"… Mom, I'm not coming back for the summer this year.
"Yeah… the thing is, the professor recommended me to join the National Mathematical Modeling Competition. The school organized training during the summer… No need, there's no application fee. The school already paid for it! It'll be New Year before I come home. Stay healthy. I'm very healthy right now, don't you worry!
"… You don't have to give me money. I still have some money from last semester's scholarship, plus I work some odd jobs when I'm not busy. You guys should save your money for Tong Tong. You'll have to spend quite a lot when she goes to university.
"… Ok, that's it."
Lu Zhou took a deep breath. He leaned against the railing at the balcony in his dorm and hung up the call.
Every Sunday night he would call home.
Speaking of which, time was flying by so fast.
Lu Zhou lamented as he looked at the stars outside his window.
He was nearly done with his first year at university. His sister was about to enter the 11th grade, one of the most important grades for high school students.
Unlike him, his little sister studied liberal arts.
He could maybe help her with mathematics but he could not help with her other subjects.
Next to the balcony was the bathroom. Huang Guangming was bathing inside when he suddenly said with a mean attitude, "Big boy, calling home?"
Lu Zhou was shocked for a second. He then said, "Do you want to come out or not? Just wait, I'll block the door with the mop."
"F*ck me. F*ck me. Brother Zhou, have mercy. I was wrong. Ahhhhhh~ If you don't let me out, I'll start singing in the bathroom."
Huang Guangming already opened his mouth wide and started to sing like an animal.
"Ahhhhh, five rings, you're one ring more than four rings~~"
Goddamn it!
That voice was like a chicken being killed. Lu Zhou had goosebumps all over his body. He turned around and closed the door to the balcony before heading back inside the dorm.
However, the sound insulation of the bathroom was bad. A wall could not block it.
The two people inside the dorm heard the singing and were instantly mad. Especially Liu Rui who loved to overexaggerate. He laid his body on the table, held his jaw, and yelled, "F*ck me! Why are you singing, my teeth, it's hurting!"
In a time of panic and crisis, Shi Shang pulled out his chair and stood up abruptly. He yelled, "Don't panic, brother! I'll clean up this mess!"
"F*ck off!"
As expected, he had nothing much to say.
Lu Zhou was extremely annoyed. He was about to stuff this guy into the bathroom as well and beat him up together with Huang Guangming.
Why am I the only normal person inside the dorm?
Ah, how uncomfortable!
…
In the following two weeks, Lu Zhou was either at the library writing his theses, on the way to the library, or sitting in the exam room.
During the last week of his exam, no one was as confident as him.
Unlike them, he had the ability to back up his confidence.
Just like he estimated, he passed English without any effort.
C language was the same. Other than a rather creative question, there was barely any difficulty. It was like the knowledge gained from the mission was engraved into his brain and he could never forget it.
However, during the modern history exam, Lu Zhou was completely frozen.
He opened the exam paper and stared at the first question.
Who am I?
Where am I?
What am I writing?
He tried to ask the system, but the system gave no response. No matter how much general points he gave, this type of social science question was unavailable in the system's knowledge base.
Fortunately, Lu Zhou knew a little bit on modern history. He only needed to find out the general direction. It did not matter if he believed what he wrote was right. It was fine as long as he filled in the questions.
As for how correct his answers were, it would be up to the exam marker.
After all, he tried his best!
Three days after the modern history exam, Lu Zhou finally submitted his final thesis.
He had worked insanely hard over the past three weeks to the point of getting skinnier. Yet, when he looked at what he had achieved, he felt quite accomplished.
Three SCI theses in a week. 10 SCI theses would not even take a month!
I want to ask, who else could do this?
What?
After three days of mindless waiting, the last paper had successfully passed the review stage.
When Lu Zhou received the acceptance email, he could not help but think whether there was really no problem in submitting so many substandard theses. Also, all of the theses had the same name on it. Did no one find out about this?
Maybe the system helped him distribute the manuscript to different reviewers.
Either way, there were no issues. It would be an issue in a few months when the official publication comes out.
Lu Zhou carried a feeling of excitement as he went into the pure white system space. He quickly walked to the semi-transparent information screen.
[Congratulations, user, for completing the mission.]
[Mission completion details: The user successfully submitted 1 mathematics thesis, 9 information science thesis. 39 days left. Evaluation: S+. Additional "reward mission" given.]
He actually got an S+ grade!
The additional reward… was actually a reward mission!
Lu Zhou looked at the S+ and the extra reward on the information screen with excitement. He was so excited that he had forgotten about everything else.
Although he did not know what a reward mission was, he knew that it would have cost 1000 general points to buy!
[Mission reward: 100 mathematics experience points, 900 information science points, 800 general points, one lucky draw ticket (90% garbage, 9% samples, 1% blueprints)]
[Reminder: Mathematics level 0 → level 1, Information science level 0 → level 1]
He finally leveled up the goddamn mathematics subject!
Lu Zhou's heart was full of excitement. Not only because he leveled up, but because he finally pierced through the ceiling of mathematics. This meant that he was finally out of the novice village and the upper limit of other subjects would be unlocked to level 1.
Just what…
He did not feel any substantial changes when he leveled up. He thought that it would be similar to exchanging general points for thesis knowledge, where the system would pour the knowledge into his brain. However, it was different.
He failed to realize that his own brain was filled with the knowledge that he had never even heard of.
"It seems that the subject level of the system does not mean that I have the ability to master the subject, but only the authority to open some kind of knowledge database? And I still need to consume general points to access this "database"? I wonder if there's a discount for lower level problems."
Lu Zhou touched his chin and silently recalled the details of Riemann's conjecture in his heart as he ordered the system to estimate the price.
However, as usual, the system did not respond.
"I guess level 1 mathematics is still not high enough to solve Riemann's conjecture."
Lu Zhou thought for a second and said, "What about Beal's conjecture?
Beal's conjecture was a generalized theorem of Fermat's last theorem. It was believed that the reward for solving Beal's conjecture was at a million USD. Last time, he tried to solve this problem with the power of the system, but the system did not give him a response.
[Required general points: 5000, the mathematical level required: Level 2]
Lu Zhou saw this number and laughed. He immediately gave up on the idea.
Why is this so expensive!
At least, this time the system gave a price. It seemed that his guess was indeed correct. Raising the subject level was really just to unlock the high tech system database. However, if you wanted to look in the database, you would still need to consume general points.