Wandering Spaceship in Deep Space - Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Workaholic Characteristic

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

After a few minutes of excitement, the same question surfaced in his mind.

“7812378*7812378=…”

???

??

‘I still can’t answer this question in a split second. What’s going on?’

‘As a … genius, I should not be stumped by such questions!’

Zhang Yuan furrowed his brows and a vertical multiplication table surfaced in his head. After he focused on it for half a minute, he finally obtained the answer.

“61033250014884.”

Well, at least I’ve managed to obtain the answer.

After pondering for a moment, a realization dawned upon him.

“So, it’s like that… In the past when I used to encounter such questions, I had always relied on a calculator to obtain the answer. As a result, my mental calculations have greatly deteriorated. So even if I am a genius, it is impossible for an answer to appear in my mind if I do not concentrate…”

“It is slow now only because my proficiency is lacking, and I don’t have the relevant skills. If I persist with mental arithmetic for a long period of time, I will definitely improve.”

The next day…

Zhang Yuan woke up groggily and rubbed the side of his head.

Perhaps he had been too excited last night and had continuously tested his IQ, he was unable to fall asleep—it was almost daybreak when he finally slept.

When he checked the time, it was already 10 in the morning.

“Oh sh*t!”

Zhang Yuan rolled over, jumped up from his bed, and quickly freshened himself up before rushing out.

“Hopefully, I won’t be late. Otherwise, Aunt will be nagging at me for hours…”

His schedule during his 30-day vacation was very packed. He had something scheduled for every single day of the month. Today, he had made an appointment to have lunch at his Aunt’s house.

July in Donghua City was like a stove, where the surroundings were filled with heatwaves. Even the plants on the roadside were currently in an abyss of suffering.

Zhang Yuan hastily rushed to the subway station where air conditioning was always available.

There was no lack of energy in the current era. The power generated from every large-scale Nuclear Fusion Power Plant was comparable to the Three Gorges hydropower station, making the price of energy in the country as low as 3 cents per kWh

Thanks to that, with the exception of plastic and other petroleum derivatives, steel, cement and other industrial products that required high consumption of power became extremely cheap.

In particular, thanks to the rapid development of nanotechnology, it has allowed building materials to constantly be improved. For example, if 6% of nano silica was added to a cement mixture, the cement’s ability to withstand external forces increased twofold, thus increasing the comprehensive use of concrete as building materials.

The widespread cheap building materials had resulted in taller high-rise buildings in the city. And now, there were thousand feet tall buildings everywhere.

Two centuries ago, an 828-meter-tall Burj Khalifa was the tallest building in the world but in the current era, a building of that height could only be regarded as the tallest building in a small village.

Moreover, based on the original cost of building the Burj Khalifa, at least five identical towers could be built at the same costs now!

Some railway tracks were even constructed at the height of more than a thousand meters above ground, with skyscrapers as its pillars.

These designs were very popular in large cities, causing ‘air tracks’ to be one of the main points of attraction of big cities.

“Oh, it’s quite crowded.”

Donghua City was one of the top five cities in Xia Country. Even though the morning rush hour had passed, the subway was still crowded with people.

“Dear passengers, please give priority to elderly and children.”

“Please avoid smoking and begging in the carriages.”

It was impossible to completely resolve the problem of transport.

Some citizens would always find a fault in the government to nit-pick. For example, if the public transport were too crowded, the government would be blamed. However, if the number of servicing trains were to increase with the interval shortened, it would result in an increase of empty seats. At which, the government would then be criticized for wasting taxpayers’ money. No matter what they did, they would be criticized and so it would be better for them to ensure they met the minimum demand of the citizens and get it over and done with.

When Zhang Yuan was queuing at the back, he heard some people complaining about the government not increasing the number of servicing trains and other miscellaneous matters. At such complaints, he could only chuckle deep down as he did not have many thoughts on that topic. Instead, he took out his mobile phone and started answering some questions.

There was a very popular app called Super Brain. It could test a person’s memory, arithmetic, and reasoning ability. On the train, he would be bored regardless so answering questions would make the whole ride a little bit more interesting. Moreover, he could use this time to test his current IQ.

The thing he was most concerned about right now was his IQ.

Every single time after he managed to test and confirm his high IQ, the refreshing feeling he experienced was hard to describe in words.

The subway was rather noisy, and it was usually difficult to concentrate. However, for some reason, he would have a wonderful sense of achievement whenever he completed the questions, similar to eating ice cream on a hot Sunday morning.

Perhaps after he injected the enhancer, he had gained a workaholic characteristic?

“I finally understand why some people are willing to work from day to night. So, it turns out, working makes them feel fulfilled! Using my brain has now become something fun!”

*Ding-dong*

When the train reached the station, a horde of people gushed in the train like a tide and the waiting area was emptied.

Zhang Yuan walked in and casually found a standing area before he continued to answer questions after questions.

With his increasing proficiency in arithmetic, a 7-digit number with elementary arithmetic operation questions that initially took half a minute had decreased to ten second for him to complete, and that included the calculation of values.

The feeling of answers coming out at one’s beck and call upon seeing the question was starting to form.

His mind became increasingly agile. He was very satisfied with the results.

Soon, he no longer felt satisfaction from solving elementary arithmetic operations and moved on to square roots.

“Let’s try a simple one, √7812 (to four significant figures)”

Zhang Yuan started to increase the difficulty of the questions he attempted.

There were many different ways to manually square an integer, and the most common one was trial quotient which was similar to division. As long as one’s mental calculation was strong enough, it was possible to directly calculate the answer.

There were also some more troublesome calculation methods, for example, continued fraction, bisection method, Newton’s method and etcetera.

After fifteen seconds, he came to an answer.

“√7812=88.38…”

Correct!

“√444”

“21.07”

Correct!

‘Haha! So, is this what it feels like to be a genius?’

‘It’s… so refreshing!’

The cabin was very quiet and other than the systematic prompt sounds from within the train, everyone was immersed in their own world.

From time to time, some passengers who were reaching the climax of a novel or video clips would uncontrollably release sounds of laughter like an idiot.

The occasional free time on trains should be used to improve oneself, and not for entertainment!

A ‘public intellectual’, who had recently just returned from studies abroad, furrowed his brows as he lamented at the unhealthy culture of society.

The phenomenon of phubbers was often criticized in various major media. However, their criticism fell on deaf ears as everyone continued doing as they pleased. The government legislature could not possibly prohibit the use of mobile phones in public places, right?

The man in focus was Ye Fan. From his experiences, people overseas would often read the newspaper on the train instead of playing with their phones. The atmosphere there was a hundred times better than that of Xia Country. (But in actual fact, it was because their country did not have the internet.)

Anyway, he had the impression that the lives of young people overseas were much healthier compared to those in Xia Country!

‘It’s no wonder these people can’t go up to space. It’s because they spent their studying time on entertainment… It would be a huge joke if they could go up to space!’ Ye Fan secretly thought to himself.

‘There’s this saying that so-called geniuses just devote all of their time into their work while others are drinking coffee…’

In particular, the young man standing beside him who was wearing a short-sleeved shirt. He was revealing a honey-sweet smile while looking at his phone.

‘Tsk, I bet he must be dating a two-dimensional girl. A good-for-nothing!’