Study Monster Cultivation System

Chapter 193 - 192 Opportunity comes

While Li Zheng was engrossed in solving problems,

he had no idea that Jiang Qinghua had already been frantically grabbing his hair for a long time.

The Sun? Nuclear fusion? Nuclear reaction equations?

Jiang Qinghua, confused.

The more confused he became, the more he was bewildered by the frightening facade of the problems.

The more confused he became, the harder it was to discern the simple and pure approach to solving them.

After an unknown period of disarray, Jiang Qinghua glanced at the second question.

This was a classic physics problem involving a ball hitting a rod, calculating kinetic energy and velocity.

This is good, there’s a routine.

Just apply the formulas for conservation of kinetic energy and momentum, and you’re set.

However, he was wrong.

He didn’t realize that in physics competitions,

the scarier a problem seems, the simpler it actually is.

It’s the what-seems-to-be-simple matters of balls and rods, the imbecilic stuff, that are actually harder.

For instance, topics like artificial satellite orbits and solar nuclear reactions may have grandiose appearances, but they merely test your ability to apply that knowledge, requiring you to simply chain the physical context with straightforward concepts to easily produce an answer.

On the other hand, these cursed matters of balls and rods examine your precision to a terrifying degree—

Where does the ball hit the rod?

What kind of torque will the rod experience?

Once it twists to the limit, how will it swing back?

What state will it ultimately settle into?

Oh yes, and each end of the rod is tied with a small ball.

In such complex conditions, unleashing calculus to analyze step by step, it essentially becomes a foregone conclusion.

In this process, Jiang Qinghua undoubtedly sank deeper and deeper.

He began to deeply doubt himself.

Why, after studying for so long, didn’t he understand these trivial questions about little balls and rods?

In the midst of suffering, Jiang Qinghua’s stomach uncooperatively started rumbling, barely hanging on.

Actually, this problem had also stumped Li Zheng for a long time, much longer than the issue of solar nuclear fusion.

Simply because the calculation steps were way too complex, much harder than a math exam.

As for Lin Yujing…

She had used a peculiar method involving angular velocity and angular momentum to solve the problem, completely bypassing process analysis and derivative calculations, and had already moved on to the third question.

These three experiences fully reflected the styles of the three individuals.

Li Zheng: A?B?C?C...?C

Lin Yujing: A?(Weird approach)?Z

Jiang Qinghua: A???B???A??C??...????

...

The battle inside the office raged on fiercely, but outside the office, it was quite leisurely.

Tao Feifei, on her way back after getting water, happened to bump into Yu Hong who had just returned from an interview.

Although they didn’t interact much on regular days, when it came to competitions, and how to train Li Zheng and Lin Yujing, Yu Hong unusually became enthusiastic and wouldn’t let Tao Feifei go.

"Xiao Tao, you mustn’t underestimate Li Zheng,"

"This guy’s rate of improvement is incredibly frightening."

"And it’s comprehensive, with no blind spots in knowledge."

"The one who beat Li Zheng by a few points in the end, Shi Yang, has practically lived in the chemistry lab since childhood, a chemistry prodigy you might only come across every few years."

"And yet, wasn’t Li Zheng’s theory score higher than his? If it weren’t for the limited opportunities in experiments, the outcome might still be uncertain."

"Just listen to me, set the highest goal for Li Zheng, and let him charge straight forward."

Tao Feifei nodded continuously as she listened, but she was somewhat skeptical.

In her eyes, the gap between chemistry and physics competitions was about the same as that between the Asian Games and the Olympics.

The crux of the difference was that chemistry involves a large number of hard facts, while physics is more about talent.

This leads to the real monsters not having the interest or energy to delve into chemistry competitions; only physics competitions could provide the stage for them to showcase their talent.

The core reason for Li Zheng’s terrifying achievements in Chem Competitions was indeed his horrifying study intensity.

As for intellectual talent, he certainly wasn’t lacking.

