(Author's Note: I have decided to change the name of the tower due to the fact that I just realized that "Solo Max Level Newbie" uses the same name, so the tower will now be known as "The Tower of Ordeals")
Once the blinding light subsided, I found myself in a huge room with a 8 x 8 checkerboard floor.
"Whew, at least this one's easy."
This was the intelligence test. All a player had to do in this test was play a game of life sized chess against the tower. The type of chess could change based on what the player was most proficient in, so a Chinese player would play Xiangqi, an Indian player would play Chaturanga, and as I was most proficient in modern chess, I would play a game of modern chess.
This was going to be easy for me because the average elo rating of the tower was about 1500, which was really easy for a 2000 elo player like me to beat.
[Trial: Intelligence
Objective: Win a game of chess against a god
Difficulty: Easy - Insanity
Rewards: +10 intelligence
Punishment for Failure: Death]
"What the FUCK!"
'You have to be kidding me, I have to win a chess game against a god!'
'Please let me have an easy god, please let me have an easy god, pleeeeeeeease."
[The Sovereign Queen has challenged you to a chess game.]
[You are unable to reject the request.]
[The difficulty of the trial has been changed.]
[The intelligence trial has been set to difficulty "unmeasurable".]
[The Sovereign Queen has decided to reveal her name to you.]
["Caissa", The God of Chess looks down on you.]
[The other gods snicker at your unavoidable fate.]
[Many gods approve of this punishment.]
"Well, I'm fucked."
"The tower must be rigged! I thought that the hardest difficulty was insanity, not immeasurable!"
[The gods laugh at your complaints.]
[Several gods are happily basking in your misery.]
[The gods have started betting.]
...
...
...
[The ratio of the bets has been tallied up.]
[The ratio is 1,000:unknown]
[Would you like to bet on yourself?]
I thought about it for a second and then decided to bet all of my coins on myself, as if I lost, I would lose everything anyways, so it was better to go for broke.
[You have bet 35,000 TC on yourself.]
[The ratio has been adjusted.]
[The final ratio is 10,000:1]
'They seriously had to bet that much against me.'
'I guess they think I have no chance of winning.'
"Well let's start."
They let me have white, so I used my most solid opening which was the London Opening.
I had studied this opening for about a year, back when I was obsessed with chess, which was before I found the beauty in video games.
I played solidly, using the only thing that I could use to my advantage, which was time, as there wasn't a time limit on this test.
I don't know how much time I spent in there. I think that about a week had passed, since I figured that I had spent at least one day on some of the moves and in the end, we had a draw. Having played the most perfect game I had ever played in my life, and although the tower made it so that you didn't have to sleep and rest, I was still beyond mentally exhausted.
All I could do was pray for a miracle to happen.
[The system is processing this scenario.]
...
...
...
[The system will count this as a win for the player due to the unmeasurable difficulty.]
[The ratio has been set to 5,000:1]
[You have gained 174,965,000 TC.]
[Your final amount is 175,000,000 TC.]
[You are the first to earn more than a million TC.]
[You have gained the title "Millionaire"]
[The gods are shocked at your surprising win!]
[Many small gods are angry at the amount of money they lost.]
[Caissa is laughing at your geniusness.]
[She wants to become one of your sponsors and wants to gift you a S-Ranked skill.]
[Will you accept?]
"Wait, system, how much sponsors can I get?"
[You can have an infinite amount of sponsors, just keep in mind that accepting some sponsors might make enemies out of others.]
'Well I have nothing to lose so.."
"I accept!"
A pale blue light circled around me, causing me to float in the air for a few seconds.
[Congratulations, you have acquired the S-Ranked skill "Tactical Dominance".]
[World Wide Announcement: Player "Anonymous" has become the first player to receive a skill from a god!]
[Your fame has increased.]
[You have been awarded 2,000 TC.]
The forums were probably in an uproar right now, and if they checked the leaderboard right now, they would probably find out that I have more than 100 million coins now.
'Let's see what this skill is.'
[Active Skill - Tactical Dominance (Rank S): The player is able to set a certain target or goal. The skill will then calculate the best way to achieve this goal and will possess your body until the goal is achieved. (Cooldown - 1 Year)]
'This is actually a really good skill befitting the god of chess.'
Now I just needed to check the leaderboard, as I didn't know how far other people had gotten in the week that I spent playing that chess game.
[Leaderboard:
1. Zero (Tutorial Tower 3) - 5th floor | Lv.1 | 48,911 TC
2. Liu Zhang (Tutorial Tower 61) - 5th floor | Lv. 1 | 41,324 TC
3. 876 (Tutorial Tower 82) - 5th floor | Lv. 1 | 40,887 TC
4. Bam25 (Tutorial Tower 82) - 5th floor | Lv. 1 | 40,278 TC
...
19. Anonymous (Tutorial Tower 83) - 4th floor | Lv. 1 | 175,000,000 TC
...]
I had fallen further that I had wanted to, but the amount of TCs that I earned was worth it. I could probably dominate the top players alone now with just spending money on items and such, not to mention my experience and skill.
'Well, I better hurry up and catch up to them, after all, I can't lose to some people that haven't even played the game yet.'
I hurried up and opened the door to the next floor.