Lu Zhou was sitting in his study room, video calling Xiao Tong. A cheerful voice came from his phone.
“Brother! I heard you made another big discovery!”
Lu Zhou looked at Xiao Tong and spoke.
“Even you heard about this?”
Xiao Tong was happy for her brother, and she spoke with a smug smile.
“Of course! Everyone in Princeton is talking about this.”
Lu Zhou smiled and didn’t say anything.
Even though he expected this to happen, hearing about this in person made him somewhat embarrassed.
Lu Zhou coughed and changed the subject.
“How are you doing over there? How are your studies?”
“It’s pretty good, it’s just boring to be away from the city. I’m either in my apartment or in the library. My friend drives us to the supermarket on the weekends. That’s pretty much all I do.”
“You didn’t buy a car?”
“No, I don’t like driving.” Xiao Tong shook her head and suddenly remembered something, so she said, “Oh yeah, I nearly forgot, Professor Krugman told me to say hello to you. He also said that he made some progress on his future prediction model, and he only needs one outstanding mathematician—”
When Lu Zhou heard this name, he paused for a second and spoke.
“… He still hasn’t given up?”
Xiao Tong scratched her head awkwardly.
“Haha… I don’t think so.”
Lu Zhou went silent for a while and said, “Then say hello to Professor Krugman for me.”
“What about the research project?”
Lu Zhou took a sip of Coca-Cola and spoke.
“I’ll consider it when I’m less busy.”
Xiao Tong knew that was just a polite way of saying no.
“Okay then, I understand.”
The two then chatted for a while, mainly about their lives and parents. After Xiao Tong told Lu Zhou that their parents were in good health, Xiao Tong hung up the call and went to sleep.
It was daytime in China, but it was already late into the night in America.
Xiao Tong looked relaxed on the surface, and she didn’t complain about her studies to Lu Zhou. However, Lu Zhou could tell that she was under a lot of pressure.
Sigh, my little sis…
The siblings had the exact same personality; they both didn’t want to be a burden on others.
Lu Zhou smiled and shook his head. He put his phone aside.
It feels nice to be on a break.
Lu Zhou knew that countless people would be trying to contact him about this in person. He wisely hid in his home while taking a short break. He didn’t speak to anyone unless it was something important.
As for the ILHCRC, he threw all of the responsibilities to Luo Wenxuan.
This included preparing for the next board meeting and discussing the next research project. Lu Zhou already brought him to the last meeting, so this time he wanted Luo Wenxuan to take full responsibility.
If Luo Wenxuan couldn’t do something as easy as this, then it was a waste of time for Lu Zhou to mentor him.
The research on the 750 GeV had finally come to an end, and his paper had already been submitted to Future. He took a few days off and gave himself a deserved break.
Speaking of which…
He had been on a break for almost a week, and it was time to think about the next step.
Lu Zhou put down the Coke can and lay on his couch. He closed his eyes and summoned the system.
When he opened his eyes again, his consciousness was inside a pure white space. He stood in front of a translucent holographic panel.
A line of blue text also appeared on the holographic panel.
[Congratulations, user, for mission completion!
[Mission: Exotic Particle
[Description: The completion of the Lunar Hadron Collider will go down in history as a highlight of human civilization. It is akin to a huge telescope, but rather than observing the stars, it is discovering the mystery behind what creates the stars…
[Requirement: Discover a new particle
[Reward: 1 million physics experience points. 10,000 general points. Purple “legendary mission”.]
A million physics experience points!
I’m getting closer and closer to the “Future Era”.
As Lu Zhou looked at the mission pop-up windows, he reached out and pressed on his characteristic panel.
[
A. Mathematics: Level 10
B. Physics: Level 8 (13,215/3 million)
C. Biochemistry: Level 6 (10,000/600,000)
D. Engineering: Level 6 (10,000/600,000)
E. Materials science: Level 6 (163,000/600,000)
F. Energy science: Level 4 (0/200,000)
G. Information science: Level 4 (0/200,000)
General points: 34,335
]
Just like he had expected, his physics level went from level 7 to level 8. He only had two levels left.
However, when he saw the 3 million experience points requirement, he felt a little hopeless.
What kind of research achievement will give me this many experience points…
Lu Zhou thought for a long time and wasn’t able to think of anything.
Before this, he thought it was difficult to level up in mathematics. But now that he started to specialize in physics, he realized that the difficulty had only just begun.
At least he had a general idea of what area he should research in mathematics. However, physics had a much higher degree of uncertainty. The cutting-edge theories were all conjectures. No one knew what theories would be overthrown and what theories would be discovered.
For example, M theory and supersymmetry theory, these two theories had dominated the cutting-edge research of theoretical physics ever since the middle of the last century. People were still researching whether they were correct or not.
After all, they had been trying to find supersymmetry particles for decades, yet they had barely made any progress.
The only good news was that after he reached mathematics level 10, any kind of physics calculation was a piece of cake to him.
When he was researching the Z particle, his mathematics ability was a huge help for him. If he wasn’t level 10 in mathematics, he might have not been able to solve this problem, at least not within a month.
“I have to keep working hard…”
Lu Zhou opened his inventory and looked at the shiny purple “legendary mission” card in front of him. It was like the card was made from diamonds; it was like a work of art.
Even though he knew the card did not actually exist, he still appreciated the aesthetics.
He was looking forward to the rewards from this mission card.
But the purple card is at least a level lower than the gold one, right?
I wonder what mission it will give me.
Lu Zhou reached out and pressed the mission card.
The card dispersed into tiny shiny particles, and the particles danced around in the air before it formed a pop-up window.
[Mission: Exploring The Legacy
[Description: People are narrow-minded. Even those that have climbed to the top of the mountain still need to use the wisdom of others to find what they have overlooked.
[Requirements: Collect the relics of Professor Grothendieck.
[Reward: Random experience card. One lucky draw ticket. Void Memory B2.]
Overlooked?
Faced with this new mission, Lu Zhou was surprised.
For some reason, he felt like the system was trying to tell him something…
