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2024-10-29 19:42:56Mission begin!”
Blake closed his eyes and whispered the words. He did it two more times just in case it was not enough.When he opened his eyes, he saw a line of semi-transparent words floating in front of him.[Mission three begins. Current time: 0 hour. Timer stops when exiting the library.]Blake was startled by the words that appeared suddenly. He looked around the area and when he saw a student walked right through the semi-transparent words, he started to relax.It turned out that no one else could see the system’s words.Anyways, spend 24 hours reading a couple of books in the library and the mission should be completed, right?Blake walked towards the mathematics section as it was better than nothing. He was about to browse through the books when he suddenly noticed that the books had number labels. In addition, there was a pattern in the color of these number labels. As the numbers went from large to small, the colors went from red to gray.[Di Donne’s Foundation of Modern Analysis, 10][Linear-Algebra (Greub), 0][New Mathematical Analysis Lectures, 100][...]What the hell?!Blake suddenly recalled mission three’s rewards. The mission’s experience points were awarded based on the value score of the books.In other words, if all he did was to stay in the library, he would only get the lucky draw ticket.A true genius would never waste his time at the library!Blake gulped as he thought about it.However, there was one thing he did not understand. Why did the advanced mathematical textbooks had such low value scores while the beginner mathematical textbooks had such high value scores?Especially given that “Di Donne’s Foundation of Modern Analysis” was heavily endorsed and recommended by his teacher as a “must read”. It was very difficult for students to fully comprehend this textbook. One would need to be at least familiar with real and general functions in order to understand it.He suddenly remembered that in his characteristic panel, his mathematical level was 0. He was mildly stunned by it.No wonder!Maybe the so-called value scores are based on his current knowledge level?The so-called value scores had two sides. Take Riemann’s conjecture as an example. It added significant value to the academic world with thousands of mathematical theories built on the foundations of Riemann’s conjecture. Its value was therefore extremely high. However, with regards to Blake, it would be very difficult for him to understand Riemann’s conjecture and it would not help him in his studies. Therefore, the value score was zero.Blake understood the value scores and did not hesitate before picking up “New Mathematical Analysis Lectures”.Coincidentally, the exams for his Mathematical Analysis 2 were in two weeks. He did not fully understand some of the harder topics so this would count as his revision.When he found a seat, he sat down and began to read the mathematical analysis book.To be honest, he did not really like to dive deep into mathematics, but surprisingly, he was able to tolerate reading the book.He did not know if it was due to the effect of the system, but he felt himself gradually entering into a state of full concentration. It was almost as if he forgot about everything around him. There were only himself and his book. Nothing else existed.As time slowly passed by, there were fewer and fewer people in the library. Blake was unaffected by it. He was still deeply immersed in the book’s ocean of knowledge.Someone tapped his shoulder and knocked him out of the state of “immersion”.“Student, it’s 10 o’clock, the library is about to close,” said the librarian.Blake quickly stood up before inserting a bookmark into the textbook. He said, “Oh, sorry. I forgot about the time. I’ll clean up right now.”“Don’t sweat it. I’ve been working here for many years and this is the first time I’ve seen a student this focused on a mathematics book,” said the librarian.“Can I still borrow books? I want to borrow this book,” said Blake. He was still fascinated by the concentration he had earlier and he felt a sense of incompleteness.He had never been this addicted to solving a math problem before.It was almost as if he was reading a novel and not a textbook. A novel that contained the life of mathematics.The librarian saw how polite he was and so, she swiftly said, “It’s okay. Go and borrow it if you want to. The computer is still on and I’ll help you to process it. Did you bring your library card?”Blake sincerely said, “I brought it... Thank you!”“No worries!”Blake stuffed the textbook into his bag and quickly left the library.He passed through the holographic panel and the mission timer paused.However, Blake’s attention was elsewhere. He did not want to waste even a second. He only wanted to return back to that magical reading experience.He went back to his dorm. His other two roommates were back and they were playing League of Legends.Noah Denver heard the door being opened. He was fighting intensely with his teammates and did not even turned his head to say, “Buddy Blake, league?”He exaggeratedly pronounced the word “league” as it was their phrase to invite someone to fight on the summoner’s rift.