I Have Too Many Money-Making Talents - Chapter 54

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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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Profitable Talent in Abundance — Episode 54
“You’re Kim In-ha, correct? You may go ahead and take the stage.”
I nodded and walked up onto the platform.
A backdrop wall bearing the Ciel Bank logo.
A Go board with my name plate placed before it.
I approached and sat down.
I could feel more than a dozen cameras from the audience seats trained on me.
My image captured in those lenses, my baduk.
It would be broadcast live to tens of thousands, perhaps over a million people across the world.
‘…So this is what it feels like to be the main character.’
I drew a long breath.
My mind, oddly, was quiet.
Had I ever received this much attention in my life?
Never.
My life until now had been nothing special.
But this moment, this stage—it was the one I had been watching all along.
Step, step.
The sound of dress shoes echoed across the platform.
Professional baduk players making their way up the stairs to take their seats.
Kwon Sung-hyun, 9-dan, against Wu Xiaowei, 9-dan.
Kim Eun-woo, 9-dan, against Zhang Luo, 9-dan.
World rankings, recognition, popularity, and skill at its peak.
The reality of playing beside them suddenly struck me.
And across the board.
Kang Seo-jun, 9-dan—my opponent today—appeared as well.
Measured footsteps.
A white shirt and crisp jacket.
And sleek, swept-back hair.
He too ascended the platform with an expression that never wavered.
“…”
Our eyes met.
A crossing of tension, of keen awareness.
I did not look away.
Recalling the words he had thrown at me publicly, I smiled faintly.
Perhaps he noticed that smile of mine.
Kang Seo-jun’s expression stiffened for a moment, then relaxed.
A response that said I was beneath contempt.
He extended his hand first.
“I look forward to our game.”
I took his hand.
“The honor is mine.”
Through our clasped hands, the tension flowed between us.
I liked this tension.
A pleasant tremor.
It made me feel alive, sharpened my focus.
Below the stage, the announcer’s voice carried through the microphone.
“Shortly, the round-of-32 match of the Ciel Bank World Masters will begin. All players, please take your seats.”
A staff member then conducted a final check of the Timing Clocks. As the setup was completed, the announcement came once more.
“You may begin your game.”
Kang Seo-jun bowed quietly.
I did the same.
Rattle.
I grabbed a handful of white stones and placed them on the board.
He drew out two black stones.
Click.
‘I have white.’
After the stone draw was done, we bowed formally to each other.
Tap.
A single stone touches the board.
First move—the hoshi.
I answered with a small point opening in the opposite corner.
AI-style opening, dancing between the third and fourth lines.
By normal sequence, occupying the remaining corner would be standard.
But Kang Seo-jun had twisted the flow.
Tap.
A diagonal angle placement on the small point.
He was designing imbalance from the start.
‘No need to match him.’
I seized the corner by playing on the remaining hoshi point.
Click, click.
Though only a few stones had been played, he placed his next stone after a long pause.
A 3-3 invasion.
The AI-style joseki where Black took concrete points and White took thickness.
Having secured minimal material, he withdrew and launched a pincer attack on my small point.
Aggressive. Nakedly transparent.
‘Not playing predictable moves.’
He kept twisting the conventional sequence.
Securing material while endlessly introducing variations.
A departure from standard form.
The shape was unfamiliar, the sequence twisted.
Baduk that threw the opponent into confusion from the opening phase itself, then carved its own path through that chaos.
I knew this kind of baduk well.
‘That’s…… how I played it.’
Game two of the Biryong Tournament finals.
I had shaken Park Jun-su violently from the start with exactly this opening strategy.
Where the thrown moves ended and the true intent began.
Testing the opponent, inducing variations, crafting my own flow within the chaos.
That baduk—Kang Seo-jun was recreating it now.
Strikingly similar.
‘…… You don’t normally play this way, do you?’
I looked at him and asked silently.
Based on game records, Kang Seo-jun’s playing style was that of ‘a designer who breaks orthodox form’.
Influence-focused baduk centered on instinct and creativity.
But today was different.
More experimental, generating more variations, inducing more chaos.
The arrangement of stones, the shapes, the joseki choices, the sequence, the momentum…….
He was speaking to me not in words, but in stones.
‘I’ll beat you with the baduk you play best.’
A silent provocation.
A silent sneer.
A silent contempt.
The feeling directed at me soaked into the board, unfiltered.
No—he was deliberately letting it show.
‘This is fun.’
I smiled.
There was no sound, but the corners of my mouth rose slightly.
Why his provocation thrilled me so, made me feel this alive.
I was amazed at myself.
‘…… If he’s going to throw down a challenge like that, backing away would be wrong, wouldn’t it?’
I took a short breath.
At this moment.
The fact that my opponent was Kang Seo-jun.
The dispute we had exchanged at the drawing ceremony.
Even the fact that he was a top-tier professional in the country—all of it was erased from my mind.
Tap.
I stepped back and introduced a variation in my joseki choice.
A position that should normally have been handled differently.
But I chose to extend calmly, seizing the initiative.
‘You know? The formless baduk you’ve brought out now…….’
Black answered against my stone.
A position I cannot hold without accepting.
And so I, having forced that very move, quietly chose another stone.
Click.
I place a stone on the board.
‘It’s my language too.’
The baduk I play.
The baduk I play best.
The baduk that has won me every match.
Now it’s time to reclaim the initiative I’ve lost.