However, what he was about to face were a whole group of freaks on Lin Yujing’s level.

Of course, Tao Feifei couldn’t directly confront Yu Hong, at most she would express her point with some sarcasm.

"Then, Teacher Yu, might I ask a question?" Tao Feifei fiddled with her water bottle and asked unhurriedly, "You see, in the preliminary round of the Chem Competitions, Li Zheng ranked second and Lin Yujing seventh, roughly a 5-point difference, right?"

"Yes, I didn’t expect Li Zheng to score higher either," Yu Hong nodded repeatedly, "You should know, Shi Yang scored five points higher than Li Zheng at that time, yet within just a month, Li Zheng’s national final score achieved a complete turnaround."

"Right, right... but what I wanted to ask is..." Tao Feifei pursed her lips and said, "Taking the Chem Competitions preliminaries as the time point, if we say Li Zheng’s dedication to studying for the Chem Competitions is 100, what would Lin Yujing’s be approximately?"

"..." Yu Hong’s expression tensed, and after a long thought, he finally lifted his hand, gesturing a two.

"20?" Tao Feifei asked.

"2."

"..."

"..."

The two of them fell into a prolonged silence.

"Actually, giving her a 2, I’ve already been quite conservative..." Yu Hong shook his head and sighed, "There’s no helping it, in my whole life I’ve never seen anyone like Lin Yujing."

"Now that you mention it, I’m actually getting even more curious about Lin Yujing," Tao Feifei gasped, "You have to know, when it comes to physics competitions, Lin Yujing’s commitment... is at 100."

"Oh my god..." Yu Hong was so shocked that his mouth fell open, "Then can you... still teach her?"

"Ah!" Tao Feifei slapped her thigh in agony, "It’s too hard, she occasionally has questions that... I simply can’t even understand what she’s asking... I’m starting to doubt if my graduate studies are even real..."

"It’s a good thing she hasn’t asked me any chemistry questions," Yu Hong said, relieved as if he had survived a disaster, gesturing towards the office with his mouth, "What are they doing now?"

"Working on the mock competition problems, the kind that are like the preliminary round in your chem competitions," Tao Feifei whispered, "The two of them are really going at it."

"That’s normal, we occasionally get competitive in chemistry too," Yu Hong couldn’t help but look forward with anticipation, "Are they doing the actual past exam? Do you know the cut-off scores?"

"The actual exams, I know them all," Tao Feifei shook her head, "But I can probably guess the outcomes."

"Heh," Yu Hong’s eyes narrowed and he patted Tao Feifei lightly, "You are still too young."

"..."

"Let’s talk about the results when they come out, shall we?"

"There’s no time, Teacher Yu, this set of problems will take until after 7 o’clock in the evening..."

"No problem, I’ll wait for you," Yu Hong then pulled out his phone, swallowing, "I haven’t had barbeque in a long time."

"..." Tao Feifei realized that Yu Hong was going to eat something horrendous at school again.

At that moment, Yu Hong, already fiddling with his phone, called out as he walked away: "Then I’m ordering for six people, we do have a couple of strong lads here after all."

"You’re... too kind..."

...

Tao Feifei entered the office and saw that all three were diligently solving problems. She had originally not intended to spy.

But she couldn’t resist.

As a physics teacher, she was very confident in her judgment.

This confidence was not innate but honed through numerous cycles of predictions and their verification.

Li Zheng 35, Jiang Qinghua 14, Lin Yujing 75.

These were her predictions of the best they could perform.

Twenty minutes had already passed since the start, and one could start to discern some signs.

Tao Feifei quietly tiptoed behind Lin Yujing.

Unusually, Lin Yujing didn’t notice her peeking and was still bent over, carefully checking her calculations.

Tao Feifei glanced over the answer sheet and nodded firmly at the elegantly solved first three questions.

As expected of Lin Yujing, perhaps she would only start to feel the difficulty by the fifth question.

Next, Tao Feifei tiptoed behind Jiang Qinghua.

