Date: April 17, 2026 (Friday)
Time: 4:15 PM
Location: Classroom 1-4
---
A standard PhD professor looks at this equation and recognizes the trick immediately. They know they need to apply a Schwinger parameterization to collapse the 5D space into a 1D contour integral. But the trick is only the bait.
After applying the reduction, the equation expands into a massive generating function. To extract the z^24 coefficient, you must manually calculate twenty-four layers of recursive derivatives by hand. The arithmetic involves tracking hundreds of fractional coefficients. If you drop a single negative sign or misplace a denominator on layer three, the error cascades. You will waste an entire hour of solving just to arrive at a completely shattered final answer.
A normal professor with a massive library of knowledge would probably need at least 180 minutes of flawless paper-tracking to solve this safely. The time limit is ninety minutes. It is a trap meant to break experts.
A sharp snap broke the silence. Albert glanced to his left.
Himuro Leina was staring at her front page. The tip of her mechanical pencil had broken off. Her jaw was clamped tight. Her hand didn't move to write a single number. It seemed like she was just glaring at the equation, completely frozen.
Albert spun his pencil.
I know the trick. And I can track twenty-four layers of derivatives entirely in my head. I can hold the arrays of fractions in my mind, multiply them simultaneously, and reduce them without ever touching my pencil. It requires absolute, punishing concentration. One slip in visualization and the equation shatters. But it is humanly possible. I could probably solve this within forty-five minutes of pure, uninterrupted mental calculation.
He gripped his mechanical pencil. He lowered his hand, the sharp tip of the graphite hovering a fraction of a millimeter above the blank front page. His mind was already accelerating, ready to drag the first complex variable out of his head and onto the paper.
But the graphite never touched the sheet.
His hand locked mid-air. A sudden, visceral cold gripped his chest—a phantom echo from middle school memory. The heavy, isolating weight of a perfect red '100'. The quiet, judgmental whispers that always followed in its wake.
If he made this stroke, if he let the math spill out onto the page, he knew exactly what the numbers would turn him into.
The pencil hovered over the paper for one long, heavy second.
Albert looked back down. He grabbed the top right corner of his test booklet. He flipped past the thick stack of pages in one smoot and continuous motion.
He stopped at Question 51.
He pressed his pencil to the paper and started writing.
---
Time: 5:50 PM Location: Hallway (En Route to Shoe Lockers)
"That was intense," Leo exhaled, stretching his arms above his head as they walked down the corridor. The tension of the last five hours seemed to evaporate off him like steam. "I feel like my brain just ran a marathon."
"Intense? It was a massacre," Maya muttered, looking visibly drained. She rubbed her eyes. "I stared at the first math problem for twenty minutes. I tried every fraction I could think of. Nothing worked."
Of course nothing worked. She wasted twenty minutes fighting a brick wall. The school put the monster at the front door to trap the smart students. By burning that much time on a trap, she probably rushed the middle section.
"Don't worry about it, Maya," Leo said gently, patting her shoulder. "If it was impossible for us, it was impossible for everyone else."
Leo paused. He shifted his gaze toward Albert.
Maya stopped rubbing her eyes. Maya lowered her hand from her face. She turned her head slightly and looked at Albert, too.
As they neared the staircase leading to the lockers, a group of three senior students passed them, walking in the opposite direction toward the cafeteria. They wore the distinct lapel pins of the dormitory residents.
"Ugh, seriously? It's Friday again," one of the seniors, a tall boy with messy hair, groaned. "That means the internet is going to crash. Again."
"Tell me about it," the second senior replied, shaking his head. "I was planning to binge-watch that new series on Netflix, but I bet I won't even get past the buffering screen. I'm gonna be so bored in my dorm."
"It happens all the time. Every single Friday," the first senior complained. "What is going on with the server? Do they throttle it or something?"
"It's not just throttling, it's a total timeout," the third senior said. He was adjusting a silver badge on his collar—a Student Council member. "Last year, during the budget submission, I almost threw away my laptop because of the connection error. It just kept spinning and gave me a 404. It's a nightmare trying to get anything done on the school network after 6:00 PM on a Friday."
Albert's ears pricked up.
