A New Teacher
“Whoa! Four thousand people?”
Edward Kang smiled warmly and nodded.
When the discussion first started, the number of people watching the live stream was barely over a thousand.
However, by the time Cheol-jun was saying his final thank-yous, the viewer count had surged past four thousand.
Compared to the usual online math forums Edward Kang hosted, which typically peaked at just over eight hundred viewers, this was an astronomical number.
In the mathematics community, saying that four thousand people had gathered was, with only a slight exaggeration, equivalent to saying that almost every active pure mathematician in the world had tuned in.
“Look, they’re all praising you.”
Cheol-jun stared at the posts on the monitor with sparkling eyes.
At first, he was just bewildered.
The number four thousand didn't feel real. To an eleven-year-old, four thousand was an abstract concept—it was far more than the entire student body of his school.
But as he read through the posts one by one, a warm, fuzzy feeling began to bloom in his chest.
He had started this simply wanting to hold hands and walk together, and now, he had suddenly gained a massive crowd of people walking alongside him.
Because they hadn't been speaking face-to-face, he hadn't been entirely sure if he was doing a good job.
But now that he felt the relief of knowing his message had been delivered clearly, a sense of pride washed over him, accompanied by a touch of shyness.
He didn't dislike being praised, but realizing belatedly that so many people had been watching made his ears turn slightly red.
“How is it? Amazing, right?”
“Hehe.”
“Do you realize how incredible what you did is? Do you see how amazing your math is?”
Cheol-jun scratched his head lightly.
“Uh, I don't really feel it yet. The math I know is only a tiny fraction.”
“Haha. Yes! You caused a massive stir with just that tiny fraction.”
“Ah...”
Edward Kang shook his head in wonder.
Cheol-jun’s grasp of mathematics was truly fascinating.
A normal mathematical education is built step-by-step, from the bottom up. One must climb diligently, starting from the very basics.
But Cheol-jun was different. He leaped directly to wherever he needed to go.
As a result, while some areas of his knowledge were incredibly deep and solid, other areas were full of gaping holes.
He understood the Atiyah-Singer index theorem, yet he didn't know the structure of integration by substitution. He understood Hamiltonian mechanics, yet he had no idea how to solve a basic ordinary differential equation. While he seemed to grasp statistics and probability intuitively, he was completely ignorant of advanced theoretical frameworks.
The structure of his knowledge was extraordinarily unique.
In all his life, Edward Kang had never seen anyone acquire mathematical knowledge in this manner.
‘Then again, I suppose that’s why he was able to reach such a wildly creative result.’
Edward Kang stared at Cheol-jun.
He wanted to pack the boy up and take him to his lab at Princeton this very instant. He wanted to be the one to fill those empty holes.
He wanted to teach him integration by substitution, basic ODEs, and statistics.
Just thinking about how much further this child could go made his heart pound with excitement.
But then, he hesitated.
‘Is that really the right thing to do?’
There was a reason Cheol-jun’s mathematics had formed this way.
It was because no one had taught him, because he had leaped to where he needed to go on his own, and because no one had dictated where he should go.
Those unique circumstances had made the boy who he was.
But what if Edward began to teach him?
What would happen if he guided the boy using his own language, his own methods, and in the direction he personally found beautiful?
Perhaps, instead of filling the holes, he would end up paving over them.
It occurred to him that those holes might not actually be empty voids, but rather open windows letting the breeze flow through.
‘If I teach him, he will only end up becoming a mathematician who resembles me.’
That was not the right answer.
But what if he left him in Korea like this?
The Korean education system would not leave this child alone. The Suneung, school GPAs, a rigid curriculum—a system where everyone walked at the exact same pace in the exact same direction.
What would happen to the boy inside that system?
Forced to fit into a mold that didn't suit him, his unique way of thinking might simply vanish. Creativity was a fragile thing, easily chipped away if left unprotected.
No matter how much he thought about it, neither path seemed correct.
Teaching him was dangerous, and not teaching him was also dangerous.
It was the first time in his life he had faced such a dilemma.
Most of the prodigies he had met before were the kind of geniuses he could comprehend. But this child was different. He couldn't see which way to guide his growth at all.
No, it wasn't that he couldn't see it—it was that the boy could be guided in absolutely any direction.
And that was the bigger problem.
Being able to grow in any direction also meant he could be ruined in any direction.
‘What can I actually do for this child?’
Cheol-jun looked up from the monitor.
“Professor, math is really fun. There’s so much I don't know, so I’m really excited to see what I’ll learn tomorrow!”
“Haha. Is that so?”
“Yes! It’s so amazing to understand the universe through math!”
“Ah...”
“What will I be able to see next time?”
Edward Kang’s face went blank for a moment.
