I Have Too Many Money-Making Talents - Chapter 157

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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 Many Profitable Talents — Episode 157
Jang Yu-na’s live stream as a 2-dan player.
Her viewership had recently surpassed ten thousand concurrent viewers, and she had now become the undisputed face of Baduk broadcasting.
With sponsorships and subscriber numbers climbing sharply, the channel was thriving—but yesterday’s broadcast felt like a funeral home.
‘…… Surely Kim In-ha couldn’t have lost.’
She still couldn’t believe it.
She had recognized his talent from the moment Kim In-ha first stepped into an amateur tournament.
Since then, he had climbed to the absolute peak of the world at an unbelievable pace.
His dominance in international competitions, his unbroken winning streak—it had become a legend of the Baduk world.
Riding that wave, Jang Yu-na’s streaming had flourished alongside him.
Recently, she’d even begun studying Chess, not just Baduk.
The goal was to broadcast Kim In-ha’s Chess challenge for the Checkmate production she was filming.
But an unexpected hit emerged from that process.
The content “Female Professional Baduk Player Jang Yu-na’s Chess Challenge.”
It became another talking point, elevating her popularity once more.
It was hardly an exaggeration to say her success had begun with Kim In-ha and been perfected by Kim In-ha.
‘This time, I can win, right?’
That was the first doubt that arose as she watched yesterday’s Championship Game One.
She had never once doubted Kim In-ha’s Baduk up until now.
An unexplainable strength.
An absolute powerhouse who saw through human psychology.
But O Su’s Baduk possessed something beyond that.
A perfection that made ten years of absence seem meaningless.
A parade of correct moves that reduced even Kim In-ha’s destabilization tactics to nothing.
Even the phrase “transcendent Baduk” seemed insufficient—it was utterly overwhelming.
‘…… Will his mental state hold up?’
Truthfully, she’d hesitated about sending him an encouraging message yesterday.
But in the end, she didn’t send one.
She didn’t want to add unnecessary pressure.
Instead, she believed in him.
Or rather, she believed in his Baduk.
Today, she gripped the microphone with a more serious expression than usual.
“Something’s different. In-ha isn’t using his Kim In-ha Style Opening today. I think…… he’s judged that Master O has done his research.”
The match board on the monitor.
With each exchange of Black and White’s opening moves, tension rippled across the screen.
“This far is standard. Both Black and White are playing sensible moves…… Wait, wait? Hold on.”
Jang Yu-na’s voice rose.
“In-ha has claimed a huge territory. This is a provocation—he’s inviting White to penetrate his influence!”
Black’s formation, spanning the right side and lower left.
If that influence and thickness solidified into actual territory, White would be in trouble.
Somehow, White had to invade and aim for reduction.
O Su made his move, unable to remain passive any longer.
Click.
White invaded with a Splitting Attack at the lower edge, then encroached toward the lower-right Komoku.
“Here it comes! Everyone, now we’re going to see In-ha’s Baduk! Seizing, tearing, pulling…… slowly draining the opponent, and then—a brilliant move that pierces the heart! That’s the In-ha Baduk we know!”
Jang Yu-na’s voice blazed with intensity.
A moment that rejected standardized patterns.
From Game One, some shapes had been settled, and the board’s variation had been limited.
Kim In-ha was determined not to repeat such mistakes, so he’d steered the game into complexity.
The chat window came alive again.
-As expected, In-ha’s different today, right?
-Right. In-ha losing back-to-back—that’s insane.
-But the shape’s getting really complicated. Black looks heavy, White looks light.
-Do you even play Baduk? Why are you acting like you know? lol
-I’m 18-kyu and this is too hard.
-Don’t doubt. Believe. And victory shall follow.
Meanwhile, Jang Yu-na checked the reference variation displayed on her monitor in real time.
It was an extremely complex variation.
Following White’s Two-Step Press, the board state shifted moment by moment according to the variation diagram.
Click.
Kim In-ha made a sharp counterattack, blocking the variation forcefully.
White then jumped into the corner, seeking survival.
“This is In-ha’s rhythm! He gave up the corner, but the black stones in the center are more solid… wait, what?”
An unexpected move.
White withdrew, then played lightly, advancing the lower splitting attack stone by one position.
“Hold on—doesn’t this kill the four white stones in the corner?”
A variation that was difficult for Jang Yu-na’s Move Reading to follow.
Her eyes, checking the reference board, widened like a full moon.
“My… my goodness. O Su’s tactical execution is insane. No, abandoning the corner like that. How does one even conceive of such an idea? Normally, this kind of thinking belongs to…”
She trailed off, swallowing the rest.
A shift in conception.
Creative thinking.
This style of Baduk suited Kim In-ha far more than O Su.
‘…Don’t overthink it. It’s just one move, after all.’
The moment he tried to brush past it casually.
Click.
Between the thick walls of black stones, a single white stone settled softly.
‘A probing response?’
It wasn’t a brilliant move.
And certainly not a key point.
Simple tactical use.
If black responded, it would create variation and aim to reduce territory;
if ignored, it could become a bad move—an ambiguous play either way.
Yet Jang Yu-na’s eyes watching this move were trembling.
‘I… I know this feeling.’
Baduk that runs counter to the age of artificial intelligence.
Leaving room in incomplete shapes, then leveraging them in the mid to late game to overturn the board.
Goosebumps rose on her forearms.
Her gaze shifted to the match photograph of Kim In-ha that floated above the monitor.
Finally, she held her breath and whispered the words she’d been pressing down.
“…Why do I see our In-ha’s shadow in Master O’s Baduk?”

