Full-Time Wizard: Starting with Harvesting Wheat

Sudoku is a logic-based number-filling game with a core 9×9 grid, which is divided into nine 3×3 subgrids, for a total of 81 squares, which corresponds to 81 floor tiles.

游戏规则明确：需要将数字1-9填入所有空白格，确保每行、每列及每个3×3小宫格内，1-9这九个数字不重複。

Wizards travel between multiple planes, so it's not surprising that Roy knows games like Sudoku.

But Soraya went so far as to make the mice do Sudoku!

No draft paper yet!

Could a white mouse deduce those numbers? Even if it did, could it remember them?

Roy expressed concern!

Furthermore, as Soraya previously stated, Algier learns by observing images. Therefore, its only way of understanding Sudoku rules is by looking at numerous Sudoku puzzles. Given the intelligence of a white mouse, can it truly comprehend the rules of this puzzle?

Roy thought it was unlikely.

He even dared to bet that even if Karazhan looked at a few more questions, he probably wouldn't be able to figure out the trick.

Let alone Algeria?

However, Soraya said slowly.

—I am certain that Algiers has understood the rules of the "number array".

In the wizarding world, is this called a number array?

No, that's not the point!

Sudoku difficulty ranges from easy to hard, with the highest level being called 17-number, where only 17 out of 81 cells are filled with numbers.

In Sudoku, 17 is the smallest known number of solutions; it's impossible to solve a game with fewer than 17.

Of the 81 bricks, Roy counted only 24 with numbers on them, which was close to 17.

He dared to say that even someone like him, who had mastered certain Sudoku skills, needed several minutes to solve the puzzle.

This little white mouse...

impossible?

……

Right now, those people outside are probably thinking, "I can't possibly solve this problem, can I?"

Or I might think, "I must have wet myself from being terrified by the corpses of these white-haired rats."

ridiculous.

Would an omniscient and omnipotent wise man be unable to solve such a simple problem?

I already have an idea.

However, this body's brain does have some problems. Whenever I think about something important, I always feel that my brain is not enough and I have to stop and rest for a while.

After resting, I forgot everything I had been thinking about.

I realized that my memory wasn't enough to solve the puzzle.

I need to find something to write down my thoughts.

笔？

No. There won't be one in a place like that.

Something to replace a pen?

I initially rejected it as well, until I saw the white mouse closest to me.

It was right in front of me, pierced through by thorns, looking extremely bloody and terrifying.

But without a doubt, it is the easiest to access.

I smeared some of its blood on my forepaw.

Very good, as long as I write small enough, this blood will be enough for me—

Solve this puzzle!

6...

5...

8...

7...

As I deduced each floor tile, the complete array finally appeared before me.

Ah, what a beautiful drawing! This is the truth that dozens of white mice have uncovered for me; I must make good use of it!

I began to compare the positions of the white mice with the numbers on the array diagram.

The mouse was in 3...

This only applies to 4...

The other one is at 9...

I narrowed my eyes slightly, and the heroic spirits of the many white mice responded to me.

The white rats died in different compartments.

Several of the numbered squares did not contain any deceased individuals.

1...5...8...

If you can only pass by stepping on the same number repeatedly, then the answer lies among these three.

I looked at the drawing I had made once again.

I couldn't help but laugh.

Of these three numbers, only number 1 tiles are all connected, which allows me to pass through them all the way.

This also aligns with the principle of only testing intelligence, allowing me to complete the game perfectly.

Tile number 1 is undoubtedly the correct answer.

Victory is within reach...

But I have to admit there's still one thing that I have a question about.

I looked at the spot where they had died, puzzled.

In the first column, a white mouse has died.

The second column, the same one.

The third row has two.

The fourth column is only half left.

The fifth column was completely wiped out.

Why did fewer white mice die at the beginning, but more die later?

The death toll has increased dramatically.

I had memorized the route to the end, but I didn't rush through and hesitated in front of the paving stones.

Because without explaining this issue, the game cannot be considered a perfect completion.

……

Soraya looked at Roy in surprise.

—You drew it?

Compared to Algier, Roy had found a pen a few minutes earlier and solved the Sudoku puzzle.

The number 24 is a little difficult, but it's not a big problem for him.

After solving the Sudoku puzzle, he, like Algier, deduced that tile number 1 was the safe tile by observing the positions of the white rat corpses.

At the same time, he had the same question as Algier.

Why were there so few white mice that died earlier?