“Not today. I still have some stuff to do. You guys can play, right?”Edward Spence pushed the opponents back and had a moment to spare. He looked back and saw Blake sitting down and reading a textbook that he pulled from his backpack. He suddenly shouted, “What the f*ck! Blake, when did you love studying so much?”Jack heard Blake was reading so he forced himself to look over at Blake’s table.Blake laughed. It was too difficult to explain so he made up an excuse, “Isn’t it exam period soon? I still don’t understand a lot of the topics. If I don’t revise now, it’ll be too late. I’ll league with you guys after the exams.”“F*ck trying! Just pass the exam!” said Noah as he fiercely clicked the mouse to attack the enemy’s nexus towers.If Blake recalled correctly, Noah said the same thing last semester. Although Noah’s “Mathematics 1” exam score was 89, it was only 1 mark lower than the genius, Jack’s.Everybody was secretly working hard.Blake laughed and did not say much. He flipped to the bookmarked page and focused on the textbook.10 seconds passed.10 seconds passed.5 minutes passed.He heard the sound of victory coming from behind him. Blake did not even finish reading two pages before going back to where he started. The words were not entering his head.“Haha! Silver 4! I ranked up!” said Noah arrogantly while he leaned back on his chair.“I carried you, you trash,” said Edward while leaning back on his chair and stretching his back.“You didn’t carry me. I killed the marksman instantly with my amazing Leblanc.”“Amazing, my ass. Stop talking sh*t when you just got lucky. I carried you from elo hell 1 . I had to smurf to bring your ass up to silver. You even forgot to get the first win of the day yesterday!”There was no way for Blake to concentrate.It was not because his roommates were talking. He just could not focus his attention on the textbook. His state of mind now was akin to his usual state of studying. The slightest distraction would disrupt his thought process.Back at the library, there were people talking and moving, but he could still fully immerse himself in the world of the textbook.Blake took a deep breath and put down the “New Mathematical Analysis Lectures” book.Maybe, it was the power of the system?
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Subjective System 4
It was six o’clock in the morning when he felt his bed shaking softly. Jack squinted his tired eyes and tried to figure out where the shaking was coming from. When he saw Blake climbing down the ladder, he asked dramatically, “Blake, you’re awake this early?”Blake replied quietly as he was afraid of waking up his two other roommates.“Yeah.”Jack persisted and asked again.“Working again?”Blake hesitated before shaking his head and replied, “Not going. I’m resting for a few days.”“It’s so early. Where are you going then?”“The library.”Suddenly Jack was no longer sleepy.Blake went to the toilet to brush his teeth. When he came back and saw Jack climbing down from his bed, he asked curiously, “Are you not sleeping anymore?”“Study,” said Jack as he took his toiletries and swiftly walked towards the toilet.Blake did not know whether to laugh or cry at his overly competitive roommate. In the end, he shook his head and did not say anything. He put on his shoes and took his backpack
Subjective System 5
The library closed at 10 o’clock. Blake had just enough time to finish “Advanced Algebra” and “C Language Fifth Edition”.On the way out of the library, Blake glanced at the mission panel and saw that there were only nine hours left. He felt a little disappointed.He barely felt that fifteen hours had passed by. He had never felt time passed by like this while reading textbooks before.After a full day of studying, he discovered an issue. When he finished reading a book, that book’s value score would decrease to a single digit. Not just this, but other similar books’ value scores would also decrease to different amounts. On the other hand, books that were previously at a very low or even zero value scores started to increase to various amounts.For example, the “Di Donne Foundation of Modern Analysis” book only had a value score of 10 in the beginning, but now it had more than doubled to a value score of 30.As he walked home, Blake could not help but think of what would happen to his
Subjective System 6
