Your Brain Is Too Empty—Read More Books!

After confirming this, Lu Zhou turned his attention back to the practical matter at hand.

Taking a deep breath, he silently recited in his heart.

"System, open my status panel."

A flash of white light flickered across the translucent holographic screen.

[

Core Sciences:

A. Mathematics: LV1 (0/10000)

B. Physics: LV0 (100/1000)

C. Biochemistry: LV0 (0/1000)

D. Engineering: LV0 (0/1000)

E. Materials Science: LV0 (0/1000)

F. Energy Science: LV0 (0/1000)

G. Information Science: LV1 (0/10000)

Points: 925 (One unused lottery draw)

Quests: Unclaimed (Reward Quest *1)

]

The experience requirement for LV2 had simply gained another zero. Thinking about how he had worked himself to the bone for a thousand experience points, Lu Zhou could not help feeling discouraged.

Hopefully, quest rewards would also increase along with his level.

But in that case, the quests would probably become more difficult as well.

He only hoped this damn system would not give him some ridiculous quest like "publish one hundred SCI papers" next time.

That would literally kill someone!

Instead of starting the draw right away, Lu Zhou exited the System Space, rushed into the bathroom, washed his face over the sink, then returned to his bed, lay flat, and entered the System Space again.

Taking a deep breath as he stared at the wheel on the holographic screen, he said solemnly.

"Start the draw!"

"..."

"Stop!"

Expressionless as he watched the needle come to a halt, Lu Zhou felt neither joy nor sorrow. His mindset was completely calm.

[Congratulations, you have drawn a sample!]

Ah, whatever. Aside from blueprints, everything else was garbage worse than garbage.

Even if he somehow drew a blueprint, it would definitely be a mathematics proof problem.

Lu Zhou had long since given up any hope in this system's integrity. He might as well finish the draw and start doing quests to save up points.

[Obtained: Focus Capsule (one bottle of 40 capsules; duration: 5 hours; drug resistance will develop within 24 hours. After consumption, it increases brain cell activity and comprehensively enhances knowledge absorption speed and logical thinking ability.)]

Emmm...

Huh???

The moment he saw that description, Lu Zhou immediately lost his composure. He practically wanted to press his entire face against the screen.

Focus Capsules!?

Holy crap, this was good stuff!

Forty times five—that was two hundred hours! If the effect was like the first quest he had received, that would be enough time to chew through who knew how many books!

Could it be that the proper ritual before a draw was not washing his face, but hyping himself up in reverse?

Tears streamed down Lu Zhou's face as he made up his mind. Before the next draw, he would definitely hype himself up hard a few times.

Before his lucky aura faded, Lu Zhou chose the reward quest without another word.

[Reward Quest Activated!]

[

Quest: Reward Quest (May be abandoned at any time; no additional points required)

Description: The host's knowledge level is too low. The system has carefully selected a high-quality reading list for the host. Hurry and enrich that empty brain of yours!

Requirements: Complete the reading list (0/30) and fully understand the knowledge within the books.

Reward: 1,000 freely allocable experience points. Unlock branch technology—Artificial Intelligence LV0

]

Lu Zhou stared at the quest on the screen, speechless.

It was not the requirements he wanted to complain about, but that line in the description.

What did it mean by an empty brain?

He had scored full marks in both Advanced Mathematics and Mathematical Analysis, all right?

Lu Zhou felt the system's blatant malice, but fortunately, the quest reward left him with nothing to say.

Up to now, this was the first time he had seen something called branch technology.

Although he did not know why the system had separated Artificial Intelligence from Information Science and made it an independent branch technology with an entirely different leveling system, the system must have had its reasons.

Anyway, upgrading Artificial Intelligence from LV0 to LV1 was not expensive. He already met the prerequisite for Information Science LV1, so once he completed the quest, he could spend a hundred points to upgrade this branch technology and find out.

With that thought in mind, Lu Zhou opened the long reading list under the quest objective.

Tutorial on Ordinary Differential Equations

Theory of Complex Functions

University Physics

Inorganic Chemistry

Organic Chemistry

Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry

Mechanical Engineering Drawing

Introduction to IC Design

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs

Introduction to Python

From Mathematics to Information Science, the knowledge covered by this reading list encompassed nearly every aspect of the core technology tree.

"..."

Lu Zhou roughly scanned the contents of the reading list and was left speechless for a moment.

Fine, he admitted it now. His brain really was empty.

By the system's standards, there were probably only a handful of people in this world who could be considered to have brains!

But then again, did humans who mastered every subject really exist? Even within the same discipline, there were countless subdivisions and countless research directions.

