After the Saint of Formations finished his cannon move, he said smugly, "Your horse exploded!"
"Your mom exploded!"
Ethan rolled his eyes at the ridiculous pun. [T/N: Horse and Mom sound similiar in Mandarin.]
The Saint of Formations actually nodded and said, "My horse did explode too. But that couldn't be helped. It's just a one-for-one trade. Besides, you lost an extra pawn, so I came out ahead."
"Well, congratulations."
Ethan rolled his eyes again and couldn't be bothered talking to him anymore.
Meanwhile, the Scam-God statue, now acting like AlphaGo, had made so many predictions that smoke was actually starting to rise from its head.
["Ethan... Lord Ethan... I'm out of energy."], the Scam-God statue wailed.
Ethan raised an eyebrow at it, "Didn't you say fortune-telling was free? Now you're trying to charge me?"
["That's not what I meant! I'm just out of energy!"], the Scam-God statue said pitifully, ["You can't expect a horse to run without feeding it."]
"So there's no such thing as unlimited free service. You still need me to pay, huh?", Ethan said in disappointment, "Looks like I'd better turn you back into a chess piece. Chess pieces don't need recharging. They're completely free."
["Don't!"]
The Scam-God statue burst into tears.
["If it were only one or two predictions, a single spirit stone would let me use my ability over a hundred times. But you're making me calculate nonstop."]
["You have no idea how good this old man's chess is. Every move he makes, I have to simulate over a hundred possibilities. Sometimes I need to go through a thousand before I can find a winning line."]
["Lord Ethan! Boss Ethan! Big Boss Ethan! Please spare me!"]
"Looks like you really are short on energy."
Only then did Ethan nod and toss ten spirit stones over.
He hadn't actually been unwilling to pay. He'd just wanted to test the Scam-God statue to see if it was trying to trick him out of more spirit stones again.
But he was quite satisfied with its explanation.
One spirit stone for every hundred predictions.
It seemed the huge amount of energy he'd recharged it with before had really been used up.
["Thank you, Boss! Thank you, Boss!"]
The Scam-God statue knew how to read the situation. Once it realized its fate was completely in Ethan's hands, it immediately learned to humble itself.
After Ethan recharged it, the white smoke pouring from the top of its head grew thicker and thicker.
It looked just like an old computer that had been pushed too hard, its CPU and graphics card overheating to the point of burning out.
It was obvious the Scam-God statue was really giving it everything it had.
But for some reason, about five minutes passed, and it still hadn't figured out the next move.
"Kid, what are you waiting for?", the Saint of Formations said impatiently, "Waiting for dinner?"
"I'm telling you, stalling won't help."
"If you can't beat me in this lifetime, then you'll stay here for the rest of your life. In this world, you don't need to eat or sleep anyway."
"Your only purpose and meaning for existing is to play chess with me."
"And in this world..."
"As long as I don't allow it, you can't even die. You'll have no choice but to keep me company."
"So you'd better take this seriously."
"Don't worry, Senior. I am taking it seriously," Ethan cupped his fists toward the Saint of Formations, "The reason I haven't moved is that I'm thinking about how to make an even better move."
"Hmph! It'd better be."
The Saint of Formations seemed quite satisfied with the answer and finally lowered his bronze sword.
As soon as Ethan finished speaking to him, he hurriedly called the Scam-God statue again.
"Have you figured it out yet? If you keep dragging this out, the Saint of Formations is going to lose his temper, and we're all finished!"
["Stop bothering me. I'm calculating!"]
The smoke rising from the Scam-God statue's head became thicker and thicker.
No matter how you looked at it, it seemed completely overwhelmed.
"Sigh! This approach won't work," Charlie said with a sigh, "Playing chess isn't the same as predicting certain events. The board changes constantly. You might be able to predict the next three moves, but you'll never calculate every possible variation. The amount of computation required is simply too great. It's impossible."
Pop!
It sounded as though something inside the Scam-God statue had burned out. A sharp pop rang out.
The smoke stopped rising from its head, and it immediately snapped back at Charlie.
["Then what do you suggest? If you're so capable, you do the calculations."]
"Sure."
Charlie said calmly, "Actually, chess... is just like a battlefield."
"We shouldn't focus only on defending, nor should we keep watching how the other side moves and constantly respond to their plans. Otherwise, we'll only end up letting them lead us around by the nose."
["Can you stop with the nonsense? Just tell me what we should do!"]
The Scam-God statue seemed to feel that Charlie had made it lose face, and instantly flew into a rage.