Sheva let out a deep sigh as he left the official dia booth of the tournant. While he himself wasn’t the cara-phobic person he was last year, talking directly with two legendary figures was sohow exhausting ntally. It wasn’t like he was in awe of them, but their intelligence demanded that Sheva rack his brain hard at any question they threw.
’As expected of those two, they are so profound even with their questions.’ He let out another deep sigh, yawning a little while also trying to stretch his stiff body.
Once he was out of the venue, though, the boy was greeted by Bagas’s teasing smile. "Yo, Big Shot! How is it going? I heard that you want to be in the candidate tournant next year, huh? Tsk, tsk, tsk... What an ambitious fellow..."
The corner of Sheva’s lips twitched as he gave his best friend a side-eye. "You sure know how to be sarcastic to your friend, huh? Rather than doing so, how about you think of what we have for dinner? Don’t give another takeout, okay? I have enough of it!"
They walked to one of the nice restaurants nearby, and after waiting for a little while, two plates of dium-rare steak and mashed potatoes were already in front of them, and they didn’t show any reservation before devouring them all quickly. After such a long day, it was normal for them to be starving, and while they themselves would prefer sothing suitable for their Indonesian tongue, this nice dinner was definitely acceptable.
"Anyway, are you really serious with your remark?" Bagas asked while also taking a sip of the apple juice that he ordered earlier. "Candidate tournant? It should be way too far from you, right?"
"Indeed, it is a bit too far." Sheva nodded, acknowledging the difficulty. "However, that’s not sothing unfamiliar to . You think that becoming a GM in one year from being a completely clueless player is easy?"
This was the point that Bagas had to admit that Sheva was right. His best friend was no stranger to defying fate like this, so it was no wonder that the boy would set another impossible goal to achieve.
"Also, you should’ve heard saying sothing like that when eting with Old Man Wahyu a few months ago, right? Why would you ask this again? Is it because you think this ti that I am really serious about that?"
Well... That mory suddenly flashed in Bagas’s mind about how domineering Sheva was when talking about his ambition. Of course, at that ti, he still thought that his best friend was a little bit boastful. However, now that they had already been at this point, it seed that the boast would slowly beco the reality.
"Good, it is good to have an ambition like that! You are not a man if you don’t aim at the sky!" Bagas grinned. "Right now, your rating is still around 2560, having already been increased by around 35 points after the first six rounds of this tournant. With your current pace, getting 2700 will be feasible, but the pace right now is not sothing normal. Once you slip, it would be hard to get back on the track, so you have to prepare for everything, okay?"
For that, Sheva just let out a primal grin as he answered, "Of course, I am prepared for everything!"
-0-
After that, as if getting another round of fuel for his spirit, Sheva started going berserk again. In the next three days, he beat everyone black and blue, not giving anyone any chance to get close to his spot.
In the seventh round, he overwheld Adhiban Baskaran, a veteran GM from India with a rating of 2610, in a ga of 34 moves. Knowing that his opponent was a solid rock player, Sheva went all out with his offense, using all the tricks up his sleeve to get an upper hand from the beginning of the ga.
With a sacrifice of a rook to open up the opponent’s defense, the boy managed to sneak deeper into the opposite territory, and once Adhiban Baskaran couldn’t find a way to rescue his king, the man finally resigned.
Then ca the eighth round, where Sheva had to fight against the Serbian GM Velimir Ivic. He could still rember full well that this man was the one who beat Novendra in the last Olympiad. His relationship with Novendra wasn’t quite good, but since they ca from the sa country, it was reasonable for him to try to avenge his senior.
This ti, the ga went on for quite a long ti, entering the 80th move of the ga. It wasn’t like the ga itself was close, since Sheva could feel that his advantage was strong enough since the 50th move of the ga. However, Ivic was a stubborn player, not willing to give up so easily. Sheva also had to give a hat’s off to the Serbian GM, finding that the man’s resilience was quite troubleso.
Fortunately, he managed to stay calm until the end, not giving the man any chance to recover. In the end, Sheva finally managed to push his opponent to the edge of the cliff, and with him being five moves away from mating the opponent, Velimir Ivic finally resigned, giving Sheva the seventh ga of the tournant.
The ninth round also happened quite fast. His opponent, a Brazilian GM nad Luis Paulo Supi, ca with the intention of getting a quick draw. However, Sheva managed to outmaneuver the man, using the Dutch Defense that he had basically mastered so well to preach through the opponent’s defense.
In the end, the man resigned in the 24th move after his first mistake that allowed Sheva to get one of his rooks freely, not even willing to try his luck. This gave Sheva a little bit of a breather after a long ga against Ivic the day before that.
With eight wins and one draw on his pocket, his chance of winning was so big that he basically stood in front of the door. However, he still needed one more win to secure everything, and coincidentally enough, his next opponent was the closest competitor he had in this tournant.
In round 10 of the tournant, Sheva would face off against Mustafa Yilmaz, the legendary Turkish GM who was also probably the most underrated player in Europe right now.
Seeing the man’s profile, a little smirk sohow curled on the corner of Sheva’s lips, as the boy murmured, "Interesting..."
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