"... first Platinum-Track Green Belt in region 104."
Click.
"...Bauer"
Click
"Hey kids! Remember to ask your parents before you try any math at home. Home Accidents are preventable. Math is dangerous! Until you're ready for Math, stay safe and use protection."
The gov funded ad ended, and a show came on. It was about a forensic science team, like CSI or something.
"What did you find out Billups?" the lead agent was asking.
"Our perps definitely were running an underground math lab. One of them got a little excited and actually talked to the other about math, and managed to cut the sorry sap's head in two."
"What kind of purity are we talking about? Tell me its just algebra?"
"No such luck. This is some highly pure stuff. Mathematical foundations," the CSI agent whispered one more word, "proof".
Math everywhere, and no one breathing a word of it.
I clicked off the TV, took a ten minute shower, got dressed, and went down to get breakfast.
Some big wig came down and sat next to me.
"Special Forces are tracking your progress. Congratulations, you have a standing letter of acceptance the day you reach Journeyman rank. You are big now, Bauer. Bigger than you even know. Go with the best," the guy in a black army jacket said to me.
"I'm just a novitiate! I could fight those zombies in my sleep. What makes you so impressed by that?" I asked, dumbfounded.
"Most regions have never seen someone breeze through the Novitiate stages so quickly. Do you realize it takes some dungeoneers 6 months to get from No Belt to Green Belt. Some never get past Yellow belt at all. You just blasted through all of that in one day."
The bell man at the door already had a limo prepared while I was eating.
"Mr. Bauer."
I pantomimed talking to the people in the Novitiate common room when I got there. And the people in the dungeon door room. Most people spent more time in the common room than in the dungeon door room or in the dungeons themselves.
I said good luck to some No Belt. He turned white after being addressed by me. I jumped into the green belt dungeon with ablomb.
I saw the pattern, first a few puzzle monsters, to establish the new concept, which was very simple divisions in Green Belt dungeon. Then regular monster fights.
28 / 4 = 7
12 / 3 = 4
90 / 10 = 9
45 / 9 = 5
44 / 11 = 4
2 / 2 = 1
0 / 37 = 0
One tiny dragon whelp down.
16 / 2 = 8
after the first puzzle, the second tiny dragon said, "I am 8 and my friend is 0, what am I when divided by my friend?"
Division by 0 was not defined, so I said nothing.
The monster said after a minute, "Good answer."
His puzzles continued.
4 / 1 = 4
0 / 1807 = 0
56 / 8 = 7
49 / 7 = 7
15 / 3 = 5
Then I faced the combat portion of the dungeon.
Addition and subtraction weren't cutting it anymore, so I used multiplications and divisions to toast the dragon whelps without getting any blood on me.
108 / 12 = 9 was an impressive cracking and gruesome death but no splatter.
735 / 15 = 49 was a blood splattering.
I got bored with the easy again, and so I stumbled upon splattery problems.
The battle finale wasn't too bad, I stuck to simpler divisions and finished with a perfect.
I got my Diamond Star back, now with a Blue Belt.
The day was a blur! Blue Belt Dungeon was about Wolves and multiplying 2 digit numbers by other 2 digit numbers.
I made a mistake in one of the puzzle problems. I didn't even get a Battle Finale, and I ended up with a Purple Belt - Gold Star.
Purple Belt Dungeon was about dividing 2 and 3 digit numbers by 2 digit numbers, and including the remainder in the answers.
I restored my dignity by getting a perfect on the puzzles, the battles and the battle finale, but it looked like my star rating could only go back up one level at a time, as I was awarded a Brown Belt - Platinum Star
Name: Edmond Bauer
Ranking Status: Novitiate (Brown Belt - Platinum Star Track)
Sphere Ranking: 92,379,522nd (21%)
Lives: 27
Race: Elothean
Race: Streak 2 - Skip two enemies with full rewards for every eight you defeat without getting defeated.
Class: N/A
Class Bonuses: None UnlockedThe brown belt dungeon was different from the ones before.
Just inside the entrance was an oak podium with a laminated note and stacks of paper and pencil.
