Chapter 17: Learning to Type

Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

In the school library.

Not only were there books, but there were also computers.

However, the computer’s configuration was extremely low. In addition, the school’s IT teacher had added restrictions to the system, so students couldn’t play games on these computers.

Therefore, no student would go to the library for gaming.

Li Chengqian and Ding Ling sat apart from each other in the library.

He found a computer that could be turned on and sat down. Li Chengqian opened the file given by Tian Wenming the day before.

In addition to the revision materials mentioned by the teacher, there were also basic computing tutorials, introduction to Office software, and introduction to programming software.

All documents were in Word format.

Li Chengqian wasn’t in a hurry. He first opened the computing tutorial file.

“Activate Focus skill!”

Immediately, he felt extremely clear headed and mentally agile. All types of surreal lights kept flashing in his mind.

Right on the heels of that, Li Chengqian activated another skill.

“Activate Rational Thinking skill!”

Instantly, all his emotions were temporarily blocked, and all his thoughts became logical. On the basis that his memory and comprehension ability have been enhanced, Li Chengqian could clearly feel that his reasoning ability had instantly increased manifold.

All distracting thoughts vanished from his consciousness. Only one thought remained, and that was to learn the knowledge in the USB flash drive.

The basic computing tutorial had 60 pages, and he finished reading it in two minutes. After activating the Rational Thinking skill, his reading speed increased. It was about three times faster than before when he only used Focus skill.

This was because the computer mouse was not easy to maneuver.

“So, turning pages can be done by clicking on the page button!” Through the tutorial just now, Li Chengqian had already mastered all the shortcut keys.

Then, he quickly opened the file on introduction to Office software. The tutorial was 257 pages, comprising Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Because he had already mastered the page-turning shortcut key, Li Chengqian gave up on the mouse and simply kept pressing on the page turning key.

The page was turning at an extremely fast speed of one page every second.

In less than five minutes, he had completed the tutorial on introduction to Office software!

Without stopping, Li Chengqian opened the 168-page file on programming software tutorial.

In just three minutes, he memorized the operating methods, shortcut keys, and software settings. He also integrated them into his own knowledge system. Even the designer of the software might not be able to understand the functions of the software interface as well as Li Chengqian.

Next was the past year machine test questions for the Competition.

Li Chengqian wasn’t planning to look at the past year questions for the written tests, as it was really no longer necessary.

Li Chengqian had already finished learning the requisite materials listed in the Junior Informatics Programming Competition.

Therefore, if nothing went wrong, he would still score full marks in the written test.

He had never learned the machine test questions before. This was his shortcoming. With the enhancement of the Rational Thinking skill, he instantly recognized this as a critical point.

The first question on the revision materials:

Please write a simple facial recognition algorithm?

The moment he saw this question, Li Chengqian’s brain naturally gave him a way to understand the question.

Obtain face image, structuralize image.

Obtain proportion of facial features, convert to feature numbers.

Obtain facial contour proportions, convert to feature numbers.

Form facial eigenvalues.

Obtain new face images, calculate eigenvalues, compare databases.

Obtain result…

Then, one function after another, lines of code appeared in Li Chengqian’s mind.

Even in computing large locations, these codes have been replaced by more efficient assembly languages.

He only needed 58 lines of code to realize the facial recognition function!

The model answer to this question was 287 lines of code.

After reading the model answer, Li Chengqian realized that the model answer was more than ten times less efficient than his code!

Instantly, Li Chengqian understood the true purpose of rational thinking.

In Rational Thinking mode, Li Chengqian’s thinking process was similar to the way a computer hardware operated.

In this state, the program he wrote was compatible with the hardware and could operate extremely efficiently on the computer.

Moreover, in this state, Li Chengqian’s Rational Thinking skill would use his knowledge system to instantly produce the most optimal solution when a problem is stated.

Every year, the Youth Informatics Programming Competition would have 10 machine test questions, 5 in the preliminary round and 5 in the finals.

Teacher Tian Wenming had collected these questions for ten years. Thus there were a total of 100 questions.

The entire revision material was close to 1,000 pages.

To most people, this is a daunting volume. To Li Chengqian, this was child’s play. His fingers flew as he continuously pressed the page button, and he only took a glance at the model answer for each question.

Thirty minutes later, he finished reading the revision materials for the test.

Li Chengqian read the competition topic carefully. To him, it really wasn’t difficult at all.

“The machine test really isn’t as difficult as I imagined it would be.” Li Chengqian had total confidence that he would score full marks if the level of difficulty was comparable to the revision materials.

“I have to practice my typing speed!” He had no issues solving the problems but because he was unfamiliar with the keyboard, his slow typing might affect his exam results.

If he used a computer keyboard, Li Chengqian would not be able to do touch typing. He was still a two-finger typist and thus he typed very slowly.

“Every question requires a large amount of code. It would be a tragedy if I couldn’t enter the code that had already appeared in my mind because I typed slowly.”

Knowledge could be upgraded through reading or through proficiency upgrades in the Master of All Professions game, but typing speed had to be practiced.

However, Li Chengqian had an advantage that an ordinary person didn’t have, which was that he had already memorized all the positions of the letters on the keyboard.

He only needed to familiarize himself with the keyboard and with the correct finger positions to do touch typing.

At this moment, the Skill’s usage time ended, and a notification appeared in front of him.

[You have accumulated 60 minutes of reading time. You have received 60 experience value points. You have 4,817 experience value points remaining in the Experience Pool.]

Li Chengqian wasn’t bothered at all. After searching on the computer, he realized that there was actually a typing software installed on the computer for typing practice.

Li Chengqian opened the software.

He followed the instructions of the typing software and placed his fingers on the respective keys.

He familiarized himself with the key, one key at a time.

In his previous life, he had mostly used his cell phone. He was quite familiar with typing on his phone, but not on the computer.

However, he had never used standard fingering to type seriously on a computer before.

Therefore, although he had memorized the position of all the keys on the keyboard, his hands often couldn’t coordinate properly.

As such he kept making mistakes.

Li Chengqian was not discouraged. He continued to practice letter by letter.

In the beginning, nine out of the ten inputs were wrong.

After practicing for a while, the number of mistakes had decreased to about seven.

And the input speed was also increasing.

While Li Chengqian was practicing typing, Bi Jialiang, who was reading materials in the library, noticed him.

He purposely stood up to see what Li Chengqian was doing.

When he discovered that Li Chengqian was using the typing software to learn typing, and was constantly making mistakes, the smile on his face immediately became brilliant.

“You even need to learn on the spot how to type on the. How many marks can you possibly score in the Competition?”