He once thought that this was some kind of trick by a wizard to guide the white rats' minds and make them move in the direction he wanted.

He immediately dismissed this conjecture.

Guiding mice accurately and promptly is too difficult and too laborious. It's not that it's impossible, but there's no need to use such a troublesome method.

and……

He looked again at the spot where the group of white rats had died.

The first column clearly indicated a choice of nine tiles to enter, but the mice all chose the correct tile, number 1. Only one of them died on the tile number 9 next to it.

It's more like they were squeezed out.

So, does this mean that all the white mice chose the correct square when they entered these floor tiles?

The chances are extremely small.

Looking at the second column, there are still not many dead rats.

It wasn't until the fourth column that they started running around erratically, causing a large number of white mice to die.

Why is that?

—Rats have a very sensitive sense of smell.

Seeing the look of confusion in Roy's eyes, Soraya suddenly spoke.

She began to answer.

Therefore, they will choose to trample on the paving stones that are not stained with the blood of their brethren.

A thunderbolt struck Roy's mind!

"You mean, white mice have already died on the floor tiles!?"

Soraya shook her head.

—They simply drew some blood from white mice and sprinkled it on the first three rows of incorrect floor tiles, so the mice could detect the dangers of those tiles through their noses and avoid them. As for those that died in the first three rows, they were probably pushed out, or they might have had a poor sense of smell.

—At the same time, to prevent any white rats from being exceptionally lucky and successfully reaching the other side on their first try, I also designed the correct floor tiles behind them to be sprinkled with the blood of white rats, so that the mortality rate would increase rapidly.

Roy suddenly realized.

The wizard manipulated those white rats with such a simple method!

"Besides putting psychological pressure on Algier and providing him with information, the death of the white rat probably also served to confuse the scents," Roy pondered.

"This is so that Algier won't be able to smell the correct scents in the first few columns, nor the wrong scents in the later columns!"

"After all, if it really did manage to get to the later rows through thinking and reasoning, and then smelled the wrong scent, it might abandon its thinking and choose an instinctive reaction."

"This contradicts the purpose of examining wisdom."

Soraya, who designed this game, put a lot of thought into it!

It became an experiment that tested both Algier's psychological abilities and his intelligence!

Roy felt a certain respect for Soraya.

This is not easy to do. You can't stand in the high and mighty perspective of a wizard's apprentice. Instead, you have to really imagine yourself as a white mouse and imagine what difficulties you will encounter.

"This is what a wizard is..."

Just as he was marveling at this, Karazhan suddenly shouted.

"It's drawn! It's drawn exactly like yours!"

"So fast!?" Roy immediately turned around. Sure enough, nine 3x3 grids had been drawn on the ground of the fifth floor of the Magic Tower using the blood of white mice!

Karazhan checked it again.

"As expected, there's no difference!"

"This Algerian..."

Roy grimaced and gasped.

In fact, the fact that they could think of using rat blood as a pen to record things proves the wisdom of the Algerians.

They are at least as good as children under three years old.

And the correct solution to a 24-number Sudoku puzzle...

Its intelligence can no longer be judged by human age!

Because 95% of adults cannot solve this Sudoku puzzle, while teenagers who have received logic training can.

Age alone cannot represent intelligence. It can only be said that Algier's sensitivity to numbers and logical reasoning ability are frighteningly strong!

It's a success, the experiment must have been a success, right?

Roy seemed slightly excited.

The next step is to determine which brick is the right path.

This process is by no means difficult for Algiers, who are good at solving Sudoku puzzles.

He observed Soraya's reaction and noticed that she also raised an eyebrow.

They were clearly surprised by the experimental results.

But there wasn't much of a surprise.

After all, there's a huge gap between applying experimental results to mice and using them in humans.

Some experiments with mice that involved blood fusion were very successful, but were eventually found to be completely unsuitable for humans, or to have significantly reduced effectiveness.

This phenomenon occurs frequently.

Therefore, Soraya simply kept an eye on Algier, waiting to see when it would take action.

This relates to the score she gave.

One hour.

two hours.

three hours.

Algiers remained silent.

Four hours.

Five hours.

Six hours.

It was noon when evening came, and as winter approached, it was completely dark outside.

Algier was as if asleep, with only his body rising and falling.

However, its bright, open eyes told them that it had never been asleep.

"What happened?" Roy couldn't help but ask as he read halfway through the book.

