Meanwhile, on the other side of Earth.
In a pure-white System Space, Lu Zhou walked up to the holographic panel and reached out to select the quest card in his inventory, which restlessly scattered pale golden motes of light.
The instant his index finger touched the card, the pale golden particles scattered, filling the entire holographic screen.
After the dazzling special effects—which made it feel as though bundles of cash were burning—ended, a quest panel in colors unlike any before appeared before Lu Zhou.
He scanned the quest panel from top to bottom, and an expression of just as expected appeared on his face.
"Just as I thought..."
[Legendary Quest: First Stairway to the Future.] [Description: The first stairway to the future lies before you. At this moment, you are closer than any other mathematician in this world to the ideal realm in their hearts!] [Requirement: Unification of Algebra and Geometry!] [Reward: Mathematics level +1, Void Memory B, 5 lottery chances, 10,000 points.]
This Legendary Quest was probably what one would call a promotion quest.
Just as he had guessed, the System's so-called "Future Era" was not about taking him to the distant future, nor about stuffing him full of things and technologies that belonged exclusively to the future. It was about letting him personally climb the final stairway leading to the future, until he finally pushed open the gates to a new era.
For now, it was Mathematics.
In the future, it would be Physics, Biochemistry, Materials Science, and so on...
Once every discipline reached LV10, the System would not even need to do anything—or offer any prompt at all. Everything he saw would naturally be the future...
"A new era means the future."
"So that's how it is..."
"The promotion quest for Mathematics LV10 is the