CHAPTER 64: SYSTEM’S HIDDEN FEATURES

A few days had passed since the announcement of the Jakarta International Chess Festival, yet the atmosphere inside the ’Black Rook’ club was still as high as before, with a lot of members coming and going for either a quick spar with another or just to borrow a book or two to improve themselves. It was as if they all consumed an ecstasy drug, making them grow restless as time went by.

Well, not that anyone could blame them, of course. All the members here loved chess to their heart, and even though they had already accepted that they wouldn’t go too far in their chess career due to the lack of talent, when the opportunity came, they wouldn’t hesitate to jump immediately for it. Their attitude was remarkable, also pushing Sheva to improve his game too.

’Speaking of improvement...’ Sheva suddenly remembered something. ’System, I haven’t seen you for a while. Come out, I want to see my stats!’

[DING!]

[Name: Adrian Sheva]

[Current ELO Rating: 1877 std – 0 rpd – 0 bltz]

[Current knowledge: Diamond level Caro-Kann opening; Gold level King’s Gambit opening; Gold level Scotch Gambit opening; Gold level intuition; Gold level calculation; ...]

Not a lot of things changed in his interface. Other than the rating that showed his current standard ELO, which was 1877, nothing changed too much. Well, maybe some, as he kept signing in every day, even though the knowledge he received wasn’t really a big help anymore. However, as his eyes scrolled down, he found something that had never been there before.

[+1 message!]

’Um?!’ Sheva was taken aback when he read that. ’A message? Care to explain, system?’ He asked. Unfortunately, the system he owned was different than those he read in a lot of online novels outside. His system was a cold, dead machine with no personality at all. Sheva waited for a while before realizing that the system itself wouldn’t say or give any instructions about this.

Honestly, it was quite boring, but Sheva won’t start complaining about it. He didn’t want to imagine himself getting forced to do some ridiculous training like doing the Saitama physical training or something like that due to the system’s mischievous nature.

’Oh, well, no need to think too much about it.’ In the end, Sheva just shrugged inwardly. ’Okay, system, open up the message!’

[DING!]

[Congratulations to the host for gaining his first official FIDE rating! The host will be awarded with one chance to get a platinum-level reward! Do you want to claim the reward?]

’Wait a second!’ Sheva suddenly narrowed his eyes slightly. ’You mean to tell me that the system is not just the sign-in one, but also an achievement-based one? But how could it be? It has never shown anything like this before?! Oh, for fuck’s sake...’

Yeah, Sheva was quite annoyed by the new feature here. Well, it was either a new feature or he had just learned about this now. However, he was more inclined to believe the first one. After all, he had been exploring the system day and night, and honestly, the boy had already reached the conclusion that there was nothing worth exploring there. However, it seemed that he was wrong here.

’Well, System, is there anything else that I still don’t know about you?’ Sheva asked. Unfortunately, after waiting for a while, he didn’t get the answer he wanted. Hell, he didn’t get any answer at all! ’Oh, fuck off! It is pretending to be dead again?!’ He scowled. The system really infuriated him, yet there was nothing that the boy could do here.

In the end, since the system was not reliable, Sheva decided to explore it by himself. Fortunately, he was often forced by Bagas to read a lot of online novels, so even though he didn’t know a lot about it, the boy still had a basic knowledge of the system. Even though the system’s presence was quite rampant in that kind of story, at least, he was able to put them all into four categories. First was the sign-in one, where he didn’t have to do anything specific; second was the normal one that would assign a lot of missions, then there was also the achievement-based one that would give a reward depending on the user’s achievement, and lastly was the skill tree one that allowed the user to upgrade depending on the points they had.

Unfortunately, figuring out whether his system had any other functions besides the sign-in and achievement-based ones was not that easy. Hell, he tried to say a lot of random things, hoping that he would be lucky enough to trigger something new here. Unfortunately, it was just a hopeful thing, as in the end, he only wasted his time doing nothing here.

’System? Open up my achievement! Show me a mission! Do something! Anything!’ The boy yanked his hair out of frustration. ’Oh, whatever!’ Finally, he gave up out of frustration. ’Just claim the reward first!’

Right after that, the interface turned into a big roulette, and there, Sheva could see a lot of items. He had already had most of them in the lower version, but having the platinum-grade item would enrich his game more. After all, it was quite rare to have the insight of those super grandmasters whose rating had already passed the threshold of 2700. However, there were also a few chess-unrelated items that shouldn’t belong there, but somehow got included in the list of rewards.

’A 30-day card insight on the local stock market? A mystery novel script? Are you fucking kidding me?!’ Sheva felt his mouth twitch. ’Oi, System, I am a serious chess player here! A chess player! Do you want to change genre or what?!’ He retorted sarcastically, which, of course, once again, got no answer from the dead machine.

He sighed once again, deciding to focus on the roulette first. Still, even though Sheva tried to look nonchalant, he couldn’t hide his nervousness at all. The boy kept fidgeting with the fabric of his clothes, biting his lips as the roulette started to slow down. After a while, though, the roulette finally stopped, and the needle was pointing directly at one particular opening.

[Ding! Congratulations! You get the platinum level Dutch Defense! Do you want to claim it now?]