from a friend in a chess group and decided to enjoy some lighthearted, lower-level games, using his rich 1800 elo experience to easily win.

But...

After being swiftly defeated in 5 minute game variant,

Harris struggled to comprehend what had just happened.

Was it really true that the realiability of printers had improved so much?

Had he been punished for trying to printer-tapping for easy prints?

Reclining in his chair, Harris was left dumbfounded, wondering if he was some sort of natural stepping stone for others and that he was getting older fast.

Was he trying to smash the printer but instead got splashed by inks instead?

Thinking back to the game, he realised that after not playing for so long, he had mistakenly made a bad move—what was supposed to be a simple move turned into a disastrous blunder, and his opponent had taken full advantage.

He had lost two rapid games and over 100 elo points in the game.

It had been a painful experience.

He was too embarrassed to continue and simply resigned.

After replaying the game in his mind,

Harris switched back to his main account for another game, and once again, he ran into the same player—"I’m_a_newbie."

Clearly, this person had gained many ranks in a short time on the chess site.

Harris had planned to focus and play a serious match this time.

But once again, he mysteriously lost.

That feeling of being completely crushed was overwhelming.

He was certain his opponent wasn’t using an engine; the moves were clearly not the typical patterns favoured by the well-known chess engine programs, and the style was completely different.

Looking at the opponent’s profile, with their impressive record achieved in just a short time, Harris couldn’t believe this player was truly a "newbie."

He was convinced it was some high-level player using a secondary account to trick him into thinking he was an easy target.

After a long silence,

Harris shut down his computer and lay back on his bed, closing his eyes.

Playing games didn’t seem worthwhile.

Playing chess didn’t seem much better.

He had to accept that, as a natural stepping stone, his destiny was to be the one who got reality smashed right into his face.

He really is getting older.

Defeated, Harris closed his eyes and fell into a deep sleep.

As for chess...

He wouldn’t touch it again for at least two months.