Really, Lang Yuan experienced a lot of pain from his past life that attending tests and exams with a battered body is normal. During his middle school, if he is too slow to escape every after class, those bullies would often beat him out with no reason. They often do it when the exam periods are near when people's nerves are always on the edge. For the poor Lang Yuan that can only take and borrow books from the library, this is really a problem.

He once attended an exam with a swollen eye. This offense was taken to the teacher as his brothers almost wanted to dash in and beat up the guy who punched Lang Yuan. If only it wasn't the time where the school is almost looking for every student to receive good ratings, they could have ignored Lang Yuan's case.

This is, after all, a common quarrel between boys. And it didn't happen inside but outside the grounds. This will be considered as a fistfight between small kids who might fight over some simple things. Lang Yuan didn't complain either so this will be settled between the kids themselves.

But his brothers know what really happened. If it was inside the school, the bullies could have only punched him on his stomach or break his arm. Well, they didn't have the courage to take responsibility and surely this time they will be suspended. So they only punched him when they cornered the poor boy on the side street where Lang Yuan is carelessly reading a book.

Be it a swollen eye or a broken arm, Lang Yuan can endure it as long as he can write and his mind still works. But today is different. It already reached the peak of his tolerance minute. Lang Yuan could no longer do anything that to hurry up and finish this contest as fast as possible.

Before the contest starts, even though the given time to prepare is only a day, he already assessed that the questions of this competition would be easy. For his mind that can easily integrate numbers in a flash, doing simple math problems like guessing how many hours a certain person can work - et cetera, et cetera - is like a one plus one problem to him. Even if the question will deviate to a difficult side, his comprehension skills in mathematics are superb.

His only problem would be reading the question. If it's going to be a problem solving, he's afraid that he has to ask someone to read the question for him.

When Zhong Song flipped the sand time, twenty eunuchs entered the hall carrying boxes. This time, the scholar together with the other scholars from the eight realms checked each content. The questions are the same, no problem. No one will receive a harder question or a very easy question at least. The scrolls were then distributed.

When Lang Yuan received his set of scrolls, he decided to open it right away. However, another box was placed before him. Though it was smaller, he can tell that there's something inside it. He sneaked a peak from his peripheral vision and saw the same boxes from the other concubines. The ladies opened the box as if it's nothing unusual and took the materials out.

Not waiting for another time, Lang Yuan did the same and opened his own. What he found are a set of bottles with different sizes, some weight-measuring rod, a ruler, a pail of sand, a tweezers that can pick pin-size grains, and some marking coals. He thought what are the purpose of these things until he noticed the ladies moving. They used the bottles to cup sand and measured it.

Lang Yuan: ...?

Despite the bad feeling that he has, this weird actions caused him to halt. Why are they placing sands on bottles? Don't tell me they're going to count the sands using it? Lang Yuan opened his first scroll and found the reason of this action.

What was written on the scroll is a picture of cylinder. It has the length and radius. They are asked to get the number of sand grains that can fit inside the given size. Lang Yuan can't read the words but his guess was quite right. There is no other reason than asking for the volume of it.

Counting the grains of sands is a valid method but not a good one. How many days will it take for a person to finish counting the grains? Especially now that the sizes on the scroll is nowhere in centimeters but in meters. And sometimes, one might get lost the number of counting.

Estimation can also be done. That is to count the number of sand that can be placed in a small container. Then using that container that can hold a certain amount of grains to count and multiply is a much easier method than the first one. But still, this method is impractical. That is due to the fact that the grains have different sizes and the other might contain fewer grains than the first.

If Lang Yuan lived on the past, this will be treated as an impossible task. But for a person who met the value of pi and the formula in solving the volume of the tank, all he needed to do is do the basic multiplication and division to get the answer. Actually, he has more better idea of getting the volume of the cylinder.

If he can request a tub of water then everything would be easier. Using the concept of Archimedes about buoyancy, he can get the volume of the cylinder by using the density of water as the basis. According to Archimedes, if you submerged an object on a pail full of water, the amount of water that was spilled out is equal to the weight of the object that was placed. It means that the volume displaced is equal to the volume of the object.

It was easier in that way than counting the sand. But Lang Yuan only shook his head and proceeded on answering the question without using the materials inside the box. Actually, his action of setting the materials aside caught the attention of the people. What is this person doing? Is he trying to lose in this match?

But the surprise is greater when Lang Yuan finished the first scroll and started another one. The question is still the same. He was asked what is the volume of a cube with a certain number of sides. Lang Yuan rolled his eyes on his mind as he quickly sweep pass the question and proceeded to the next.

This is child's play, he thought. He even thought that even the youngest sibling of his can answer this question easily.

The time has not yet reached the quarter of an hour but Lang Yuan is already done. Leaving his enemies to the dust, he collected the fifteen scrolls and tried his best to deliver it to the scholar. The scholars accepted his answers and checked the contents. The spectators are watching the checker intently wondering what score Lang Yuan will receive.

Maybe if it was from the modern world, answering this questions will never take an hour. It was because of the advance of solving and the involvement of calculators. But to this world, arithmetic competitions like this often takes hours and days to finish. That's why everyone is prepared to wait to who will be the first one to submit. They just didn't expect that the human will pass it before anyone can brew a tea!

The scholar finished checking the answers. He nodded, faced the head scholar and placed Lang Yuan's score in a stone board. There are twenty-one slots in this stone board, each represents the candidates. A wooden plank was placed to Lang Yuan's place. All of the people are surprised to see the number.

Lang Yuan: Score - 15

He got a perfect score, and at the same time, got the shortest time to solve. Lang Yuan was already pleased with his result. He could have jumped if only he is not feeling bad. Now that he is done, he will be allowed to go. Zhong Song already announced that once the candidate is done to the questions then the candidate is free to live.

Zhong Song wanted to help Lang Yuan but all he can is to watch from his position. Lang Yuan's maids came to help their master and noticed the abnormal coldness the youth have. When they look at his face, they wanted to gasp and ask why Lang Yuan so pale. But the youth only nodded wanting them to just proceed forward.

The figure of an almost staggering person is walking out the door. He could have escaped if only none of the concubines spoke. But Lou MuLan who was more in rage than surprise stood up. She pointed at Lang Yuan accusingly and said:

"You cheated!"

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Yay! Updated! This will be the last update for now.

Have a nice day!