Floor 980, is the only floor above floor 930 that is being built. King desperately wanted a floor all to himself and couldn’t wait. This is where he tests the capabilities of Vaciva’s beings, their combat capabilities, their practicality, strength, intellect, speed, and everything, and then he records them on the system.

Right now, King is testing the intelligence of a friend of his, the Goblin Lord. He had already the Goblin Lord’s capabilities but he always liked to play with the goblin lord

“This is the fifth game with the Goblin Lord,” King says, in his centaur form, in front of him is a table, with a chessboard on top. And across him is a small goblin, with an oversized crown on its head.

“I have name.” The goblin fixes the crown on him

“I don’t use names of monsters.” King crosses his arms“King is salty, Korvak beat him 3 times.” The goblin smiled widely.

“THE LAST ONE DOESN’T COUNT! YOU CHEATED! You made an illegal move!” King says angrily

Korvak cackles and laughs, clapping loudly.

“Korvak thinks Korvak should replace King. Korvak is smarter than King!”

“You, shut up, green midget. You’re white, you move first.” King says, gesturing to Korvak to move.

“Pawn e4!” Korvak moves his Pawn forward.

“You know what, I’m gonna copy your every move. Pawn e5.” King moves his Pawn forward as well.

“King desperate!” Korvak cackles again. “Bishop c4!”

“Bishop c5.” King immediately answers

“Pawn f3!” Korvak begins to speed up the pace.

‘Pawn f6” King responds in turn.

“Stop copying Korvak! Knight e2!” Korvak says with fake anger on his face.

“You can’t stop me! Knight e7!” King says with a wide smile.

“Pawn c3!” Korvak starts to take over the center of the board.

“Pawn c6!” King tries to catch up, by copying him.

“Pawn d4!” After filling his side of the center, there’s only one thing left to do.

“Pawn d5!” King, by copying his moves, has also filled the center of the board.

“Oh no! Bishop uh… b3!” Korvak moves his bishop away from the center, seemingly panicking.

“Bishop b6! You’re panicking!” King does the same, with a smug smirk on his face.

“Uhhh. Castle!” Korvak moves his king, and then his rook, to create a small fortress.

“I’ll Castle as well!” And with a smile, King copies Korvak.

“Korvak is angry! Pawn takes d5!” Since the center is full, it’s time to start attacking. Korvak captures one of the pawns in the center.

“Pawn takes d4!” King does the same.

“Horsie! Knight takes d4!” Korvak captures the pawn King moved.

“Knight takes d5!” And King captured the pawn Korvak moved last.

“Rook e1!” Korvak moves his rook in an open file, so he can prevent King from putting anything in that same file.

Rook e8!” However, by doing the same move, both of their rooks are vulnerable to each other.

“Korvak threatens you… If you do not stop, you will experience fear!” Korvak stands on his chair and points his finger at King. He sits back down immediately. “Knight d2!” Korvak readies his knight to move to the center

“Bah, your threats don’t scare me, Shrek! Knight d7” King also moves his knight, going to move to the center by the next move.

“Grrr…. Knight e4!” Korvak puts his knight where his pawn once was, besides his other knight.

“Knight e5.” King also does the same, giggling like a kid.

“Pawn f4!” Korvak attacks King’s newly added knight.

“Pawn f5” King does the same, again. Which seems to annoy Korvak, a bit.

“Pawn takes e5!” Korvak captures King’s Knight.

“Pawn Takes e4!” The same, King does.

“Queen h5! King won’t copy Korvak’s move! King’s Queen will die!” Korvak moves the queen to the side of the board, close to King’s king. If King copies Korvak’s move, then King will be handing his queen for free.

“Right, but I don’t need to copy you anymore! Pawn g6!” King moves his Pawn, attacking Korvak’s Queen.

“Eeep! Uhh… Queen h6!” Korvak moves the queen forward, moving the queen to safety. “Korvak could’ve done better move, but this fine.”

“Now it’s my turn to attack! Bishop c7! Hah!” King moves his bishop back, one tile. Which left Korvak dumbfounded.

“That’s not attack… This is attack. Bishop g5!” Korvak moves his Bishop, next to his Queen, attacking King’s Queen.”

“Wait! No! Queen d6!” King moves his Queen haphazardly, not knowing what he did is a blunder.

“Eh...?” Korvak raised his eyebrows and stared at the board.

In a sudden panic, King moved his Queen away from Korvak’s Bishop’s range, to Korvak’s pawn’s range. King notices this and began looking at the board too.

“What? I panicked! Is something wrong?” King seems to see nothing wrong with his move.

“Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. King pitiful. Rook f1.” Korvak moves his rook to another open file because the previously open file has been closed.

“Hey! Tell me! Bishop d8!” King moves his bishop backward, trying to attack the bishop on g5.

