I Got an Omnipotent Brain Chapter 54

Translator: Dreamscribe

Various ideas for making money ca to Yu Seo-ha’s mind.

But soon he shook his head.

‘Ah... This won’t work.’

None of them could escape the restrictions of his age.

Soon to be 14 years old,

He felt frustrated by the fact that without the na of a guardian or legal representative, he couldn’t even open a bank account, let alone register as a business owner.

Seo-ha looked at the dinner table set before him.

Pumpkin leaves, which he had liked since he was little, tasted heavenly even without any side dishes when wrapped with soybean paste and eaten with rice.

Pumpkin leaves were a troubleso ingredient that had to be carefully peeled one by one after being stead to a moist texture. Next to them were various seasoned vegetable side dishes that also required a lot of effort.

Bracken had to be soaked overnight, boiled, and then lightly stir-fried with perilla oil. Bellflower roots must have been rinsed and prepared multiple tis to remove their bitterness, so they retained a crisp texture.

Seo-ha looked at the two people, pausing his chopsticks.

Rough hands and shabby clothes.

It was a household that couldn’t be described as well-off, even out of politeness. But strangely enough, Seo-ha had never once thought of his family as poor.

Books he wanted to read eventually ca into his hands through his father, even if it took ti. When he ntioned food he wanted to eat, it would always show up on the table a few days later.

Even with their limited ans, his parents always made sure he never felt the burden of poverty.

Maybe that’s why.

Seo-ha couldn’t bring himself to say the words swirling in his head.

‘If I say I need to make money, would they smile proudly and say I’m admirable?’

No, they wouldn’t.

They would think it was their fault for not providing enough, and feel heartbroken for placing an unnecessary burden on a son who should be focusing on studying.

'It's okay. Let try on my own.'

Because it would be at least ten more years before Seo-eun went to college.

“Mom, this is really delicious.”

Mi-young’s face lit up with a smile the mont her son, who usually just ate quietly, gave her a rare complint.

“Right? It’s way better than dorm food, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it doesn’t even compare.”

Seo-ha scooped up a big spoonful of rice and put it in his mouth.

The nutty aroma of the soybean paste spread in his mouth, and the finely chopped chili pepper popped with a kick. It was a familiar taste, but for so reason, the al at ho felt unusually warm after such a long ti.

***

Seo-ha was at a large bookstore in Daejeon for the first ti in a while.

“Wow, it’s really big.”

When he entered the computer section, there were far more books tightly packed on the shelves than in the psychology section.

Seo-ha had thought deeply the night before about what he should do to make money.

Stock or cryptocurrency trading was the first thing he eliminated from his options.

He might be able to succeed in short-term predictions using mathematical models, but fundantally, it was an area with too much risk.

The next idea that ca to mind was app developnt.

But this didn’t appeal to Seo-ha either. Applications were rely tools to et existing demand.

Given that he had enough ti, Seo-ha wanted to make money doing sothing he genuinely wanted to do.

‘Sothing that helps society!’

While making the laundry room app, he had co to realize one thing.

Humans were not entirely rational beings.

Humans were selfish yet social, and sotis inexplicably altruistic.

This complex contradiction of human nature ignited a fire in Seo-ha’s heart.

Human behavior was full of exceptions and irregularities, like quantum particles.

But what if it were possible to mathematically predict the choices of these imperfect humans? And what if it were possible to calculate the waves those choices would create?

In its pattern within uncertainty, it resembled the Riemann Hypothesis.

‘Individuals are uncertain, but groups have patterns.’

Seo-ha wanted to build an engine based on human decision-making itself.

Various books found their way into his hands.

[Reinforcent Learning and Decision-Making]

[Practical Applications of Ga Theory]

[Uncertainty and Information Theory]

[Stochastic Optimization and Markov Processes]

[Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence]

[Behavioral Economics]

The empty suitcase filled up with books.

Seo-ha’s first goal was to model the school he was currently attending.

Hundreds of students competing or cooperating over laundry room resources, the patterns of choices revealed within that were already fascinating data to him.

Now, expanding the scope to include dormitories, cafeterias, club activities, seat assignnts in the library and self-study rooms, even test preparation strategies and leisure activities.

Every large and small decision students made on a daily basis could beco excellent research material.

If all this data could be mathematically modeled, he would be able to build the frawork of the decision-making engine he envisioned within the school environnt.

And eventually, he might be able to expand the scope to predict the movents of a city or even a country.

When people moved, what they consud, what leisure they enjoyed.

Transportation systems, comrcial districts, education and culture, even individuals' political choices could fall within the scope of modeling.

Because society, in the end, is the result of countless individual choices coming together.

If such patterns could be read through mathematics, then chaos in cities could be reduced, waste of resources prevented, and a fairer, more efficient society could be designed.

And the people living there might even beco a little happier.

Thirteen-year-old Seo-ha truly believed that.

***

“Are you ready?”

At Seo-ha’s question, Seo-eun crossed her arms and put on a serious face.

Her lips stuck out like a duck’s, and it looked adorable.

“Hmm... Okay!”

Seo-ha spread out the cards he had made himself. Each card had numbers, animals, fruits, and similar things drawn on it. It was the ‘mory Challenge’ he had created.

He had first tried the mory Challenge during the IMO, and it had been a lot of fun.

Feeling sorry for only playing with numbers and shapes with his little sister, he recreated it as illustrated cards with drawings he thought Seo-eun would like.

When they first played the ga, Seo-eun morized only the pictures she liked.

“Strawberry, plum, banana, kiwi...”

