In Serbia, inside a secluded little manor.
In a spacious hall, a scholarly-looking Asian man whose age was impossible to tell sat opposite an elderly man with tawny skin, probably of Latin American descent.
The early spring night breeze still held a slight chill, and the wind chimes tinkled softly as it swept through the hall, but neither man in the room seemed affected.
Magical lamps cast a cool glow, keeping the room as bright as day despite the late hour.
A board lay before them, but it was not Wizard's Chess, nor even the chess popular in Europe, but the Eastern game of Go, played with black and white stones.
The Asian man was smiling as he sipped his tea, looking utterly unruffled. The visibly elderly man opposite him, however, had his brows tightly knitted, his face full of indecision.
After a long while, the old man tossed the stone in his hand back into the bowl, conceding. "Ah, I still can't beat you. I thought studying a few of those moves this time... what do you call them again? Flying daggers? But it still didn't work."
The Asian man shook his head with a chuckle. "All those so-called flying daggers and special moves often make you lose yourself because you focus too much on your opponent.
"And in Go, once you lose what is essential to yourself, you lose the spirit. With form alone and no spirit, you can't defeat a true master."
"I don't understand!" the old man grumbled as he helped the Asian man put away the stones. Curling his lip, he asked, "Why am I playing Go with you in the middle of the night-no, in the early hours of the morning?"
Anyone witnessing this scene would have been astonished. Who would have imagined that