It took less than an hour to solve the Algia Sudoku puzzle and deduce the obvious answer, but it took so long!

It looks like it's in hibernation!

Most importantly, it has just eaten a piece of cheese and bread, so it is impossible for it to run out of energy.

"Could it be that its thinking ability is lacking?" This was the only hypothesis Roy could come up with.

Soraya twirled the pen in her hand.

She had originally planned to give Algiers a perfect score, but if that's the case, the score might have to be lowered a bit.

Karazhan held the "Ancient Byron" book, studying it while looking at the pictures and muttering to himself.

"It might be sleeping with its eyes open. You know, it's easy to fall asleep while learning by looking at pictures."

This is based on my own personal experience.

—Algiers are indeed lazy, but they are not creatures that sleep with their eyes open.

Soraya frowned. Over the past six hours, her gaze had frequently drifted over Algier, so she roughly understood that Algier was in a state of deep thought.

What kind of problem requires such in-depth thinking?

Given its ability to solve number matrices, it's clear that deriving the final answer is no problem at all. In other words, that's not what it's thinking about.

What is that? Could it be the meaning of a rat's life?

Soraya found it all absurd.

"...I thought wizards should have a way to communicate with them." Roy scratched his head.

—Yes, it is possible, but not something a wizarding apprentice could do. If it were possible, why would I bother with these tests?

The orange light cast a curtain of light on the mottled walls, and Soraya's robe cast a shadow on the curtain of light.

She was flipping through the book in her hands when suddenly, she paused in her movement.

Then, he suddenly stood up.

The shadows on the wall seemed to sway in the night wind.

—It moved.

Algier slowly stood up, but did not continue forward.

It thought of the characteristics of white rats, their keen sense of smell, and guessed a certain possibility, even exactly the same as what Soraya said, but it could not verify it.

It's fair to say that it spends most of its time thinking about how to prove this possibility.

Originally, a mere smell would have been enough to confirm it, but the fifth floor of the Demon Tower was now filled with corpses and reeked of blood.

The blood that Soraya spilled on the floor tiles was also from a white rat.

They were completely mixed up.

It's impossible to prove.

Unless Algiers create an environment that triggers a luminol reaction to test for bloodstains on the floor tiles in the later rows.

But not only does it lack the information for a luminol reaction in its brain, even if it did, what about the materials used to create the environment?

At that moment, it gave up.

Algier first stepped over the corpses of his "predecessors," and then followed the route in his mind, walking precisely on the number 1 paving stone.

—It did indeed clear the Magic Tower.

Soraya breathed a sigh of relief.

Stepping onto the last row of floor tiles, the door to the fifth floor of the Magic Tower suddenly opened, revealing a descending staircase leading directly to the outer perimeter of the Magic Tower.

Algier followed closely down the path, his eyes looking down on the world like a god descending to earth.

The next moment, it seemed to have exhausted all its strength and collapsed limply to the ground.

Soraya picked up the white mouse, put it in the cage, and then added the score to the experiment sheet.

After hesitating for a moment, she wrote down a number.

88. Points were deducted for Algiers' prolonged period of meaningless thinking.

Has it reached the level of human intelligence?

Soraya's pen hovered above the page, unable to fall for a long time.

It cannot be denied that it possesses excellent reasoning ability.

But why the silence during the final six hours?

"I said... is it possible... just to suggest a possibility..." Roy spoke cautiously, "it's interpreting the magic tower it's in. You see, humans also think about their environment. For example, that wall surrounding Blackwater Territory, I'm quite puzzled by it now. Humans are always full of curiosity about the unknown."

—But it's a white mouse. Soraya frowned.

Roy looked at the sleeping white mouse and yawned.

Side effects of merging bloodlines.

"How was that mechanical spider on the first floor made? Why does pulling the lever stop the conveyor belt on the second floor or even make it rotate in the opposite direction? And why does pressing the button on that mirror on the third floor show the path behind it? Why does the wood swell when water is poured on it? And finally—"

He glanced at Soraya's expression.

"Perhaps Algeria is thinking the same question as me."

Why did fewer mice die at the beginning, but more die later?

That's impossible.

Soraya said in a way that left no room for argument.

Everything you've said represents the thirst for knowledge, which is a human emotion and not included in the realm of intellect.

"The evolution of intelligence naturally leads to a desire to know more, isn't that a given?" Roy immediately retorted.

Soraya responded with silence.

That's impossible.

She repeated it again.