As a mathematics major, Blake was obviously familiar with the Mersenne prime numbers.Of course, one would have to mention a famous Chinese mathematician when speaking about Mersenne prime numbers. In 1992, he published “Mersenne prime numbers distribution formula” and his paper was able to illustrate an equation for Mersenne prime numbers. It was then famously named “Zhou’s approximation”.Previously, the British mathematician William Shanks, French mathematician Tartaglia, German mathematician Luders, Indian mathematician Ramanujan, and American mathematician Gillies had all speculated on this problem. Although they had a common theme, which was the approximation of the equation, the closeness of their research to the exact answer was unsatisfactory.Zhou’s approximation formula was very simple. When 2^(2^n) < p < 2^(2^(n+1)), p has 2^(n+1)-1 prime numbers.Simple, right?Anyone could do this, right?However, the equation had not been proven or disproved. It had become one of the mo
Subjective System 7
At last, logic overcame greed. Blake dispelled his unrealistic idea.There was nothing special about a freshman publishing in a scientific journal. Not to mention, a lot of papers in the mathematical journals were subpar. As long as one’s English was good, one could probably sneak your way through even with subpar work.This type of masquerading behavior was exposed by an individual who ranked the journals by inferiority. The one ranked at number one was Applied Mathematics (AMC) as it was infamous for publishing subpar work.Some universities had published hundreds of AMC theses just in four years. It was not unusual for someone to publish 20 subpar theses in a year.To protect the academic integrity of the theses, some old-fashioned journals would often strictly limit the yearly published theses to 100 or less. However, this “monster journal” did not care. It published more than a thousand theses every year. This coupled with the phenomenon of overlapping resonance made the impact f
Subjective System 8
Since having the system, Blake felt his life becoming more structured. Every morning, he would carry his second-hand laptop and headed towards the library. He had never experienced this style of living before.Sitting at the usual same spot, Blake opened his laptop and plugged his charger in the wall outlet. He contemplated for a while before typing a line of big words onto a Word document.[The Optimal Inversion Theory of Linear Operators and Linear Functions ][Abstract: Researched a few types of inversion problems of linear functional and linear operators when given full and part information. Introduced the basic results of optimal inversion theory. Especially the construction of the optimal construction method.]Blake thought about this problem while lying in bed going through his notes. When their mathematics analysis professor, Professor Phil, talked about the Fourier inversion formula, he mentioned this briefly. It was one of the few unpopular but still cutting edge fields.Bla
Subjective System 9
The consultation room did not even have a single empty seat.The third-year students preparing for graduate entrance exams were all focused on studying.Next to the lectern, sat the professor of University of Baymack’s mathematics department, Phil Thomas. He put the newspaper in his hand down and started to meticulously look at the question on the draft paper. His right hand flipped the pen cover repetitively.Blake stood next to him. He clearly understood that this little gesture meant that he was in his deep thinking mode.“Where did you get this question?” asked Phil Thomas suddenly after staring at the draft paper for a long time.“The textbook mentioned the Fourier series, so I went to the library to find related materials. I found variants of the Fourier inversion theorem and a few applications for the variants. I tried to derive them and was stuck on this one step,” said Blake with an apologetic smile. His facial expression was full of gratefulness.Phil looked at Blake for a s
Subjective System 10
Room 201. Male dorm rooms.Jack Hemsworth was doing practice questions under the light when he suddenly stopped his pen and looked at the room’s door. He asked carelessly, “Why hasn’t Blake come back yet?”Noah Denver was sitting on the bed playing soul hunters. He did not even raise his head as he replied, “I don’t know. Why do you care so much about the guy? Are you gay or something? Disgusting!”“Come down! I’ll beat your ass!”Jack swore. He grabbed the ladder and started to shake the bed to the point that Noah could not even see his phone clearly. He quickly grabbed the rail and screamed mercy.“Jack! Jack! I was wrong, I was wrong! Stop shaking! I’m gonna die! Ahhhhh~”In fact, there was no way he could die. The bed frame was connected. There were also lots of books and clothes in the cabinet supporting it. Even if Jack threw his entire body weight onto the ladder, he still could not flip over the massive rectangular object.These two noisy people had already become the norm for
Subjective System 11
