Professor, Look What I Found

Wang Yi carried several dozen pounds of beef bones and nimbly vaulted down from the bridge through a blind spot in the surveillance cameras.

After reaching a recessed spot hidden from view, Wang Yi casually tossed the bag of beef bones onto the ground.

Two silver bracelets he had bought previously appeared in his hand.

Ordinarily, Summon Skeleton certainly did not require a material like silver. However, the mana in this world was far too sluggish, so Wang Yi had to make some modifications and inscribe Magic Patterns on the skeleton to absorb and store mana.

The silver bracelets visibly melted in Wang Yi's hand, beginning to emit a faint glow.

Arcane radiance began to shine in Wang Yi's eyes.

"!"

The liquid silver began tracing patterns through the air on its own, while the arcane radiance in Wang Yi's eyes blossomed to its peak.

The beef bones tossed to one side began to tremble continuously, then floated into the air and assembled themselves.

Whenever the bones joined together, part of the floating liquid-silver Magic Pattern flew to the connection point, acting like invisible glue.

Before long, a humanoid skeleton assembled from beef bones appeared before Wang Yi.

Summon Skeleton had originally been a fairly simple spell, but Wang Yi had used the proof of the Goldbach Conjecture to discover several practical mathematical tools and improve it.

Wang Yi's skeleton was an outstanding assistant to which he could personally DIY all sorts of minor functions.

Put together from beef bones, the skeleton was clearly extremely robust, far beyond those fragile ordinary skeletons.

With the enhancement of its Magic Patterns and an infusion of mana, this skeleton definitely possessed the combat strength of a Knight Squire. It could also handle housework, serve tea and water, guard the house, and even help out during research without much trouble.

It could even be sent to a factory to tighten screws on an assembly line.

However, Wang Yi would need to program several different sets of action commands for it. Its potential was already far beyond that of the original Summon Skeleton.

And because free mana was so sluggish, even though Wang Yi had inscribed Magic Patterns in silver to reinforce it, he still needed to balance work and rest for it. It could either perform low-consumption actions for extended periods, or be used intensely for a short time before resting to recover. If it exceeded its limits, additional mana would need to be infused.

After completing the initial summoning, some of Wang Yi's freshly restored mana was immediately consumed again.

In this environment of sluggish mana, Wang Yi always felt a little uneasy whenever his mana was not full.

One day, he would definitely build a super Mage Tower entirely out of Mithril and create a top-tier Mana Pool.

After summoning the skeleton, Wang Yi first gave it a standby command, essentially turning it into a large figurine. Then he dressed it in a cheap cosplay outfit he had prepared beforehand. Once the disguise was complete, he slung it over his shoulder and quickly climbed back up.

Since it was made from beef bones, the skeleton was humanoid, but its differences were still quite obvious.

Even carrying it along the street only drew a few curious looks; it did not cause any panic.

Nowadays, even ordinary people had heard of cosplay. Besides, this was Shudian—maybe it was a prop from some Film Crew.

And so, Wang Yi carried the skeleton back to the Rental Room.

There was no longer any sound from Ma Dong's room. He had probably sobered up and gone out to work. Something was slowly simmering over low heat in the kitchen, and from the smell, it was soup with beef bones and seafood.

After returning to the Rental Room, Wang Yi switched on his computer and placed the server order he had prepared long ago.

Buying the server's basic framework already cost a fair amount, but expanding and modifying it entirely according to his own needs would cost even more.

He also needed to install another fiber-optic line.

The Resentful Spirit he had caught was still acting dazed, and its recovery speed was limited, which was holding things up a little. He could only start compiling some programs and doing auxiliary work first.

Or perhaps he should find another, fresher one?

Although Resentful Spirits were difficult to form in this sluggish-mana environment, there were so many people here. If he truly wanted to look, he would surely find some in this city.

The five hundred thousand yuan he had just received after taxes had not even had time to warm in his hands before Wang Yi spent more than half of it.

But the hardware facilities needed for the initial stage of Artificial Intelligence were now in place, and all that remained was to wait for delivery in a few days.

Only after finishing all that did he browse his Mote and Weibo again.

Very good. Comments had already appeared on both platforms saying that people had forwarded the paper to professionals.

Sure enough, once it gained enough attention, these problems could all be solved...

Xi'an Jiaotong University, Department of Mathematics.

Zhu Biao was thirty-two this year, but he had already crossed the threshold into associate professorship and could be considered a promising young member of the faculty.

Mathematics was also a field that depended on age. People were most likely to produce academic achievements in their twenties and thirties. For example, the Fields Medal required recipients to be under forty.

This was related to the physiological structure of the human brain and was almost an uncontrollable factor.

Associate Professor Zhu Biao had some academic achievements of his own, though his primary field was applied mathematics. He had already achieved a measure of success in discrete mathematics.

As a young associate professor, aside from supervising students, he also had specialized courses to teach. Since he spoke humorously and his teaching was not rigid, he had a good relationship with his students.

Quite a few students had added him on Shake Message.

Today, he received a message from one of his students. The student said they had found a paper claiming to prove the Goldbach Conjecture. They knew it was fake, but could not find the problem with it, and found it difficult to read, so they wanted to ask their teacher for guidance.

Zhu Biao could not help smiling at that. He then asked the student to send the paper to his email.

After returning to his office, he casually opened his email and downloaded it. His first cursory glance surprised him somewhat.

"The formatting is pretty neat. It's a very clean paper."

Many graduates needed to revise the formatting of their papers several times. At the very least, there were no major issues with the formatting of this all-English submission, though the workplace field had been filled out a little too simply.

The layout was also comfortable, making one want to continue reading.

"The derivation process looks fairly convincing too..."

He began reading more attentively while drinking tea. Gradually, his brow furrowed. He set his teacup aside, pulled out several sheets of draft paper, and began working through the calculations himself.

"Heh. I refuse to believe this."

He had already read a third of the derivation, and three self-contained tool formulas had appeared. Though he had not finished reading, after following the steps and verifying that all three tool formulas held true, he already felt that the paper's value had risen considerably.

Any one of those three tool formulas alone would be enough to publish a paper.

And he had only read one-third of it!

"Good heavens."

After verifying another formula included in the paper, an excited expression gradually appeared on Zhu Biao's face.

The fourth formula helped with a direction he was currently researching, and it immediately gave him some inspiration.

"What's going on?"

A colleague passing by saw Zhu Biao gesticulating wildly and asked curiously.

"I'm verifying the Goldbach Conjecture."

"Oh, Harold Hoovgart from Gaul's two papers last month?"

Last month, Harold Hoovgart of the École Normale Supérieure had published two papers announcing that he had completed a proof of the Weak Goldbach Conjecture.

People in their field naturally paid attention to it, though number theory was very different from their applied mathematics.

He knew about it, but had not specifically read it.

"No. Something big might be about to happen..."

After completing the verification of the fourth self-contained tool formula, Zhu Biao felt that this paper was not merely using an intimidating title!

When he looked up, he realized it was already almost time to get off work, and hunger rose in his stomach. Zhu Biao turned to his colleague and said,

"Xinguang, come take a look. One of my students sent this to me. So far, I've verified four tool formulas, and not a single one is wrong. One of them has even been a huge help to me. Shall we gather everyone and study it together?"

Only then did the teacher called Xinguang walk over and see Zhu Biao's several sheets of draft paper covered in calculations, as well as the paper displayed on his computer...