The Library's Earthbound Spirit

They hadn't been strolling through the Commercial Street for long when the group ran into Ichinose Honami, who was out shopping with Shironami Chihiro. Seeing Ayanokoji Kiyoha surrounded by a group of girls, Ichinose's eyes lit up. She stepped forward to greet them, "Hello, Kiyoha! What brings you out today?"

Ayanokoji Kiyoha nodded obediently, her tone flat as she answered truthfully, "Hello, Honami. Wu-kun told me to follow them and gain some experience."

Hearing this, Ichinose couldn't help but chuckle to herself. Over the past week, through her interactions with Ayanokoji Kiyoha, she had gained a very clear understanding of just how lacking the girl was in common sense.

While she wouldn't confuse salt with sugar, she couldn't identify a brand of cola at a single sip, and similarly, she had to hesitate for a moment to distinguish between a mandarin orange and a regular orange.

This only made Ichinose more certain of what Wu Qiao had said earlier: Ayanokoji Kiyoha was definitely the type who had never lifted a finger in her life, a wealthy young lady whose daily needs were entirely taken care of by servants, which was why she was so unfamiliar with the details of ordinary life.

Since Ichinose had friends in every class of the first year and everyone knew each other, she chatted briefly with Karuizawa Kei and the others. Suddenly remembering something, she looked at Ayanokoji Kiyoha and asked, "By the way, where is Wu-kun right now?"

Ayanokoji Kiyoha nodded and replied without hesitation, "He should be at the library."

Having received her answer, Ichinose pulled Shironami Chihiro along and smiled as she said goodbye to the group.

Before Ayanokoji Kiyoha could even react, she was enthusiastically swept away by Karuizawa Kei and the others, heading straight for a nail salon at the corner of the street.

"Kiyoha-san, since we're at the Commercial Street, how can we not get your nails done!" Sato Maya pushed the door open excitedly. "Look at how beautiful your fingers are; it would be a shame not to put some color on them!"

Ayanokoji Kiyoha looked at the colorful bottles of nail polish before her, a flash of bewilderment in her eyes. In her understanding, keeping one's nails clean and tidy was enough; this act of painting and decorating them was truly beyond her comprehension.

"Um... do I really have to?" she attempted a final struggle.

"Of course! This is a required course for girls!" Karuizawa Kei pushed her onto a sofa chair without room for argument. "Don't worry, leave it to us. We'll make sure you look brand new!"

Ayanokoji Kiyoha sighed helplessly, forced to let the enthusiastic girls have their way. As she watched the nail technician pick up tools to trim her nails, she suddenly felt a sense of longing for the quiet atmosphere of the library and Wu Qiao's heavy mathematics books—at the very least, calculus didn't make her feel this helpless.

The library at Advanced Nurturing High School was silent, save for the rustle of turning pages and the rapid scratching of pen tips against paper.

Wu Qiao was currently sprawled across a library desk in a completely unrefined posture. A small mountain of professional textbooks had piled up in front of him, and he gripped his pen tightly, frantically calculating on several sheets of paper already covered in dense scribbles.

It was fortunate that the library at Advanced Nurturing had an astonishing collection, with all sorts of advanced mathematical monographs and academic journals available. If this were an ordinary high school, he wouldn't even be able to find the door to such high-level calculus problems.

As he calculated, Wu Qiao complained frantically in his mind. To be honest, the Path of Erudition was definitely the stingiest and most miserly of all the paths!

This wasn't just reflected in the extremely singular direction of his stat points—which offered almost no flashy bonuses other than improving his thinking and calculation speed—but the most ridiculous part was that this thing wouldn't unlock its first active ability until level fifty!

Other paths would have given a decent little skill by level ten or so, yet the first skill of the Path of Erudition was stuck at level fifty. Who could he even reason with about this?

However, the irony was that the Path of Erudition was also the easiest path to level up. As long as he kept reading, solving problems, and thinking, experience points would pour in continuously. He had been grinding like crazy for the past week and had already reached level eight, with level nine just around the corner.

But given the setting where the higher the level, the more experience required, heaven only knew how long it would take to reach level fifty and unlock that mysterious beginner's gift pack.

Two tables away, a silver-haired girl with a light, soft aura sat quietly by the window. Shiina Hiyori's amethyst-like eyes glanced from time to time at the boy struggling in the sea of problems in the corner.

Although she, a lover of books, didn't mind lending a hand to someone drowning in the ocean of knowledge, but...

Shiina Hiyori sighed softly and silently withdrew her gaze. Ever since she had kindly intervened three days ago, Wu Qiao had given her a look that clearly said, "Sorry to bother you, I'll take my leave," and he hadn't dared to approach her easily since.

It couldn't be helped; the problems she had glimpsed with a casual glance were definitely at the third-year high school or even university level! They absolutely were! That was completely off the syllabus!

She had thought he was the type of failing student who needed help, but upon closer inspection, was he actually a super-genius challenging his limits?

Just as Wu Qiao's scalp was tingling from the calculations and he felt his brain was about to overload and burn out, the sound of light footsteps came from the library entrance.

Before long, the figures of Ichinose Honami and Shironami Chihiro appeared among the bookshelves.

Shironami Chihiro looked at Wu Qiao, who was slumped over the desk as if he were about to burn out, and curiously tugged on Ichinose's sleeve, lowering her voice in confusion: "What... is he doing? He looks like he's in so much pain."

Ichinose watched Wu Qiao's expression of intense, self-forgetful focus, nodded gently, and spoke with a smile: "We're friends, I suppose. He must be studying."

Shironami Chihiro looked at Wu Qiao's expression of utter despair and couldn't help but giggle: "Ichinose-san, why don't you go help him? I remember you're the top student in the grade; such a small matter surely wouldn't stump you."

Upon hearing this, Ichinose actually harbored deep doubts about the idea that "there could be a problem that would stump Wu Qiao."

After all, in the simulator, he was a peerless genius who had even solved the Millennium Prize Problems. How could mere high school problems push him to this point?

Driven by curiosity and a desire to help, Ichinose walked over on tiptoe and casually picked up a sheet of draft paper Wu Qiao had just finished writing on.

However, when her gaze fell upon those complex symbols and formulas, Ichinose froze. She fell into a long period of mental system-crash; her originally confident smile solidified on her face, and she finally opened her mouth to ask, somewhat uncertainly: "Is this... English?"

Wu Qiao didn't even look up, his pen still moving rapidly across the page, his voice tinged with exhaustion and helplessness: "Math. Don't look at it; Ayanokoji is probably the only one who understands a bit of this, and you won't be able to make sense of it either."

Ichinose put the draft paper down, feeling a bit embarrassed, her cheeks flushing slightly. She snuck a glance at Shiina Hiyori not far away and found that the silver-haired girl was watching her.

Shiina Hiyori looked at the expression on Ichinose's face, which was exactly the same as her own had been—a mixture of shock, confusion, and the bewilderment of "Who am I and where am I?"

Seeing Shiina Hiyori's look, a sudden, inexplicable sense of shared misery welled up in Ichinose's heart. So, she wasn't the only one who would be terrified by Wu Qiao's "study materials."

"Um... do you need me to buy you a coffee to help you wake up?" Ichinose thought for a moment and decided to try helping in a different way.

Wu Qiao finally stopped his pen, looked up to reveal eyes filled with bloodshot veins, and waved his hand listlessly: "No need. Erudition... ah, no, studying is all about grinding away at it. Don't you two have anything to do?"

Ichinose nodded, looking at Wu Qiao's exhausted yet stubborn appearance, and sighed inwardly: This boy really was a mystery from head to toe.