He had briefly forgotten how this child had come to start mathematics in the first place.
It was just like how humanity had first begun using mathematics—to understand the systematic rules of the heavens.
‘An intellectual pursuit born of pure curiosity...’
The question came first, and mathematics was merely the tool to answer it.
Perhaps this boy’s approach was the true essence of mathematics.
Euclid created geometry from the question of how to divide land; Newton created calculus from the question of why planets move the way they do; Gauss created differential geometry from the question of why a compass needle points the way it does; and Riemann created Riemannian geometry from the question of why space might not be flat.
But what about his own mathematics—what about the modern mathematical community?
As mathematics became increasingly sophisticated, the discipline itself had long since become the sole objective.
It was no longer a tool for questions, but mathematics for the sake of its own beauty. They clung to unsolved problems and were entirely consumed by refining the language of mathematics itself.
At the same time, mathematical education had become a process of learning answers without ever asking questions. Students had to memorize formulas without ever knowing why they were necessary.
‘Sigh...’
This child hadn't learned mathematics. He had simply tried to understand the world, and mathematics just happened to be there.
And that was the exact way humanity had first begun the discipline.
‘Something fun, indeed...’
The boy was already leaping lightly across academic boundaries, playing freely in the playground of truth.
Moreover, he had a reliable guardian to protect that playground.
A guardian who was also a completely different breed from the average parent.
‘What on earth was I worrying about?’
Edward Kang let out a hollow laugh and shook his head.
“Haha. Yes, you’ve learned the most important thing.”
“Right! I learned something really important!”
“No, no. *I* learned. From you.”
“Huh? From me, Professor?”
“Haha. Yes, you rascal. You are my teacher.”
Cheol-jun’s eyes widened.
No matter how he thought about it, he was the one who had been learning.
“Thank you. Thanks to you, my world has suddenly expanded.”
“Hehe.”
Since it was clearly a compliment, Cheol-jun smiled happily.
“Right. So, have you found what you want to look at next?”
Cheol-jun blinked his round eyes, then knitted his brows slightly.
“First, I need to play some Rival. I’ve been so into this all vacation that I haven't played in forever. I think my form has completely dropped.”
“...Rival?”
“I need to hit Diamond before vacation ends...”
‘A mathematical decision structure? A diamond structure?’
Edward Kang’s eyes widened in confusion, while Cheol-jun just beamed brightly.
—Yeah. It was a direct request from NASA.
At the words of Kim Han-su, the NIS 3rd Deputy Director, Hyeong-man raised an eyebrow.
“So you're saying NASA asked to dig into Cheol-jun's background?”
—Correct.
“Haha...”
There were quite a few talent brokers active in South Korea. They were hired by foreign governments or corporations to directly recruit Korean talent or gather and sell information on them.
And among those working in that industry, a fair number were former intelligence officers.
Such people knew where to draw the line. When they received a request, they would first check if the target was someone specially managed by the Korean government.
Money was important, but getting on the government's bad side would make life incredibly difficult.
Naturally, these brokers had connections within the NIS, and asking around before making a move was their secret to surviving in the business for a long time.
And someone had recently asked the NIS line about the name Lee Cheol-jun.
—For now, I've spread the word that he's a secretly managed Class-A special strategic asset, so they won't bother him. Just wanted to let you know, just in case.
“Okay.”
—Wow, Cheol-jun is really something. Getting NASA to move directly.
“Of course he is. Even that Edward Kang called Cheol-jun his teacher.”
—Haha. Really?
“I should let Cheol-jun know. He might be interested.”
—Huh? What if he wants to go?
“If the kid thinks it sounds fun, of course he should go.”
—Hey, if Cheol-jun is that kind of talent, then naturally for the national prestige...
“Whoa, stop.”
—Huh?
“If you're going to talk about 'national prestige' or whatever, I'm hanging up.”
—Sigh...
“Anyway, thanks for letting me know.”
—Oh, and thanks to the guy you connected us with in Yemen, we finally opened up a proper line. We were completely in the dark there, but now that we have some breathing room, the foreign intelligence director is all smiles. He said he wants to buy you dinner sometime.
“Forget dinner, just tell him to wire the money quickly.”
—Haha. Sure, sure.
“Take care of yourself.”
—Yeah. You too.
“Hey.”
Hanging up the phone, Hyeong-man chuckled and looked at his monitor.
In the math community he was visiting for the first time in his life, everyone was talking about Cheol-jun.
He thought the frenzy was limited to foreign communities, but as time passed, Cheol-jun's name was starting to pop up in Korean communities as well.
“Haha...”
To be honest, he couldn't understand a single word of that alien language no matter how hard he looked.