The days slowly passed by and Blake maintained the library and dorm lifestyle. Other than eating at the cafeteria or asking Professor Phil for help when he was stuck, the trajectory of his life had not changed.It was the first time his life had structure since he stepped into the university. Not to mention, he had maintained it for over two weeks.He had not expected it at all.Finally, Blake managed to finish his thesis before the 15th of June. He had also translated it from English to Mandarin.It was worth mentioning that when Blake was discussing “Derivation of the Fourier partial series in relation with inversion functions” with Professor Phil, Professor Phil showed immense interest in Blake’s thesis. Professor Phil said that he would not mind helping Blake to edit his thesis.Blake trusted Professor Phil’s editing skills when it came to the thesis.Putting Phil’s kindness and generosity aside, he had worked many years as a professor and had published more theses than Blake had
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- Subjective System
40
[Hello, Blake. This is New York University’s Courant mathematical research department. First of all, thank you for submitting your research to the [ International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Mathematics] journal. One of your conclusions mentioned in the “Optimal Inversion Theory of Linear Operators and Linear Functional” thesis made significant progress for our research collaboration with the Paul Scherrer Institute.[... The project is regarding seismic wave back spectrum analysis which is used in geological exploration and seismic research. Specific details of the project are under a confidentiality agreement. But I promise you, your research is used for peaceful purposes...][... When we found out that you are only 19 years old, Professor Catwell and Professor Tom of our institute expressed their surprise.At the same time, I quite admire your talent in mathematics. While expressing gratitude for your research, we are also sincerely inviting you. If you are interested in comi
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Parker was feeling really good today.He normally just criticized people all day. He did not expect to be number one on trending.Although University of Baymack and the [Modern Communication and Geographic Information Technology] editorial department released a response indicating that the theses did not have any problems, the public was unconvinced due to the conflict of interest.University of Baymack had no other options. They even sent a lawyer’s letter to Parker!In the lawyer’s letter, University of Baymack righteously conveyed that the theses had no problems at all. Not only did University of Baymack asked for him to immediately withdraw the article, but they also requested for an apology. Otherwise, University of Baymack would maintain the right to sue.In addition, it was posted on the official University of Baymack’s Weibo account. It presented the response from the [Modern Communication and Geographic Information Technology] review board, which proved the academic value of
- Subjective System
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Harper Group Building, CEO’s office.Neo Carter leaned back in his office chair and was scrolling through his phone.It was after the lunch break. He would always take a half hour break after his lunch to look at what was trending on Weibo or today’s news. After all, his work was closely related to the Internet and so, it was important for him to keep up to date.“An undergraduate from the University of Baymack published nine SCI theses... Are undergraduate students these days so smart?” asked Neo Carter as he smiled and shook his head.He opened the article and saw that the author was by famous science writer Dean Parker.Neo Carter saw this name and twitched his eyebrows. His first impression of him was not good.This Parker counted as a celebrity. He was famous for annoying people on Weibo. He had no talent and was named “Big Mouth”. Neo Carter was a practical workman and did not like this type of clever clowns. Especially since this person loved to criticize China’s education syst
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University of Baymack meeting room. An emergency meeting was held. The principal specifically requested for the dean of the computer science department to be present.A lot of professors were in their laboratories when they were called to the meeting.The topic of the meeting was simple. It was regarding one issue, which was the article floating around on Weibo: [On the topic of modern Chinese university academics: Starting from an undergraduate student’s thesis].The article mentioned that an undergraduate student published nine computer science theses within a month. It used that as an entry point to criticize the academic atmosphere of higher education institutions in China and their lax journal review process. It also mentioned that the student was from the University of Baymack.The article was basically roasting the University of Baymack.During the meeting, an old computer science professor adjusted his glasses, stood up, and said nonchalantly, “I’ve read those nine theses and t
- Subjective System
