I was a top student in America.

[Under intense study conditions... Intelligence +0.1]

Saturday morning, a classroom on the second floor of Whitney Young High School.

Li Ao looked up from the derivation of a limit problem and his gaze fell on the new prompt that popped up on the void panel.

【Intelligence: 108.0】

"Just two more points to unlock the next term."

He raised an eyebrow in satisfaction, feeling a sense of anticipation for the effect of the next intelligence term.

Li Ao closed the handouts given to him by Professor Brown, pushed them towards the table, and prepared to go to the restroom before class started.

He arrived early today and, before anyone else was in the classroom, he had already spent over an hour studying AP Calculus.

The progress is not fast; it's been almost a week, and we've only just gotten to the implicit function differentiation part.

Although he had studied advanced mathematics in college in his previous life, he had long forgotten everything after graduation. The current content was completely new to him.

Go through the concepts and theorems one by one, and when you encounter an example problem, close the book and try to deduce it yourself. If you can't deduce it, go back and look at the solution.

He discovered that AP Calculus and high school math are completely different in their approach: the latter focuses on problem-solving techniques, while the former relies more on logical reasoning.

Although he didn't have a teacher to guide him step by step, the few lines of handwritten annotations Brown left in the margins of the pages saved him a lot of trouble.

Others have already taken the detours and avoided the pitfalls for him.

In particular, the steadily rising intelligence stat on the panel indirectly confirms that his current learning approach is on the right track.

Li Ao grabbed his vocabulary book and headed for the restroom. Just as he stepped out of the classroom, he bumped into Jimmy and Sam, who were also attending the workshop.

The two were huddled together, muttering about the challenging plane geometry problem from last week's ICTM morning session, their voices filled with barely concealed frustration.

Upon seeing Li Ao come out, they stopped talking and greeted him:

"Leo, did you check the answers for last week's competition? How many points do you estimate you'll get?"

"The answer? There's such a thing?"

Li Ao paused, somewhat surprised.

Can I still get the answers after taking the ICTM exam?

Jimmy pulled a folded A4 sheet of paper from his pocket and waved it in front of him:

"It's not the official answer; it's the solution steps that Matthew wrote down from memory, and it's pretty much the same as the answer."

Li Ao then realized what was happening.

Several long-established top schools in the North District do have this tradition: after each major competition, top students will compile an unofficial answer key and circulate it privately so that everyone can find their place and estimate their scores in advance.

"I'll just skip it; the scores will be out next week anyway."

He smiled and shook his head, making a gesture as if to continue walking towards the end of the corridor.

"Hey, do you remember how you solved the last geometry problem in the morning session?"

Jimmy quickly pressed for details, sounding a bit confused. "I've been working through this answer for ages, but I still can't make sense of it. There are parts I just don't understand at all."

Sam noticed that Li Ao was still clutching the vocabulary book in his hand, and knowing that the other person probably had something else on his mind, he felt a little guilty and reached out to tug at Jimmy's sleeve.

"Leo, if you have something to do, go ahead and do it. We'll think about it ourselves later."

Her politeness caused Li Ao to stop in his tracks. After a moment's thought, he extended his hand and said:

"Let me see how Matthew wrote it first."

He took the A4 paper from Jimmy, his eyes scanning over the neat handwriting before quickly focusing on the final, challenging plane geometry problem.

"Given triangle ABC, with side lengths 13, 14, and 15, O is the circumcenter, H is the orthocenter, and M is the midpoint of BC. The first question requires proving OH² + 4OM² = AB² + AC² − BC²/2. The second question requires finding the cosine of the angle between the Euler line OH and the median AM."

He had repeatedly worked through this question using two different approaches during the exam, and had even earned the system's intelligence reward for it, so he remembered it vividly.

At a glance, he noticed that Matthew's solution was somewhat logically flawed.

Matthew also chose the analytic geometry approach, establishing a coordinate system with side BC as the x-axis. The overall framework was almost identical to his exam answer.

The problem lies in the coordinate simplification of the OH vector. Matthew skipped two crucial algebraic merging steps without providing any proof, which is quite a leap.

Although the derivation direction and conclusion are correct, the process of equivalent transformation in the middle is missing a crucial link.

This "intuitive" jumping step might be natural for Matthew, but for students of Jimmy and Sam's level, it's like reading gibberish.

Li Ao handed the paper back to Jimmy and pointed out the problem directly:

"The general idea is fine, but two key steps have been omitted. Try decomposing and deriving this merged term in reverse, and you should be able to understand it."

"If it's still stuck, I'll help you push it more carefully when I come back from the restroom."

After saying that, he waved his hand and walked quickly to the end of the corridor.

Jimmy stared in the direction Li Ao had left until the bathroom door was completely closed, then slowly turned his gaze back to the answer sheet in his hand.

He paused for a few seconds, then turned to look at Sam:

"Leo, are you saying... Matthew's solution is flawed?"

In the academic competition circle of the entire North Side of Chicago, Matthew Carter, an 11th grader at Linkin Park High School, is a household name.

This person has been exceptional since childhood, consistently achieving AMC 8 and AMC 10, and consistently ranking in the top 1% of the nation in their specialty awards every year.

Last year, when he took the ICTM in 10th grade, he easily made it into the top 30 in the state; earlier this year, he also broke into the top 1% in the AMC12.

If he weren't currently focused on physics competitions, he would most likely have already secured a spot in the USAMO (United States Mathematical Olympiad) by continuing down the path of mathematics.