Looking at his blank answer sheet and his messy, sparse draft paper.

Tao Feifei smiled and remained silent.

Tackling such advanced problems was indeed too much of a stretch for him.

Last was Li Zheng.

With just one glance, Tao Feifei began to panic.

The draft paper was almost filled up...

And the answer sheet also had quite a few solutions written out.

But it was only for the first two questions that complete answers were given; for the rest, there were only bits and pieces of the process, still far from reaching the solutions.

What kind of strategy was this, aiming for dirty partial points?

The so-called dirty partial points refer to when you clearly don’t know how to solve the problem but can write a lot of seemingly relevant stuff; if any point happens to be correct, you could scrape together a point or two.

Tao Feifei couldn’t help but adjust her glasses, paying closer attention.

She found that Li Zheng wasn’t just blindly writing down knowledge points; about eighty percent of the procedures he provided on the answer sheet were correct.

It was just that he had the ideas but didn’t know how to carry on with the calculations.

Even so, Tao Feifei was quite satisfied.

Li Zheng was much more intuitive than she had imagined, with broad thinking; he was just lacking in techniques. With some training, the chances of qualifying for the provincial level were still quite substantial.

With such a comfortable feeling, Tao Feifei went back to sit in front of the computer, planning what homework to set for the day.

The composed Tao Feifei didn’t realize that Li Zheng had already reached a dead end.

At first glance, it seemed like Li Zheng was scanning through the questions very quickly, managing to work out so much in 20 minutes.

Actually, Li Zheng had already activated a full minute of acceleration, equivalent to furiously working on problems for two hours.

The scrappy steps on the answer sheet were almost all he could manage.

Li Zheng had already estimated his score, that paper at most, at most, would earn him just over 30 points.

Confronted with this outcome, Li Zheng could only hang his head and sigh deeply.

As expected of Teacher Tao, that estimate was really accurate...

He could have continued to use acceleration.

But it was pointless.

He just couldn’t solve them.

The reason was nothing else but mathematics.

In fact, for 70% of the problems on the paper, Li Zheng had a strategy for solving them.

But when it came down to the actual solving, he was quickly choked by the mathematical calculations.

Some say that, in terms of thinking load, math competitions require six times the mental effort of physics.

And in terms of calculation load, physics requires six times that of math.

Now, it seems quite possible that the person who said this was right.

At this moment, Li Zheng finally understood the dispute between the Sword Sect and the Qi Sect.

If the process of physical thought is inner strength, then mathematical ability is akin to swordsmanship.

I, the novice monk Xu Zhu, am just starting out and know nothing about swordsmanship.

And yet, I’ve encountered a formidable master like Heavenly Mountain Child Granny Lin Yujing.

Even if I sped up by another 50 hours... I still couldn’t match her.

This time, it seems I’m really going to be trampled and frantically rubbed into the ground by her...

Just as Li Zheng was sinking into despair, Jiang Qinghua suddenly raised his hand with a look of discomfort.

"Teacher Tao... I need to go to the restroom..."

Actually, since he saw those questions, he had felt a bit unwell and had been holding it in for a while.

Tao Feifei didn’t even look up as she said, "Go ahead."

"Then... I’ll leave my phone here," Jiang Qinghua said as he stood up and slapped his phone on the table.

"No need," Tao Feifei said with a wave of her hand, "I trust you won’t look up the answers."

"I better leave it here; I’m afraid I won’t be able to resist," Jiang Qinghua said with a nod before turning to leave.

"Wait a minute!" Li Zheng suddenly shot out his hand and grabbed Jiang Qinghua’s arm, "Are you going to take a dump?"

"..." Jiang Qinghua, taken aback for a moment, then timidly nodded, "Yes..."

"Perfect, let’s go together." Li Zheng stood up, left his phone as well, and said to Tao Feifei, "We’ll go together and supervise each other, ensuring we won’t peek at the answers."

"Alright... hurry and go..." Tao Feifei waved them off hurriedly.