* * *
“Kwon Sung-hyun chose to jump one space here. We can see he’s balancing concrete points with solid positioning, wouldn’t you say?”
Caster Moon Ga-yeon had been analyzing moves just moments before.
“Yes. That’s classic Kim Eun-woo baduk. Stability over variation. The AI is also evaluating this move as remarkably thick.”
Song Tae-gyu analyzed the intention calmly.
As the era changed, so too did the nature of commentary.
The old analog method—magnetic stones on oversized wooden boards—had largely disappeared from broadcasts.
Now there was the AI’s win-rate graph.
Recommended moves.
Tactical variations, all analyzed in real time as games unfolded.
This made it possible to introduce multiple simultaneous matches without strain.
“The pace is slow.”
“Both players are being cautious. Shall we move on to the next game?”
The broadcast switched with Moon Ga-yeon’s cue.
Kwon Sung-hyun versus Wu Xiaowei.
Early phase, with several joseki patterns overlapping.
About twenty moves in.
Nothing particularly worthy of comment yet.
“Let’s move to game three.”
The screen shifted in sequence.
Now it was Kim In-ha’s match against Kang Seo-jun.
Song Tae-gyu didn’t like this situation at all.
‘Is this really right?’
There was no disagreement about commentating on Kang Seo-jun’s baduk.
He was, unquestionably, among the true elite professionals.
But his opponent was far, far below that tier.
Integrated preliminaries or not, he was ultimately just an amateur.
So when Ciel Bank’s head office team manager came to him requesting live commentary, it had seemed odd.
And odder still that they’d pressured him to expand from two scheduled matches to three.
Sponsorship? Patronage?
Honestly, he wasn’t sure what the relationship was.
But in a world where so many professionals never got broadcast time, this didn’t sit right.
‘To force commentary on a match nobody particularly wants to see…’
Just as his dissatisfaction was mounting, the screen changed.
And Song Tae-gyu’s expression hardened subtly at what he saw.
A rather chaotic opening.
Complex stone arrangements.
Tactical variations twisted like snares.
Unfinished joseki patterns.
It was among the most difficult board states he’d had to commentate on in recent memory.
But what was truly surprising came separately.
‘Black isn’t falling behind?’
Something felt off.
He knew exactly how creative Kang Seo-jun was.
He knew the precision with which that man could engineer a position.
He’d experienced it firsthand.
Seizing the initiative against him was never easy.
“This move here is quite rare. What developments might we expect?”
Moon Ga-yeon hadn’t missed that point either.
“He’s forcing concrete points in the corner. In exchange, he’s claiming the lead—it’s a move that shows precise understanding of the flow.”
Even as he provided commentary, Song Tae-gyu the 9-dan felt something subtly out of place.
The board state was intricate.
Within that flow, an inexplicable distortion kept catching his attention.
He finally couldn’t help himself and traced back through the earlier moves to verify what he’d missed.
‘What?’
Song Tae-gyu’s eyebrows rose slightly.
The source of that uncanny feeling became clear.
Play that deviated from orthodox form.
Layers upon layers of feints and counter-feints.
Now it was unmistakable.
‘He’s not the one steering the game… it’s not Kang.’
He steadied his breathing and swept his gaze across the board once more.
They were still in the early game.
A point where neither side had yet established what could be called a board state—no clear territory, no settled flow.
This made no sense.
It had always been Kang Seo-jun the 9-dan who disrupted the board, experimented, and tore apart the foundations of a game.
Kim In-ha’s role was to chase after him.
That was the logic. That was the order.
But now, subtly guiding the early game was not Kang Seo-jun the 9-dan.
‘Something’s gone wrong. Fundamentally wrong.’
He pushed back against the thought.
His pride pushed back.
His preconceptions pushed back.
His title of ‘9-dan’ pushed back.
All of it resisted uncomfortably before this board.
“Now that you mention it, it’s curious. Kim In-ha barely used any time at all?”
Moon Ga-yeon’s remark cut straight through Song Tae-gyu’s unease.
It was true.
While Park Seo-jun the 9-dan had spent nearly thirty minutes on the opening strategy, Kim In-ha had used only about ten.
Only then did it hit him with certainty.
What was unfolding on this board was no longer something that could be explained away as mere coincidence or a difference in form.
Click.
Amid the tangled variations, Kim In-ha played his next move.
Almost without hesitation, at precisely the right moment.
Song Tae-gyu clenched his teeth.
‘It’s just a stroke of luck in the early game. Nothing more.’
Even as he denied it again, anxiety bloomed steadily in one corner of his mind.
Head bowed slightly, he poured strength into his fingertips.

