I Have Too Many Money-Making Talents - Chapter 149

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Too Much Talent That Pays Off – Episode 149
There are countless factors that determine victory and defeat in Baduk.
Move Reading, Board Position Evaluation, the ability to judge value between the large and small…….
Beyond these, there are so many elements it’s nearly impossible to enumerate them all.
To sustain a single game that stretches for nearly two hundred, three hundred moves, you cannot be lacking in any one of these.
Especially not when you’re a professional Baduk player aiming for the very pinnacle of the world.
Ultimately, victory is decided by the smallest of differences.
Smaller than a single strand of hair, finer than dust.
‘……What if their skills were almost equal?’
The world’s greatest players.
Their Baduk styles differed from one another.
Some swept through like a storm, others flowed with the fluidity of water, and still others possessed the precision of artificial intelligence.
In a battle at such heights, victory was not determined by the simple question of ‘who plays better.’
The standard that separated the weight of victory.
The difference between standing at the world’s apex and falling short.
I felt that difference keenly in this game against Byeon Woo-bin.
‘Match Breathing.’
The flow, context, and sense that governed an entire game.
The ability to seize the ‘timing of the moment’ when playing a single move.
The subtlety of how results changed not by which move was best, but by when that move was played.
To hold back one move and play elsewhere with greater profit, or to gamble on your opponent’s carelessness and launch into battle.
In the end, what took precedence over Move Reading was the ability to read the rhythm and timing of the game itself.
And the game unfolding now laid bare that very difference.
He was the one who should have been shaking his opponent, yet he was the one who had been shaken.
Despite seizing the advantage in time, despite forcing him into Speed Reading Mode, it was his side that had crumbled in the end.
Why?
Precisely because of this Match Breathing.
‘……I learned something again.’
I was still learning Baduk, still gaining insight in this very moment.
That fact thrilled me, excited me, made my heart race.
The instant when the unconscious became conscious.
The gap between what I recognized and what I did not was vast.
And now, it was clear what I needed to refine.
I lifted my head and looked at Byeon Woo-bin.
‘The game is already decided.’
I could feel it in the trembling of his fingers as he placed a stone.
His Baduk—the kind where he poured emotion into every stone—had already lost its vitality.
And no wonder; White had no more avenues of escape.
Large Stones Do Not Die.
The maxim that great groups cannot perish.
Yet belying that wisdom, White’s great group was on the verge of suffocation.
‘There might be a way to save it. But…… it would be meaningless.’
And Byeon Woo-bin understood that fact better than anyone.
The moment he chose that move, all the Actual Territory he had painstakingly built would come crashing down.
I saw Byeon Woo-bin’s hand in the Go Stone Container clench tightly around a stone.
Yet it only lasted a moment; he let the stone fall limply back into the container.
“……I resign.”
In the end, Byeon Woo-bin threw in his stones.
Resignation.
An acknowledgment that there was no point in continuing.
As if the heavy air above the Go Board dispersed, the game hall fell silent.
“Well played.”
I offered the words out of courtesy.
Byeon Woo-bin gave a small nod.
A bitter smile spread across his face, which had been etched with the shock of defeat and anger at himself.
A hollow laugh, tinged with self-mockery.
“……You play well. Far better than I thought.”
My eyes widened slightly.
Because Byeon Woo-bin—that prideful player—had just spoken words of acknowledgment.
“Truth is, I already knew. I knew it in my head…… but I didn’t want to admit it.”
He paused for a moment, then swept his gaze across the board as if brushing past it.
The eyes of one reviewing the game.
Byeon Woo-bin spoke in a low voice, adding a thought.
“But now…… I feel relieved. It’s strange—my mind feels clearer. Now I can see a little, at least.”
A smile that had deepened slightly.
His gaze held the light of someone ready to make even this defeat a new starting point.
A face that had matured noticeably in mere moments.
As a person and as a professional both.
“……But you, in turn, have taught me much.”
It was no mere politeness.
