Translator: Dreamscribe
[LOGIA is going crazy ㅋㅋㅋ]
-The top 100 rankers' scores keep going up overnight. They're really grinding, huh?
└I'd do it too. If I had the ability.
└I heard rumors that some of the double-digit rankers have formed teams.... They say there's no way to climb up solo.
└LOGIA, aren't you going to manage the abuse?
└Damn, I was in the top 100 too, but the cutoff keeps rising and I got pushed out. Guess I'll just watch from the sidelines.
└Did the problem difficulty suddenly go up, or is it just me?
└There are tons of new faces too. IIT and Tsinghua are swarming in like it's a rush.
The small pebble Seo-ha had thrown came back as a tidal wave.
The dormant dragons who had been holding their breath all raised their heads at once. The ripple effect that Apex Lab possessed was beyond imagination. For the elite doctoral and master's students at top-tier universities, the chance to work on the same team as Seo-ha, who was changing the paradigm of modern mathematics, was the most attractive reward of all.
A research lab at Oxford University in England, with a view of the fog-blanketed campus beyond the window.
The paper on the desk was densely filled with unidentifiable equations, and a laptop computer sat open on one side.
"Hmph! How ridiculous."
Cecilia Ashley twirled a pen on her fingertips with a cold smile.
She was a direct descendant of the Ashley family, a prestigious lineage of geniuses in Britain, and a supernova who had reportedly opened new horizons in Complex Geometry while still in her teens.
To her, LOGIA had been nothing more than a trivial game she had once enjoyed. Two years ago, she was the legendary user who had massacred every ranker at the time within just a few weeks, ascended to first place, and then vanished without a trace.
"I was planning to visit someday anyway. Good timing."
Even someone as arrogant as she was couldn't ignore the achievements Seo-ha had accumulated so far.
She didn't want to admit it, but his way of handling numbers came closest to the beauty she aspired to. And that made it all the more unpleasant.
"Up to fourth place, was it?"
Cecilia put on the glasses she had set aside and activated her dormant account.
[Welcome Back, Cecilia]
The moment the message appeared on screen, she began solving problems without a moment's hesitation.
└Guys! Did you see the real-time rankings just now? Cecilia is back!
└Who?
└Tsk tsk, this is why newbies ㅋㅋㅋ. She's the legend who bombed LOGIA two years ago just like Seo-ha.
└She just entered the top 200. Every time I refresh, her rank goes up. Holy crap.
└All the rankers have fires lit under their asses now.
As if she couldn't care less about the commotion in the community, Cecilia began tearing through the scores with terrifying momentum. Her goal wasn't something as modest as fourth place.
* * *
Sri stared blankly at the screen.
His rank, once 27th, kept dropping. What Sri considered his strength was being an engineer who knew mathematics well. But in this place, he had to compete with pure mathematics alone.
On top of that, the situation was a complete 180 from when he had easily grabbed fifth place in an uncontested field. Now, even if he did nothing, his rank was slipping at a frightening pace each day.
[Rank 35 : Srinivasa Krishnan]
'Damn it.'
Sri clenched his teeth.
The rankings tab was full of strong players he'd never seen before, coming out of who knows where. Besides Cecilia, geniuses from his alma mater IIT, Princeton, UC Berkeley, Imperial College, and various other institutions were solving problems all day long.
Needless to say, a LOGIA craze was raging fiercely at Seo-ha's home ground, MIT, as well.
'Sri, don't tell me you actually think of yourself as an engineer?'
Why was the question Seo-ha had asked coming back to him now?
Sri realized that he had never once seriously confronted mathematics after he had grown up. Perhaps this was also why he had felt inferior when watching Theo or Su-jeong.
People who had staked their lives on mathematics had a distinctive aura about them. It was an attitude toward the universe of numbers, a mathematical selfhood.
"Hoo."
Sri exhaled and closed his eyes.
Long ago, there had been a child who was poor but loved mathematics more than anyone.
In an old house where the electricity was often cut off, at night he would write down equations by the light of a single candle. The memory of chasing after the beauty of elegant equations and the symmetries that popped up in unexpected places, reveling in the joy of it. Sri sank into the memory and reminisced about those days.
'But why?'
In Seo-ha's view, Sri's weakness lay in pursuing efficiency too much. It was unavoidable. That was the alpha and omega of engineering.
This tendency had sometimes been a strength, but it had now become a wall blocking Sri's mathematical growth.
Efficiency was the technique of racing toward a predetermined answer as fast as possible. But in the vast abyss of mathematics, the habit of measuring only by efficiency was also a blind spot that erased the possibilities hidden beyond the equations.
