I Got an Omnipotent Brain

The day of the exam had arrived.

Yu Seo-ha woke up early and was looking out the window. Duck figurines were neatly placed on the window sill.

Seo-ha’s gaze lingered on one of them for a long time.

“Ducky, what is it that you want? Do you want to destroy me?”

The duck seemed to shake its head.

Seo-ha instinctively felt that the cohabitant in his mind did not harbor malice toward him. Ducky simply loved mathematics purely.

“I think we can get along well. Don’t you think so too?”

“Seo-ha, let’s eat breakfast!”

Ji-hoon, who had just finished his shower, brought Seo-ha out of his thoughts.

When he looked at the clock, it was already 7:30.

Seo-ha quickly changed his clothes and left the room.

When he went down to the dining hall, the entire Korean team was already gathered.

‘It looks like no one missed any sleep.’

Professor Park looked over the students’ complexions and nodded.

Three years ago, there had been a student who was expected to win a gold medal but couldn’t even perform at half of their usual ability. It had been due to lack of sleep caused by nervousness.

The English-style breakfast had a good reputation and few dislikes.

Bacon, sausage, hash browns, grilled tomatoes, mushrooms, baked beans, black pudding, fried bread, and even crispy toast with a variety of jams.

Everyone, wearing bright expressions, was picking and eating the food they wanted on their plates. Seo-ha wasn’t sure what to get, so he ordered “Everything” and was surprised when his plate was filled to the brim.

After finishing their meal, they headed toward the exam venue,

The representatives from each country were walking quietly. Some were muttering formulas one last time, while others were calming their nerves with deep breaths.

When they entered the auditorium, the wide space unfolded before them in one view.

The sight of hundreds of desks arranged in orderly rows was a spectacle. The students moved to find their assigned seats, holding their exam IDs.

Seo-ha also found his seat.

[KOR-1]

It was the seat assigned to number one of the Korean team, Seo-ha.

On the desk were a white answer sheet, a pencil, and an eraser. Seo-ha sat down and looked around. Sitting diagonally behind to the right was Lu Yichen. He glanced at Seo-ha, then turned his eyes away. A faint sense of hostility was felt.

However, Seo-ha looked at him without any particular emotion.

In the world of mathematics, they were all just fellow travelers on the same path. There was no reason to dislike him.

‘Ah, or is that not always the case?’

Newton and Leibniz.

In the late 17th century, it is known that both of them invented calculus around the same time. Today’s scholars believe that Newton came up with it about ten years earlier, but also evaluate that Leibniz independently completed his own system of calculus.

But what about back then?

Leibniz was accused throughout his entire life of stealing Newton’s achievements, until his death.

‘That must’ve been incredibly unfair.’

The question sheets were handed out in sealed envelopes.

The proctor checked the time.

”You may begin!”

The proctor’s declaration echoed through the room.

All the students opened the question papers simultaneously.

It had finally begun.

***

For Lu Yichen, mathematics was both a blessing and a curse.

“You have talent in mathematics. From now on, do not attend school.”

The command from his father, a professor at Tsinghua University, was absolute.

Although homeschooling was legally prohibited in China, everything was possible at private schools for children of the elite.

His father was a man who rarely knew satisfaction.

No matter how excellent Lu Yichen’s grades were, he was never praised.

Not even when he won the Beijing City Elementary School Mathematics Competition, or when he won the Grand Prize in the national middle school contest at the age of ten.

“Talent alone achieves nothing. A genius who doesn’t work hard is worse than a mediocre person.”

To his father, first place was simply the outcome Lu Yichen was supposed to bring home.

The year he turned fourteen,

All contact with acquaintances was cut off.

Games, comics, TV, and the leisure activities that teenagers should naturally enjoy had already been long abandoned. All that remained for him was mathematics.

He woke up early every morning and sat at his desk until midnight.

He gripped the pencil until his fingertips grew stiff and solved problems until his eyes grew dim.

Even after turning fifteen, Lu Yichen’s life became even more extreme.

He had been selected as a national representative candidate and entered a special training camp.

The camp was located in a quiet area on the outskirts of Beijing.

There, Lu Yichen lived for a year with one hundred prodigies gathered from across the country.

Sixteen hours of study a day,

Seven days a week.

There was no rest.

That was how he grasped the individual 1st place at the IMO.

All of China shouted his name.

Lu Yichen would never forget the moment when the gold medal was placed around his neck at the award ceremony.

Before he knew it, the situation had reversed.

He once hated his own talent, but now Lu Yichen couldn’t imagine living without mathematics.

Lu Yichen glanced at Seo-ha, who was sitting in front of him.

‘That kid?’

Since yesterday, a strange rumor had been circulating among the Chinese team.

A twelve-year-old boy had taken first place in the Korean national selection.

Upon checking, it turned out to be true.

‘What was I doing at twelve?’

It was the time he had been receiving hellish home training from his father.

He would never have been capable of competing at the IMO level.

‘Monster? Maybe in Korea. That boy would never pass the Chinese preliminaries.’

Even in the history of Chinese mathematics, the youngest participant in the IMO had been fifteen years old.

