Chapter 555: Ch 555 : Dottore chases the slime

"Su Yuan, since you’re so willing to cooperate with me, then let’s begin our delightful discussion right away!"

Dottore looked at Su Yuan with a smile and said,

"So, Su Yuan, can you tell me how exactly you obtained those pieces of intel before? I never saw you communicate with any suspicious person, nor did I see you use any special method to acquire information. Yet you always managed to obtain critical intel that disrupted my plans and caught me off guard..."

"Dottore, since I’ve already decided to have a deep conversation with you, I’ll naturally answer your question," Su Yuan replied calmly.

"However, before that, there are some questions I’d like to discuss with you."

"Discuss something with me?" Dottore looked slightly puzzled, but then nodded with interest.

"Of course, that’s fine. We have plenty of time, and if you have any doubts you’d like me to answer, I’ll gladly do so. After all, we’re friends now... aren’t we?"

Su Yuan looked at Dottore, uncertain whether the sincerity on his face was genuine or merely feigned.

But that didn’t matter.

During that short moment of thought, Su Yuan had already come up with a few possible methods — perhaps ones that could render this scholar-version slice of Dottore completely speechless, his mind crashing in confusion.

He took a deep breath, coughed twice, and said,

"Dottore, as you know, I came from outside this world — I’m someone who crossed over to Teyvat from another world."

"In the world I came from, there were many unsolved problems. I wonder, would you be interested in hearing a few of them?"

Hearing that, Scholar Dottore’s curiosity was instantly piqued. "Oh? Unsolved problems from another world?"

"There’s no problem in this world that I cannot solve," he declared confidently.

"No truth beyond my grasp. Come then, Su Yuan — let me see what sort of riddles your otherworldly realm has to offer!"

Seeing this reaction, Su Yuan thought to himself that this truly was the Sumeru Akademiya version of Dottore — he had no resistance against intellectual challenges.

Su Yuan took a deep breath and began:

"Since we’re in Teyvat, I’ll make the problem more down-to-earth."

"Let’s say, Dottore, that you’re racing against a slime. You let the slime start running five seconds ahead of you, and only then do you begin chasing it."

"Now, the question is — how long will it take you to catch up to the slime?"

Dottore looked confused. "Is this really considered a difficult problem in your world? Although comparing me to a slime is somewhat insulting, if I must answer... slimes move very slowly. To catch one would take me less than a second — merely an instant."

"No!" Su Yuan said firmly, waving his hand.

"Dottore, no matter how fast you are, you will never catch up to that slime!"

"Su Yuan, what nonsense are you spouting? In such an obvious scenario, how can you say something so utterly illogical?" Dottore stared at him in disbelief, as though looking at a madman.

Inwardly, Dottore wondered if Su Yuan’s sudden cooperation was simply because he had gone insane from desperation — and was now babbling nonsense.

"No, no, Dottore, listen carefully while I explain."

Su Yuan waved his hand and continued solemnly,

"Since the slime started five seconds earlier, by the time you begin chasing it, it’s already reached point A. So far, so good?"

He looked at Dottore, who nodded, frowning slightly. "That’s fine so far, but what exactly are you trying to say?"

"Then listen," Su Yuan continued.

"When you start running and finally reach point A, time hasn’t stopped — the slime has kept moving and has now reached point B. No problem with that, right?"

"Indeed, no problem. Go on, Su Yuan..." Dottore frowned deeply at this point, as if he had begun to sense something wasn’t quite right...

"So, when you arrive at point B, time still doesn’t stop. The slime continues to move forward and reaches point C..." Su Yuan continued, "That... makes sense, right?"

"Su Yuan, what exactly are you trying to say???" Dottore’s expression was growing increasingly twisted and uneasy...

"So, by continuing this logic—when you reach point C, the slime moves to point D... when you reach point D, it moves to point E..."

"Although the distance between you and the slime keeps getting smaller..."

Su Yuan took a deep breath and spoke the decisive words:

"But you will never actually catch up to the slime that started before you!!!"

As soon as those words left Su Yuan’s mouth, Scholar Dottore fell silent.

His expression was one of total disbelief—frozen in place as his face began to contort, and an eerie aura slowly emanated from his body...

Seeing this scene, Su Yuan realized—he had succeeded.

He had successfully driven this segment of Scholar Dottore into a state of eerie transformation!

The question Su Yuan had posed just now was a famous paradox—first proposed by the ancient Greek mathematician Zeno, known as the "Achilles Paradox," or more broadly, Zeno’s Paradox.

In the original version, it was Achilles chasing a tortoise.

Su Yuan had simply modified the setup slightly—turning it into Dottore chasing a slime!

But regardless, the result was the same: Su Yuan had used this paradox to crash the mind of the scholar Dottore and trigger his eerie transformation.

It had all gone even more smoothly than Su Yuan had expected.

Still, even if it hadn’t worked the first time, Su Yuan had prepared several other famous paradoxes—and even a few ridiculous quotes from internet forums.

Surely one of them would’ve left Scholar Dottore speechless, right?