Study Monster Cultivation System

Chapter 192 - 191 came back, all came back

4 o’clock sharp, Lin Yujing, Li Zheng, and Jiang Qinghua, holding their textbooks, entered the Physics Research Group.

Lin Yujing led the way, with Li Zheng and the Brotherhood Alliance of Jiang Qinghua following behind.

The principle of the alliance was simple: solve physics problems internally, avoid Lin Yujing’s disdain, and give her no chance to show off.

Teacher Tao had also prepared early. Upon seeing the three of them arrive, she directly threw a key and a stack of stapled materials to Lin Yujing.

"Here are a few experimental questions, you go to the lab and prepare first, I’ll join you after explaining things to them," she said.

However, Lin Yujing did not reach out to accept them, but said with her hands behind her back, "Today, I want to do the real questions."

"Oh…" Teacher Tao just spread her hands, "Anything is fine, as long as you’re happy."

There was no way around it, that was all she could do with Lin Yujing.

It wasn’t just her—even among all the people she knew, only a few could guide Lin Yujing.

As for her own part, she was more like groping her way forward, and more often than not, she wasn’t teaching Lin Yujing but serving as a "problem collection tool."

Teacher Tao then sat down, shook the mouse, turned on the computer, and asked somewhat teasingly, "Preliminaries, retests, finals, IPHO, Russia. What flavor do you want to try this time?"

"Any… any is fine…" Lin Yujing, feeling somewhat embarrassed, set down her stationery on the side table, and glanced towards Li Zheng and Jiang Qinghua, "What about them?"

"They need to be discussed separately." Teacher Tao turned her chair around, glanced at Li Zheng and Jiang Qinghua shrinking in the corner, and swallowed, "Why are you two hiding so far away?"

"Cold." Jiang Qinghua dared not look directly at Teacher Tao.

"Yes, it’s warmer near the heater," Li Zheng agreed, nodding.

Teacher Tao was, after all, a physics teacher, and wouldn’t have chosen this job without some intelligence.

Clearly, Li Zheng and Jiang Qinghua were fully aware of the terrifying gap between them and Lin Yujing, and were even cautious about getting physically close in physics.

Teacher Tao simply raised her spectacles with a slight smile and did not say more.

"Let’s discuss one by one them," she suggested.

"Qinghua’s current goal is to break through the preliminaries. I suggest sticking to the preliminary papers."

"How about you, Li Zheng, you also try them?"

"Sure." Li Zheng raised his hand and said, "But I’ve done all of them from the past ten years. If you really want me to do it, let’s do the ones from before 2008…"

"???"

Teacher Tao, Lin Yujing, and Jiang Qinghua all started to panic.

"Hmm! And you said you weren’t prepared!" Lin Yujing was the first to curse.

They had agreed on two months, and he had lied!

"It’s not what you think," Li Zheng hurriedly raised his hand, his expression inadvertently turning sorrowful, "During that time, doing physics problems was purely a way of venting. In the last week of training camp, I indeed glanced at some competition textbooks to gather the courage for the next day."

These words were naturally completely beyond the comprehension of Teacher Tao and Jiang Qinghua.

But Lin Yujing could discern the underlying meaning.

Just imagine, if she were locked in a place to do 24 days of chemistry problems.

She would probably have gone mad.

As for Teacher Tao, her face full of suspicion, obviously still finding it hard to believe: "The preliminary questions are not limited to the national papers; sometimes provinces issue their own, and there must be hundreds of sets over the past ten years. You’ve done all of them?"

"I’ve done almost all that could be found online," Li Zheng replied truthfully.

"…Well, that’s just like you," Teacher Tao sighed, and then asked, "So, what scores do you typically get on the preliminary papers now?"

Upon hearing this question, Li Zheng first assessed his scoring.

[Physics: 207]

This was the result after going through those prelim papers and after receiving a physics boost from Zhang Xiaoke.

As for how much he could actually score, he couldn’t say for sure.

"I don’t know… probably above 130, I guess," Li Zheng gave a cautious estimate.

"In that case… you might as well do the retest papers, the problems before 2008 are too outdated," Teacher Tao suggested while searching for problems on the computer, "Qinghua, you should still…"

"Then I will also try the retest papers, a little challenge occasionally," Jiang Qinghua spoke, winking at Li Zheng, true brothers in step with each other.

