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 factor grew very quickly. Due to the copious amounts of pseudo-peer review, one editorial board published more than a hundred theses!

Blake was uncertain about publishing in other journals but for AMC...

He could be confident or cocky about it.

Either way, he felt like there was no problem.

However, it would be difficult if he wanted to publish Zhou’s approximation in the scientific journal. The problem was not about getting accepted as he could easily get accepted. The crucial aspect was whether he could hold the spot after getting accepted.

Ultimately, Blake still selected the third mission. He did not plan on using Zhou’s approximation. Rather, he planned on writing a phony thesis in order to pass the mission.

His current knowledge of advanced mathematics and mathematical analysis was equivalent to a master’s student. If he wanted to write a thesis with his level four English, he only had to learn some technical words. It was nothing a dictionary could not solve.

In comparison, he did not have connections or the emotional intelligence needed for the first mission.

As for the second mission, the university did not even offer a physics class for freshmen. He was afraid that the system would produce high school level physics questions and god knows how low the difficulty level would be. Furthermore, he did not care too much about his physics level. He did not really need to learn it right now. He could just learn it later if he needed it.

After Blake chose his mission, he patted the grass off his backside and stood up. He put on some music and began to walk towards the dorms.

After being away for so long, Jack would go crazy if he did not get back soon.

That guy was weird. He was pretty generous but when it came to studies, he was so competitive and selfish it made people speechless. He would chase you across the streets if you looked at his notes and rolled his eyes if you asked him questions. In his eyes, it seemed that everyone in the world was his competitor. What he strived for was not some kind of academic success but the admiration of students and teachers through obtaining the “genius” spot.

Could this type of person be considered a genius?

Blake did not think so.

In the eyes of a true genius, everyone else was trash. Who cared if you looked at my notes? Did you know about Zhou’s approximation? You would not know what it was when it was in front of you!

Blake would only acknowledge one person as having the qualities of a true genius.

Yes, that was right.

One did not even need to guess. He was talking about himself.

...

When he opened the door to his dorm, it was exactly 10 o’clock.

Jack was holding an exercise book. The other two people were not there. They were probably playing cards next door. Edward was the type of person who only listened in class, but did not allocate additional time to study during exam periods. As for Noah, he was allegedly called a God of Study. He did not listen to classes. He would cram before exams and still do very well.

Blake threw his backpack onto the table and started to look for his showering card in the drawers.

At this moment, Jack set down the exercise book in his hands and looked at Blake’s direction.

“Buddy, why are you working so hard?”

“I have to work hard. I haven’t touched a book for half a semester. If I don’t start now, it’ll be too late,” said Blake before he threw his towel over his shoulder and stood up from his chair.

Jack saw that Blake was about to shower and asked, “I can’t solve this problem. Could you look at it for me?”

Oh, this was astonishing.

There were questions that even Jack could not do?

“Let me look at it.”

When Blake reached out with his hands, Jack adjusted his glasses and handed over his exercise book. He pointed at the circled question and said, “This question.”

“Calculus problem? This shouldn’t be hard...” said Blake. He glanced at the question and was surprised to have never seen this type of problem before. He was excited. Who cared about showering? He took the exercise book, sat back down and started to draw diagrams on the draft paper.

Previously, if Jack was unable to solve it, there was no way Blake could. He did not know why but now, there was not even a sliver of the word “impossible” in his mind.

After Blake spent some time trying to solve it, Jack relaxed a bit. The dumbass he secretly looked down upon was still a dumbass. However he pretended, he was still a dumbass.

As for this question, Jack genuinely was unable to solve it. However, there were official answers with the exact steps to solve it. The reason for asking Blake this question was not really for help. Rather, he only wanted to “spy on the enemy”.

After all, if he actually wanted help for a math problem, he would not ask a dumbass like Blake for help.

Jack was thinking this and asked, “What if you copied down the question first? I’ll move onto the next question first?”

The hidden meaning was that there was no way Blake could solve it, so he would not waste his time.

However, Blake’s response was not what Jack expected.

“... no need. I solved it.’

Solve- solved it?!

Jack’s eyes widened so much that his eyeballs nearly popped out.

“Yeah, you heard me,” said Blake. He was spinning his pen as he explained the formula on the draft paper, “A typical two-step problem. First, you convert Cartesian coordinates into polar coordinates. Due to the interval symmetry, you can simply and reduce this part into cot^2(x)...”

“Then calculate the derivative as csx^2(x)! Then substitute back into the original function!” Jack’s pupils contracted slightly. He finally understood the underlying logic of solving this problem. The rest was easy and he just had to calculate it.

Fuck, I didn’t think of this step...

“Bingo! I solved it,” said Blake with a smile. Sometimes, even a child could teach others.

“Thanks... Let me borrow the draft paper. I’ll try to figure this out.”

“Take it and you’re welcome!” said Blake as he generously waved his hands and started to walk towards the bathroom.

Jack took Blake’s draft paper and sat back down. He pushed his glasses and looked at the question. He frowned and went into a deep thinking mode.

Even though the technique was new to him, the steps to solve it was clearly written down. There was nothing out of his knowledge, so he could easily understand it even without Blake’s explanation.

However, one thing he failed to understand was how the hell did Blake figure it out?

It was also in such a short amount of time...

Maybe he had encountered this type of problem before?

Jack thought that this was the only possibility. Otherwise, he could not imagine how this part-time working dumbass could solve this problem faster than a genius such as himself.

He flipped to the back of the exercise book. When Jack looked at the answers, he froze.

“There’s no way...”

The answer is correct... But that’s not the main point.

The main point is that Blake’s method is easier than the answers! The answers didn’t think about converting the Cartesian coordinates into polar coordinates. Instead, the answers used integral by parts which resulted in a large number of calculations.

And this was a method he thought about...

How is this possible?

Jack bit his lip.

He suddenly had doubts about his life.