Interesting data overlap. The residential students are complaining about a 'Friday Crash' due to streaming, which is expected. But the Student Council member mentioned an 'Administrative' upload failure occurring at the exact same time. That shouldn't happen. In a proper enterprise architecture, the Dormitory VLAN and the Administration VLAN should have separate dedicated uplinks. If both systems fail simultaneously at 18:00, it implies they are fighting for the same bandwidth pipe. The school is probably routing recreational traffic and critical administrative data through a single gateway. When the students start streaming, they inadvertently DDoS the administration. It's a massive architectural oversight.
The seniors disappeared around the corner, their complaints fading.
"They're living in the dorms," Leo said, looking back at them with a wistful expression. "I wish we could live in the dorms too. It sounds like a totally different vibe from living at home."
"Even with the bad internet?" Maya asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Who cares about the internet?" Leo shrugged, his hands in his pockets. "It's about independence. Hanging out with friends 24/7. No parents. Just freedom."
Albert adjusted his glasses, keeping his face neutral.
"Independence usually comes with a maintenance cost, Leo," Albert said quietly. "In this case, the cost appears to be packet loss."
Leo laughed. "Always looking at the specs, Albert. Come on, let's go home."
They walked toward the huge iron gate.
This school is strange. A regular high school spaces out midterms and final exams over three or four days. They give students time to breathe, allowing for overnight review.
Zenith Academy does not do that. They compress the entire evaluation into a single nine-hour block. Five core subjects back-to-back. It is a brutal setup. They do not just test academic retention. They test mental endurance.
They neared the front gate. The exiting crowd was a dense bottleneck of tired students. Albert looked ahead and saw a familiar classmate standing off to the side, right against the edge of the brick pillar. He watched her from a distance.
Her posture is completely different from this morning. Shoulders are sagging forward and arms are hanging loose and limp at her sides. Her heavy school bag is just resting on the dusty concrete right next to her shoes. She is staring straight at the ground. Not blinking. Her mouth is slightly open.
We walked right past her but she didn't even look up. She didn't seem to notice the hundreds of students walking by.
Albert shifted his focus back to the path ahead. The crowd around them parted slightly. Students naturally gave way to Leo and Maya.
The 'Halo Effect' is still active.It had been almost two weeks since the entrance ceremony, but the reaction was the exact same. Girls whispered when Leo passed while boys stopped talking to stare at Maya.
Albert walked directly in the middle of them. The familiar awkwardness crept up his neck.
I am the dead space interrupting a perfect picture.
He kept his head down, matching their walking pace.
I just want to get home.
They kept talking about dinner plans and track practice. Albert gave short nods. They finally reached the main intersection. The sky was turning dark purple and the streetlights flickered on.
"I'm starving," Leo complained. He rubbed his stomach. "See you tomorrow, Albert."
"Get some rest!" Maya smiled. She gave a small wave.
They all split up. Leo walked across the street toward the convenience store, while Maya turned to the road leading to her neighborhood.
He walked a few meters and stopped at the edge of the crosswalk. The pedestrian light was solid red. Cars rushed past. They kicked up a warm breeze.
He waited for the signal to change, keeping his hands in his pockets. Then, he noticed a slight movement in his peripheral vision.
He turned his head to the left.
A girl was standing right beside him. She stared straight ahead at the rushing traffic. Her eyes were completely empty. Her face was blank. She was just spacing out.
---
Endnote of Chapter 24
Subject: Standard Japanese Exams vs. Zenith Academy's Data Collection
In a standard Japanese high school, major examinations (midterms and finals) are distributed over three to four consecutive days. Students typically take two or three subject tests per morning, allowing them to go home early, rest, and study for the next day's specific subjects.
Zenith Academy completely removes this breathing room. There are no midterms or finals. Instead, they enforce a bi-monthly "Standardized Data Collection."
All five core subjects are compressed into a single, continuous 7.5-hour block (excluding lunch break). It is designed to test mental endurance and immediate recall under extreme fatigue, gathering raw data on how students perform when pushed to their limits.
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Logic Engine Log of Chapter 24
Constants:
*Campus network experiences consistent, systemic failure every Friday after 6:00 PM.
*Dormitory network traffic and Administration network traffic share the same bandwidth gateway.