"That’s fine…" Teacher Tao did not object, but just pursed her lips and shook her head.

It was about time to give Jiang Qinghua a reality check.

After all, the level of Jiang Qinghua and Lin Yujing was not in the same dimension.

Suppose Jiang Qinghua’s physics level is 50.

Then Lin Yujing’s level, whether it’s 500 or 500,000, would be incomprehensible to Jiang Qinghua either way.

Jiang Qinghua simply could not recognize his own strength.

Now, Li Zheng, who had been immersed in Chem Competitions for a few months, had returned. Using him as a reference, Jiang Qinghua could realize his actual level.

Teacher Tao’s intention was not to look down on Jiang Qinghua, but for ordinary students, investing energy in competitions was indeed unwise. It’s better to retreat from competition early and settle down.

Teacher Tao then began searching for a suitable test paper, and casually asked, "Yu Jing, will you also do the retest?"

"Mm."

Lin Yujing instantly lost her faculty of speech, entering a state of readiness, and took out her beloved light blue pen, unscrewing it to check the ink level.

Seeing this, Li Zheng could only curse inwardly.

Lin Yujing’s actions now were akin to arming a battleship to the teeth just to battle a little boat from the Fishermen Gang.

Is it really necessary to be this serious?

It’s just that you didn’t score as well as me in the Chem Competitions prelim.

Really, such a narrow heart, Master Ye.

Li Zheng’s attitude towards Lin Yujing had just started to improve due to a collaborative performance.

Now, he was entering battle readiness once again.

Without a doubt.

Up next, was war.

Every time he did the same set of problems as Lin Yujing, it was a war.

When it came to official competitions, Li Zheng would not initiate thinking acceleration.

Because that was a competition for honor.

But facing the war with Lin Yujing, no matter how many times, he would stop at nothing.

In the face of war, no one is kind or merciful.

Soon, three steaming sets of papers rolled out of the printer.

Tao Feifei was packing them while starting to explain.

"Li Zheng just arrived, let me go over the competition process again, Physics Competitions are somewhat different from Chem Competitions."

"First, there are a lot more participants, and the intensity of the competition is also much higher than in Chem Competitions."

"The preliminary round starts in April next year, anyone can register, and in Jijing we usually create our own preliminary problems, slightly harder than the college entrance exam, but not too much harder. Li Zheng, you’ve done many sets already, I believe you understand."

"After the preliminary round, the Jijing Physics Association will select 5%—8% of the entrants to move on to the next round."

"The next round’s theory part will be a national unified exam, after last year’s reform, the theory exam is out of a total of 320 points."

"It’s important to note that the difficulty of the next round’s exam questions is far greater than the preliminary round, it can be said that— the preliminary round is just to select those who seriously study physics, while the next round selects those who have a talent for physics."

"Among them, those who rank in the top 70 or so in theory scores can enter the experimental stage, competing for first in the province and final round qualifications."

"Generally speaking, the top 50 or so will get a first in the province, and the top 20 or so can make it into the provincial team."

"Then, the national finals and the national team training camp are pretty much the same as in Chem Competitions."

"Those ranked in the top five in the training camp’s assessment will represent our country in IPHO."

"The sixth to thirteenth will represent our country in APHO, also known as the Asian Physics Olympiad."

"Members of these two national teams are not limited by region, they can all be from the same school or class."

"Li Zheng, do you have any questions?"

Li Zheng was already feeling inspired.

No wonder she’s a physics teacher, she explains it much clearer than Yu Hong Sun Leyang.

At the same time, he felt a bit flustered.

Almost feeling as if the greatest distance is not between first in the country and third in the province.

But me going to IPhO, and you going to APhO...

Of course, he did have some questions.

Li Zheng immediately asked, "So, members of the Jijing provincial team are directly determined by the next round’s scores, without further selection through training camp?"

Tao Feifei nodded, "Right, we’ve already examined the experimental part in the next round, so we won’t examine it again, but there will still be some elevation during the training camp, generally everyone participates, once in a while someone too strong doesn’t, and there’s nothing we can do."

"Hmm." Lin Yujing, hearing this, started to sway her leg cockily, "That’s why physics is better."