True sincerity welling up from within.
Byeon Woo-bin was the very catalyst that allowed my Baduk talent to evolve from A to A+.
From the fourth preliminary of the Ciel Bank Cup integrated tournament through today’s Geumran Cup quarterfinal,
he had always been an opponent who gave me the stimulus to learn.
‘The strange thing is, the system has gone quiet.’
I had gained some understanding.
I thought there would be some reward one way or another, but there was no response at all.
Yet I was not disappointed.
Now I no longer had to be preoccupied with rewards from the system.
“……But, you know.”
Byeon Woo-bin, who had just risen from his seat, turned to look at me slowly.
With a considerably more relaxed expression than before, he spoke bluntly.
“Don’t get too cocky.”
I looked up and met his eyes.
Byeon Woo-bin smiled with confidence.
“I’m still young, after all. You’re older…… but when I’m in my prime, you won’t be able to handle me, will you?”
“……What did you just say?”
He gave a light bow and descended from the stage.
Taken aback, I stared blankly at his retreating figure with a bewildered expression.
‘Did he just take a shot at me?’
It was absurd.
Of course, he wasn’t wrong.
A professional Baduk player’s prime comes around age twenty-five.
After thirty, the aging curve inevitably catches up with physical strength and concentration.
But I never expected him to say it right to my face like that.
If that’s not competitive spirit, I don’t know what is.
At that moment, a staff member from the Geumran Cup organizers approached me and whispered softly.
“We have an interview scheduled. Would it be alright to move to another location?”
“Of course.”
I nodded and rose from my seat.
The moment I descended from the stage and stepped out of the playing hall, camera flashes erupted brilliantly in front of my eyes.
As I took my place before the photo wall, Chinese journalists raised their hands high.
At the moderator’s direction, the journalist in the front row asked first.
“Congratulations on advancing to the quarterfinals of the Geumran Cup. Despite being pressed for time, you used precise Move Reading to capture White’s large group. What are your thoughts?”
I brought the microphone to my lips.
“To be honest…… I nearly lost. I was pressed for time, the position looked grim, and I was at a significant disadvantage.”
“Yet you won in the end. What was the secret?”
I paused to gather my thoughts, stroking my chin briefly, then answered calmly.
“There’s no real secret to speak of. Since I was in a losing position, instead of thinking I had to win…… I just played by instinct. And as you can see, I won.”
For a moment, the journalists were taken aback.
But soon a few grasped the meaning and broke into laughter, and the atmosphere quickly lightened.
Tap-tap-tap.
The journalists’ fingers were busy tapping away at their keyboards.
The word “instinct”—rarely used in Baduk discourse.
And the phrase “I just played and happened to win” was rich enough to spawn multiple interpretations.
Another journalist raised his hand.
“Byeon Woo-bin was one of the players who publicly named you during the seeding draw ceremony. Are you even happier to have won?”
I smiled lightly.
“Yes. It would be a lie to say I’m not. It was a satisfying victory.”
Victory is always good.
And when standing in this place, savoring the thrill of victory, that rush doubles.
“Ah, that’s right.”
Remembering something, I picked up the microphone again.
I spoke with my gaze fixed beyond the camera lens.
“Could you journalists pass a message to Byeon Woo-bin for me?”
“What message would that be?”
The reporters’ eyes snapped toward me in unison.
Their gazes held the anticipation of those waiting to see what words might tumble from my lips.
I opened my mouth with an easy smile.
“Tell him my prime hasn’t even begun yet. So…….”
I paused, letting the silence stretch, then added with deliberate arrogance.
“If he wants to try and surpass me, let him try. But the one laughing at the end will always be me.”

* * *
I made it to the quarterfinals of the Geumran Cup.
O Su and Kim Eun-woo also advanced to the quarterfinals.
For the first time in a decade, three Korean players had claimed spots in the world tournament’s quarterfinals held in China.
It was an achievement reached even without Jeong Si-hu’s participation, and the media trumpeted it as a Korean baduk renaissance.
