Dec 12, 2025
Author's Commentary #10:
Time to talk about Chapter 10: Maestro Xiao Lin.
Originally, this was going to be the first chapter of Season 2 in the original, however, I decided to push it back a bit after deciding to do the Kazuya mini-arc. And ironically enough, here in the volume, it got pushed back a chapter past its debut in relation to its original counterpart.
The game was once again, a me vs Chess.com bot match. However, as soon as the game was complete, I played around with some different scenarios and altered the game to its present form within the chapter. Now let's discuss Xiao Lin.
Xiao Lin is one of the seven secret chess maestros and as such, has a rating over 3000 and a black WWCF card to denote her status as a maestro.
小琳 (Xiao Lin) is how her name is spelled in kanji and can translate to "small jade". シャオ・リン (Xiao Lin) is how it would be written in katakana.
(If I made any mistakes with the translations, feel free to correct me).
Her birthday is April 20th, with the reason for that being because jade is considered to be the natural birthstone for those born between April 20th and May 20th. Xiao Lin has an affinity for Jade, even residing on Jade Dragon Snow Mountain.
Her favorite piece is the queen, mainly because she considers herself the true queen of chess.
One final thing I'll mention is that there actually is a variation of chess called kung-fu chess. However, rather than alternating between kung-fu and chess like in chess boxing, kung-fu chess simply allows multiple pieces to be moved simultaneously. However, there is a cool down period before a piece can be moved again. Victory is also only achievable by capturing the king. While Xiao Lin is skilled in this discipline, she is far more dominant in kung-fu, which led to her creating a kung-fu variant of chess boxing. Though, the variant is not officially recognized by the WWCF.
The maestros are actually free to implement any challenge condition so long as it's to a game of chess. Most maestros do something simple like either having the game be on a faster time control, not exceeding 100 moves, or requiring the challenger to play as a certain color. Of course, this only applies to the initial challenge as upon beating the maestro, the challenger can rematch them much like the SPCMs, though will not be required to adhere to the original stipulations of the challenge.
As for why Xiao Lin implemented such a challenge, vanity. This woman is vain and petty, which will show itself more as the series progresses.
That's all for this commentary. I hope you enjoyed it.