* * *
‘…How could I play such a move.’
O Su was astonished at himself.
He had pursued correct moves his entire life.
He preferred breakthrough over fighting, precise Position Evaluation and decisive endgames over creativity.
The epithet “The Flawless Master” attached to him was synonymous, in another sense, with being cautious.
He never fought losing battles.
Not because he couldn’t, but because he despised meaningless conflict.
Always the right move.
A Baduk style that firmly pressed down with correct moves.
Judgment grounded in precise Position Evaluation—winning by even half a point with certainty.
That was O Su’s Baduk.
But now.
He was betraying that very style of his own.
A different path that AI had not shown.
Through the process of studying, pursuing, and dissecting Kim In-ha’s Baduk—the Baduk that had made him reverse his retirement—he had come to understand.
‘…”Permeated” would be the right word.’
Irregular moves instead of correct ones.
Incomplete moves that left room and possibility.
He now saw the value and efficiency in those moves he would never have played before in a new light.
Click.
The black and white stones locked together fiercely along the lower and right edges.
Incomplete key point formations—six floating groups alone.
A single moment of carelessness could cascade into irreversible disaster.
Even so, O Su displayed remarkable fighting spirit.
He pressed down the black stone in the center—the one not captured by the Long Gate formation.
If black responded…
‘He could seize the initiative.’
The plan was to attach to the heads of two unresolved black stones on the lower side of the board, sealing off the opponent’s mobility.
But.
Tap.
Kim In-ha saw through the trap.
With an almost supernatural touch, he abandoned the black stone in the center.
Then, using the Empty Triangle Move, he twisted the two stones on the lower side that connected to the center.
The correct move.
A move imbued with breathtaking balance.
Reckless-seeming yet efficient, it reversed the board state, and the match grew tense once more.
Fine wrinkles formed at the corners of O Su’s eyes.
‘My baduk is showing itself.’
He alone was not affected.
A rival.
An equal.
The two of them were burrowing into each other’s worlds, transforming each other’s baduk.
This truth became unmistakably clear in this match.
‘Learning from one another, watching one another…’
The finest moves.
Stones that mimicked each other’s style.
It all came to light in the fierce battle that spread across the right side.
White sought to tear through Black’s influence and survive.
Black’s thickness wavered for a moment, but by subtly washing away the invading white stones, it rebuilt balance by constructing territory in the center.
‘…This is exhilarating.’
A quiet smile spread across O Su’s lips.
Clink.
He reached into his Go Stone Container.
As a player engaged with Kim In-ha in rewriting living baduk anew.
The resolve to end this fierce match with victory took root in his fingertips.