"No wonder, Yu Jing," Jiang Qinghua said leaning against the heater, "My target is more realistic, I’d be happy with a third in the province."

Tao Feifei, hearing this, raised her glasses, and her tone became serious.

"Third in the province isn’t easy either."

"This is, after all, physics."

"Take the set we just printed for example."

"First off, the difficulty of the next round’s questions is already extremely high, and they vary greatly, if converted to a percentage scale, when low, the top score in the city might not even reach 60 points, when high, occasionally there may be 80 points, reaching 90 points is already very rare."

"As for this set you are about to do, it’s from 2015, the 32nd next round’s real questions."

"The difficulty of this set is on the lower side, ranking second last in recent years."

"Back then it hadn’t been reformed yet, the full score for this theory set was 160."

"For convenience, I’ve converted them to a percentage scale for you."

"Back then, the city’s top score was about 68.12%, excluding experiments, about 46.87% for a first in the province."

"I don’t know the national top score, but it probably didn’t exceed 75%."

Tao Feifei almost without stammering, converted the scores from a 160-point scale to a 100-point scale.

Although it was not any complex calculation, her mental arithmetic capability was quite evident.

In no time, she had divided the papers into three sets, supplemented with two answer sheets and two draft papers.

"Any more questions?" Tao Feifei finally asked.

"Yes." Jiang Qinghua suddenly raised her hand, "This... how much approximately is the cut-off for third in the province?"

"That... no one really cares about that..." Tao Feifei scratched her head, "Ten or twenty points? Something like that."

"Got it," Jiang Qinghua said as she pulled out her calculator, "I’ll aim for 20 points then."

Li Zheng looked at Jiang Qinghua, who seemed very determined, and for some reason, he was faintly reminded of Teacher Mengxi from the past.

If the conversation started off like this, the score would likely be in the single digits…

Tao Feifei didn’t want to discourage Jiang Qinghua either, so she stood up to distribute the test papers and handed one to Lin Yujing first, "Yujing, I expect 65 points from you, which should guarantee you a spot in the provincial team, especially since there are four more months to review."

"Mm." Lin Yujing took the test paper, fully concentrated, as her language skills further eluded her.

Next, Tao Feifei handed the second paper to Li Zheng, "Li Zheng, this paper is already at the talent selection stage. Considering you haven’t started systematic competition training, I’m setting your target at 35 points. As long as you score above this, I have the confidence to lead you to the provincial team."

"I’ll give it my all!" Li Zheng had already been listening furiously.

Damn, Teacher Tao sure speaks in a more domineering than Old Sun.

35 points, right?

I’ve been mingling around for so long, and now I have to fight for this humiliating score?

Well, let’s see how tough this question is.

Finally, Tao Feifei gave the third paper to Jiang Qinghua.

"20 points is too hard, let’s aim for 14 points. With 14 points, we can aim for the top three in the province."

"Okay!" Jiang Qinghua excitedly picked up his pen.

"If you score below 14 points…" Tao Feifei quietly adjusted her glasses, "I hope you will focus more on preparing for the college entrance exam and stop thinking about competitions."

"Ah..." Jiang Qinghua sighed lightly.

Only then did he realize.

The real purpose of this test.

Was to persuade him to quit.

Jiang Qinghua couldn’t help but feel his eyes well up with tears.

Teacher Tao, was my two months of studying really so inadequate?

I’ve even exhausted the tricky problems from Russia.

Damn it, no.

14 points.

Just 14 points, there must be a way to achieve it.

Thus, the three of them started the intense answering, all for "crushing Li Zheng, securing an absolute position," for "victory in the war against Lin Yujing," and for "proving themselves."

For a moment, the only sound in the office was the rustling of paper.

Tao Feifei was unconcerned, so she went to fetch water and make tea.

In the office, Li Zheng did not hesitate to accelerate his thinking.

112 times faster.

Unleash!

[First Question]

[Inside the Sun, there are two main nuclear fusion processes: the carbon cycle and the proton-proton cycle.]

Just reading this.

Li Zheng felt something was off...

Shouldn’t the problems be about pushing carts, floating balls, or tensioning springs...

Why start with nuclear fusion...

[The carbon cycle, proposed by Betty in 1938, is depicted below.]