"Hmm..." Lin Yujing, however, looked over at the phones on the desk suspiciously, obviously still somewhat doubtful.

"Oh?" Li Zheng, holding onto Jiang Qinghua, asked Lin Yujing, "If you don’t trust us, we can hold it."

Jiang Qinghua, clutching his stomach, said with a pained expression, "Bro... don’t include me; I really can’t hold it in..."

Lin Yujing, seeing their state, could only bite her lip and turn away, "Hurry back, cheats are dogs."

"Okay." Li Zheng then pulled Jiang Qinghua out of the office.

As soon as they exited the door, Jiang Qinghua quickened his pace, heading straight for the men’s restroom on the third floor.

Li Zheng’s pace, however, was more wandering. As someone who was deep-thinking and experienced, he couldn’t help asking, "Did you bring paper?"

"No..." Jiang Qinghua was already running short of breath, "Can’t hold it... Did you bring any?"

"I didn’t bring any either," Li Zheng said with a gleam in his eyes, "Then I’ll go back to get some paper, you go ahead."

"Alright." Jiang Qinghua, no longer caring for appearance, dashed towards the restroom, continuously saying, "Just don’t forget me; I didn’t bring my phone."

"Of course not, you keep at it, I’ll be right back."

After Li Zheng replied, he turned and dashed back to the stairwell, sprinting downstairs, running into the library without greeting anyone, and heading straight for the most unpopular textbook shelf.

He only had one target—the "Advanced Mathematics."

Without doubt, the most universal sword manual was none other than "Advanced Mathematics."

In Li Zheng’s original plan, he was to spend half an hour digesting Advanced Mathematics sooner or later.

But in war, one is always unprepared.

A direct confrontation with Heavenly Mountain Child Granny meant certain death.

Fortunately, Jiang Qinghua appeared out of nowhere, creating a pooping opportunity for a 20-minute break.

It was like being chased by an unparalleled master, falling off a cliff, and accidentally entering a secret place for cultivation.

Not a second could be wasted during these 20 minutes of opportunity.

Sword training! All for sword training!

Li Zheng quickly found the ignored, big green-covered edition of "Advanced Mathematics" from the Tongji version, then rushed to the front desk and said urgently to the old man, "Could you lend me some toilet paper, please?"

"..." The old man, looking at the green book, was puzzled, "Borrowing toilet paper is fine... borrowing a math book is fine... but borrowing both at the same time... that I don’t understand."

"It’s an emergency; I’ll explain later," Li Zheng said.

"Alright then..." The old man handed Li Zheng a roll of toilet paper, "I venture to guess... are you going to study Advanced Mathematics while taking a shit? I have been at this school for so many years, and it’s the first time I’ve seen someone combine the two; I’m impressed."

"Thanks, Teacher," Li Zheng grabbed the toilet paper and dashed out, only remembering to shout back as he re-entered the stairwell, "Don’t tell Lin Yujing!"

"..."

...

In the men’s restroom on the third floor.

Jiang Qinghua had just squatted down for a minute when he heard Li Zheng’s heavy breathing and the sound of the next stall’s door opening.

Immediately after, a roll of toilet paper was passed beneath the partition.

"Thank you so much!" Jiang Qinghua took the toilet paper, deeply moved.

Upon reflection, why do restroom partitions always leave a gap at the bottom?

This gap just happens to be enough for a hand to pass through, and is just a bit taller than a roll of toilet paper.

It’s marvelously thoughtful.

This design is truly full of human touch.

As Jiang Qinghua was contemplating, Li Zheng had already squatted and flipped open the math book.

Before, Ou Xingzhuo and Wu Shu mentioned that for physical competitions, aside from high school mathematical knowledge, you only need to bite into the first volume of Advanced Mathematics.

Now, assuming there are 15 minutes left to shit.

At full speed, one could study for 28 hours.

I don’t know if it’s enough, but let’s learn first and talk later.

The real quantum speed reading begins now.

