Road to be the Best Chess Player in the World!

Sheva groaned weakly, woken up by the subtle turbulence of the plane he was currently in. His head suddenly got attacked by a wave of dizziness, and the boy had to hold back the urge to vomit on the spot. He opened his eyes slowly, glancing around just to find out his three companions were asleep already.

Yeah, it was five hours after their meeting with Sergei and his wife, and currently, they were in the middle of their journey back to Indonesia. It was another long flight with two transits; the first one was to their current destination, Frankfurt. Knowing that this was going to be a long journey, they all fell asleep as soon as the plane took off. Unfortunately for Sheva, now that he was awoken, the boy had to survive for another few hours alone.

'Damn! Where is my med?' Sheva rummaged through his small bag, and after finding out what he was searching for, the boy sighed in relief. It was a medicine to help him relieve his dizziness, something he brought from Indonesia when they first started their journey a week ago. 'Man… Fortunately, the med is there, or my head would burst before we arrive back at Jakarta…' Sheva heaved out another deep sigh, feeling relieved as the headache started to ebb away.

He shifted his position a little bit, trying to make himself feel comfortable before closing his eyes once again. It was a no-brainer for him to try to get some sleep again. After all, besides the fact that he was bad at flying, it was still about three hours before the plane arrived at Frankfurt, so it was better to use this time to rest rather than do anything else.

However…

1 minute…

5 minutes…

10 minutes…

'What the hell?! Why couldn't I fall asleep?!' Sheva cursed, feeling his eyes burning hot. The fact that he could hear Bagas's light snoring seemed like fate mocking his misfortune. No matter how hard the boy tried to close his eyes, his brain seemed not to want to take a rest, which only gave him a worse headache. 'Damn, I couldn't do this anymore…'

In the end, he got up from his seat and went to the toilet to wash his face, an attempt to distract himself from all the bad thoughts inside his head.

The plane was half-empty, as there were not a lot of people going to or leaving Iceland on a daily basis. Sheva also noticed a few chess players who he saw at the tournament being there, probably going back to their country just like him here. After washing his face, the boy went back to his seat, and since he couldn't get back to sleep, he decided to think back about everything that had happened before they took off from Iceland.

'So, Master Sergei is going to be helping our preparation, huh? Even a player whose peak rating was 2650 isn't getting used in his country… Man, it is either Belarusian chess is that strong or they are trying to strengthen their tie to Russia…'

Still, Sheva couldn't help but feel excited at the thought of having Sergei on the team. He knew the man pretty well at this point, and as long as the others could prevent him from getting too drunk, the man would be a proper coach to guide them all for the Olympiad.

His mind also jumped to another topic, and that was the Olympiad. Even though Irfan had already confirmed that he would be acting as a reserve player, after playing in this tournament, Sheva somehow didn't feel satisfied with his status. The boy wondered whether he could upgrade his status to a regular team, whether by getting through another rating threshold or beating one of the main players to get their spot.

'Well, that would be a question for when I meet Master Irfan again…' He thought.

His mind was pretty active, jumping from one topic to another. He thought about all of his games in the tournament, his defeat against Gukesh, his matchup against those top players, everything. This was enough to consume his brain's energy, and slowly, he was attacked by the wave of sleepiness. Of course, Sheva didn't resist at all. In fact, he welcomed the attack with open hands, trying to embrace it. However, as he was one step away from going to the dreamland….

[DING!]

[Congratulations to the host for getting the first GM norm! The system will have a big update following the host's achievement! Please, click the OK button if the Host wants to upgrade the system!]

'Um?! System?!' Sheva shook his head quickly, slightly taken aback by the sudden voice rushing through his brain. 'What the hell?! Where have you been, System?!' He shouted inside his head, which, of course, just like the usual, only got silence as the response.

Honestly, Sheva had already forgotten about the presence of the system. After all, besides giving him chess knowledge—which he basically had already covered almost everything, even though most of them were just at the FM level—the system didn't really give him any benefit. Hell, after his first Hanoi tournament, the boy basically turned off any notification from the system, which was criminal considering this was his cheat code.

Still, now that the system was back and with a promise of a big update, Sheva couldn't help but expect something here. Seeing the question hanging in front of his eyes, the boy didn't even hesitate to click the OK button.

'Is this even a question here? Of course, I will agree!' He said with conviction. 'Come on, System! Give me something good!'

[DING!]

[The system upgrade is starting! Please wait for a while…]

[00:30:00… 00:29:59… 00:29:58…]

A half hour… It was not a long time for an upgrade of something big like this. However, for Sheva, who had nothing to do on the plane, the waiting time was torture for him. The boy counted every second of passed time, hoping that it would be over quickly.

Unfortunately for him, the more he waited, the longer the time seemed to pass by. Thirty minutes felt like a year when he really waited for it to pass.

'Come on… When would it be over…' He bit his lips nervously, his mind wandering wild about what kind of new features he would get from the new version of the system. 'Will it still be boring and static like the first version? If so, it would be disappointing. At least, the reward should be more appealing! Something physical! Anything! Come on!'

Time was ticking by, and the closer the time was up, the more uneasy Sheva felt. He kept staring at the countdown with anxiety, full of hope yet a little bit afraid that it would disappoint him. Then, after a while, the countdown finally reached 00:00:00, and then…

[DING!]

[The system is successfully upgraded! Welcome, Host, to the Best Chess Player System 2.0!]