Chinese students all had their own hierarchy of academic snobbery, and Malaysian universities were unquestionably near the very bottom of it.
No matter how highly Kangaroo Country's universities ranked on the QS World University Rankings, they could not shake off their reputation as diploma mills in the minds of Chinese students. You spent hundreds of thousands going to Dirt Australia, then still had to defend them.
Students who went to Malaysia to study would not even bother defending themselves. A diploma mill was a diploma mill. If I was already studying in Malaysia, did being mocked a few times even matter?
As a 985 University that was not among the nation's very best but was absolutely not mediocre either, Chen Yuanguang had never heard of any upperclassmen from Jiang University going to Malaysia to study.
Chen Yuanguang could already imagine it: if he told Lin Jia that he was going to Malaysia to study, no matter how aloof she was, she would still stare blankly and ask him if he was sick.
The University of Malaya was Malaysia's best university, but it was still a Malaysian university.
But that was the future. After completing his general education courses, Chen Yuanguang felt no resistance whatsoever, because all universities were the same.
When you looked for a job, no one would think more highly of you because you came from Harvard, nor would they shut you out because you graduated from the University of Malaya.
It was like how Germany's universities stood at the pinnacle of global academia before World War I, only for their status to plummet after the Second World War.
England's media firmly held onto the authority to interpret university rankings.
Time possessed the power to change everything, and universities became historical terms.
A great many disciplines lost their meaning. Take political science and law, for example—AI could give you a result on any lawsuit in five seconds. What use were human lawyers?
Once the concept of nations disappeared, politics lost its meaning as well.
No extraterrestrials had been discovered yet. Once they were, people would need extraterrestrial political science.
After Chen Yuanguang entered the University of Malaya, he had only one impression: decay. The buildings had been renovated, the greenery was beautiful, and the campus was vast, but there was no one around.
Chen Yuanguang noticed that there were fewer than ten real people outside the car window.
It was hard to imagine a university having so few people.
"Yuanguang, remember that calm is more meaningful than anger. I'll also do everything I can to find the true culprit behind the Yongqi Car Accident Case."
Chen Yonglin left shortly after dropping Chen Yuanguang off at the University of Malaya.
Chen Yuanguang arrived at the student dormitory assigned to him. It was a single-person apartment of around forty square meters. It could not compare to his home, of course, but it was far better than the four-person dorm rooms by East Lake at Jiang University.
It also came fully equipped with all kinds of appliances, and he had brought his virtual helmet with him.
There was no need to enroll. There were very few classes taught by real people, and those classes existed entirely to give professors something to do.
Only then did Chen Yuanguang understand the lighthearted line from general education: "Highly developed information technology has led to the universal spread of digital society. Once humanity's material troubles were resolved, countless psychological problems emerged."
When it became reality, the change was immense. More than four centuries of upheaval slowly lifted its veil before Chen Yuanguang.
There were no administrative staff, no fixed enrollment dates, and certainly no distinction between required and elective courses.
The graduation requirement was simple: complete the courses you were supposed to take. Every course had a final examination, and passing it meant you had completed the course.
As for whether you learned by reading books, watching videos, or studying with a real person, it did not matter.
The university would provide some standard textbooks.
Chen Yuanguang enrolled in everything that interested him. With the enormous sum of one million New Yuan Chen Yonglin had given him, plus the inheritance he had received from his father, he had enough to download knowledge in three specialized fields and push his knowledge boundaries to the limits of modern human civilization.
With Knowledge Download, Chen Yuanguang could obtain a university diploma in a week.
After gaining some understanding of how universities worked, Chen Yuanguang thought, No wonder universities are called a rich person's make-believe game online.
Even in China, where students competed most fiercely in their studies, no one cared about university diplomas anymore.
The power of culture was immense. Chinese people had redirected their competitive drive toward becoming scholars, and China had the world's largest number of people attempting academic certification.
As Chen Yuanguang booked his Knowledge Download sessions, he planned to exchange his entire share of this year's family trust after the downloads for one chance at a deep conversation with Pangu.
He had chosen many Knowledge Download subjects. Besides chemistry, his old specialty, he had also chosen cybersecurity.
When he returned to the modern era to stir things up, having top-tier cybersecurity skills and ensuring no one could find his real information was even more important.
Creating a ghost on the internet could sometimes produce miraculous results.
"If I published a paper online cracking the 1024-bit RSA algorithm, it would probably throw all of society into turmoil.
"Given Earth's current computing power, combined with Alpha's method for cracking RSA, even 2048-bit RSA could be broken."
That point alone gave Chen Yuanguang countless ideas.
"This kind of era-spanning, dimensionality-reducing strike feels so damn good."
Every time he went to the university's knowledge center and put on the helmet, his brainwave signals had to be monitored first. Then the equipment had to be calibrated for most of the day before the download could begin.
Even after the download, the knowledge would not all appear in his mind at once. He needed to read related books or watch course videos before the downloaded knowledge gradually surfaced in his mind.
His brain felt overly full. Every night when Chen Yuanguang slept, he felt as though his subconscious had been stuffed to the brim, with endless thoughts pouring forth.
Even so, the feeling of learning in one day what others took twenty years to master was simply incredible.
Chen Yuanguang could roughly understand why everyone had given up striving. In this world, the gap between pay-to-win players and ordinary players was far greater than it had been in his previous life.
The pay-to-win players of his previous life, no matter how much money they spent, were merely more materially well-off and had more chances to make mistakes. They could fire countless shots, while ordinary players had only one chance.
This world was different. In this world, pay-to-win players could improve their aim. Not only could they fire more shots, they could fire accurately.
How were ordinary players supposed to win?
"Good thing I'm a pay-to-win player." Chen Yuanguang felt fortunate. "Even if I can't spend money now, I can go to the future and spend it."
On his third day after enrolling at the University of Malaya, he was walking as usual from the Knowledge Download Center back to his dormitory, thinking about what he would do after returning to the modern era and how he could change the world as quickly as possible.
"Sorry, classmate, I bumped into you." The moment Chen Yuanguang finished speaking, he realized that the person he had hit was Shi Huilan. She was also the only fellow student he had seen in this time period.
Dark clouds covered Shi Huilan's delicate face. Her lowered eyelids made her displeasure unmistakable. "Why didn't you answer my calls or reply to my messages?"
Chen Yuanguang searched through his memories and discovered that she was his predecessor's childhood friend. They had been classmates since elementary school, and she was Lin Ran's daughter, determined to help Chen Yuanguang send Lin Ran to prison.
"I forgot."
There will be another chapter tomorrow morning. Also, just saying—signing happens tomorrow, and after that everyone can vote with monthly tickets. If you have any monthly tickets, toss some to Ya Shang~
Before you continue