Not a mathematical dungeon, but rather a mathematical tomb! As Shuxue thought about it, his mouth couldn’t help but start salivating.

By delving deep into the mathematical laws, a mathivator would naturally attune to them, allowing their bodies to naturally gather more mathforce. Shuxue never bothered to use pearls to Mathivate, but his Mathivation was still a step ahead of the rest simply because his understanding of the mathematical laws automatically allowed his body to absorb more mathforce.

When one’s level of mathivation reached a certain point, one would completely shed the mortal filth and become a new lifeform, born from the mathematical laws! Only, this feat was incredibly difficult, because there were only two ways to become a math god!

“Wait, why are my thoughts going on a tangent?” Shuxue shook his head. “Gahahaha! When math gods who reached deityhood by studying the laws die, the mathematical laws take the residual mathforce and build a tomb that contains insights into that deity’s knowledge! This dungeon is actually a tomb of a god. There definitely, definitely will be profound insights galore!”

Zhujiao nodded vigorously. “I knew big bro Shuxue would like it!”

“Only, why would a tomb appear here?” Daoli seemed to be thinking. “There are only 8 deities in our plane, and not a single one died in the last century. Otherwise, their entire Sector would have been chopped up by the other great powers. The only way for this tomb to form would be if an expert from a higher plane was battling underground, and his essence fell through mathematical space to our Weakest plane.”

“Who gives a damn about it! Let’s go!” Shuxue shouted, charging straight into the pyramid, passing by the several hundred people clustered around the pyramid as he did so.

The pyramid was over ten kilometers in length. Due to its structure, which definitely harmonized with the mathematical laws in some mysterious and profound manner, mathforce was constantly generated within it.

As a result, monsters endlessly spawned within the tomb. Shuxue cursed, shooting out a parabola inferno at a 58,820.

1,000!

1,000!

1,000!

1,000!

After an entire minute, the monster finally burned to death, leaving behind 58 Arithmetic pearls.

“God damn it, I used up 5,900 units of mathforce.” Shuxue cursed. “It’s a good thing that I’m using Algebra mathforce, which is 10 times as strong as Arithmetic mathforce. Otherwise, I’d already have run out of mathforce.”

The surrounding mathforce coalesced again, turning into 5 100,000 monsters. Seeing this, Shuxue’s eyes bugged. He nervously backed away behind Zhujiao.

“Zhujiao, these monsters are too puny for me to waste my time on! I’ll just leave this menial task to you!”

“Okay!”

Zhujiao ran up, grabbed a number, and smashed his forehead straight into it. In the blink of an eye, the monster was destroyed, turning into mathforce that was immediately sucked into Zhujiao’s forehead.

“Hahahahaha! Kill them all!” Zhujiao happily shouted, headbutting every single monster that spawned around them.

The horde was endless. After 30 minutes, they had advanced 50 meters, towards a pyramid of pearls that Zhujiao insisted on obtaining.

After 2 hours, Zhujiao had sucked in the pyramid of pearls, and they were starting to move towards the staircase a kilometer away that led up to the next floor.

5 hours passed. By this time, Lady Daoli had gotten over her shock of Zhujiao’s impossible antics.

After 10 hours, they were 10 meters away from the staircase.

“I’ve finished all my problem sets.” Shuxue fumed. “Mindlessly killing monsters for 10 hours is so boring. Who could possibly put up with this?”

“No, this is super fun!” Zhujiao headbutted his 2,375th monster. “I’m finally about to level up! This is so exciting! Grinding monsters is super fun!”

“Are you suggesting you would do this as a recreational activity?” Shuxue was appalled by the very thought. “If you didn’t have food in your interspatial forehead, I would’ve had us leave this shithole long ago.”

Indeed, every few meters there would be a pile of waste. Considering how long it would take to kill all the monsters and advance to the next floor, it was no surprise that some people would have to relieve themselves in the middle of the journey, fighting off monsters all the while.