Seeing her happily flipping the cards one by one, Seo-ha felt it was worth making them. But since the mory Challenge was ant to improve Seo-eun’s morization skills, Seo-ha decided to beco a slightly stricter oppa.

“This ti, you can’t just morize the fruits, okay? You have to rember all of them.”

“Okay! Got it!”

Seo-eun’s eyes sparkled as she looked down at the cards, excited by the new ga.

Ten cards were laid out on the floor.

“Start!”

As the cards were revealed, Seo-eun’s eyes darted quickly, scanning the pictures.

After thirty seconds passed, Seo-ha flipped the cards back over.

“Alright! Let’s see if you rember them.”

As if she had been waiting, Seo-eun began pointing at the cards one by one with her finger.

“Apple, rabbit, star, duck, banana, number 5, sun, strawberry, moon, teddy bear!”

As Seo-ha flipped over the cards in sync with her words, each picture she recited appeared precisely as she had said.

“Kyaaah!”

Seo-eun jumped up and danced with joy.

Waving her short arms in the air looked like a chick flapping its wings.

“I got them all right~ I got them all right~”

Seo-eun had always had a stronger competitive streak than she looked.

“Alright, next is fifteen cards!”

“Okay!”

At Seo-ha’s announcent, Seo-eun nodded with a determined look on her face.

And then, without fail, she got all fifteen correct.

Even Seo-ha was a little surprised at that.

Illustrated cards are harder to morize than playing cards.

With number cards, it’s easy to make rules, odd and even numbers, colors, patterns, all can be used to sort them in your head.

But with illustrated images that don’t have much relation to each other, making patterns is incredibly difficult.

“Kya-hahaha-”

Seo-eun spread her arms and ran around the floor playing airplane.

Seo-ha watched her for a mont and then burst into laughter.

‘I was just trying to play with her, but this might actually turn into serious training.’

Good morization skills are incredibly helpful for doctors, who have to morize a lot.

Seo-ha decided to increase the number of cards each ti he ca ho.

***

Whirrrrrr-

The printer in the library whirred nonstop.

Beside it, a thick stack of papers had already piled up.

[A New Approach to the Zero Distribution of the Riemann Zeta Function]

[The Riemann Hypothesis and Quantum Chaos Theory]

As each page ca out of the printer, Seo-ha checked the title and neatly organized the papers into his bag.

Twenty papers just today.

Roughly ten thousand more to read.

Seo-ha had decided to review every aningful study ever published on the Riemann Hypothesis. Even if he read ten papers a day, it would take three years, an enormous task.

But Seo-ha didn’t find this painful at all.

It was more of an emotion close to excitent.

Tracing the marks left behind by thousands of mathematicians over hundreds of years was sothing he found enjoyable.

Of course, what made this possible was his reading speed, incomparable to that of ordinary people.

No matter how complex the formulas and proofs were, Seo-ha could understand them instantly.

“Ahem!”

At the sound of soone clearing their throat, Seo-ha turned around.

“Books weren’t enough, now you’re printing too?”

A young female librarian who looked to be around thirty shook her head.

“Sigh! I used to get tired bringing books over, but now I’ll have to change the ink frequently too.”

Seo-ha smiled awkwardly as he carefully organized the printed papers. She was always the one who had to go through trouble because of him.

“Sorry. I really need these.”

For a mont, he thought she was angry, but her expression quickly changed as if she were joking.

“Don’t worry! The principal gave us special instructions.”

“Huh?”

“You didn’t know? He told us to get you absolutely anything you need, no questions asked.”

“Ah! That explains it...”

Seo-ha nodded.

Co to think of it, the books he had requested from the library were never ordinary.

So of them were rare original editions, with only a few copies even in the country.

Books he had requested while thinking, ‘There’s no way they’ll have this’, had never once been turned down, so in a way, this explanation made perfect sense.

“Thank you so much.”

He bowed his head politely with sincere gratitude.

“Don’t ntion it! You’re the genius who brought honor to our school, it’s my pleasure. Keep working hard, okay?”

Seo-ha left the library in a good mood.

Thud.

As soon as he shut the dorm room door, he placed the heavy backpack on the desk.

Click.

Crash.

When he opened the bag, the stack of printed papers tumbled noisily onto the floor. The floor was soon covered with formulas and graphs densely packed on white pages.

Seo-ha turned on the desk lamp and picked up the top paper.

[The Riemann Zeta Function and the Zero Distribution Near the Critical Line]

To the average person, the contents would be dizzyingly difficult, but to Seo-ha, it looked like an intriguing storybook.

‘They interpreted the zeros statistically here. This part could be connected to the Gaussian distribution.’

Before he knew it, the page was finished. Seo-ha imdiately picked up the next paper.

And whenever a thought ca to mind, he opened his notebook and wrote it down in neat handwriting.

Only after finishing the tenth paper did he finally set his pen down.

Beads of sweat had ford on his forehead, but his eyes looked even sharper. It felt as if the footsteps of mathematicians with different ideas were beckoning him to follow.

“Not yet.”

The Riemann Hypothesis was a marathon. He couldn’t recklessly decide to sprint. But Seo-ha was confident he wouldn’t tire, no matter how long the journey.

He looked at the portrait of Isaac Newton on the bookshelf.

“Sir, the world still studies the formulas you created. Will my na soday be rembered in textbooks too?”

It seed as if Newton was smiling, as if encouraging him to give it his all.

But for today, this was enough.

Ducky was already making a fuss, urging him to hurry and enter the digital world.

Now, it was ti to take the first step in the project he had nad the “Synapse Engine”.