Chapter 178: A Cheap Provocation, Tit-for-That!
A thick vein popped on Sheva’s forehead, and a cold smile also formed on his face. Although the boy knew that there would be a few players with ratings higher than his who would feel jealous, and some provocations from here and there would be thrown at him, the boy had never expected that this would happen so soon. What made it worse was that the provocation was thrown straight to his face, and it was done by a grandmaster, probably the second-best player in the country, nonetheless.
This was a little bit too much to be called provocation. If anything, Master Priasmoro seemed to be trying to bully him right now.
"Oh, well, you can say anything you want, ’Master’ Priasmoro..." Sheva said with a sweet smile, emphasizing the word ’Master’ with a more sarcastic tone. "The fact remains, though, that it is I who gets the sponsorship, not you, and not anyone else. This should make you question yourself, right? Does that mean the CEO of BNI, Mr. Wahyu, sees anything special in me that you don’t have? I mean, something obvious like... Potential?"
This time, it was Priasmoro Novendra who had a thick vein pop on his forehead. The provocation he threw before was just intended as a test, but who would’ve thought that Sheva would strike back with a heavier punch?
"The youngsters nowadays sure don’t know how to be polite and respect their seniors, right?" He said sarcastically, trying to use his seniority to pressure Sheva.
Unexpectedly, though, Sheva still answered this cheap provocation easily. "Thank you for your compliment, ’Master’ Priasmoro. I am sure Master Irfan and Master Susant also feel the same way about you, right?"
This time, the two oldest people in the room choked instantly, with the female members of the group stifling their giggle. Hell, even the quiet Aulia Medina Warda also smiled, feeling amused by the comeback thrown by Sheva. The only person who didn’t think that he was funny was Master Priasmoro, as the man’s face was so red from anger and humiliation.
Well, Sheva himself didn’t really care about him. He was a lot of things, but timid was definitely not one of them. If someone threw a punch at him, the boy would return it twice or three times more, aiming for where it would hurt them the most. He had some sort of vengeful personality that led the boy into a lot of problems during his high school time, especially as he and Bagas were bullied a lot at that time.
Compared to that time, Master Priasmoro’s provocation was just like a fly trying to hurt him.
"You sure know how to talk, huh?" Master Priasmoro growled in annoyance. "Well, then, let’s see if you can back up the big mouth of yours."
"Sure." Sheva shrugged, as if this were just a simple matter.
While what he did was reckless, the boy would never back down against the challenge in front of him, especially since the boy himself realized that what he just said was a little bit excessive. Now, it was his time to prove that he could back up his talk, or he could’ve just thrown his dignity as far away as possible.
[DING!]
[AN EMERGENCY MISSION APPEARS! GRANDMASTER PRIASMORO NOVENDRA IS PROVOKING YOU! PROVE HIM THAT YOU ARE NOT SOMEONE TO BE UNDERESTIMATED!]
[Requirement: Beat him with no mercy! Make him realize that you are better!]
[Reward: A FocusaPill, allowing you to use 100 percent of your brain’s potential for one hour! During that time, you will be able to think clearly, and you can learn everything related to chess easily.]
*Author’s note: Shoutout to Cleisthenes, who gave me this idea about the reward! Thank you for your support of this story!
Sheva couldn’t help but crook one of his eyebrows slightly when he read that. The boy didn’t expect that the system still had this emergency mission feature. However, what caught his attention was the reward, the FocusaPill that the system claimed to be magical.
’System, your naming sense sure is the worst, you know? I mean, FocusaPill? A pill to make me focus? Are you serious?’ He muttered sarcastically. ’Also, you are not going astray and making this into a fantastical story, right? I mean, I will be livid if somehow, the entire world turns into a martial arts one where all the cultivators fight against each other in broad daylight.’
[Host, please don’t insult the system like that. All the products you receive from the system are legit and scientific, not something coming from a cheap martial arts story!]
’Yeah, yeah, try to convince yourself like that...’ Sheva rolled his eyes sarcastically. ’Anyway, care to scan for Master Priasmoro’s stats?’
[DING! Scan successful!]
Name: Priasmoro Novendra
Title: GM
Attacking 72
Defense 80
Calculation 82
Strategy 79
Intuition 70
Time management 71
Seeing this, Sheva couldn’t help but raise one of his eyebrows slightly. Priasmoro’s stats were not that bad, honestly, with two of them being in the GM category. However, for a GM himself, having four of the six attributes in the IM range was embarrassing. It didn’t help that three of them, attacking, intuition, and time management, were in the bottom tier of the IM category.
No wonder that his rating was always around 2470 even after becoming a GM. Sheva was even sure that if Master Priasmoro got more chances to play in a stronger tournament, he would only embarrass himself, and his rating would be depleted further.
Not that Sheva would say it out loud, of course. He had provoked the man enough, and this time, it was his chance to prove that he wasn’t just bark here, but also bite hard.
"So, what kind of format would we play?" Sheva asked while waiting for Irfan to pick a chessboard from the closest cabinet. The other people also spread quickly, surrounding the table where both players were about to play. It seemed that they had already expected this kind of development. That, or they had already planned this, trying to test him with this method.
"We are going to play blitz, of course." Master Priasmoro snorted. "3+2, let me show you how to respect your seniors!"
This time, Sheva couldn’t help but snort. Not because of his opponent’s statement about respecting him, but due to the time control that he chose. Considering Master Priasmoro’s low rating in time management and intuition, a blitz game seemed to be the worst choice he made, yet here he was, accepting it in a heartbeat.
’It seems that I am still being underestimated here...’ Sheva muttered inwardly. At the arrogant look on Priasmoro’s face, he couldn’t help but smirk. ’Oh, well, you better be ready to get smacked, Master Priasmoro, because I wouldn’t show any mercy in this game...’