I couldn't look away from the spooky shape in front of me. A weird shock had me stuck in place...
"Tell me! Which cluster of the quadraverse do you hail from?"
"I... I... who are you?" I stammered, more confused than scared.
I had no idea what that thing was asking about, and I wanted to know who that was in the first place.
"As foreseen. Thou is not of Zytherian descent"
"Zythe... what?", I was even more confused now.
"By whose hand were thou wrought in this manner?", the half-human half-eldrich figure spoke again, asking another question.
This time I connected the dots and figured out what it was asking of me. So I said in Latin.
"I don't know who made me like this", I stated.
The figure, still standing in the pool of liquid, cast me a sidelong gaze, with a mix of grace and suspicion.
Then... with a graceful yet eerie movement, retrieved an orb from within the folds of its dark, bloated robe.
The orb resembled the one hanging from the top of the chamber but smaller and red in color.
It held the small orb in its elongated, skeletal fingers, studying it for a moment.
"I shall ascertain the truth," The figure declared, hoisting the liquid-filled orb higher. The metal stuff inside swirled like a tempest crammed into a tight spot.
Suddenly, the figure extended its arm, and the orb floated in my direction.
Finally, it repeated the exact same question, "By whose hand were thou wrought in this manner?".
"I have no idea", I said the truth.
The red stuff in the ball kept swirling. After a while, the figure grabbed the orb with its long fingers.
"I am Ulthar. Thou seem to not speak falsehood. We shall encounter once again" it proclaimed, as its form began to slowly dissolve. Its figure waned, descending into the depths of the pool.
In front of my eyes, the chamber came alive as the vibrant yellow threads spread out and untangled, turning the space back into a tunnel that felt like it was made of spooky spiderwebs.
Not too long after, I woke up.
...
I dragged myself outta the sack and started thinking.
Zytherian, Ulthars? Should I jot this down... nah, my memory is good enough.
Was it an alien being? How did it contact me in my sleep? It doesn't make any sense.
It dropped a heavy question, no doubt, though.
Who made me like this?
With all those encounters in my dreams, what happened to me couldn't have been natural.
But what can I do? The only thing on the menu is to dive deeper into the webs in my dreams.
After that wild encounter, I dove back into the AI thesis grind. Professor Buzard suggested trimming the fat, and lo and behold, I dug up some redundant parts.
I noticed some extra layers in the neural network, which wouldn't do squat after a million runs.
I also tossed in some thoughts about parallel computing when splitting the proof-writing models and logic-based ones.
Professor Samuel mentioned that he would take care of that, so I didn't bother about diving deep into that.
With the thesis almost in the bag, the last leg was running it through some grammar software. Just wanted to double-check, and make sure I didn't accidentally drop any big blunders.
"Brrrrrrrr! Brrrrrrrr!"
Just when I was filling in the required form for submitting a thesis to an MIT library, I got a call.
'Pog Alex'
It was Alex, didn't talk with him for a while.
"Heyo, Alex what's up!"
"Yo! It's been a hot minute since we caught up, so I figured I'd ring you up and drop some news on ya."
"Yea? Is it good or bad?"
"Oi, how could a bud rollin' with a genius student be anything but top-notch?"
"Genius student? how do you even..."
Alex interjected, "Olivia told Amelia..."
"...right. Hold up, though. Are you and Amelia a thing now?"
"Sorta. Right now, I'm up in South Korea, and Amelia's stayed in New York. But, you know, we hook up when we can."
"You're in South Korea!? Why?"
"That's what I wanted to tell you all along... we qualified for the League major and I'm on the main roster."
"Bro, what! That's nuts. When is the major, though?"
"It kicks off on October 10th, but the finals will be going down early November."
"Can you get to the finals, though?"
"Yes absolutely G1, bro, we will make it", he said, but I didn't feel the confidence in his voice
"China teams have been winning the last couple of years right?"
"Yeah.... not really. Anyways, we rocked the finals last year, and we can pull it off again. Especially now that I'm in the lineup. We're gonna crush 'em."
"Cool, can I fly up to Korea and catch it live if it happens?"
"Bro! That'd be sweet, but ain't you got classes and all that jazz?"
"I can swing it for you. No worries, cuh."
"Cuh? Bro, what?"
He kept on chatting about how they aced the qualification stages, and I filled him in on what's been keeping me busy these past few weeks.
Seems like both our lives are on the up-and-up. At least I thought so.
With the thesis up in the library, I dropped a blog post about the Riemann Hypothesis. Just organized info about it, nothing more.
Getting into the guts of the Hypothesis wasn't easy. I needed to dust off some topics before I could even dive in.
I couldn't grab onto anything solid, finding the starting point was the biggest challenge.
Later in the evening, I shifted gears and delved into research on monopoles, focusing on the Dirac monopole quantization condition and its ramifications.
I immersed myself in documents such as "Quantized Singularities in the Electromagnetic Field" by Dr. John Foster
As well as "Revitalizing Dirac: A Contemporary Look at Monopole Theory" by Professor Santiago Rodriguez.
When you break a magnet in two, you always end up with two magnets, each rocking a south and north pole.
The monopole theory throws a curveball, suggesting the existence of solo magnets. Magnets with just the south pole or just the north pole.
If I made it possible to harness those solo magnets, I could revolutionize not only energy flow but also the energy storage possibilities.
In the setups using dipole magnets right now, it's like walking a tightrope. You gotta carefully juggle the interaction between those poles and the whole magnetic field in the material.
And when it comes to the electrons, they're basically stuck playing by the rules of that field.
My idea is that monopoles would allow more accurate control over the field and over the flow of electrons, potentially leading to larger capacity and faster charging and recharging cycles.
My idea is that if we swap dipole magnets for monopoles in energy storage...
Precision control over the magnetic field? Check.
Electrons moving with freedom? Check.
Result? Bigger storage, faster charging, and discharging cycles.
Got the key points down, but here's the real head-scratcher—proving their existence.
Even without the key evidence, I dove into crunching numbers and sketching out schemas for future energy storage.
...
Just as I was about to hit the hay, it hit me—I was supposed to get some info from Oliv about our meeting tomorrow. A quick check of the phone:
'Call me when you got some time.'
"Shit! Maybe she isn't asleep yet"
I dialed her up.
"Hey, Oliv, my bad. I totally blanked..."
"No stress, Max. I didn't feel like sorting it out through messages. Let's talk about it together, okay?"
"About what? Aren't we just hitting the waves on the yacht?"
I heard a soft giggle from Oliv, "Well... the yacht swim's still on, but there is this one cute little plot twist in our plans"
"What's up, Oliv? What's the deal? Why won't you just say it"
"Hmm, there might be another person joining us on the yacht... or not."
I was caught off guard. Wasn't this meant to be a cozy girlfriend/boyfriend kind of thing? Who was she thinking of inviting?
"I don't get it. Who's this person you're talking about?"
"So... Casandra slid up to me a couple of days ago..."
"Casandra? What? You're telling me she's the one you're thinking of bringing along?"
"Well... she's got the itch for it... but it's your call, really."
"Wait, wait, wait. What's the deal here? Are you two like, friends now?"
"She's a nice girl and, you know, she seems to be... You must have realised already right?"
There was this vibe with Casandra in the past few days like she was off in her own world during classes.
Now, it clicks — I know exactly what was on her mind.
"And you're telling me you're cool with that?"
And in this seductive tone, she purrs, "Yeah, I'm game."
"I don't know what to think about this..."
And then, in a whisper, she adds, "There's no need for thinking, Max..."