Fright

If there was one place where high-tech industries starting from scratch could develop best, there was only one answer: Huaxia!

Because it had the most complete industrial chain, the best infrastructure in power, logistics, and more, along with favorable policies and protection.

Beautiful Country

As the world's sole superpower, it relied on its siphoning of global talent and plundering of global resources.

The strong only grew stronger, and the winner took all, continuously expanding through its accumulated advantages.

When all capital believed this hegemon could remain on its throne, then no matter how chaotic or rotten it was internally, as long as turmoil began appearing around the world, it would become a natural safe haven. Combined with interest rate hikes, global capital would naturally flow in.

It was actually like stocks. When everyone believed a stock would rise and started piling in, even a trash stock would keep going up. Even those who had not wanted to enter in the first place would be swept along by the momentum, investing in US Dollar assets to keep their own assets from depreciating, forming a snowball effect.

But this harvesting differed from the stock market. As vast amounts of capital fled, once other countries could no longer withstand it, an economic avalanche would inevitably follow. The quality assets of those collapsed countries would spiral downward until they became dirt cheap, drawing hyenas in for another kill.

However, Wang Yi made his living through magic, so he was not afraid of being strangled by others. While he would certainly use an Offshore Company as the parent company in the future for convenience, it was only natural to maintain good domestic relations as well.

Wang Yi was quite satisfied with this conversation.

One Goldbach Conjecture—although it was in the field of Pure Number Theory—was still a global problem, and it had earned him a certain degree of preferential treatment.

And this level was just right!

It was enough to gain suitable consideration and convenience, but not enough for people to take it too seriously and keep watching him, leaving Wang Yi sufficient room and time to maneuver.

As a Legendary Mage, he did not lack time. He could take things slowly...

While Wang Yi was resolving some of his own problems, the Other side of the ocean had entered a vigorous Academic anti-discrimination movement.

Many even hoped that Wang Yi would join them and become their spiritual leader.

But Wang Yi clearly could not be bothered to waste time on that. He did not plan to attend some of the invited academic seminars for the time being either, politely replying to the emails to decline them.

He had merely wanted to greet everyone, then ask them to help solve a few problems together.

Now that he had built up his reputation, it was the perfect time to conveniently ask everyone for help.

Returning to his Rental Room and sitting before his computer, Wang Yi did not continue programming. Instead, after some consideration, he chose one of the difficulties he had encountered.

Because he had become famous through number theory, the problem he selected had, after some alteration, also become a mathematical problem.

A mathematical problem that currently seemed to have no practical use.

If Wang Yi had still been an unknown nobody when he threw out something like this, no one would have played along.

Mathematicians were all busy. Experts from other fields often sought help from major figures in mathematics.

But now that he was at the height of popularity, releasing a mathematical problem related to the Spell Model could still attract plenty of attention.

In terms of raw mental capacity while overclocked, Wang Yi could crush everyone. But he needed sparks of inspiration. The reason he posted it was to see whether anyone could raise an angle he had previously overlooked.

It did not matter if they could not prove it. They could offer hypotheses, and he would naturally follow those hypotheses to verify the calculations!

They only had to make bold claims; he would be responsible for making them happen!

After posting all the relevant difficulties, Wang Yi left one final sentence on Mote.

"I've recently been agonizing over this problem and have become too deeply absorbed in it to pull myself away, so I sincerely apologize for declining some invitations."

A rising mathematical star who had proven the Goldbach Conjecture was stuck on a mathematical problem. Naturally, that piqued many people's interest.

Mathematicians also had a competitive streak, so there would certainly be plenty willing to give it a try.

For one thing, after the Goldbach Conjecture had been solved, there were far fewer directions for some mathematics researchers to pad out papers with. Now, had another one not appeared?

It did not matter if they could not prove it. Participation was what mattered!

Many unproven conjectures had produced quite a few useful mathematical tools during the process of attempting to prove them. That in itself was a direction.

Although the question Wang Yi had left seemed useless, who knew what gains might be made during the proof process?

After casually putting out what he needed and using it as an excuse to tactfully decline invitations, Wang Yi logged out of the foreign internet and checked Weibo.

The situation abroad was still escalating, but the related buzz domestically had already declined somewhat.

After all, it was only a mathematical problem. Most people could not understand it. They knew it was impressive, but after praising it for a while, that was about it. People still preferred gossip and scandals.

This was an era entertained to death.

The topics about Wang Yi's "mathematical exorcism" had also been treated as his own joke, as a counterattack against Fang Chuan.

As a result, there were huge numbers of replies beneath the post about supernatural incidents, but they were all nonsense fabricated by goofy netizens.

They all described things with a straight face as though they were utterly mysterious, but Wang Yi could tell at a glance that much of it was wrong.

Some cases that might actually exist were not in Shudian, and he had no plans to run all over the place for now. He merely replied with a few small suggestions.

The free magic in this world was sluggish. Not only were Resentful Spirits extremely difficult to form, they were weaklings to begin with. Aside from some low-lying areas where magic might be relatively active, or cases where it had accumulated for far too long, newly born Resentful Spirits could be dealt with easily by ordinary people who knew the method.

For instance, buying some mirrors and using them to reflect sunlight into a room during the day. It might not destroy them, but as long as the person was not the target of the Resentful Spirit's obsession, driving it away would not be a problem.

But it had to be reflected sunlight; ultraviolet lamps and the like would not work. That was because sunlight carried a trace of light magic, which was somewhat lethal to magic creatures with yin attributes.

That was also why news involving Resentful Spirits was almost nonexistent in this world. The natural environment itself neutralized the overwhelming majority of them.

After failing to get any useful information here, Wang Yi could only set his sights on his two neighbors, Liu Xiaoke and Ma Dong.

The underlying architecture was becoming increasingly complete. It would be best to install the "core" as soon as possible, then begin targeted late-stage debugging according to the server's compatibility and the various issues encountered after connecting to the internet.

At the very least, he needed to find one that was somewhat useful first. Otherwise, Li Yao would have to keep holding things up in her current foolish state, which was rather inhumane.

Tap, tap~

Hearing Liu Xiaoke coming upstairs, Wang Yi opened his door as well.

Liu Xiaoke, who had just come upstairs, jumped in fright at the suddenly opened door. Only then did she pat her chest and complain.

"You scared me to death. Open the door more gently."

Wang Yi glanced at her pretty face, still startled by the fright, and was slightly surprised.

He had merely opened the door normally. This could only mean Liu Xiaoke herself was in a state of tension. Thinking of what he had asked her to do, he directly asked curiously.

"Why did you suddenly become so timid? Did you go ask around and get scared?"

First update~

No chapter comments due to the special circumstances, but I can see them in the backend.

Also, a little spoiler in advance: there will not be any ancient martial arts clans. At most, there may be small villages where everyone has learned a few basic rural fighting techniques. Mysticism is merely some experience summarized by the ancestors. A world with sluggish magic does not have the conditions for anything more...