CHAPTER 7: SUDDEN INVITATION

It was a cloudy evening, and the traffic in Jakarta was as usual, crowded. Both Sheva and Bagas, who came to the park with Bagas’s motorcycle, sighed as they were trapped in a long traffic jam. Sheva himself hadn’t said anything after the conversation with Master Irfan. Bagas could see from the rearview mirror that his best friend was still hesitant, staring at the envelope that was the prize of the challenge today with a complicated gaze.

Bagas could only sigh here, knowing that this was the decision that Sheva had to make for himself. He could only encourage, yet at the end of the day, it would be his best friend who had to live with the consequences of his decision, whether it was for good or bad.

As the car in front of him moved so slowly, Bagas recalled the conversation with Master Irfan earlier.

-Flashback-

"What? Joining your chess club?" Sheva’s mouth gaped, not knowing how to react to the sudden invitation. He had half of his mind rejected it, but before he could say anything, Bagas shut his mouth immediately, winking furiously to let him take over the conversation.

"Excuse me, Master Irfan, but can you tell him the details of the club first? Like, what kind of club do you run, and why would you want to invite him?" Bagas asked, trying to sound professional. Irfan crooked one of his eyebrows slightly, nodding in appreciation at Bagas’s calmness. It seemed that the fat boy whom he had just looked down on earlier was the smarter cookie here.

"Well, the name of the club itself is ’The Black Rook’, and just like any other chess club outside, we are just a bunch of people gathering for the same hobby here, which is to play chess," Irfan explained slowly, inviting both boys to sit back on the seat where Irfan and Sheva had just played the game. "However, unlike the informal club like those bunch of old people who watched the fun today, my club is pretty serious, to breed the next talented chess player for this country."

This time, it was Sheva’s turn to crook his eyebrows. Even though the goal sounded lofty and difficult, he was a man with the system in his brain, so being the next talented chess player for this country wasn’t that difficult. Oh, he didn’t brag that much here. After all, Indonesia didn’t have a lot of good chess players in history. Hell, the number of players who earned the Grandmaster title could be counted on one hand, and most of them had already retired. Those who were still active had already way passed their primes, so yeah, while it was a difficult mission, Sheva didn’t really see it as a challenge.

"So, what has your club done to reach that goal?" Bagas asked once again.

If anyone heard this conversation, they would think that this was some sort of job interview. However, Irfan himself didn’t really mind it. Hell, if anything, he appreciated Bagas’s cleverness for giving him a chance to show off his club to a talented player like Sheva. He had already set his eyes on Sheva, and it would be a pity if he failed to recruit him.

"Well, first of all, we have a lot of resources to help you develop your game." Irfan coughed a little, starting to explain. "Even though our collection is not that much compared to what the other clubs in superpower countries like India or Russia have, but here, we have about 136 chess books to help you broaden your view. It varies from books about chess openings, tactics, puzzles, endgames, and even chess principles that you won’t be able to find on the Internet today, so I think just this alone is enough to convince you. Of course, this doesn’t count our online resources, where we have so many courses from different grandmasters across the world, but we would leave that behind for now."

Well, this alone was enough to tempt Sheva to join the club. After all, even with the vast knowledge that the system inserted into his mind, that didn’t mean he was truly invincible. The system only helped him store the knowledge, but how to use it was still up to him. By broadening his vision, this would elevate his game into a higher realm, or so he thought.

’Wait!’ Sheva widened his eyes as he realized something. ’No, I cannot fall into his trap! No, no, no, chess players have no future in this country! If I fall into this pit hole, I wouldn’t be able to get out of it, and I would have to spend the rest of my life working my ass off just to keep myself afloat. No, I cannot do that.’

Irfan who saw Sheva’s complicated reaction thought that the boy was hooked, so he continued, "In order to maintain the competitiveness of the members, we also hold an internal competition once in a week, and after a month, I would send two players with the most point to a formal competition abroad, all of the cost is from my pocket. So, you don’t have to worry about getting stuck in this country all the time and unable to climb higher."

This!

This was probably what Sheva wanted to hear the most. After all, even though chess was not that developed in the country, as long as he could go abroad consistently without having to care about the cost, he believed that there would be a chance to thrive here. As for whether he could win the internal competition or not, well, that was not a question at all. If he could force the leader of the club to the edge and even had a chance to win the game, Sheva didn’t believe that he couldn’t dominate the entire club at all.

"Then, what about the registration fee and the obligation to the club?" Bagas asked, still calm enough even though he could see that Sheva had already forgotten his intention to not join the club at all.

"Well, that is the easier part!" Irfan answered happily. Based on Sheva’s eager face, he knew he had won this negotiation. "Since the recruitment is based on my own recommendation, I don’t really need my members to pay any fee. However, in a formal competition, I want them all to wear the attributes that represent the club, such as formal shirts or jackets with the logo of our club. You will also need to represent the club when a club competition is held, usually either in September or October. I will tell you about the details of this competition later, but I don’t think that it is a big deal. However, there is an agreement here that if you went to a tournament with my money, if you somehow managed to win or earn a monetary prize, I will ask for 15 percent of it. After all, I also need to keep my financial balance. What do you think?"