Yet, even without knowing any math, Hyeong-man had gasped in awe throughout the video. His tiny nephew had stood there with such confidence, leaving famous mathematicians utterly stunned.
He had no idea what those symbols meant, but looking at the community reactions, it was clear Cheol-jun had done something truly monumental.
And now even NASA was showing interest...
‘I need to brace myself.’
He was already starting to get calls from people who had somehow obtained his number. There were a few reporters, a study guide marketing department, and even a professor from a prestigious university.
He felt incredibly proud and happy, but he was equally tense.
He had to manage things carefully so the child wouldn't get swept away by unwanted pressure. And he had to do his best to shield the boy from the inevitable downsides of fame.
For every ten posts of praise and admiration, there was always one like this.
Hyeong-man scowled, cracking his knuckles. Then, he began to hammer away at the keyboard.
“These motherf...”
Hyeong-man's fingertips trembled with rage.
Staring at the comment input box where he hadn't yet hit Enter, he ground his teeth.
[I'll track all your IPs and...]
This was going to be a very difficult mission.
The College of Natural Sciences at Seohan University was practically in a festive mood.
Professors passing each other in the hallways beamed and exchanged congratulations, while teaching assistants felt their shoulders rise with pride as they sorted through a deluge of interview request emails from foreign journalists.
“Hey, did you see? An MIT professor posted a question in English on our school server's free board earlier.”
“Insane... Look at Reddit. It's all Seohan University!”
“But we're putting all interview requests on hold for now, right?”
“Yeah. Our Lord Cheol-jun wants to rest for a while to bond with his friends.”
“By the way, I saw the banners arrived earlier. Why aren't they up?”
“His guardian asked to leave Lord Cheol-jun's name out of it. But what's the point of hanging a banner without his name? Only the Astronomy department hung one, saying they got a promise of ultra-fast review from Nature.”
“The Astronomy kids must be going crazy. The Dean went to meet the First Vice Minister of Science and ICT. Looks like they'll secure a massive R&D budget too.”
“Wow, it doesn't feel real. Our school becoming a holy land of mathematics...”
The College of Natural Sciences, usually the coldest and most orderly department, was so swept up in excitement that even students passing by the building could feel the heat.
And at the very edge of the Natural Sciences building, two people were staring at the Astronomy department's proudly displayed banner with deeply displeased faces.
“Still, weren't we better off than them?”
“Yes, Professor. At least we didn't have to worry about department consolidation.”
“Sigh...”
“What do we do now?”
The professor shook his head solemnly and placed a heavy hand on his TA's shoulder.
“Thales!”
“...”
“Thales was an astronomer before he was a philosopher. He predicted an eclipse in 585 BC. For the first time in history.”
“...”
“And Pythagoras! He was actually a philosopher before he was a mathematician. Aristotle did astronomy too. Galileo was originally a philosopher.”
“No, I mean, what do we do now?”
“Sigh. Do you truly not understand the hidden meaning of my words? I have taught you in vain.”
The professor's grip on the TA's shoulder tightened. The TA let out a long sigh, wondering why this man was acting up again.
“In truth, the ultimate boss of the sciences is astronomy. It's a mega-science where physics, chemistry, earth science, and advanced mathematics must all combine just to get a foot in the door. It explores the largest external world, dealing with light-years of space and time since the Big Bang, which rational thought can barely reach.”
“...”
“And where is the ultimate boss of the humanities?”
“...Sigh. You want to say the Philosophy department, right?”
“Exactly! It is the root of thought that forms the foundation of history, literature, language, and psychology! It explores the deepest inner world reachable by humans, dealing with the reason for human existence, moral values, and the nature of truth!”
“Right...”
“As long as humanity doesn't stop asking 'why,' we won't go under.”
A brief silence fell between them.
“But finding a job will still be hard.”
The TA nodded quickly.
“Yes. Despite being such grand disciplines, both have been neglected in modern society.”
The TA sighed again.
He thought they had returned to reality, but the professor was starting up again. He clamped his lips shut tightly, fearing his mouth might betray him and speak his mind.
He desperately wanted to say, ‘No, at Seohan University, now it's only the Philosophy department that's like that.’
Ignoring the TA's inner turmoil, the professor continued.
“I realized something as I chewed over the words that child said in the video.”
“...”
“Ah, that child wasn't doing mathematics!”
“...”
“His essence was philosophy!”
The professor spun around, grabbing the TA's shoulders with both hands, his eyes burning with intensity. The TA flinched.
“I shall give you a special mission!”
“Please don't!”
“From today on, wait in front of this building, and if you spot that child!”
“I don't want to!”
“By any means necessary, kidnap... No, notify me immediately. I will run over right away.”
“...”
“I'm counting on you.”
The TA began to seriously contemplate transferring majors before it was too late.