With O Su’s return added to the mix, the excitement only mounted higher.
And so the Geumran Cup quarterfinals began amid those soaring expectations.
My opponent was Deng Weiqing, a 6-dan player.
The lowest-ranked player among the Chinese professionals who’d made it to the main tournament.
‘……He’s nineteen, if I remember right.’
He was young too.
The mere fact that such a young Deng Weiqing had reached the world tournament quarterfinals made me acutely aware of the depth of China’s baduk talent.
The match was no walkover.
His baduk showed flawless polish, with few obvious weaknesses.
Baduk learned and honed through AI alone, not human instruction.
Unlike most players who labored to interpret AI’s moves, he played as naturally as the machine itself, as though it were second nature.
The way a child absorbs language without conscious effort, the way we breathe—he had absorbed it with that same effortless grace.
His precision and accuracy were on par with Jeong Si-hu.
‘……Now I see why they call him Little Jeong Si-hu.’
This style of baduk would only become more common from here on.
The generation raised purely on AI was beginning to enter professional ranks one by one.
The early flow was textbook AI Opening.
But it was my Destabilization that created the first crack.
A probing thrust that exposed the gap between human and machine—a truth no AI could overcome.
Deng Weiqing boasted a high rate of finding weak points, yet gradually he began to lose his rhythm against the Destabilization.
Black and white twisted together like a spider’s web.
And then inevitably came the Life-and-Death Battle.
In a struggle of breath and timing, I brought down Deng Weiqing’s large group by a single move.
“I resign.”
There were no surprises.
That hairline crack widened into a decisive gap, and I secured my place in the semifinals.
‘I wonder how the other two fared.’
My attention turned to the opposite bracket.
Remarkably, O Su pulled off a stunning upset, beating last year’s champion Ci Hao by just half a point.
Unable to contain his frustration, Ci Hao resorted to slapping his own cheek in a fit of rage.
Kim Eun-woo also advanced to the semifinals, having defeated China’s Fu Zhihan.
Three Korean players in the Geumran Cup semifinals.
Moreover, O Su and Kim Eun-woo were now set to face each other for a spot in the finals.
What was shaping up could well be the most humiliating “guest party” in Chinese baduk history.
As a result, all attention naturally fixed on the one remaining semifinal slot.
Seqiu Hao and Zhang Weitian.
China’s number one and number two ranked players, facing off against each other.
Normally their seeding should have placed them in separate brackets, but since seeding was finalized before the latest ranking update, they ended up in the same group.
And furthermore.
‘They said one is the master and the other is the student.’
A clash between teacher and disciple.
It was a blockbuster match that commanded the attention of Chinese media and fans alike.
Especially under the pressure to block a Korean player from winning the championship, expectations swelled even higher.
I was no exception.
Since I would face the winner directly, I couldn’t help but remain on edge.
‘This is…….’
My eyes widened as I watched the broadcast.
Black and white.
A single masterwork woven across the 19-by-19 intersections.
Upon the board layered with the narrative of master and student, what unfolded was far more than a simple match.
‘Already two hundred moves…… and still a half-point game.’
Neither side had faltered.
Seqiu Hao maintained the board with precision nearly matching that of an AI, while Zhang Weitian shook the board state through instinct and intuition, carving out subtle fractures.
It was as though coldness and heat collided.
It was beautiful.
It bordered on art, transcending mere competition.
‘……A masterpiece game.’
I couldn’t know if this was what the system called a masterpiece game.
Yet I could say with certainty that it was baduk fierce and beautiful enough to touch the threshold of masterpiece.
‘I want to play like that too.’
I couldn’t hide the longing mixed with envy.
More than anyone, that hunger for such baduk burned in me.
And then came the final battle.
After a fierce contest that extended all the way to the final territory count, the result was decided at last.
-Zhang Weitian, 9-dan, victory by half a point.
My opponent in the Geumran Cup semifinals.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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