The Theory Master's Predicament
Liu Erlong stood at the front of the conference room and scanned everyone's faces.
"I visited the Douluo Game Hall in Spirit City yesterday, and my experience was fantastic. Therefore, my suggestion is to immediately introduce the Douluo Game Hall to the Shrek Academy."
As soon as he finished speaking, there was a chorus of opposition.
"No way." Zhao Wuji was the first to object. "The Game Hall is a property of the Spirit Hall. What does it mean to bring Spirit Hall's things into Shrek?"
"I object too," another teacher said. "The Spirit Hall has been expanding its influence; it's clearly trying to infiltrate us."
"Yes, we can't let the wolf into the house."
There was widespread opposition.
Liu Erlong didn't panic. She had anticipated this situation.
She waited until everyone had finished speaking before she spoke.
"I just went there for a day yesterday and went from level 79 to level 80."
Her voice wasn't loud, but every word was clear.
"I don't care about your talk of power struggles or conspiracies. But if Soul Master improve their strength through entertainment, isn't that a blessing for humanity?"
The meeting room fell silent.
[Level 79 to 80 in one day?]
Liu Erlong continued, "If this continues, Shrek will run out of students. The Game Hall in Spirit City have long queues every day; all the young Soul Master flock there. And here? We meditate for six hours every day, and only gain a tiny bit of Soul Power each month. If you were in our shoes, which would you choose?"
No one spoke.
"Therefore, we must introduce it." Liu Erlong's tone was very firm.
Flender put down his teacup and glanced at Yu Xiaogang.
Yu Xiaogang remained silent. His fingers slowly turned the pages of his notebook, his expression calm.
"Xiao Gang, what do you think?" Flender asked.
Yu Xiaogang closed his notebook and looked up.
"No."
Two words: decisive and efficient.
Yu Xiaogang continued, "The Spirit Hall is using the righteous cause of protecting beasts to command the world; they are truly not to be trifled with. Their opening of the Game Hall is simply to increase their influence. If the Heaven Dou Empire falls, what use are our ranks?"
Liu Erlong looked at Yu Xiaogang, and the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.
She recalled her experience at the Game Hall yesterday: the unprecedented joy, the exhilaration of breaking through her limitations, and the racing heartbeat caused by a young man confessing his feelings to her face.
Then she looked at the stubborn man in front of her.
She once thought that Yu Xiaogang's stubbornness was a kind of persistence, a kind of principle.
Now she thinks that's stubbornness.
A strange emotion was churning within her. It wasn't anger, but more like disappointment.
Liu Erlong took the paper out of his sleeve, placed it on the table, and pushed it in front of Yu Xiaogang.
"Stop with the theory! These three questions were given to me by Qin Chuan. If you can solve them this morning, I'll listen to you."
Yu Xiaogang took the note and looked down at it.
Three questions.
Finding the hypotenuse of a right triangle; the circumference of a circle; Dock Site Selection.
He glanced at it, his brow furrowing slightly before relaxing.
"Okay. Then I'll show you how to do it."
He stood up, took the note, and walked out of the meeting room.
Yu Xiaogang locked himself in his office.
The door was bolted from the inside.
He spread the note out on the desk, then took a stack of books from the bookshelf and placed them on either side of the desk.
Question 1: Given a right triangle with legs of length three and four, find the length of the hypotenuse.
Yu Xiaogang looked at the problem and tapped his finger twice on the table.
A right triangle. Two legs. Hypotenuse.
He understood all these concepts. He had drawn countless triangles, and the triangle was the most basic positioning model when analyzing Martial Soul tactical formations.
But he had never encountered the problem of "finding the hypotenuse given two legs of a right angle".
He knows the two sides are three and four, so what is the hypotenuse?
It's definitely longer than four and shorter than seven. That's common sense.
But how much exactly?
five?
He took a rope, measured three inches and four inches, laid them at a right angle, and then used another rope to connect the two ends.
I measured it, and it's about five inches.
But "approximately" won't do. The question requires a precise answer.
