Notebook of Fortune

Chapter 40: The Top Tier

Translator: Henyee Translations  Editor: Henyee Translations

“What a snob!”

“This is demeaning!”

“How humiliating!”

Senior Quan and the other people who watched the whole thing couldn’t help but shake their heads.

They had thought that a real genius had arrived to challenge a top-tier question. Little did they expect that he would cheat like that!

“If this is all you can do, can you really answer the question even if it’s given to you?”

“You should know better!”

“What a show off. He will only embarrass himself later!”

The questions were sealed to protect the challengers from being hurt, but the girl wasn’t interested in dissuading him anymore. The guy had resorted to such a shameless method…

If he couldn’t solve such a simple question, could he understand a difficult one?

He certainly wouldn’t be hurt if he couldn’t even understand the question…

The girl stood up and walked into a room. She returned with a crystal ball moments later.

“There’s only one question in the top tier. Nobody has ever challenged it before, so it has never been shown. I’ll show it to everyone since you would like to solve it!”

She touched the crystal ball; many characters were projected on the smooth wall of the Empyrean One Pavilion as they formed a question.

The people present were either Mages or geniuses among geniuses. It didn’t matter if they saw the question.

None of them could solve it anyway.

As for whether or not they could be hurt… The few old men who went there every day had been regarding that place as a senior center, and the questions as entertainment. They could hardly become deranged by it!

“This is the top-tier question?”

“It’s indeed hard…”

“The young princess is truly a genius! For her to produce such a question…”

“It’s barely possible to solve it. I’m incapable of it anyway…”

…

Everybody whispered when they read the question.

They had heard about the top-tier question, but they had never seen it before.

Ignoring their shock, Shen Zhe raised his head and read it.

The question was even shorter than the previous one.

“PROOF: when integer n is greater than two, the equation x^n + y^n = z^n of x, y and z have no integral answers.”

Shen Zhe blinked his eyes.

What is this?

What does it mean?

What have I seen?

He couldn’t be more confused.

Mathematical models and concepts such as x, y and z were applied to the laws and rules in this world. However, Shen Zhe couldn’t understand what the question was about at all!

“Could someone explain it to me?”

He turned around, only to see that Senior Quan and other people were frowning. It was obvious that they could understand it but couldn’t solve it.

It was understandable.

They couldn’t solve the tertiary-tier questions, much less one at the top tier.

It was ten times more difficult.

“My friend, didn’t you want to see the question? It’s right here. Please hurry up or leave if you can’t solve it…”

Angry about how Shen Zhe tricked her just then, the girl was gloomy and pulled a long face.

“You think he can solve it? Stop kidding!”

“I can’t solve it even if I work on it for a hundred years. You think he can answer this question when he couldn’t solve the simplest question just now?”

“A challenger of the top-tier question… Are you sure you’re not here to entertain us?”

…

Everybody laughed.

They had witnessed how Shen Zhe had gotten the opportunity to read the question through cheating. A guy who couldn’t answer the simplest test was there to answer a top-tier question…

Did he have nothing better to do?

The previous question had countless answers, including 23, 128, 233 and 338. Any of them could work.

He failed to choose any of those numbers, simply giving a random answer that wasn’t even close. He was truly brazen!

Shen Zhe approached the wall without trying to defend himself.

How could they know about his plan?

His pencil was too precious to be used in a simple test.

That was why he took advantage of the flaw in the girl’s statement.

He could finally use it after seeing the truly difficult question.

“Here’s a brush. You can write your answer on the wall…”

The girl chuckled when Shen Zhe moved forward. “Right, I forgot to remind you. You have to prove that the conclusion is correct, instead of giving an answer. If you can’t, you’d better not humiliate yourself!”

“Proof question? It’s a proof question?”

Dazed for a moment, Shen Zhe couldn’t help but shake his head. “I hate proof questions the most…”

He had worked on many geometry proof questions in the past. The answers of such questions were obvious, yet he had to prove them with formulas and theorems.

They were a major headache for him in every test!

Anyways… He had never solved any of them correctly.

“Puchi!”

Everyone laughed even harder.

“He can’t even tell it’s a proof question, yet he wants to solve it. Where’s this freak from?”

“Although I don’t like you, I have to prove you now…”

Too lazy to talk anymore, Shen Zhe focused his attention, and the “=” appeared before him.

Hum!

Infinite characters immediately popped up in front of his eyes.

While the question was hard, it was nothing with his notebook. All he needed to do was to copy the words.

Taking a soft breath, Shen Zhe picked up the brush and approached the wall.

He could write with the brush without dipping it in ink, thanks to the magic on the wall; his writing would always exist unless the girl wiped it with the crystal ball.

The purpose of such magic was to avoid disruptions and to better preserve the answers.

“He’s really writing…”

“He’ll probably just write a Q. E. D.”

“Yeah I’m sure…”

“We need to discuss this with the Empyrean One Pavilion. People like him are only disturbances to our research…”

“That’s right. He’ll make us look as bad as him if he can’t solve it!”

…

Everyone was disgusted.

They were all geniuses. Although they couldn’t solve it, they knew the mechanism and the difficulty of this question. “What did this guy know?”

Not only was he covering his face but also lacked the capability.

It would be too humiliating if they were compared to him.

Hu!

Shen Zhe began to write while everybody was whispering.

“The original proposition will be true when x, y, and z can’t be non-zero rational numbers while N is an integer greater than two. For x^n + y^n = z^n, if a rational relationship can’t be found, x, y and z will not have rational solutions…”

The more he wrote, the faster Shen Zhe was.

“Obviously, the equation can be transformed into the following cases: 1) x^n + y^n = z^n; 2) x^n = z^n – y^n; 3) y^n = z^n – x^n. Let’s analyze the first case…”

“What’s this?”

An old man frowned.

“He must be writing random stuff…” Another person shook his head.

It was too complicated for them to understand.

The girl at the counter giggled, too.

She had never seen anyone who overestimated himself as much as Shen Zhe did.

Shaking her head, she was about to hide the question on the wall when someone shouted in the crowd.

It was a famous genius. He was staring at the wall and trembling nonstop with all his muscles tightening.

“I just ran some calculations. The few formulas he wrote seem to be correct!”

“Correct?”

Nobody dared to ignore his opinion. After a brief daze, they all turned to see.

On the wall, the young man wrote more and more.

“I don’t believe it’s correct. Let me check it…”

Another genius started calculating. Soon, his face became pale. “It is correct!”

“Let me see…”

After two people confirmed it, nobody else could stay calm anymore and joined the verification team.

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“That’s correct!”

“That’s correct!”

“That’s… also correct!”

They all changed their faces as the equations that Shen Zhe wrote were gradually proven to be correct, and were completely stiffened.

Senior Quan, who had been focusing on his own question, stood up abruptly and quivered nonstop. “It can be solved this way? How did he come up with that?”