"Check!"
Seeing Ayaka's piece putting his king under attack—and with Nolan's king having nowhere left to go—
Kamisato Ayaka looked at him with a light smile.
"Hehe, it seems I've won the first round."
"Don't be happy too soon. I'm just not familiar with shogi yet since I've only just started playing. In the next round, you won't have another chance."
Although Nolan only understood shogi at the level of knowing the rules, his mental power far surpassed Ayaka's by an enormous margin.
Compared to ordinary people who might think one move ahead, or two, or five, he could casually foresee countless variations in advance, all while staying within the bounds of the rules.
So even with little actual playing experience, he wouldn't normally lose.
Losing this first round was merely to avoid crushing Ayaka too badly. If he shut her out completely, she might think he had deliberately sought her out just to toy with her.
"Oh? Then I really am looking forward to your performance, Mr. Adventurer."
Naturally, Ayaka didn't believe that the shogi skills she had honed over many years could be surpassed so easily.
The pieces were set up once more, and the second game began.
However, the flow of this round surprised Ayaka somewhat. Although she gradually gained the upper hand, she discovered that several of her killing moves were unexpectedly neutralized.
Before long, the situation grew tense, and soon after, Ayaka realized she was gradually being forced into a dead end.
In the end, with a single call of "Check," Nolan claimed victory in this game!
"How could this be…"
Ayaka still seemed a little unwilling to believe it. Kujou Sara was also surprised—she hadn't expected Nolan to possess such profound skill in shogi as well.
"It can't be helped. Perhaps this is what you call talent," Nolan said with a smile. "Come on, let's start the third round."
"Hmph, I definitely won't lose to you again this time!"
Having lost a game of shogi, Ayaka was still somewhat unconvinced.
Very soon, the third round between Nolan and Ayaka began.
Just like the previous game, Nolan carefully controlled the match so that he appeared evenly matched with Ayaka, not letting her lose too quickly.
Even so, when she saw herself lose yet again, Ayaka couldn't help but feel a little dejected.
But then she thought about it—her opponent was Nolan, someone even more formidable than a god. Losing to him was only natural.
Ayaka revealed a gentle smile and said gracefully,
"I've lost. Then what kind of small request would you like to make, Mr. Adventurer?"
"There's no rush."
Nolan shifted his gaze to Kujou Sara.
"Come on. Once you've both lost to me, I'll tell you slowly."
"Hmph, it's not guaranteed that I'll lose to you!" Kujou Sara said unhappily.
In truth, after watching Nolan's match against Ayaka, she already knew that her chances of winning weren't great.
But since she had already agreed, as the general of the Tenryou Commission, there was no way she would back down at the last moment. At worst, she would just agree to one small request.
Soon after, the match between Nolan and Kujou Sara began.
In the first game, Nolan followed his usual approach, deliberately holding back so that Sara wouldn't lose too badly. In the following two games, unsurprisingly, victory still went to him.
"…"
Kujou Sara spoke with some displeasure,
"You didn't need to hold back in the first game either. It's not like I can't accept losing."
"Ahem. In any case, it seems I've won," Nolan said with a smile.
"Then you can say it now, right? What kind of small request is it?"
Both Kujou Sara and Kamisato Ayaka looked at him with curiosity.
"It's just a small matter, no rush. Let me give you the abilities I promised first—so you'll be better able to protect yourselves."
Nolan briefly explained the specific effects of Shenhe's and Keqing's Affection Skills, then bestowed them upon the two of them.
"Thank you."
With the precedent of abilities like Interstellar Travel, Ayaka and Sara were only slightly surprised. They quickly accepted the fact that such powerful abilities had simply been given to them.
Seeing the joy on the two girls' faces, Nolan was not surprised at all when the character panel popped up with two consecutive affection notifications:
[Kamisato Ayaka Has Developed Good Feelings Towards You, Obtained 660 Affection Points.
Current Affection Level: Lv.10 (MAX)]
[Kujou Sara Has Developed Good Feelings Towards You, Obtained 700 Affection Points.
Current Affection Level: Lv.9 (800/900)]
As expected, with that final bit of affection, Ayaka's affection level smoothly reached max.
As for Sara, although she gained even more affection points, she was unfortunately still one hundred points short of maxing out.
But at this stage, those last one hundred points likely wouldn't take long.
[Through sincere feelings and unrelenting effort, a destiny that once had no intersection with yours has now become deeply entwined with you. From this moment on, the maiden's constellation shall shine alongside yours. Ability acquired: Snow Sakura Dance.]
Another notification appeared on the character panel—this one was Ayaka's Affection Skill.
[Snow Sakura Dance: Within a range of "the sum of both parties' levels" × 100 kilometers, snow-like sakura petals may descend. Upon contact, they dissolve energy. As the snowstorm rages, energy within the area will gradually dissipate. The energy within living beings decreases by (the sum of both parties' levels × 0.01)% per second. Living beings without energy will be afflicted with a "Magic-Sealing" state; until the seal is lifted, they cannot restore energy by any means.]
While Ayaka and Sara were familiarizing themselves with their new abilities, Nolan opened his own newly acquired Affection Skill to examine it in detail.
The first pleasant surprise was the sheer range of Ayaka's Affection Skill—it was enormous.
Ayaka was currently Level 76. Unlike Nolan, she couldn't simply raise her level using Adventure EXP. Even with excellent talent, her growth speed wasn't especially fast.
On top of that, she was responsible for handling part of the affairs of the Yashiro Commission, so she likely didn't have much time for cultivation.
That meant her Level 76 plus Nolan's Level 124 totaled exactly 200.
Two hundred units of "100 kilometers" meant a range of twenty thousand kilometers.
That was enough to cover an entire planet the size of Earth.
As long as he wished, Nolan could cause "snow sakura petals" to fall across the entire world, dissolving energy and turning it into a magicless land.
If he were to use this ability on Teyvat, then elemental energy, ley line energy, and anything else that came into contact with the petals on the surface would be dissolved.
Vision holders and elemental monsters that touched the petals would see the energy within their bodies decrease at a rate of 2% per second.
Once their internal energy dropped to zero, they would be afflicted with the "Magic-Sealing" state. Even if they were in an area rich in elemental energy, they would still be unable to recover it until the seal was lifted.
This was an extremely terrifying ability—one that could directly plunge a small planet into a "post-magic" era.
Its main drawback was probably that it only affected places where the "snow sakura" could reach.
Underground regions, the deep sea, and other areas that wouldn't come into contact with the snow sakura were essentially unaffected.
Even so, that didn't change the fact that this Affection Skill was undeniably powerful.
(End of chapter)
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