'Ah! So that's why....'
It was for the same reason that his mind had been at ease when analyzing papers or coding.
All of those had been problems where optimization was the key.
Sri opened his eyes.
"Let's start over from here."
[Are you sure you want to delete your account?]
Click.
He decided to erase everything he had been up until now.
Starting over from zero.
He didn't feel the slightest regret about his ranking. If anything, a sense of anticipation was beginning to stir over how LOGIA would evaluate his changed self.
The number of papers he had analyzed on the team over the past year was beyond imagination.
He had watched how Seo-ha handled numbers at his side, and he had experienced Theo and Su-jeong's thinking through countless conversations.
[Would you like to create a new account?]
Click.
He didn't have to go this far, but to Sri it was as important as a ritual.
* * *
"Um, noona. I don't think you absolutely have to do that...."
Seo-ha awkwardly scratched his head and glanced at Su-jeong's expression.
Su-jeong let out a small sigh and glared at him.
"Talk sense. It's obvious everyone's going to be watching our team members' rankings. How could I not!"
Seo-ha flattened himself like a criminal.
He had only meant to give Sri a kick in the pants, but he had inadvertently put unwanted pressure on Su-jeong as well.
Theo sipped his coffee in a relaxed posture and nodded.
"She's right. Imagine if Su-jeong fell out of the top four. What would people say?
Goodness, but this won't be easy. Look at the universities of the people in the top 100. I recognize quite a few of them. I thought they weren't interested in this kind of thing, but I guess I was wrong."
Slurp.
Su-jeong looked at Theo and furrowed her brow.
She was sure he was doing it on purpose. After a long while, she pulled out her battle gear again. Gray hoodie, sneakers, hair tied up in a tight ponytail, she grabbed her laptop and sat in the corner seat.
"I wanted to hit number one at least once anyway. And I don't think it's impossible."
As a mathematician, Su-jeong's momentum these days was terrifying.
Theo stole a sideways glance at her and clicked the rankings tab.
"Hmmm...."
Tanaka of Caltech, Rafael of Harvard, Daniel of Princeton, and Cecilia, who was climbing with terrifying speed, caught his eye.
A few prodigies from China and India had also made it into the top 20.
Theo smirked as he looked at the screen.
"This'll be fun. It's like Seo-ha issued an Avengers assemble order."
He was more than happy to see the moths flocking toward this El Dorado. Lately, maintaining his ranking had become a little boring.
Crack.
He stretched his hands and neck, then clicked the problem matching button.
* * *
[Current LOGIA Ranking Situation Analysis]
-The situation these days is so entertaining I decided to summarize the status of the major rankers. The top 4 rankings that Seo-ha announced are in complete flux.
1. Theo (Team APEX Lab) [-]
Immovable number one. He hasn't stepped down from the throne since Seo-ha turned into a statue. Probably going to hold first place comfortably until the end of the month?
2. Cecilia Ashley (Oxford) [▲4]
The empress returns. As befits the legend who bombed LOGIA two years ago and disappeared, her momentum is fierce. But the gap with the top group is almost nonexistent, so there's no room to relax.
3. Sujeong Lim (Team APEX Lab) [▲7]
Another undergraduate in APEX. Since the no-entry notice, she's been climbing the rankings at a terrifying pace. Rumor has it that despite her looks, her personality isn't great, so don't pick fights with her in chat. Announced on SNS that she's aiming for first place. We may have been underestimating her all this time.
4. Daniel Brown (Princeton) [▼1]
Belongs to Elijah Cronen's research lab. There were rumors he was trying to transfer labs, but they turned out to be false. Seems he's just doing this for fun. His rank has dropped a bit lately, but he's been floated as a Fields Medal candidate multiple times, so he might climb right back up?
5. Julian Lambert (Caltech) [▼3]
Was on a roll but now in danger of being kicked out. Once climbed as high as 2nd, putting the rankers on edge, but lately he seems to be struggling among the monsters. Logs into LOGIA for more than 15 hours a day. Seems to want to transfer to Apex Lab.
9. Srinivasa Krishnan (Team APEX Lab) [▲27]
The only one among the rankers not majoring in math. He was the team's coder, and many speculated that his pure mathematical ability would be relatively lacking. He suddenly deleted his account, so we thought he'd dropped out of the race, but he created a new account right away and is now shredding the ranking boards. Jumping dozens of spots at a time, he's now aiming to break into the top 4.
└Apex Lab has no weak links. I'm seeing Srinivasa in a new light.
└Still, 4th place seems tough? Only a few days left.
└Where are all the people who were looking down on him as just a coder?
