Special Endurance Training
"Whew…."
I was soaked in sweat.
How many times had I pushed past the point where I'd sworn this was my limit? This is it, I'd told myself, and then broken through it again and again.
My muscles throbbed and my lungs burned.
It was agonizing — and yet somehow exhilarating, even enjoyable. A strange, doubled feeling.
Intoxicated by the ache running through my whole body and the sour smell of sweat soaking through my clothes, I kept forcing my limbs to move, one groaning repetition at a time.
"Seoa, let's call it a day—"
"No, please. Just one more set!"
Had I gotten addicted to the dopamine and sense of achievement flooding my brain?
"Come on, another member's coming in soon, and I need to rest too…"
"Please, sir!"
"Alright, alright. Just this once more."
Begging the gym owner, I wrung out the last of my strength to finish the exercise he called a kettlebell swing.
It had been a week of nothing but Go, exercise, and time with Jia. Naturally, no change was visible yet.
What I had gained instead was a bruising awareness of just how narrow and lazy my life had been.
Drinking, smoking, chronic lack of exercise.
Perhaps Shin Chang-mo, lost all day in his obsession with Go, had let both his health and his Go slip away together.
Even if he'd never been swept away by the tides of the AI era, he wouldn't have lasted long anyway. I chewed bitterly on that memory — a life ended by excessive drinking and an overdose of pills.
The owner had suggested a training program centered on full-body exercise. I was young, and I couldn't handle real weights to begin with, so there was hardly another option.
"Good work today, Seoa. You said school starts next week, right?"
"Yes. Once I'm back at school on Monday, I won't be able to come every day like this week."
The start of the school term had crept up on me without my noticing.
Still, now that I'd found a way to overcome some of the physical limits of this body called Ryu Seoa, I wanted to keep at it until the results showed.
There was also the small matter of having prepaid forty personal training sessions with tournament prize money — I couldn't very well waste that.
"Right. I'll text you about the schedule. See you next week, Seoa."
"Thank you for everything, sir."
I draped a towel over my damp hair and bowed, and the owner, apparently desperate for a cigarette, hurried off toward the stairwell door.
Making sure the locker room was empty, I fidgeted out of my clothes in front of the locker, then stepped into the shower and let the cold water pour over me.
Park Pilgyu, 9-dan.
A living legend of Korean Go — and an opponent I might actually have beaten, if my body hadn't collapsed under me.
If I had managed my pace better. If I'd taken better care of my stamina. If I had set aside my reading of the board and trusted my instincts. The what-ifs still circled in my head, refusing to settle.
Ryu Seoa's Go is new, creative, anti-theoretical.
If I had to describe it, it was like some wild monster that could lunge in any direction at any moment.
Without proper control, there was no telling where it would end up.
And creative and new can just as easily be translated as unrealistic and terrible.
Which is why it needed the tempering force of criticism — to filter out the possibilities that were simply bad.
For now, Shin Chang-mo's knowledge and memory were serving as that filter.
Two forces pulling in opposite directions. Distributed in the right proportions, the monster stays tamed and delivers the results you crave — but let either side grow too strong, and one axis of the whole structure collapses.
Right now, the leash around the monster's neck was pulled far too tight. Held that firmly, it lost its wildness and just trailed along like a housebroken mutt.
Of course, the one holding the leash was an expert. The moves it squeezed out led to decent results — but no dynamism, no surprises could be expected.
To prevent that, I was consciously practicing a kind of force modulation — deliberately loosening my grip on the reins.
Which made my thought process more convoluted with every move, and drove up the drain on my mental focus and stamina.
The real solution was to feed the beast growing inside me until it was strong enough to balance the filter on its own — but that wasn't something achievable in a matter of weeks.
Thanks to my unexpected connection with Jia, I'd finally started exercising. For now, the most effective investment was spending a little time to build up my concentration and endurance.
I had broken a promise to myself and returned to Go. To become stronger, I would do anything.
No matter how hard it was. No matter how much it hurt.
As I'd resolved, I would go even one step further than Shin Chang-mo.
One step beyond Shin Chang-mo.
Him. The one who'd been Shin Chang-mo's final opponent.
Everything I'd observed so far pointed one way: the timeline had only been bent, so that being would exist in this world I'd been dropped into as well.
A being with talent and aptitude that seemed like a pile of every injustice in creation. It wouldn't take long before it rose to prominence.
"Ngh…."
I bit down hard on my lip against the fury rising from my gut. The one who had toyed with my entire life and laughed at it.
If I couldn't break through my limits, if I couldn't reach a higher plane, I would simply be laughed at one more time.
"Seoa, let's wash up togeth— ah… s-sorry!"
Jia flung open the shower stall door in jest, met my eyes, and immediately slammed it shut again.
Of all moments — she had to catch my gaze right when it was shooting forward, brimming with hatred and killing intent.
I was probably giving off some terrible misunderstanding, but if I opened that door again, I'd be burning the image of a high school girl's bare body vividly into memory.
I had no intention of making a week's worth of carefully dodging Jia in the locker room go to waste.
Only after hearing her slip into another stall did I change into fresh clothes and head out to wait in the lobby.
Deliberately summoning the most positive thoughts I could, I forced the sinking feeling out of my chest.
Before long, the high school girl came shuffling out, stealing glances at my face.
"Seoa… you're not mad that I dragged you here to work out, right?"
"Of course not! Honestly, I'm really grateful you brought me."
"…Then why were you glaring like that earlier?"
"Sorry. I was just… thinking about some unpleasant things."
I smiled and did my best to reassure her anxious face.
"Phew, what a relief. I thought I'd messed something up again."
"Don't worry. There is absolutely nothing in this world that would make me mad at you, Jia… unnie."
Doing my best to ignore the discomfort that the word unnie sent crawling up my spine, I tried to smile as brightly as I could.
"Right! Thank you. Well then, shall we head out?"
"Oh, one second."
Just as I turned toward the elevator, my phone rang. It was my mother.
"Hello?"
"Seoa, where are you right now?"
"Jia-unnie and I just finished working out. We're on our way back to Grandpa's place."
"Okay, got it. Well, someone from the Hankuk Kiwon came by looking for your dad and me!"
"From the Hankuk Kiwon?"
At my question, Jia's ears visibly perked up beside me.
"Yes. Apparently they're pushing for your Special Professional Induction, Seoa. Your dad and I listened as hard as we could, but we still don't really understand Go…"
"A special induction? For me?"
"Yes! It's not something your dad and I can decide without asking how you feel, is it?"
"Hmm…."
A special professional induction. I'd assumed some kind of offer was coming, but this was faster than expected.
My answer had been settled long ago.
And yet a sliver of hesitation remained.
The road of a professional Go player, opening up before me again in earnest. If I walked that road again, could I really stay true to the people around me?
"Pfft…."
A laugh slipped out of me. What a joke — hesitating for show when I'd do exactly as I pleased in the end anyway.
"…Seoa?"
"Yes. I want to do it. More than anything!"
And with that, I poured out my true feelings without hiding a thing.