The Gate of Shudan
The professional qualification tournament.
The main bracket was underway.
I had no way of knowing whether the preparation had been enough. Lee Jiah, seeded straight into the main bracket as a top academy trainee, had torn through the round of sixteen two days ago and the quarterfinals yesterday — both played under double elimination — without dropping a single game. Six wins in a row.
Now, the semifinals.
Two players would earn professional certification in this tournament, so the bracket remained double elimination. From today on, it was for real.
The very top of the academy trainee ranks had gathered here, all four of them.
Game one would begin at 9:30 in the morning, game two at 2 p.m., game three at 5 p.m.
In such short-format matches, mindset and emotional swings could decide everything. Even after a loss in the first or second game, the real test would be holding your focus together — that was the crux of it.
Anyone who had climbed this far had the talent. Only those who were mentally tougher, and perhaps a little lucky, would take their place as a shodan — a first dan.
Shodan carried an old nickname: the keeper of one's own clumsiness. The rank at which, however clumsy a player might still be, he could finally stand guard over himself. The stage where you could at least hold a weapon against a stronger player rather than be swept away by them.
For a player with no real ability to pit pride alone against a superior opponent is foolish arrogance — but for these players, that defiance could be honored as courage. Because now there was a chance of winning. Because the fight was no longer a hopeless one. And in the modern game, where the gap between first dan and ninth dan has narrowed considerably, that rank deserves more respect than ever.
Which was why, to Lee Jiah, it must have felt like one enormous gate blocking her path.
I searched my mind for something to say that might loosen the tension.
She was my first disciple. Back when I was Shin Changmo, I never took a single student — everything about this felt awkward and unfamiliar.
"Whether today's results are good or bad, I'd really like you not to dwell on them too much. Don't get your hopes up, don't despair — just take today's experience as fuel and come out a little better than you were. Life is long, and luck is temporary. Sooner or later, your skill is what you'll be judged by."
Lee Jiah listened to the words I'd squeezed out of my brain and made a strange face.
"Hmm… good advice and all, but when you say life is long, it's kind of… pfft."
She burst out laughing, unable to hold it in any longer.
Right. A pint-sized eleven-year-old — ten by Western reckoning — lecturing anyone about life was bound to be funny. This body's fault. I'd simply have to live with it.
"Haha… well, that's Seoa for you. Consistent as ever. You know, sometimes I swear you're possessed by the ghost of some middle-aged uncle who used to be great at Go."
"…Ugh."
Her remark cut uncomfortably close to the bone, and I flinched.
Had I really been acting like an old man all this time without noticing? All that effort to play the part of an innocent little girl — had it failed to take?
"Seoa? That joke just now was a little too convincing. Heh heh. You don't have to strain yourself trying to calm my nerves, you know."
"Haha… was it that obvious?"
I flashed an awkward smile and wriggled out of the danger zone.
Close call. From now on I'd have to watch every last gesture…
"Anyway, I'm going to go burn it all out there. Gotta do my teacher proud, right?"
Lee Jiah struck a fighting pose, all confidence and smiles.
"Go get 'em!"
Coffee in one hand, she headed for the game hall. Spectators were strictly barred from the venue, so all I could do was wait outside for the results.
I wasn't the only one waiting with every nerve on edge — the hall was full of parents and teachers of the aspiring pros. Which of us would be going home wearing a smile?
Apparently Lee Jiah's parents hadn't come; she'd talked them out of it. After years of preparation, a failure here would have broken their hearts ten times over — better for them to wait through this agonizing stretch and hear good news later than to sit here chewing their nails.
With no one to talk to, I wandered aimlessly, spacing out as I waited. That was when I noticed a PC tucked into a corner — one of the guest machines.
A few clicks of the mouse told me it had an online Go client installed.
The moment I logged in as tlsckdah1021, messages came flooding in. I blocked incoming messages. I blocked game requests.
And still the server-wide chats demanding a game kept pouring in.
One account in particular caught my eye — it carried an official professional-player verification badge. And yet there was nothing dignified about it, nothing remotely befitting a professional. Just cheap, crude chatter.
What was with those dated strings of @-signs? Could a man really not feel embarrassed broadcasting his age through a keyboard like that? And that speech pattern, like something out of a bygone era — anyone could see he was a middle-aged uncle.
Right. Fine.
If only to spare my eyes the rest of that eyesore of a rant, I sent him a game request. He accepted at the speed of light, and droves of users came flooding into the game room to watch.
Lee Jiah stared down at the board. The same view she saw every single day — and yet today, it seemed impossibly far away.
This might be her last chance. At least as an academy trainee, it was her last.
Ryu Seoa had done her best to ease the tension, but with so much riding on this game, composure was hard to come by.
Her first opponent.
The familiar junior — two years younger — who had lost to Ryu Seoa in the round of sixteen of the WY Cup Amateur Tournament.
"It would've been easier to face you with my results already settled. Kind of a shame, unni."
She'd been glued to Ryu Seoa's side lately, and things had grown a little distant between the two of them, but the girl greeted her with a warm smile all the same.
"Yeah. Well — let's give it everything we've got, so neither of us has regrets."
"Of course."
The nigiri went to Lee Jiah. Black.
As the pre-game countdown began its slow dissolve, she placed her first stone with a light, ringing snap.
Upper right corner, black 3-3 — the point Ryu Seoa had played over and over again.
She still thought of it as an eccentric choice, but through dozens upon dozens of repetitions, Ryu Seoa had proven it was anything but bad.
White 2. Lower left corner, the star point.
Black 3 — Lee Jiah took the small knight's point in the upper left.
The remaining lower right corner was filled in at the star point.
Black 5. A one-space extension from the upper left corner.
White 6. A diagonal extension along the lower side.
Black 7. A diagonal approach at the lower left.
White stretched out along the bottom side in a diagonal line; black occupied the left side.
White's invasion of the top edge. Lee Jiah answered with a one-space jump, sealing off the upper right corner completely.
A touch stingy, perhaps — but a solid shape was what let you explode outward later.
The opening phase closed with nothing amiss for Black. Having replayed the fuseki with Ryu Seoa countless times, her moves had grown spare and economical, and her clock had stopped bleeding seconds.
The old josekis that had once shackled her like a compulsion, forcing her to hesitate over every decision, had been scrubbed clean from her mind.
She could still reach for them when needed — but that was all they were now. A reference, nothing more.
For the first time, she felt she could play on her own judgment, and hers alone. The instinct that had been smothered game after game seemed to be waking up again, stirring with life.
Following the feel in her fingertips, Lee Jiah drove into the right side.
Her play was brisk and clean. She surprised even herself.
Every move landed light as a feather, yet left no gaps — each one pressing down precisely on the game's vital point.
It was too much to chalk up to a good day.
She had changed. She had grown. She had gotten better.
Replaying Ryu Seoa's game records over and over, redrawing those fusekis again and again — she had finally torn down the wall she'd never once been able to break.
But she couldn't let herself get carried away. Celebrating could wait until she'd earned her pro card. That wouldn't be too late.
Lee Jiah smoothed her excitement flat and calmly chased the next move.