└Julian is kind of a clown at this point. He bought an MIT hoodie and cap and posted them on SNS.
└I saw that too ㅋㅋㅋㅋ
└Cecilia is impressive though. Things have gotten a lot more interesting thanks to her.
└At this point, basically every master's and doctoral elite on Earth has gathered. There's a bunch of people from Tokyo University and Tsinghua in the upper ranks too.
* * *
Sri had fallen into a trance.
Once he stopped thinking about taking shortcuts, things he hadn't seen before became visible. Pursuing rigor, the mathematical fundamental he had been dismissing. Sri worked tirelessly to fill that gap.
'Now I understand. Engineering looks for efficiency, but in mathematics, you have to find inevitability.'
Once his money worries eased, Sri was able to return to his childhood self and devote himself to mathematics once again.
One in 1.4 billion. Sri's true talent, which even Seo-ha had acknowledged, was awakening.
He solved one problem, then another.
Sri was no longer conscious of time or rank. Once he changed his mindset, the joy he had felt when first learning mathematics came back to life.
'This is fun.'
The thrill of watching the logic he had built link together through inevitability to become the unique answer to a problem. Areas that had felt difficult before were now visible to him as clearly as if he could grasp them in his hand.
And the next day,
Ding.
[Rank 6 : Srinivasa Krishnan]
Sri looked out the window.
The sun had long since set, and outside it was pitch black.
[23:30]
Today was the last day of the month.
Seo-ha's notice would take effect starting tomorrow.
'This'll be my last problem.'
The battle for the top ranks was fierce.
No matter how many points he racked up, the gap didn't easily close. The rankers were holding their positions without breaking all the way to the end.
Click.
"Huh?"
The last problem came up as an S+ grade.
Due to score inflation, it was probably a problem the AI had deliberately ratcheted up in difficulty to create more differentiation.
Sri took a deep breath and glared at the problem.
A moment later,
Ding.
[Rank 4 : Srinivasa Krishnan]
Sri closed his eyes and quietly cheered.
He felt that only now could he proudly answer Seo-ha's question.
"No, I am a mathematician."
* * *
"Mom! I'm heading out!"
Seo-ha shouted from the entryway as he put on his shoes.
"What about breakfast?"
"I'll eat at the lab!"
The door closed along with his reply.
As he pedaled his bicycle, fresh morning air brushed against his face.
'Took ten years off my life.'
At midnight yesterday, Seo-ha had refreshed the app with trembling hands.
He trusted his teammates, but still, if anyone had failed to make the top four, it could have led to an uncomfortable situation.
'Just as I thought!'
Seo-ha let out a cheer of triumph.
Sri would gain more confidence than before and solidify his identity as a mathematician. Above all, he was glad he no longer had to worry about him leaving.
Beep.
"Hello!"
Seo-ha greeted cheerfully as he opened the door and stepped inside.
'Huh? Is something wrong?'
A chilly atmosphere hung in the lab.
Theo and Su-jeong were pointedly looking elsewhere, and Sri was also glancing sideways while pretending to do something else.
"So you're Yu Seo-ha?"
A voice came from behind the partition.
Theo looked at Seo-ha as if making an excuse.
"I clearly told her no outsiders allowed...."
"You said up to fourth place was welcome, didn't you? Promises must be kept, right?"
A woman with dark chestnut hair came into Seo-ha's view.
She sat in a chair with her legs crossed as if it were her own home. She was a beauty with a sharp yet restrained presence.
Inside her black long coat was what looked like a custom-tailored dark navy suit, and on her wrist she wore a watch worth roughly the price of a house in a mid-sized city.
Seo-ha's eyes widened.
"Huh?"
She smirked.
"You too, reacting like that? That's why I don't take photos."
Posh English, symbol of the British aristocracy, an accent that suited no one better than her.
"Cecilia Ashley. I'm currently the head of the family."
"You mean, the Ashleys?"
She nodded.
Theo leapt to his feet in shock.
A life peerage in the British House of Lords: Lady Ashley of Oxford.
She was nobility among nobility.
But what had surprised Seo-ha was, more than anything, her face.
"What is your relation to Countess Ada Lovelace?"
The genius of the century whom Britain took pride in,
The 1800s figure who had first translated mathematics into a programming language. A person still praised today for her beautiful features and intellect.
Cecilia's face was astonishingly similar to the one Seo-ha had seen in his mathematics history books.
"She's my great-great-grandmother."
A golden spoon among golden spoons.
An heiress who had inherited not only a title and wealth but also the intellect of the century. That was Cecilia.
All three of their jaws dropped open.
*****
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