Chapter 008 The Death of the Book Spirit

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"Damn brat!" Like a form of revenge, the Book Spirit interrupted Richard's words harshly, scolding, "Damn brat, you're cheating. You somehow know the riddles and the answers. You must have gotten them from others who successfully passed the validation. Although you answered correctly, your behavior is despicable and shameless. I will never forget you..."

"Wait!" Richard spoke up, "You say I got the riddles and answers from others who passed the validation? So you're telling me there's only this one question you test everyone with?"

"..." Silence, a long pause again, and after a while, the Book Spirit's stiff voice spoke, "Brat, stop wasting time. State your question! Complete this validation."

"Alright, let me ask you." Richard thought for a moment, then said, "Hmm, here's a question. In the world, there are only four fundamental forces, namely, the electromagnetic force, weak interactions, strong interactions, and gravity. Do you think it's possible for a systematic theory to exist that unifies these four forces to explain all physical phenomena? If so, what is the core of this theory?"

"...," Silence, the long and eerie kind.

"Is it impossible to verify the grand unified theory?" Richard glanced at the page, muttered to himself, and speculated, "Is this type of Q&A too hard? Alright then, let's switch to a simpler true or false question. You only need to choose between correct or incorrect. For instance, the Riemann Hypothesis, one of the seven major problems in mathematics:

In mathematics, some numbers have special properties; they cannot be expressed as the product of two smaller numbers, like 2, 3, 5, 7, and so on. Such numbers are called prime numbers or simply primes. Primes play an important role in both pure and applied mathematics. At first glance, the distribution of prime numbers among natural numbers doesn't seem to follow any pattern.

But a man named Riemann proposed such a conjecture: The frequency of prime numbers is closely related to a complex function. That is, ζ(s) = 1 + 1 / 2S + 1 / 3S + 1 / 4S +... then do you think this conjecture is correct or incorrect?"

"..." Silence, continued long and eerie silence.

Richard couldn't help but raise his eyebrows, "Still unable to answer? So you can't make responses that go beyond the limits of human cognition, no 'super intelligence' attribute, right?"

"..." Still silence.

"Alright." Richard sighed softly, "Then let's switch to the simplest question, a question you're sure to know. What is the circumference of a circle in relation to its diameter? Or, to simplify it, how many times is the wheel circumference of a carriage the length of two spokes placed together?"

This is the simplest explanation for Pi. According to Richard's understanding, in modern Earth history, ancient Egypt calculated Pi to three decimal places before 1900 AD. Over 200 years before that, the great mathematician Archimedes of Ancient Greece calculated Pi to five decimal places...

As long as the Book Spirit in front of him has this knowledge, it should be able to answer this question. Based on the accuracy of the response, he could roughly determine the current mathematical level of this world and thereby indirectly understand the entire wizard-magic system.

After all, whether it is spells or science, as long as it's the establishment of a complete system that conforms to normal logic, the use of mathematics cannot be lacking. With that...

The next moment, the Book Spirit indeed spoke, but lacked the momentum it had before, seemingly answering weakly, "3."

"More precisely?" Richard pressed on, "What comes after the decimal?"

"3.1415926..." The Book Spirit's voice was mechanical.

Hearing the other party pinpoint Pi to the seventh decimal place, Richard couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. This was already the peak level of ancient China on modern Earth, possibly even surpassing it.

And once surpassed, the range to be tested expanded instantly, as the precision of Pi's computation was developed explosively. Around 480 AD, the Chinese mathematician Zu Chongzhi calculated Pi to the seventh decimal place, and it took almost a thousand years before anyone surpassed it. In the early 15th century, Arabic mathematician Kashi calculated Pi to the 17th decimal place.

Later, in 1789, a Slovenian mathematician calculated Pi to the 137th decimal place. In 1948, a British mathematician calculated Pi to the 808th decimal place. In 1949, it was calculated to the 2037th decimal place. By 1973, it had been calculated to one million decimal places. In 1989, it was calculated to 480 million decimal places. By 2010, it reached five trillion decimal places...

Thinking of this, Richard spoke up again, pressing the Book Spirit, "If this value is defined as π, what is the 100,000th digit after the decimal point of π?"

"..." The Book Spirit's voice stopped abruptly, as if it had never appeared.

Richard immediately realized he had been too hasty, his eyes flickered, and he muttered to himself, "What, still haven't reached that level of precision? Then what about 10,000 digits? 1,000 digits? 100 digits?"

"Damn brat..." The Book Spirit's voice sounded, trembling as if it was a machine unable to bear too high a load, "This damn question of yours is too hard... too hard, I tell you, the answer is... is... is... ah!"

In the end, the Book Spirit let out a scream, the moving jaws of the book page suddenly froze, and the flames in its eyes solidified in an instant, just like a machine malfunctioning or a computer crashing, with no further sound.

After a long while, Richard tentatively reached for the page where the Book Spirit was and found it cold, no longer possessing the previous warmth.

"Is this... validation passed?" Richard muttered to himself, "Or did an irreparable error occur due to an overload of calculation?"

Richard examined the pages carefully and didn't find any special constructs, just an ordinary sheet of paper with a skull icon drawn on it. It was clear that the so-called Book Spirit existed within the pages in a way that he didn't yet know.

The next moment, Richard shook his head, not attempting to waste time figuring out the principles of the Book Spirit, but instead directly turning to the following pages.

Dense red writings appeared on the second page.

Written at the top of the second page was something like an introduction: Listen to me, remember me, you will witness a new world—Monroe.

The text on the second line, slightly larger, was the name of the book: Monroe Chapter!

The third line was the actual content: The wizard's world is mysterious and dangerous. Each reader, as you read this book, a door to a new world is slowly opening to you...

Richard squinted his eyes, took a deep breath, and read carefully, then... didn't sleep a wink all night.

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