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“Hah! Again! Bishop f6!” Korvak laughs, as King hasn’t moved the queen out of its perilous position a second time. He moves the bishop one tile forward as if to give another chance to King to move her queen out.

“I’ll wipe out that smug look on your face. Bishop takes f6” King uses his bishop to take Korvak’s other bishop, still unaware that his queen can be taken away, at any moment.

“Ha! King is blind! Blind! Blind! Rook takes f6!” As if to mess with him, Korvak takes his rook to capture the bishop that King moved, explicitly targeting the queen.

“What do you mean I’m blind? I can clearly see your Rook targeting my Queen. Queen e7” King moves his Queen away from the Rook’s range.

“Since King moved his Queen to d6, Korvak’s Pawn on e5 can take Queen. For three moves Korvak can take Queen. Korvak pities King.” Korvak shook his head slowly as if to show disappointment.

“…” King takes a couple of moments to take a good look at the board, seeing that the queen was indeed in danger from the pawn.

“Heh.” To mock King, Korvak pulls off his smug smirk.

“You little brat! I’ll play seriously now!” He says with a large grin, and fire in his eyes.

“Korvak will play seriously as well. Rook f1.” Korvak moves his inactive rook in the same file as his other rook.

“Pawn c5.” King moves his Pawn forward, targeting Korvak’s Knight on d4.

“Korvak sees mate in nine moves. But Korvak is having fun. So Korvak will end game in 12 moves. Korvak should play Bishop takes d5, and kill King’s horsie, but no. Knight f5.”

“Pawn takes f5! Say bye-bye to your horsie!” King takes the Knight off the board, and puts his Pawn in place.”

“Horsie’s sacrifice will not be in vain!!!!” Korvak closes his fist and raises it in “anger.” “Queen G5 check!” Korvak moves his queen to check the king in place.

“King h8.” King moves his King to the corner, with no other moves left for the king.

“King’s King is trapped! Bishop takes d5!” Korvak takes the unguarded knight. This could’ve been a check to the king if Korvak had done what he said earlier.

“I’ll attack now. Bishop d7.” King moves his bishop for one tile again, as it confused Korvak as he did earlier.

“That is not attack, again. This is attack. Pawn e6.” Korvak moves the pawn on e5 to e6, threatening to attack the bishop that King moved to d7.

“Bishop b5.” King moves his bishop away from the pawn’s reach and threatened to attack the Rook beside Korvak’s King.

“King won’t kill Korvak’s Rook! Rook takes f5!” Korvak moves the threatened Rook to capture the pawn on f5, as it was unguarded, making a battery.

“Damn… I can use my Queen on e7 if I move my Pawn, I can check the king then. Pawn c4.” King moves his pawn forward, making pawn c3 a free tile for the queen to move in, to check the Queen.

“This is how King loses for fourth time! Rook f8 check.” Korvak dangerously moves his rook to check his King, even though there is an opposing rook.

“You blundered! Why are you sacrificing your rook?! Rook takes f8!” King takes the Rook Sacrifice, unable to see what happened next.

“Korvak makes Gambits! No Blunders! Rook takes f8 check!” Korvak takes the rook King moved with another rook, checking the king again.

"Rook takes f8 again! You have no more Rooks!” And King used his last rook to take Korvak’s last rook.

“Korvak has no Rooks, but King has no Queen! Queen takes e7!” Korvak captures King’s Queen on e7 with his Queen.

“What?! No! Wait? No! What...? Huh? That’s…” King brings his head to the table, watching the table closer, trying to process what happened.

“Korvak did not cheat!” Korvak crosses his arms.

“Fine… You didn’t.” King sighs, facepalming as he looked at the board.

“Resiiiign?” Korvak began fingergunning at him.

“To hell with that! Where did you even learn that? You’ll blunder eventually. Rook g8.” King moves his rook away from the Queen’s grasp, giving no space for the king to move on in return.

“King trapped King’s king again! Queen f6 check!” Korvak moves his queen to check on the cornered King.

“No! Rook g7!” King is forced to move his last rook to cover the Queen’s attack.

“Queen f8 check!” The queen moves back to where it was, checking the king again.

“Rook g8!” King is forced again to move his rook to block the queen.

“I’m gonna promote now! Pawn e7!” Korvak moves his pawn forward, only one more move and he can promote his pawn to another queen or a different major piece.

“I won’t let you! Bishop e8” King moves his Bishop on b5, to e8, preventing the Pawn to promote to a major piece.

“Korvak pities King, truly.” Korvak shakes his head slowly again.

“What? Why?” In a panic, King looks at the board again.

“Promotion is just deception. Pawn is simply blocking Korvak’s Bishop. Queen takes g8. Checkmate!!!” Korvak captures King’s Rook, but with King’s king is unable to capture the Queen back since the Queen is protected by the Bishop.