[In the diagram, p, +e, and en represent a proton, a positron, and an electron neutrino respectively]

Li Zheng started to panic as he examined the diagram.

It was a circular chart consisting of Carbon-12, Nitrogen-13, unknown substance Y, Nitrogen-14, unknown substance X, and Nitrogen-15, connected end to end, illustrating the carbon cycle within the Sun.

Each step was accompanied by the entry and exit of protons, electrons, and neutrinos.

It was clearly a physical process.

Yet, Li Zheng could taste the chemistry involved.

Alarmed, he shook his head.

Damn, too poisoned by chemistry.

GTMD Zhou Chenghuan.

After dispelling Zhou Chenghuan’s grinning face, he continued to dissect the problem.

The more he analyzed, the more alarmed he became.

The problem statement had already morphed into something like this—

[Given that the masses of +e, p, and He nucleus are respectively 0.511 MeV/c2, 1.0078 u, and 4.0026 u (1u?931.494 MeV/c2)]

[(1) Identify the nuclides X and Y represent.]

[(2) Write out all the nuclear reaction equations in a carbon cycle]

[(3) Calculate the energy released in completing one carbon cycle]

Having finished analyzing the question, Li Zheng couldn’t help but be a bit stunned.

Is this really a question meant for high school students?

The gap between the preliminary and the final competition questions was just too terrifying.

Hold steady, hold steady.

Although he had never seen this type of question before.

Since he was here, relying on his current knowledge of physics, there should be a solution.

Look carefully at the diagram...

Although it was terrifying, the process simply involved the intake and release of protons, electrons, and neutrinos.

After all, each type of matter is composed of these particles.

Thinking of this, the countless chemistry concepts Li Zheng had struggled with also came to mind, especially the "Physical Chemistry" section.

As long as he followed the steps and calculated the situation of protons, electrons, and neutrinos for X and Y, he could deduce the elements.

Following the diagram, Li Zheng first noticed Y, which after gaining a proton, turned into nitrogen-14.

Nitrogen-14 consists of 7 protons and 7 neutrons, which means Y had one less proton than nitrogen-14.

That is to say, Y had 6 protons.

At this point, it had turned into middle school chemistry.

The number of protons determines the type of element; the only possibility for 6 protons is carbon.

Besides, apart from 6 protons, Y also had 7 neutrons.

Therefore, Y=carbon-13.

Up to this point, Li Zheng hadn’t even blinked.

Hah!

It just looked more terrifying than it actually was.

Stay calm and do it, it’s within reach.

Following this method, he easily determined that X was oxygen-15.

The first question was solved immediately after understanding the entire carbon cycle.

The second question, which asked for the nuclear reaction equation, gradually became a giveaway.

Thus, the only difficulty left was the third question, calculating the energy released in the entire process.

Looking at this problem, filled with protons and neutrinos going in and out, asking you to calculate the released energy.

Do you even have to think about it?

Einstein’s wild hair couldn’t even suppress it.

E=mc² to the rescue.

(Released energy = mass X speed of light squared)

He just needed to calculate the total mass of material lost, m.

Looking over the whole diagram, a total of 4 protons, one helium-4, and two positrons were lost.

Then scanning over those terrifying numbers like "0.511 MeV/c²," "1.0078 u and 4.0026 u."

Didn’t they just give you the masses there.

To facilitate calculations, they even placed the square of the speed of light in the denominator for you.

As for MeV, it’s a unit of energy, representing mega electron volts (ev), purely a unit, no need to worry about it.

Therefore, he just needed to list the equation on the answer sheet, then turn on the calculator, and after some clicks, he could get the final answer—

25.619 MeV.

Wow!

The nuclear reaction inside the Sun had been unraveled.

This is the life cycle of a carbon fusion cycle!

Thinking distantly of the inside of the Sun, an ordinary carbon atom had repeated this process for 4.6 billion years.

Li Zheng couldn’t help but feel exhilarated.

At the same time, he quietly closed his eyes.

Listening to the wind.

He was back.

The wonders of learning.

The thrill of physics.

It all came back.

This is my destined physics.

Don’t be afraid of even the most terrifying problems.

Face it bravely.

Even if it’s Lin Yujing, show them how it’s done.