Today, a reader told me he didn't like that line about there being no meaning without opponents, and I replied to explain it.
But I still hope to correct some people's misunderstanding of geniuses. Being a genius wasn't good at all.
A genius's world was mostly lonely. Everything came far too easily to them. To the people around them, it looked like, "Ah, that must feel great. Being that amazing must be awesome, right? Crushing weak opponents must be fun, right?" People had thoughts like that, but it really wasn't fun at all. Just put yourself in their shoes. Watching someone crush weak opponents was satisfying, but if you were the one doing it, you'd get bored before long.
It was like playing games. Take King as an example—was playing against easy bots fun? It was at first, but after a few matches, it stopped being interesting. It was genuinely boring. Even killing dozens of enemies was the same. You still preferred capable opponents. Only when you occasionally crushed weaker opponents did it feel a little entertaining.
But what about geniuses? They were constantly crushing weak opponents and constantly playing against bots. It was like Kise's experience before he started playing basketball in Kuroko's Basketball. He would learn a sport for a few days, and then no one wanted to play with him anymore. Crushing weak opponents wasn't fun, and he had no particular attachment to or interest in the sport itself, so he quickly switched to another one. Still, Kise couldn't really be called a true genius.
That was why geniuses were mostly lonely. Everyone they encountered looked ridiculously weak in their eyes. After the initial excitement and showing off, all that remained was endless boredom. It was like making an NBA superstar in his prime play in a