“I uh… hmm… uh…” King stammers, trying to see if it’s truly a checkmate.

“Korvak wins! King – one! Korvak – four!” Korvak stands in his seat and began dancing.

“Alright, Korvak. You win, again… What do you want in return?” King asks.

“Korvak never played for rewards. Korvak wanted to play for fun. Again!” Korvak smiled as he began to rearrange the pieces back on the board.

All of a sudden, a portal appears a couple of feet away from here. Out comes Vaciva, and a smokey being. Korvak looks at Vaciva, and waves at her, Vaciva waves back with a smile.

Korvak takes a look at the smoke and he froze where he stands. He begins to stammer and stutter, foam coming out of his mouth before fainting. King catches Korvak immediately before he fell from the chair.

“Aleph! Not cool!” King shouted, as he gently caressed Korvak’s head, before putting his crown back on his head.

“What?! It’s not my fault!” Aleph cried.

“Guys, I can snip that memory off,” Vaciva said, as a brain with wings is created on her shoulder spawning from her body.

“And Lose Korvak’s memory of winning? I don’t think so. I’ll take care of him.” King says, putting Korvak’s body on a bed far away from them.

“Alright. Aleph wants to report about the pairs.” Vaciva says, nodding as King creates another chair by the table.

“What about them?” King says while sitting on his seat, in his human form.

“Atlas and Ana ended up together,” Aleph says, sitting, or rather hovering above one of the chairs.

“Oh... That’s a big, big problem.” King nods as he crosses his arms. Vaciva sitting on the free chair.

“Yeah, I thought they were just close friends but they’re dating, dating,” Aleph said as King morphs one of his arms into a tentacle, to reach a pile of empty books from a desk afar.

“Hold on, what’s the problem?” Vaciva asks.

“The whole plan Michael, King, and I made revolves around the pairing of the four. The plan is that Atlas and Sara will date, and Ana and Lance will do the same. I already gave Sara her book.” Aleph explains as King nods, taking three empty books, and returns the pile back to the desk.

“And? What’s wrong if it’s the other way around?” Vaciva asks more, as Aleph turns to face her.

“The Atlas-Sara pair is a literal bombardment tank, Atlas protects, Sara bombards. On the other hand, the Lance-Ana pair is a highly mobile assault vehicle. They’re fast and agile, the enemies won’t even know they’re attacking. Speed over Power.” Aleph explains, making a visual explanation with solidified mana.

“But now… The pairing would be different. The Atlas-Ana pair is like a tank with a small gun attached to it. And the other would be chaining a cannon on a motorcycle. It won’t work out. The books are written with that in mind.” King adds to what Aleph explained.

“The Atlas-Sara pair will be the pair that comes with Aleph to climb the tower, while the Lance-Ana pair stays with Michael to create a village.”

“Because of that, I’ll need to create different books to fit the pairs. Let’s start with Lance. I wrote Lightning Magic, Lance Aura, and the Spear arts which fit well with the two. It was designed for quick movements, for attacking. But they already have enough firepower… We need a defensive version of the spear arts, along with the right magic and aura.” King continues as he opened one of the books, an inked feather in hand.

“What about making Lance use a shield? Like a spartan?” Aleph suggests.

“Then he won’t be a fast-paced fighter. He’ll be like Atlas, a sturdy protective fighter.” King replies, as tries to imagine the pairing of the two.

“Yeah, and the magic would be supporting magic. Plant Magic, and Spear Aura.” Aleph adds.

“Isn’t that kinda like… a bad hodgepodge of things? I can only imagine a spartan with plant magic.” Vaciva replies as she looked confused, imagining Leonidas covered in peonies and roses. “Tonight, we dine, in Eden!” She chuckles, which leaves a smile on King’s face.

“We’ll allot time to think about it. I’ll go take care of Korvak. You two, please return for the time being.” King says as he opens a portal for them, leading back to floor 600.

“Alright. We’ll leave now.” Vaciva gets up and walks into the portal.

“Yeah. Same as well here. Hope the small guy gets well.” Aleph leaves his seat.

“He has a name you know. Korvak. Remember it next time.” Korva says as he gestures for him to leave.

“Will do.” Aleph gets in the portal, which then King closes immediately.

King walks to the bed, to where Korvak is.

“Hey, friend. Wake up. They’re gone.” He says, gently patting his shoulder.

Korvak opens his eyes and began to speak. “The end… left?” He says with a shaking voice.

“Yeah… How are you?” King asks.

“Korvak… feels… undressed. Korvak saw the god-shaped fog. Korvak saw the true essence of the world. Korvak… feels… minuscule. Korvak does not deserve to live in the presence of heaven.” Korvak said, afraid.

“Oh no… I think I'll have to take Vaciva's offer.”