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It was six o’clock at night when Blake went into the kitchen and put on an apron before he started to cook. This was part of their agreement. The chick also followed him into the kitchen and watched him as she was very interested.The kitchen was stock with fresh food that Mrs. Jennifer probably bought.There was tofu, pork tenderloin, and some fresh vegetables. Not only that, the almost used up salt and herbs were also replenished.It seemed that Mrs. Jennifer acquiesced him using her kitchen. After all, she did not want her daughter to eat junk food and takeout every day.But...Why doesn’t she hire a maid?It did not bother Blake. He was happy to eat dinner at his customer’s house because he did not have to spend money. He asked if Jane could eat spicy food before he started to cook.Jane asked, “Have you been a tutor before?”Blake replied while pouring the oil into the pot, “This is my first time.”Jane’s eyes widened. She had not expected his answer and said, “Really? I think yo
- Subjective System
35
It was the next day when Blake wanted to buy Ava food as a show of gratitude for helping him get this job.However, he did not know if they should eat KFC or yellow chicken and so, he was stuck in this decision.So he asked the only person alive in his dorm for advice: JackJack was playing video games with his online friends. He was killed and sent back to the respawn fountain. He felt annoyed and did not pay any attention to Blake’s question. He did not even turn his head to anwer, “Spicy hotpot. It’s cheap and affordable!”Then...Blake decided at that.They went to a place called Shancheng Spicy Hotpot on the street in front of their school. Ava had a ponytail and sat across from Blake. She was sticking her tongue out from the spiciness.Ava wanted to cry from the spice but she powered through. She continued eating as she asked, “How was it? Is there any hope for my cousin’s mathematics?”Is it even that spicy?Blake ate a fish ball and was confused. He chewed and spoke at the sam
- Subjective System
34
Blake was slightly shocked. He pulled out his phone and saw that Mrs. Jennifer did actually sent him a message.[Teacher Blake, my apologies. I have a meeting at the office and I can’t make it back. it could be ten o’clock until I come back. I’ll pay you double the salary for your inconvenience. Hope you can forgive me.]Double salary...Which means, 400 yuan an hour?Blake took in a deep breath as he thought, “Ma’am, don’t be polite. You don’t even have to come back tonight!”He obviously knew that it would not happen.Jane poked her head out of the kitchen, looked at Blake, and asked, “Are you eating the chicken or beef flavored? There’s only sandwiches in the fridge. That woman locked the door so we can’t order food delivery.”Blake looked at the frozen sandwiches in her hand and could not help but ask, “You’re eating that for dinner?”“Is there a problem?” asked Jane. She did not care at all.Of course there’s a problem!Blake sighed. He stood up from the sofa and walked towards t
- Subjective System
33
After explaining everything, Mrs. Jennifer left her house.Blake stood in front of Jane’s door. He looked at the keys in his hand and contemplated for a bit. Finally, he put the keys in his pocket and knocked on the door.Bong!Blake heard a soft muffled sound.It seemed that the door was knocked by a pillow of some sort.“Leave, I’m warning you. I’ll call the police if you come in!”This girl has such a bad attitude...Her voice is pretty nice though.Blake shrugged. He was not angry at all. He said through the door, “I don’t care. I get paid regardless. But is this what you want? I’ll get a thousand yuan for the five hours.”Anyone who heard a thousand yuan must feel bad right?Blake tried to change his approach, but he underestimated the attitude of rich people.“Oh,” a cold voice traveled through the door. Jane said with a careless and loud voice, “Do what you want, that woman has a ton of money anyway. Who cares how she spends her money, you might as well be adopted by her.”This
- Subjective System
32
Blake was moved by Professor Phil’s wise words.It turns out Professor Phil really cares about me!However, I have no choice. The system gave me the blueprint, it would be a waste not to use it!After he was done with dinner, Blake went to the library. The librarian watched him borrow analytic geometry, ordinary differential equations, complex transformation real functions, functional analysis, topology and differential geometry, and other related textbooks that were on the system’s book list.A third of the book list contained mathematics books.If he could finish reading the books, he would have basically finished an undergraduate mathematics degree course.But...Blake looked at the pill bottle and thought, “Is 40 focus capsules enough?” He was unsure.He shook his head and decided not to think about it. He would try his best to complete the system mission.As for what would happen if the pills ran out?He would have to worry about that question later.Blake twisted open the pre-pre