Of course, this didn’t happen too often. But everyone who entered the tomb would generally take a dump sometime after entering, and sometime during their exit. The tomb had existed for 50 years! How many Mathivators had visited this tomb?

Over the course of 50 years, how many countless expeditions had journeyed here? Even though this tomb was a large place, over time, the amount of waste here would slowly accumulate to a frightening number!

If a hundred people entered the tomb everyday, then that would be over 3.5 million feces! This was just too astonishing of a number.

“It’s okay!” Zhujiao said, seemingly not caring at all about what he was stepping in. “Let’s go to the next floor!”

The next floor was filled with equation monsters. Shuxue could see a (x+5)(x-4)=0 jumping around. Smiling, he shot a -5, turning it into a (x-4)=0. 5 Algebra pearls flooded out and was immediately grabbed up by Zhujiao.

“That’s 138,405 Algebra pearls gathered! Only 61,595 more, and we’ll have enough to complete the quest!”

Shuxue turned his head towards a group of 300 Mathivators, 100 meters away from them.

“Yay! Grinding monsters is so much fun! I could do it for 3 weeks without stopping!” A girl giggled, shooting off an attack at a x^7-42x^6+83x^5-91x^4-2x^2+4x+1092=0.

“Yeah, this is the best recreational activity out of all the things I could possibly be doing!” A man shouted as he destroyed a (x+56)=0.

“That’s 138,461 Algebra pearls gathered! Only 61,539 more, and we’ll have enough to complete the quest!”

“We’ve been here 70 hours and 31 minutes already! That’s a new record!”

Zhujiao stared at them, his mouth forming into an o. “Wow, that’s hardcore. Even I can’t do this that long.”

Lady Daoli shook her head sadly. “These are the infamous pearl farmers, they spend their entire lives fighting mathematical monsters so they can sell the pearls for clothing, weapons, and other things. I’ve heard that prisoners taken in Sector wars are often forced to go on tomb expeditions in order to farm pearls for the Sector. Truly a horrible way to live.”

Shuxue began laughing maniacally. “Are you 2 crazy? This is the best thing that has ever graced my life! This is like an endless problem set that I can never finish! Who would’ve thought that a great treasure such as this endless problem set would appear above that waste dump below us.” A stain appeared in Shuxue’s pants as he panted in excitement.

“This is great! Why haven’t I ever thought of doing this before?” Like a ravenous beast, Shuxue went to work on the mathematical monsters, cackling like a madman as he did so.

Meanwhile, the pearl farmers continued to destroy the monsters jumping around.

“You know, I’ve always thought I’d have to waste my life working at a dead-end job.” A girl explained to Lady Daoli as she fought an equation monster. “But following the boss, Chenmi (meaning: Addicted), in grinding monsters 140 hours every week is so entertaining and lively! It’s not repetitive at all, not even a little bit. I may not have any friends outside our pearl farming group, but that’s okay, because this way I can combine my passion with my work!”

Lady Daoli was taken aback. “Well, I didn’t realize you all actually found pleasure in fighting monsters, over and over and over again. But you do you, I guess.”

An entire week dragged by. Shuxue left behind mountains of pearls, all of which were sucked up by Zhujiao. The pearl farmers, for their parts, had an aqueduct system installed into the tomb that sent the pearls down to the first floor, which their coworkers would gather up.

“Hey, big bro Shuxue.” Zhujiao opened the door to the house he had pulled out of his forehead at the beginning of the week. “Can’t we move onto the next floor yet? Even the Oyster Cornucopia people left for a 3-hour break.”

Shuxue collapsed onto the ground, his eyes bloodshot. “Hahahahaha, Zhujiao… I’ve cemented my peak Algebra status! I’m at the peak peak Algebra stage! Nothing is beyond my grasp! If there’s a problem, yo I’ll solve it. Just... let me get some sleep first.” Shuxue closed his eyes and began snoozing.

Author note: ‘The amount of waste here would slowly accumulate to a frightening number’ spiel uses Coiling Dragon logic detailed in Book 13, Chapter 1.