But Do-kyung, who had been so timid he couldn’t even meet his eyes, had shown confidence. That moment lingered unpleasantly in Lu Yichen’s mind.

All around the exam hall, the sound of envelopes being torn open could be heard.

Lu Yichen carefully opened his envelope and took out the problem sheet.

[Problem 1]

A number theory problem. A field he had solved so many times it was sickening.

But even as he read the question, he kept getting distracted.

Lu Yichen slightly turned his head and looked at Seo-ha.

‘Already?’

Not even two minutes had passed since they began reading the problem, yet he was already writing down answers.

‘Focus. Solving quickly doesn’t mean a higher score. He probably just got lucky and got a problem he knew.’

What mattered in number theory was the proper substitution of variables. If a solution satisfying the condition existed, there was always a systematic way to find it.

Lu Yichen began jotting down several cases on the blank paper to search for a pattern. Trying small numbers and finding patterns was the basic approach in number theory.

But no matter how much he looked, there wasn’t even a clue.

‘Has the problem become harder?’

It was a type he had never seen before.

But it didn’t matter. He had already been through this many times. If it couldn’t be solved with a combination of basic theorems, then he just had to figure it out himself.

Various numbers to test flashed through Lu Yichen’s mind. It might take some time, but he would be able to solve it eventually.

Rustle.

‘Huh?’

The sound of paper turning.

‘No way!’

Yu Seo-ha had already moved on to Problem 2.

‘Did he skip it because it was too hard?’

But there was no sign of frustration on the boy’s face. Rather, he was smiling?

Perhaps because he had lived in the world of competition for too long, Lu Yichen was overly conscious of his opponent.

***

Seo-ha was in a good mood.

‘The problem quality is excellent!’

The moment he read Problem 1, his heart began to race. The elegant regularity hidden within the integer arrangement was immediately apparent.

It looked complicated like a code, but when you pierced through the core, an astonishingly simple and perfect structure revealed itself.

A problem that appeared to be number theory on the surface was dismantled completely through Seo-ha’s mathematical intuition.

Seo-ha picked up his pencil and began to calculate. It was the process of reconstructing a complex algebraic structure and discovering the pattern hidden within.

He elevated ordinary integers to an extended number field and reinterpreted the given conditions in that space. Then, the relational expressions that had seemed devoid of rules revealed an incredibly clear structure.

‘Amazing.’

Perfect order existing within chaos.

Seo-ha loved the moment of discovering that.

Problem 2 was a combinatorial geometry problem.

A problem dealing with the relationships between points and lines on a plane.

Whenever he saw problems like this, Seo-ha felt as if he could understand the heart of the problem setter. This person must truly love mathematics.

The arrangement of points satisfying the given conditions, and the perfect symmetry created by those points.

Though the hints were scarce, for Seo-ha it was an enjoyable process.

Countless geometric figures in his mind changed in shape and size, intertwining with the problem’s points and lines. Then he found a candidate that fit the conditions.

‘Projective geometry?’

The points and lines transformed into conic sections.

One of the astonishing properties of geometry discovered by 19th-century mathematicians.

While solving the problem, Seo-ha soon wore a gloomy expression.

‘Even mathematicians from 200 years ago discovered things like this…’

As Seo-ha studied mathematics and its history, he was constantly amazed by the achievements of past mathematicians built over thousands of years. At the same time, a powerful desire arose within him to become a part of that history.

‘Let’s go on to discover lots of things no one else knows.’

Seo-ha reaffirmed his resolve.

“Sigh...”

“Damn it.”

“Ugh.”

Sighs resembling groans echoed throughout the exam hall.

Marcello, a member of the problem committee, watched this and nodded with a satisfied expression.

‘Now this is a real exam.’

Marcello was a professor in the Department of Pure Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. Having devoted himself to mathematical research for thirty years, he had taken on the role of IMO Problem Committee Chair starting this year.

He had deep concerns about the changes the IMO had undergone in the past decade or so.

‘It’s become too easy.’

Since the 2010s, the number of perfect scorers in the IMO had begun to increase rapidly. In the past, even a single perfect scorer in ten years was rare, but now there were nearly some every year.

Two years ago, when difficulty adjustment had completely failed, there were over ten perfect scorers. At this rate, even the Olympiad’s reputation itself could be called into question.

Of course, the global improvement in mathematics education also played a role. But Marcello diagnosed that this was not the only cause.

Previously released IMO problems had accumulated over decades, and educators who systematically analyzed and categorized them had emerged. Students were now learning problem patterns as if memorizing formulas.

Skilled techniques over creative thinking.

Trained memory over mathematical intuition.

Past IMO champions later left behind distinct mathematical accomplishments. Like Grigori Perelman, who solved the Millennium Problem of the Poincaré Conjecture.

But now?

Is this really the right kind of exam?

Marcello had doubts.

At the same time, he felt sorry for the majority of participants.

His values would not be favorable to them.

‘The Mathematical Olympiad should be a test that filters out talent.’

Finding those who are truly destined to become mathematicians was the original purpose of the IMO at its foundation.

Now, it was time to return to that starting point.

*****

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