* * *
The match had entered its mid to late game before anyone knew it.
Just counting the moves, already over 170.
The empty space on the Go Board was dwindling, yet victory and defeat remained shrouded in mist.
The position seemed roughly balanced at first glance, but almost no shape had solidified completely.
Transformation could erupt anywhere, at any moment.
And I became certain that any such change would be far more than a simple shift in momentum.
‘This baduk… won’t make it to counting.’
Battle began in the lower right, spread through the right side, and expanded again to the upper side.
I steadied my breath, used my time well, and made my decision.
Not to maintain advantage through solid territory, but to create chaos once more.
Tap.
Upper side, a Piercing Move that refused White its territory.
A move that accepts the thinness of my black stones yet collapses White’s stability.
If examined closely, nearly a blunder.
Yet to win this match… I had to trust my choice.
And so it would be.
Tap.
This time O Su countered.
An almost perfect response.
The sequence I had foreseen.
Pierced through and stripped of all territory, he too would find it unbearable.
And that was—
‘…my opportunity has come.’
My heart raced.
Time was almost gone.
There was still time before Speed Reading Mode, but neither O Su nor I could afford the slightest carelessness any longer.
In moments like these, my senses only grow sharper.
White’s Piercing Move on the upper side?
That had already been erased from my mind long ago.
A place left with only meager thickness in the center, unable to completely destroy the territory.
That much was enough.
My Move Reading penetrated the entire Go Board as a single, unified flow.
Tap.
An Insertion move toward the White Floating Group in the lower-center region.
Amateurs would call this move nonsensical.
Most professional players would call it a decisive gambit.
But only a handful of the world’s elite would instinctively recognize that this single move had seized the vital point of the entire game.
‘……This match is mine.’
A quiet but absolute smile of victory spread across my face.

* * *
“Ah, O Su is brilliant! Pressing here? Thickness in the center? He’s judging it meaningless in the endgame. This sense of combat…… truly extraordinary.”
Park Ji-man spoke in continuous exclamations of admiration.
The win-rate graph danced with each move.
The position between Black and White was chaos—impossible to read even one move ahead.
“Ah, White has secured actual territory. At this rate…… In-ha is down by a point.”
A thin sigh threaded through Park Ji-man’s voice.
‘……This can’t happen. In-ha mustn’t lose.’
As a fan first and a professional player second, he wanted to see the championship extend to a third game, for the sport’s sake and its appeal.
Then.
“……Wait, wait?”
The graph suddenly convulsed.
By the counting, White seemed ahead by a point and a half, but as the AI recalculated, the graph tilted toward Black.
‘What? Why Black?’
Tap.
Kim In-ha’s stone was inserted into the White Floating Group in the lower-center region.
“……Wait, what move is this? Not Speed Reading Mode—a time extension trick?”
Park Ji-man opened the Deepstone analysis board with a puzzled expression.
The variation branches on the monitor split wildly, tangled, merged again.
Twenty moves, thirty moves….
By the time he finished reading through the analysis, his mind was ringing.
‘In-ha…… read that far ahead?’
A single move that Black had already exchanged at the top of the board.
That one small move cascaded to seal every weak point of White’s Floating Groups.
The escape routes of the lower group, the tactics of the right side, the breathing room in the center—all were instantly cut off.
White’s Floating Group had no way to live.
Park Ji-man’s voice trembled.
“You…… you’ve lost it. In-ha. How…… how did you find such a move?”
Shock, awe, and admiration all tangled together in his tone.
He barely steadied himself to continue speaking.
“So, everyone, here’s what happened…”
But the explanation never came to completion.
[O Su has resigned.]
The notification filled the screen.
Before Park Ji-man could even finish reading through the analysis, O Su had already seen there was no way forward and thrown in his stones.
The chat erupted.
-Why’d he resign?
-Park, please explain for us!
-Resign? What move was that?
-I have no idea what’s happening.
-The White Large Group dies… wait, I can’t follow the sequence.
Park Ji-man stared frozen at the monitor for a long moment before finally finding his voice.
“……After exactly twenty-six more moves, White’s Large Group is dead.”
He paused, swallowing hard.
“There’s no way to save it. O Su saw that, and he conceded.”
Park Ji-man’s hands trembled faintly at the fingertips.
It was a tremor visible even through the screen—something close to awe.

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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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