I read the laminated note:
"Ability unlocked. Write mathematics on paper to solve puzzles or for combat. Separate each problem with a line across the page. Order of operations, except for where modified by parentheses, multiplication and division come first and then addition and subtraction. Within these two groups, operations go from left to right. Monsters will be giving you their puzzles on paper.
When using spoken mathematics use phrases like all together or put that together to indicated that a parenthesized group has some other mathematics done on them. Or you can laboriously speak out your parenthesizes for slower detailed work.
Feel free to pick your favorite pen from the bucket."
I picked up thirty pieces of paper and two gel pens.
The first monster was a troll, he handed me a piece of paper with puzzles.
1 + 6 * 8 - 2 = 47
2 * 3 - 2 * 3 + 2 = 2
2 * 4 * 8 - 4 / 4 = 63
The second monster was a troll too.
(17 + 34) / 17 + 2 * (1 + 3 / 3 + 1) = 9
(2 * 2 * 2) + (3 * 3 * 3) - 1 * (2 + 2) = 31
I spent time working on these problems on paper.
The combat section was even slower zombies. Spoken math had no effect because they were waiting some kind of heavy duty plate armor as they shambled extremely slowly.
I started a new page of paper, and wrote:
1 + (1 + 2) + (1 + 2 + 3) + (1 + 2 + 3 + 4) = ?
1 + 3 + 6 + 10 = 20
The first zombie collapsed. The second platemail zombie shambled towards me.
1 * 2 - 3 + 16 / 4 - 1 * 3 + 5 + (1 - 2 / 2) * 5 * 25 = ?
2 - 3 + 4 - 3 + 5 + 0 * 5 * 25 = 5
The second zombie collapsed.
"Perfect! Bonus Brute-Type Challenge. Come up with a mathematical attack that can hit this brute covered in five feet of concrete."
I couldn't even see the brute, just the concrete.
I started a new page.
In my head I was thinking about the binomial expansion: (1 / 2 + 1 / 2) ^ 4
I wrote down:
(1 * 2 * 3 * 4) / ((1) * (1 * 2 * 3 * 4)) / (2 * 2 * 2 * 2) + (1 * 2 * 3 * 4) / ((1) * (1 * 2 * 3)) / (2 * 2 * 2 * 2) + (1 * 2 * 3 * 4) / ((1 * 2) * (1 * 2)) / (2 * 2 * 2 * 2) + (1 * 2 * 3 * 4) / ((1 * 2 * 3) * (1)) / (2 * 2 * 2 * 2) + (1 * 2 * 3 * 4) / ((1 * 2 * 3 * 4) * (1)) / (2 * 2 * 2 * 2) = 1
The expression was simply an expansion of 1 ^ 4 so the result had to be one. To actually calculate it out in every detail would take fractions, I realized.
It rapidly dawned on me that I'd done too well a job. The brute exploded so hard that a piece of concrete smoked me in the eye.
I had already received my Diamond-Star Red-Belt when I came back to consciousness.
I shakily walked out of the dungeon with an injured eye. Already covered in whelp blood form earlier.
The entire Dungeon door room was filled and flooded with people.
There was a scuffle as a dozen reporters tried to shove microphones in my face. One lady won the fight.
"It's official! You are the 2nd person ever to be awarded a Diamond Star Red Belt. The 1st is President Phearson. I expect you're going to be invited to the Presidential Palace in the next few days. What do you think about all of this?"
"I'm just having fun, bored actually."
"Bored," another reported gasped. "You move so fast this has to all be brand new to you. I spent three months on the dungeon you just came out of. Anyway, what's going on with your eye?"
"Flying chunk of concrete. The bonus brute exploded when I defeated him," I said. "I need to see a doctor or someone about this eye."
The reporters were stunned.
"I've never heard of anyone even causing a crack in the concrete, except for the president maybe?"
The murmur amongst them was steady.
I didn't care about that. I waded through people like a sea, and got to the limo outside.
"The nearest hospital please, and step on it."
The waiting room at the hospital was a mile long. I felt a bit nauseous about being let in first ahead of all of those waiting.
No comments:
Post a Comment