Chapter 1

"Unified Magical College Entrance Exam," Special Examination Room at Yangcheng No.1 High School.

"Behave yourself!" the police officer proctor scolded, "The exam starts in five minutes, no funny business!"

Lin Qi, who had just regained consciousness, felt his head pounding as if it had been hammered. He tried to press his hands against it, but the alloy steel handcuffs on his wrists made a clear clinking sound.

After a long while, his eyelids finally steadied and opened, his pupils constricted slightly as he focused on the reality before him.

Looking to the side, the window reflected a handsome but unfamiliar face, pale due to lack of sunlight.

Lowering his head, he saw the yellow vest with the word "Prisoner" on it, and the heavy shackles on his ankles, standard for serious criminals.

Lin Qi cautiously surveyed his surroundings, gathering key information from the scene.

穿越？囚徒？魔法？考场？

"Stop looking around. This is your private exam room. Do well, and you'll get the results tonight. If you don't get in, you'll definitely be executed tomorrow morning," the police officer proctor said.

Executed?

Lin Qi felt a surge of blood rush to his chest.

Very well, it seems the original owner of this body left him a "ground-level" start.

Lin Qi wasn't particularly distressed; at least it wasn't a "heaven-level" start like Lin Pingzhi or Yang Lianting.

"Is this the exam?" he asked, regaining his composure and pointing at the blackboard.

Lin Qi, who in his previous life was a problem-solving expert from a small town, was good at exams.

The police officer proctor sized up Lin Qi, a tall and slender figure with an upright posture, trying to gauge how much of his act was feigned. After a long moment, he said, "Yes, this is the 'Mage Intelligence Test,' your last chance to live."

Instantly, Lin Qi's brain seemed to be flooded with boiling mercury, and fragments of the body's memories surged up, like a slideshow, each scene passing by in a dreamlike haze.

He smiled bitterly on the surface but understood deeply within.

This was a world with slightly less advanced technology than Earth, yet it was a magnificent and mysterious magical world.

More importantly, mages held the highest ruling status!

From zeroth-level to ninth-level spells, they could move mountains and shake the heavens!

Bleeding wounds could be healed instantly with "Heal Wounds."

Incurable diseases could be cured in a moment with "Remove Disease."

There were also rumored spells like "Teleport" for traveling thousands of miles, "Dominate Human" for controlling others, "Disintegrate" for annihilating everything, and "Time Stop" for pausing time, all kinds of extraordinary powers.

The opportunity to learn magic and become a superior being was right here in this two-day "college entrance exam"!

Last night, Lin Qi's "Basic Knowledge" score had already come out, 250 points out of 500, which was just above average.

Given that in previous years, a total score of 650 out of 700 was needed to receive a gold-embossed acceptance letter from the magic academy,

Today's "Intelligence Test," worth 500 points, required him to score at least 400 points.

A tall order!

In his previous life's college entrance exam, it would be like missing an entire English test and still needing to pass the threshold for a bachelor's degree.

No wonder the police officer proctor looked at him as if he were already dead.

With a "swish," it sounded like a death knell.

The formally dressed proctor who was responsible for distributing the exam papers entered, walked straight to Lin Qi's desk, and handed him the exam envelope, asking him to sign the seal to confirm it was intact before opening it.

"The exam duration is 4 hours, and you cannot submit early. Understand?"

The two formally dressed proctors asked in unison, glancing at the police officer proctor to confirm everything was normal.

Lin Qi nodded and took the stack of exam papers, which was as thick as a "three-year college, five-year simulation" practice book.

With his life on the line, he opened the papers with the solemnity of receiving a mysterious code, like a magnet:xt.

【Question 1: Define the rules of a board game as follows: the first to connect five pieces in a row wins... Please prove the possibility of a black player's first move guaranteeing a win, and the balancing measures.】

Gomoku!

Lin Qi gripped his pen tightly, veins bulging, but the handcuffs on his hands could not suppress his surging thoughts.

He finally understood the level of difficulty of the "Mage Intelligence Test."

This world did not have Gomoku.

It was like asking the test-takers to familiarize themselves with a new board game in just half an hour and then thoroughly analyze the game theory, no wonder the exam papers were so thick.

With a sense of tension, Lin Qi immediately skipped to the second question to gauge the overall difficulty and plan his time.

【Question 2: Two accomplices are imprisoned and cannot communicate with each other. If neither confesses, there is insufficient evidence, and both serve one year in prison; if one confesses and the other remains silent, the confessor is released, and the silent one serves ten years; if both confess, the evidence is conclusive, and both serve eight years. Please explain the specific choices and theoretical models.】

The Prisoner's Dilemma!

Lin Qi almost laughed out loud.

From the prisoners' perspective, confessing could result in either release or eight years, while remaining silent could result in one year or ten years.

In a situation where trust is impossible, the prisoners would inevitably choose to confess, leading to a non-cooperative outcome.

This was the famous game theory from the future.

