I was a top student in America.

Michael and Daniel stared at the stack of papers, neither able to say anything for a moment.

Both of them knew that Li Ao was a notoriously "abnormal" newcomer in this summer camp.

Although he was rarely seen, he consistently scored full marks in placement tests and all subsequent assessments, which finally earned him recognition for his abilities.

After all, having an inexperienced rookie in the national team carries considerable risk.

If the opponent can't withstand the high-pressure training, the entire team's preparation rhythm will be slowed down.

But now, Li Ao is saying that he got up early and cleared up his entire day's training schedule ahead of time.

This efficiency is so high that it seems almost illogical.

"Dude, you're really something, no wonder you always get perfect scores." Michael recovered from his daze. "What time did you get up today?"

"Around 2 a.m., I usually get up around this time," Li Ao replied casually.

"Two points?!"

Even Natalia and Benjamin, who were standing next to him, stopped writing and turned to look at Kevin.

Since the two of them lived in the same dormitory, Kevin was the most accurate person to ask about this.

Kevin leaned back in his chair, shrugged, and nodded in confirmation of Li Ao's words, thinking to himself:

"Now it's your turn to experience the awe-inspiring power of our 314 dormitory."

He felt a little smug, but he was also puzzled as to how Li Ao, who only slept three or four hours a day, managed to stay energetic all day long.

He had tried to imitate it in a moment of enthusiasm, and his only feeling in the end was that he might suddenly die at his desk at any time.

"Wait a minute."

Daniel finally came to his senses, and his tone became much gentler than before.

He stood up and started rummaging through the stack of folders next to him.

Li Ao's words sounded outrageous, but he didn't doubt them.

Getting up at 2 a.m. to do practice problems would probably make you a laughingstock in a regular high school.

But this is the US IMO national team, where there is no shortage of hard-working geniuses.

Without such rigorous self-discipline, Li Ao, as a newcomer, could not have achieved such rapid success.

A moment later, Daniel pulled out a thick folder and handed it to Li Ao.

"This is a collection of internal materials from summer camps and the national team from previous years, covering algebra, number theory, plane geometry, and combinatorics. If you don't have any practice problems to work on right now, you can take a look."

"Thanks." Li Ao immediately reached out and took it.

Holding this thick stack of documents, Li Aocai truly felt the benefits of joining the national team.

This well-organized question bank can help him quickly identify and fill in the gaps in his knowledge. If he had to rely on searching and collecting questions from the coach bit by bit, he would have wasted a lot of time.

After this incident, no one in the room chatted anymore.

Apart from Li Ao, who finished his exercises and opened his ordinary differential equations textbook to continue reading, the others buried themselves in the materials they had been given the night before.

Interestingly, Michael also seems to have a good understanding of college-level mathematics.

During the break, he turned his head and gave Li Ao a few suggestions:

"The most common pitfalls in ordinary differential equations are the existence and uniqueness conditions of solutions, the structure of the solution space of linear equations, and the handling of initial conditions. In addition, the method of undetermined coefficients for eigenvalues, repeated roots, and non-homogeneous terms is also particularly easy to get confused."

"Since you're just starting out, it's best to first understand the logical connections between the core theorems before focusing on practicing specific problems."

Li Ao was pondering where to begin when he heard this explanation, and his thoughts became much clearer.

"Thank you for reminding me." He turned around and sincerely thanked him.

Michael waved his hand: "Don't mention it, actually I'm not very good at it either. That's what my dad said, he's a professor in the math department at Caltech."

Time slowly passed.

Li Ao was completely immersed in the derivation of the ordinary differential equation.

After thoroughly understanding each theorem, he would find the corresponding problem types in the materials to practice.

By deriving formulas, trying multiple solutions, and dissecting the underlying logical structure, we can solidify our foundation step by step and ensure that we can handle variant problems with ease.

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

……

From eight in the morning until after eleven at night.

For highly talented individuals like Benjamin and Michael, who often leave ordinary trainees questioning their existence, this timeframe is still relatively early.

They were only slightly tired; after getting up and stretching their limbs briefly, they were able to sit back down and continue watching for another two hours.

Li Ao, on the other hand, was in better spirits.

He was looking at an example of a system of linear differential equations. After writing down two solutions, he was still trying to derive a simpler proof.

Michael noticed that Li Ao had stopped writing. Perhaps recalling his first experience of being forced to learn differential equations by his father, he casually chuckled and said, "Ordinary differential equations and competitive mathematics have different ways of thinking. It's easy to get confused when you first encounter them, and it's normal to get stuck on example problems."

"Yes, I only came up with two methods for this problem. It's definitely much harder than high school competitions," Li Ao said, raising his head in agreement.

Michael's smile froze for a moment.

"What? Two methods?"

He took a few steps closer and his gaze fell on the thick book "Ordinary Differential Equations" written by Tenenbaum on Li Ao's desk.

After checking the page number, his expression changed slightly: "You've read this far?"

He remembered clearly that Li Aoming had only read about thirty pages of Chapter Four that morning.

In just one day, it has already turned to more than two hundred pages.

Moreover, he didn't just skim through the examples; he could even write out multiple solutions for each one.

At this rate, he might finish all the undergraduate-level mathematics before even graduating from high school.

Daniel was also drawn to the commotion.

After glancing over, even he, who considered himself a genius, had to admit that Li Ao's progress was ridiculously fast.

Those who make it into the national team are definitely not to be underestimated.

"It looks like the upcoming training camp is going to be very interesting."

Daniel glanced at Li Ao, then turned to look at Benjamin and Natalia, his eyes filled with anticipation.

……

Putting these minor incidents aside, Li Ao was fairly satisfied with the national team's training environment.

With fewer distractions, my study efficiency is very high.

Returning to his single dormitory room in the middle of the night, he lay in bed still wide awake.

Just then, Emily messaged him to share some gossip about her roommate, and he casually replied with a few words.

As a result, once Emily started talking, she couldn't stop, and the two of them went from gossiping in their dorm room to talking about college life, and eventually even talked about international issues that were completely unrelated, such as the subprime mortgage crisis and the real estate bubble.

Since buying a laptop, Li Ao has gradually gotten used to chatting with friends online occasionally.

This kind of mindless communication serves as a mental buffer, preventing one from becoming a machine after studying for too long and losing all humanity.

It wasn't until after 1 a.m., after saying goodnight to Emily, that Li Ao finally relaxed and quickly fell into a deep sleep.

……