* * *
‘Fluid baduk.’
Such was Kang Seo-jun the 9-dan’s assessment as they exchanged blows in the opening.
Discarding orthodoxy.
Seizing the initiative in variations.
Designing imbalance.
He had tried to draw his opponent into his domain, hoping he would follow.
But then—
Kim In-ha subtly twisted the flow from within that design.
‘He plays baduk with excellent adaptive instincts.’
Though perhaps lacking in raw creativity, his ability to control the smaller positions was extraordinary.
Not retreating.
Not merely responding.
Guarding his own style of play while grasping for the initiative.
“…….”
Kang Seo-jun lifted his head slightly to study him.
No flicker of expression.
Composed. Serene.
Even with this being his debut on the world stage, broadcast live, there was not a trace of tension.
Unwavering, his focus remained entirely on his own game.
‘Woo-bin was right. He’ll come charging up soon.’
Byeon Woo-bin is a 5-dan player, and he belonged to the same Research Group.
At first, he couldn’t understand why Kang Seo-jun was so wary of an amateur.
Then he watched the fourth game of the integrated preliminaries that Byeon Woo-bin had lost, and his thinking shifted.
This was no ordinary amateur-level player.
His professional promotion came late, but his skill made the years irrelevant.
With this level of strength, it was obvious he would soon begin blocking Kang Seo-jun’s path at every turn.
‘I need to crush him now…… I need to crush him completely.’
The professional world is one of victory and defeat.
And the most decisive element is the first game.
Even if he wins, barely scraping by won’t do.
He needs to shut him out completely.
Plant a trauma so deep that he’ll never cross this threshold again, not in the next game, not the one after.
Imprint a psychological scar so that he won’t even dare to try again.
‘I’ll admit it—he pushed me back in the early game.’
Even so, it was no more than a point or two.
Of course, at the professional level, even a small margin is not insignificant.
But.
It’s not decisive enough to determine the outcome.
Click.
Kang Seo-jun placed his stone.
He surveyed the board state and crystallized his next move.
The somewhat loose rhythm tightened again under his hand, cinched firmly into place.
Now they entered the middle game.
He tangled the position, scrambling his opponent’s Move Reading.
Moves that shook the structure rather than provoke direct battle.
Widening the board, splitting the center, creating confusion on both flanks.
‘Observation is over.’
A cunningly placed stone.
A slow response would lose the momentum.
Meeting it head-on would ignite battle.
‘Take it, Kim In-ha.’
Now the real game begins.

* * *
It’s readable.
Each move can be read, countered, anticipated.
From the early phases through the full middle game.
Not a moment to look away.
Perspiration gathers at the fingertips that hold the stones.
That early advantage feels like a distant memory.
Fortune shifts in a single breath.
One misplaced move, and the entire position crumbles in an instant.
Click.
I play a stone.
Not merely a move to win.
A precisely calculated move.
A move to break through my opponent.
But Kang Seo-jun’s answering stone read my intention perfectly, moving beyond it entirely.
‘Read again.’
An immediate counter.
And the subtle pressure that follows.
For nearly twenty moves now, he’s answered each of my escape attempts with moves that simultaneously tighten my throat.
‘Ah.’
All the countless games I’ve played flash through my mind.
Looking back, that wasn’t real baduk at all.
I’ve never felt this intensity before.
Endlessly interlocking stone against stone.
A cry that admits no compromise.
A battle where even a single breath is contested.
A world so cruel that victory or defeat turns on a single move, and the loser walks away with nothing.
Goosebumps rose along my forearms.
It was a thrill.
‘……Yes, this is the baduk I wanted to play.’
This is elite-level baduk.
This is baduk aimed at the world stage.
It takes my breath away.
And yet it was wondrous, beautiful.
Right now, this game was the most perfect moment of my life.

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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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