The protagonist of the movie "A Beautiful Mind," John Nash, in his doctoral thesis "Non-Cooperative Games" at the age of 22, explained this problem and proved the existence of equilibrium solutions, earning him the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1994.

Using this in an intelligence test was way too advanced, wasn't it?

Shaking his head, Lin Qi moved on to the next question.

【Question 3: a/(b+c) + b/(a+c) + c/(a+b) = 4, find the positive integer solutions.】

Seeing this question, Lin Qi couldn't laugh anymore.

Mages who needed this level of problem-solving skills might not be very benevolent professions.

This question looked like a primary school problem, and if you replaced a, b, and c with apples, oranges, and watermelons, it might even be used for a kindergarten entrance exam.

But in reality, it was a cubic Diophantine equation, with the smallest solution having 81 digits!

This was a cruel joke.

Lin Qi reluctantly put down the oil-based pen and placed it on the desk.

He was only half-competent in all three questions, having some ideas but not enough to form complete answers, or even being completely stumped.

He really wasn't a photographic memory genius.

The police officer proctor, who had glanced at the questions, felt a bit sympathetic. These questions were indeed not humanly possible, and it was a cruel blow before death.

He decided to arrange a good meal for Lin Qi tonight, with plenty of noodles and longevity noodles.

Feeling that passing was hopeless, Lin Qi recalled the reason for his "death sentence" and pondered his chances of breaking the deadlock.

In his memory, the original body owner had stopped the violent behavior of a mage's descendant, and the perpetrator suddenly died in a fit of rage.

Essentially, Lin Qi hadn't even touched the person, let alone killed him by mistake.

But the victim was a mage apprentice!

Based on the "Special Protection Law for Mages," Lin Qi was detained for three days after the incident involving the death of a "mage apprentice" and was immediately sentenced to death by the Mage Arbitration Court, with no right to appeal.

The only chance of pardon was if he received an acceptance letter from the "Magic Academy" and became a mage apprentice.

Only then would the privilege dispute become an internal matter, and he would be held civilly responsible.

Everything came down to this stack of over a hundred pages of "exam papers."

Lin Qi felt increasingly helpless.

The summer cicadas' chirping seemed almost silent, leaving only the ticking of the clock on the blackboard and the rustling of leaves in the wind.

In a moment of complete silence, Lin Qi's mind suddenly erupted like a volcano, leaving him in shock and disbelief.

In the depths of his consciousness, a magnificent and splendid palace rose from a floating island in the vast sea of the mind.

Inside the palace, countless bookshelves were neatly arranged, like dominoes, forming a complex maze when viewed from above.

All the knowledge and memories from his previous life were categorized and organized into thick tomes, placed on the shelves.

A Memory Palace!

Lin Qi was astonished. Wasn't this the "super memory" ability that Conan Doyle gave to Sherlock Holmes?

By opening the books in the palace, he could precisely retrieve his memories.

Curious as he was, he manipulated the "little man" in his mind, walking to the "board games" bookshelf.

Lin Qi focused his mental energy, and a book titled "Lin Qi's 18-24 Years Gomoku Memories" fell into his hands.

Amidst a mix of fear and surprise, the pages opened—

The three-three forbidden moves and other restrictions, which he had long forgotten, were now as clear as day, just like the first-person perspective when he had read the posts back then!

His life's memories unfolded like a long scroll, cut into countless frames by the sword of time, laid out before him.

With a calm and composed demeanor, Lin Qi picked up his pen and began to transcribe the memories in his mind.

He first listed the "forbidden moves" in Gomoku, which were both balancing measures and winning strategies.

Under the "forbidden move rules," the twenty-six common openings were also listed, with twelve guaranteed wins for the first player, twelve for the second player, and the remaining four being undetermined, leaving no room for error.

With a divine touch, Lin Qi moved on to the second question, and the 27-page "Non-Cooperative Games" paper he had glanced at in his previous life was retrieved from the palace's bookshelf—

The theory, models, and proof outlines became clear, and the "Nash Equilibrium" to the "Pareto Optimal" flowed smoothly from his pen.

For the third question, the answer he had seen by chance was safely stored in the "Lin Qi's Mathematical Puzzles Memories" tome.

He copied it down—

a = 154476802108746166441951315019919837485664325669565431700026634898253202035277999,

b = 36875131794129999827197811565225474825492979968971970996283137471637224634055579,

c = 4373612677928697257861252602371390152816537558161613618621437993378423467772036

After writing down this long string of numbers, Lin Qi suddenly felt a shock.

The two key elements for a noble "mage" to enter the field—extraordinary "memory" and advanced "computational ability"—

Corresponded to the "Basic Knowledge" and "Intelligence Test" exams, the two major hurdles for advancement.

With the "Memory Palace" as his golden leg, wasn't he guaranteed a perfect score in "memory?"

Yes, mages are not stupid.

If he were smart enough, he truly had the qualifications to join the highest ruling class of the blue planet—

The Mage Lords.