Is it five? Or four point nine? Or five point one?
He opened the first book, "Martial Soul Formation Studies." It contained a lot of analysis on triangular formations, but not a single page mentioned the calculation method for "finding the third side given two sides."
The second book, "Illustrated Soul Power Execution Trajectories," contains a circular diagram of Soul Power execution, but does not include calculations for the side lengths of the triangles.
The third book. The fourth book. The fifth book.
None at all.
Yu Xiaogang's brows furrowed more and more deeply.
He began drawing on scrap paper.
I drew a right triangle and labeled it with three and four. Then I tried to deduce the length of the hypotenuse using various methods.
He tried using a ratio. Three to four equals four to X? No, that's not a geometric progression.
He tried using the area: three times four divided by two equals six, but what does the hypotenuse have to do with the area? He couldn't figure it out.
He tried breaking the triangle down into two smaller triangles and calculating them separately. After calculating for a long time, the more he calculated, the more confused he became.
An hour has passed.
The table was piled high with draft paper, covered with triangles, numbers, and strikethroughs.
Yu Xiaogang leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling.
Countless thoughts raced through his mind, but none led to the right answer.
Question 2: Given that the radius of the circle is 5, find the circumference of the circle.
This question gave him an even bigger headache.
The circumference of a circle.
He knows what a circle is. He knows what a radius is.
But how do you calculate the circumference of a circle?
He took a rope, made a circle with a radius of five inches, then stretched the rope straight and measured it.
It's about 31 inches and a little over.
But "approximately" won't do.
Thirty-one? Thirty-one-four? Thirty-one-five?
He didn't know the exact value, nor did he know if there was a formula to calculate it.
He searched through all the books on the bookshelf.
"Fundamentals of Soul Power", "The Martial Soul Evolution Theory", "Continental Geography", "Complete Guide to Soul Beast Habits", and "Formations and Tactics".
No book mentions a method for calculating the circumference of a circle.
The third question was even more outrageous.
He glanced at the diagram.
There are two cities on one side of the Star Dou River. A dock needs to be built on the riverbank. Where should the dock be located to minimize the total distance to both cities?
He had to think for a long time about the meaning of this question.
Are the two cities on the same side of the river or on opposite sides? The dock is by the river; is the river straight or winding? What does "shortest total distance" mean?
He drew countless diagrams and tried countless solutions, each of which seemed reasonable, but he couldn't explain why it was the shortest.
Two hours have passed.
Three hours have passed.
A morning has passed.
Yu Xiaogang sat in his office with three math problems spread out in front of him, his desk piled high with draft paper, and all the books on his bookshelf had been thoroughly searched.
I couldn't solve a single problem.
His fingers slowly clenched on the table.
There was a knock on the door.
Knock knock.
Flender ' voice came from outside the door. "Did you solve it?"
Yu Xiaogang was silent for two seconds, then stood up and opened the door.
Flender stood in the doorway and glanced at the scene inside. The table was covered with draft paper, the floor was littered with crumpled pieces of paper, and the books on the bookshelves were askew.
"Did you solve it?" Flender asked again.
Yu Xiaogang shook his head.
"These three questions are not recorded in any ancient texts. It's impossible for anyone to solve them."
Flender sighed.
He knew Yu Xiaogang's personality. The thing this man was most proud of in his life was his theoretical level. The Ten Core Theories of Martial Souls, the Soul Beast Evolution System, and the Martial Soul Mutation Classification were all proposed by him.
There are three questions now, and I can't solve even one of them.
For Yu Xiaogang, this was even more painful than losing a fight.
"What should we do then?" Flender asked.
Yu Xiaogang stood by the window, his back to Flender. Outside the window was the academy's playground, where several students were practicing basic Soul Skill, their movements clumsy.
He remained silent for a long time.
"It's very simple." Yu Xiaogang turned around. "As long as Qin Chuan can solve even one of the puzzles, I won't object to opening Game Hall."
Flender looked into his eyes.
Are you sure?
"Sure."
Flender nodded. "Alright."