"This damn guy!" The book spirit sounded vengeful. It hollered furiously, interrupting Richard abruptly, "Damn you, you're cheating! Since you already know the riddle and the answer, you must have heard it from those who successfully passed the test. Though you've answered it correctly, your behavior is shameless and unscrupulous, I shall remember you forever."
"Wait a minute!" Richard spoke. "You said I found out about the riddle and the answer from those who've passed the test? Are you saying that you only have one question for everyone who you've tested?"
"…" There was silence, followed by a long pause. After some time, the book spirit said with a stiff voice, "Young man, cut the crap. Tell me your question and we shall complete this test!"
"Alright, I will give you mine." Richard thought for a moment and said, "Well, here's a question. There are only four fundamental forces—electromagnetism, strong force, weak force, and gravity—that determine how particles interact in this world. Do you think a theory of everything, merging all four fundamental forces into a single mathematical framework, exists? Can we explain all the phenomena of physics with one theory? If yes, what is the core of this theory?"
"…" There was a silence, followed by a long and uncanny pause.
"So you cannot tell me the theory of everything?" Richard saw the book spirit muttering to itself, and he guessed what the problem was. He said, "Is the format of this question too difficult? Alright, I'll ask a simpler true or false question. You just have to choose between right or wrong. For example, the Riemann hypothesis, one of the seven most difficult mathematical problems in the world.
"In mathematics, certain numbers have unique characteristics, natural numbers greater than 1 that are not a product of two smaller natural numbers. For example, 2, 3, 5, 7, and so on. These numbers are called prime numbers, and they have important functions in pure mathematics and applied mathematics. The distribution of primes within the natural numbers in general does not follow a regular pattern.
"However, someone called Riemann proposed a hypothesis. The distribution of prime numbers is closely related to a complex function: - ζ(s)= 1 + 1 / 2S+ 1 / 3S+ 1 / 4S+. Is this right or wrong?"
There was pause, followed by a long and uncanny silence.
Richard could not help but raise his eyebrows. "You can't answer this either? So you can't answer questions that are beyond the limit of human knowledge? You don't have super intelligence powers, right?"
Again, there was only silence.
"Alright." Richard sighed and said softly, "I'll ask you a very simple question then. You'll definitely know the answer. What is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter? Simply put, what is the ratio of the length of a horse carriage wheel to the combined length of two of its spokes?"
This was the simplest expression of the mathematical constant π (pi). To Richard's knowledge, around 1900 BC, ancient Egyptians had already approximated pi to three decimal places of accuracy. Around 200 BC, Greek mathematician Archimedes created an approximation that was accurate to five decimal places.
So long as the book spirit in front of him had knowledge in this area, it should be able to answer this question. Richard could also then estimate the mathematical development of this world and gain an understanding of the entire wizard magic system.
After all, be it magic or science, so long as they were built based on a comprehensive system, mathematics would be involved no matter what.
The book spirit spoke. This time it seemed less aggressive than before. Sounding weak, it said, "3."
"Can you be more precise?" Richard insisted, "What is after the decimal point?"
""3.1415926," the book spirit replied like a robot.
Upon hearing the book spirit's answer, which was accurate to seven decimal places, Richard could not resist arching his brows. This answer already reached the standards in Ancient China on Earth. In fact, it might even surpass that.
If it were to go beyond that, the range of testing would have to be extended. After all, the accuracy of pi developed exponentially. In 480 BC, Ancient China's Zu Chongzhi approximated pi to seven decimal places of accuracy. This was not surpassed until 1000 years later. In the early 15th century, Arabic mathematician Al-Kashi calculated an approximation of pi that was accurate to 17 decimal places.
In 1789, Slovenian mathematicians calculated pi to 137 decimal places of accuracy. In 1948, British mathematicians calculated pi to 808 decimal places of accuracy. In 1949, pi was approximated to 2,037 decimal places of accuracy. Following that, pi was calculated to a million decimal places in 1973, 480 million decimal places in 1989, and 5 trillion decimal places in 2010.
At the thought of this, Richard continued to inquire the book spirit, "If I define this value as pi, what is its 100,000th decimal digit?"
The book spirit suddenly stopped responding. It was as if it had never appeared.
Richard immediately realized that he had been too anxious. His eyes flickered and he uttered, "Why? You haven't achieved this level of precision yet? What about the 10,000th? 1,000th? 100th?"
"Damn guy," the book spirit spoke in a trembling voice and unstable tone, sounding like an overloaded machine. "This damn question of yours is too difficult, too difficult. I'll tell you. The answer is- is- Aargh!"
At last, the book spirit let out a miserable cry. The moving skull on the book page suddenly stiffened, and the flames in its eyes froze. Like a malfunctioned machine or a crashed computer, it was no longer making any noise.
After some time, Richard tried touching the page where the book spirit had been at, only to discover that it was icy cold and no longer warm.
"This… I have passed the test?" Richard muttered to himself. "Were the calculations too much for it to handle, causing an irreparable error?"
Richard looked through the page carefully, but did not find anything unique. It was just an ordinary piece of paper with the drawing of a skull. Obviously, the so-called book spirit had existed on the paper through a method that he currently had no knowledge of.
Richard shook his head, and he did not waste time trying to figure out how the book spirit had come about. The next moment, he flipped to the next page.
Dense, red words appeared on the second page.
The first sentence seemed to be an introduction. "Listen to me, remember me, and you shall witness a brand new world. —Monroe."
The second line had a slightly larger font. It was the title of the book, The Writings of Monroe.
The third sentence was the real content. "The world of wizards is mysterious and dangerous. To my reader, when you read this book, the doors of a brand new world will gradually open before your eyes."
Richard's eyes narrowed. He took a deep breath and continued reading seriously.
He didn't sleep that night.