Functions, limits, differentials, integrals—one by one, I gnawed my way through them.

Unfortunately, I don’t have paper or a proper environment for solving problems, so I have to do the calculations in my head, which greatly increases the difficulty.

After squatting for "an hour," Li Zheng barely managed to understand the first few pages on functions and found it extremely difficult to move forward.

And the learning environment was extremely harsh.

I won’t even mention the smell, but the key issue is that squatting like this is not conducive to blood circulation.

Advanced Mathematics... Indeed, it’s a tough nut to crack; just ten minutes isn’t nearly enough.

Just as Li Zheng was getting a bit discouraged, a prompt suddenly popped up.

[Detected continuous mathematics study for 1 hour]

[Entering Demonization State enabled, math learning efficiency increased by 50%]

Li Zheng’s eyes widened, and his confidence surged.

It’s as if my theoretical study time has broken through to 40 hours.

It’s great to cultivate demon powers, really great to cultivate demon powers.

Next door, Jiang Qinghua could always hear the sound of pages flipping, but he just assumed Li Zheng had grabbed a comic to read while doing his business, since he usually did that.

Time passed by the minute and second.

Jiang Qinghua was simply daydreaming.

But Li Zheng had already entered a super enjoyable learning phase of "wonder" after "wonder."

There’s nothing else, calculus is truly wonderful.

One could even say that calculus is the industrial revolution in mathematics, akin to the steam engine within the industry.

In Li Zheng’s own understanding,

Mathematics before calculus is like a straightedge—classical and aesthetically pleasing, but only capable of measuring the macro without curvature.

The advent of calculus gave this straightedge a curve and deepened its precision into the microscopic world, exponentially extending the reach of human science.

As he grasped its intricacies, even squatting in the bathroom, Li Zheng couldn’t help but exclaim its wonder repeatedly.

18 minutes later, Li Zheng finally closed the book.

He felt like he had completed a whole freshman year’s worth of study.

"Wonderful..." he sighed one last time.

"Cough..." Jiang Qinghua coughed from outside, "You done yet...?"

"Hmm? Who are you?" Li Zheng asked subconsciously.

"You... are you alright...?"

Li Zheng quickly shook his head.

Because he’d been immersed in studying for so long, he’d almost forgotten what he was doing before.

Looking around, he remembered that he was originally taking a dump.

Alongside Jiang Qinghua.

Why did I come here again?

Right, it was to finish that test...

And to exact vengeance on Lin Yujing.

With that in mind, Li Zheng pretended to wipe a few times, stood up, and flushed.

This time, I was so absorbed in studying that my legs went numb.

As he stuffed the Advanced Mathematics book into his clothes, he opened the door and left the bathroom to see Jiang Qinghua.

He felt almost as if it had been days since they’d seen each other.

Just one trip to the bathroom felt like an eternity had passed.

Both during a single bathroom visit.

One person daydreamed.

The other stepped into the sanctuary of mathematics.

Since they were still in the middle of a "test," they didn’t say anything more and returned to the research group to continue working on problems.

When Li Zheng looked at those computation processes that had stumped him,

He couldn’t help but laugh.

Math problems, they’re all just math problems.

Dozens of hours of Advanced Mathematics study did bring about a qualitative change in Li Zheng.

But actually solving problems wasn’t as smooth as expected.

For one, his study of Advanced Mathematics mainly involved mastering the basic tools, without much practical reinforcement.

Secondly, the math in the physics competition is extremely demanding, with many problems looking more like math puzzles based on the solution process, and it’s hard to discern them as physics questions at all.

Especially with the optics problems, they look just like geometry problems.

The good news is that although these problems are complex, they mainly require computational effort, and the thought processes don’t need much innovation.

If the computation isn’t smooth, don’t be afraid.

I’ll just work on it for 10 hours; even if it’s not smooth, I’ll make it smooth.

Physics, mathematics, Qi, and swordsmanship—all in one.

Am I still afraid I can’t beat Lin Yujing?