Had the system somehow misunderstood the species known as humanity...

The more Lu Zhou thought about it, the more likely it seemed.

After exiting the System Space, Lu Zhou sat up in bed and pulled his laptop over from beside him.

When he logged into his email, he found that Teacher Liu had already sent the practice problems to his inbox.

According to the arrangements from their previous training session, Lu Zhou would complete the mathematical modeling for the problems, package everything up, and send it separately to Wang Xiaodong and Lin Yuxiang. They would handle the programming, compile their results, and send them back to Lu Zhou. Finally, Lu Zhou would write the paper and email it back to Teacher Liu.

Considering that everyone had their own schedules and Teacher Liu also had projects of his own, the training plan was set at one problem per week. The remaining time would still be mainly spent reading and doing additional training on their own.

After quickly finishing the mathematical modeling, Lu Zhou packaged all the data and sent it to the other two. Then he stretched lazily and casually shut down his laptop.

Although the school exams were over, his own tasks had only just begun. Since he had nothing else to do, he planned to visit the library later.

After getting dressed, Lu Zhou was about to climb down from his bed when someone knocked on the dorm room door.

"Liu Rui, go open the door." Huang Guangming, who was playing games in slippers, shouted.

Liu Rui was also gaming with them, but he was playing support, and he was terrible at it. So when Huang Guangming ordered him around, he did not dare complain. He sprang up to open the door, then quickly returned to his chair.

The visitor was their class monitor, Tian Jun. After entering the dorm, he glanced around and said with a smile, "You're all playing games, huh?"

Shi Shang said, "What else would we do? The exams are over! Class monitor, when can we go home?"

Tian Jun smiled and continued, "There's a class meeting this afternoon. The class advisor will explain the vacation arrangements then. By the way, is anyone interested in signing up for the Mathematical Modeling Competition? If you scored above eighty in Advanced Mathematics and Mathematical Analysis, the registration fee is waived. The school will organize training over the summer."

Huang Guangming and Shi Shang answered in unison, "Nope!"

Liu Rui hesitated before asking, "Can't we register for the Mathematical Modeling Competition on our own? What's different about registering through the school?"

Tian Jun smiled. "If you register on your own, you'll have to find an advisor yourself. Teams organized by the school will have a dedicated group of instructors. But there will definitely be a lot of applicants, and I heard there'll be several rounds of eliminations. In the end, roughly sixty people will remain and form more than twenty teams for the competition."

Although the thought of staying at school for summer training made Liu Rui somewhat hesitant, thinking of how Lu Zhou had signed up and planned to remain on campus gave him a sense of urgency, as if he were being overtaken.

Liu Rui stopped hesitating and said, "Sign me up!"

"Sure, I'll add your name." Tian Jun smiled, then looked at Lu Zhou, who was climbing down the ladder. "What about you, Lu Zhou? Are you signing up?"

"I already registered," Lu Zhou replied with a low-key smile.

"Wow, Zhouzi, the Advanced Mathematics exam was so hard this time. You scored above eighty?" Huang Guangming turned around during a lull in the game and looked at Lu Zhou in surprise.

The scores had actually been released two days ago. Aside from Lu Zhou, the other three in the dorm had already compared their results. Nothing had changed from last semester: Liu Rui was still first, followed closely by Huang Guangming with an 88, while Shi Shang had barely managed an 80.

The reason the three of them had tacitly avoided asking Lu Zhou about his scores was not because they were excluding him. They were worried about upsetting him, so they had carefully avoided mentioning it.

After all, all three of them clearly remembered that this guy had handed in both mathematics exams in just over half an hour.

What could anyone even write in half an hour?

Was that enough time to reach the big questions?

Even Liu Rui, who had personally watched Lu Zhou fill out the entire paper, could not believe that Lu Zhou had carefully read every question before answering it. He preferred to believe that Lu Zhou had simply guessed at most of them.

Lu Zhou hesitated. He was wondering whether he should tell Guangming how much he had scored in the two mathematics exams.

Perfect scores in both subjects would be way too shocking.

Their little boat of friendship might capsize again.

But the class monitor misunderstood his hesitation, assuming Lu Zhou had not done well and felt too embarrassed to answer. Tian Jun quickly smiled and smoothed things over. "Independent registration has no restrictions. You can sign up even if you didn't score eighty. All right, that's settled then. Liu Rui, right? If you're sure, I'll submit the list."

"I'm sure." Having made up his mind, Liu Rui nodded seriously.

In truth, he had made up his mind long ago.

Not only would he compete, he would make it into the national finals!

For that goal, what were two months of summer vacation? Even Lu Zhou had signed up—how could he be willing to lag behind!