During workshops, Professor Green often used him as a benchmark to encourage everyone.

But now, this "benchmark" answer was easily refuted by Li Ao with just a few casual words.

Jimmy was still a little confused.

Sam didn't think that much about it.

Recalling Li Ao's terrifying problem-solving abilities displayed in the workshop over the past few weeks, she decisively reached out and snatched the answer sheet.

"Let's try it out as Leo suggested. He sounded quite confident just now, so maybe Matthew really forgot to write out the steps."

After saying that, she turned around and sat down in the first row, pulled out a piece of draft paper, and began to reverse-engineer the merging step that Li Ao had pointed out.

Just then, Ryan strolled into the classroom with his schoolbag slung over one shoulder.

As he passed Jimmy's table, he glanced at the paper and then noticed Sam engrossed in his drafts. He casually asked him about it.

Jimmy then briefly recounted how Li Ao had pointed out the flaw in the solution.

Upon hearing this, Ryan immediately burst out laughing:

"Leo said Matthew skipped a step in the middle?"

He casually tossed his schoolbag onto the table, his tone full of indifference.

"I mean, when has Matthew ever made a mistake like this on a test? Besides, Leo and I were in the same exam room last Saturday for the regional competition. The bell rang to signal the end of the exam, and I saw him scribbling on his paper. He probably hadn't even finished the questions, and now he's trying to nitpick Matthew's work?"

Sam ignored Ryan. She vaguely felt that there was some truth to the flaw that Li Ao had pointed out, so she just kept her head down and frantically calculated on the draft paper, the pen tip scratching loudly.

Jimmy glanced at Ryan, then at the answer sheet on the table, and remained silent for a moment, caught in the middle.

Ryan, meanwhile, took out his error notebook from his bag and opened it, acting as if there was nothing to talk about.

Two or three minutes later, the classroom door was pushed open, and Mr. Green strode in, clutching several sheets of fax paper tightly in his hand, his steps large and hurried.

He usually arrives right at nine o'clock, but today he arrived a few minutes early, which is unusual for him.

Although he didn't say a word, his furrowed brows betrayed his anxiety, a stark contrast to his composure when he achieved results in previous years.

Standing on the podium, Green didn't rush to speak, but instead looked around.

My gaze slowly swept from the first row to the last, pausing slightly as I passed an empty table in the back before discreetly withdrawing it.

Where's Leo?

"I went to the bathroom," Jimmy quickly replied.

"Is Matthew still busy with the physics competition?"

"Yeah, he said he has a lab class today and asked me to ask for leave for him," Jimmy chimed in again.

Green nodded, waving the few crumpled fax papers in his hand:

"Alright. Let me give everyone an update: the results for last week's ICTM are out, and I got the summary sheet in advance through someone."

He paused, his expression turning somewhat somber:

"This exam was indeed quite difficult, but our high school as a whole did not perform well. Several students who usually score well above 270 did not even score 240 this time."

"In the end, our high school's overall team score only ranked eighth, far behind Stevenson and Linkin Park."

"But once the exam is over, that's it. This chapter is in the past. However, there's only a little over a month left until the AMC12. During the upcoming Christmas and New Year holidays, everyone should focus on getting back into the swing of things and not just have fun."

After delivering the bad news, Green changed the subject:

"However, several students from our school performed exceptionally well this time and deserve special praise."

His gaze fell directly on Ryan: "Ryan, 289 points in the individual competition. I checked it, which ranks him 27th in the state. That's quite good."

Upon hearing this, all the students around turned their heads in unison.

Rui cleared his throat in a mocking manner, trying desperately to suppress the smile, but he couldn't hold it in, and a smile spread across his eyes.

He tapped his pen lightly twice on the notebook of incorrect answers, his eyes subconsciously glancing at the empty table to his right.

He thought to himself: It's such a pity that Li Ao wasn't here at this time. He missed this good show.

Then, Green turned to a page of fax paper and continued reading:

"In addition, Matthew also did very well, scoring 317 points, tied for fifth in the state. He probably lost some points on the details in the middle steps of the big questions."

This time, the audience's reaction was lukewarm.

After all, for a master of dual cultivation like Matthew, this is just basic stuff, nothing to be surprised about.

"but--"

Green suddenly raised his voice, even deliberately drawing out the last syllable to create suspense, "This time in our workshop, we have a student with even more amazing results!"

He surveyed the entire room and dropped a bombshell, word by word:

"Leo, 320 points, perfect score! Tied for first place in the whole state!"

Everyone froze, and the first thought that flashed through most people's minds was: Did Teacher Green mispronounce it?

"Squeak—"

Just then, the classroom door was pushed open.

Li Ao strolled in, a vocabulary book clutched in his hand.

Seeing that Green was already standing on the podium, he was slightly taken aback, and quickly stopped to apologize:

"Excuse me, Professor Green, I went to the restroom just now and didn't notice the time."

Green didn't say anything, he just smiled and looked at him.

At the same time, all twenty-odd students in the class turned their attention to him.

Li Ao felt a little uneasy being stared at by everyone and was completely bewildered. He quickly looked down to check himself.

My pants zipper was properly zipped up, and my clothes weren't on backwards.

After confirming that his appearance was correct, Li Ao opened his mouth to ask something, when he heard Green on the podium look at him and speak again in an extremely solemn tone:

"Leo, 320 points, full marks."

……