Chương 196: Chapter 197: Highly Cited Researchers List

Philadelphia Professor Whitmore had spent thirty-eight years learning that no door in academia opens on the first push, so he pushed the Clarivate lobby door hard enough to rattle the glass in its frame. A year ago, he'd been a formations professor at Yale with a flatlining citation count and a department that had stopped inviting him to committee meetings. Then Leo Chen arrived with a research grant and a hexagram formation system recovered from the ruins of the Everlasting Empire, whatever that was.

Whitmore wasn't entirely sure the Empire was real, but that hadn't stopped him from publishing thirty thousand papers, building a citation network out of fraternity pledges, and riding it to a Heavenly Formations Prize nomination. Unfortunately, Clarivate, the organization that tracked how often researchers cited each other's work, had flagged him for "irregularities." Whitmore had come to their Philadelphia headquarters to explain that being productive was not a crime.

Three graduate students filed in behind him carrying boxes full of files. Chad Brennan came in last, holding a tray of iced coffees and wearing a blazer over a Delta Psi Omega tank top. Gary Vandenberg walked out before Whitmore could start interrogating the receptionist. Vandenberg was a thin man with reading glasses hanging around his neck and receding gray hair cropped close to the skull. A permanent crease sat between his eyebrows. His badge said DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH INTEGRITY.

"Professor Whitmore." Vandenberg did not extend a hand.

"I know why you're here. You're not making the Highly Cited Researchers List for 2030."

"Clarivate's Highly Cited Researchers List recognizes scholars whose publications rank in the top one percent of citations worldwide within their field and publication year." Whitmore's voice hardened.

"I had more citations in 2030 than any researcher on Earth. How exactly am I not in the top one percent?"

"Same here, bro." Chad raised his hand.

"Top one percent. Delta Psi Omega represent."

"The requirement is independent citation," Vandenberg said to Whitmore, ignoring Chad entirely.

"Citations originating outside your own research initiative." Chad continued, unbothered.

"I got some from Kappa Alpha." Vandenberg looked at him.

"Kappa Alpha," Chad repeated.

"Different frat. They cite me, I cite them. It's like the most independent thing there is."

"That is basically the opposite of independent." Vandenberg glared.

"When over ninety percent of your citations originate from within the Leo Chen Hexagram Formation Research Initiative, the pattern suggests coordination rather than impact." Whitmore stepped forward.

"Leo Chen risked his life to recover data from the Everlasting Empire. He brought back a sixty-four rune system that no scholar on Earth had ever documented." He jabbed a finger at Vandenberg.

"And you're going to sit here and tell me that research derived from his discovery doesn't count because too many people found it interesting?" Vandenberg did not believe for a moment that Leo Chen had risked anything to recover inefficient ancient formations from a civilization no one could verify existed. The narrative was too convenient. The teenager's story had more holes than a peer review from the ICML. But the formations worked. That was the only part that mattered.

And the researchers who hadn't dropped everything to join the Atlanta initiative could only watch from the outside as Whitmore's people published paper after paper on source material no one else could access. Vandenberg nodded.

"You're right that the data is unprecedented." He adjusted his reading glasses.

"What troubles me, Professor, is that despite thirty thousand papers and a year of frantic publication, not a single formation practitioner anywhere in the world has built anything using your research. No implementations. No prototypes. No downstream citations from anyone who actually makes formations for a living." He let that sit.

"Your work is very popular among people who write papers. It does not appear to be popular among people who do anything else."

"Theory precedes practice, Mr. Vandenberg. That is how science works." Whitmore straightened.

"The researchers working on hexagram formations are exploring the frontiers of knowledge. The Heavenly Dao itself. You cannot expect commercial applications to materialize overnight from a system that has been lost for ten thousand years." He gestured at the boxes of files.

"There are dozens of startups working on hexagram-derived applications as we speak. Autonomous targeting. Self-maintaining defensive arrays. There's a firm in San Francisco with eleven million in seed funding and a very good logo." He spread his hands wide.

"We are on the verge of a revolution in autonomous array design, and when it arrives, every single one of those thirty thousand papers will be vindicated as..." He trailed off. Even he didn't believe his own words.

"A revolution." Vandenberg looked at him skeptically.

"When the revolution arrives, Professor, Clarivate will be delighted to recognize your contributions. Until then, the Highly Cited List is reserved for research that has already become relevant."

"Other people on the list..." Whitmore spread his hands.

"Surely there are theorists. Pure researchers. People whose work hasn't been commercialized yet."

"New criteria." Vandenberg's voice carried no apology.

"After the Atlanta initiative, Clarivate received more Highly Cited nominations this year than we had in the previous century combined. The board implemented additional requirements to distinguish genuine impact from..." He glanced at Chad.

"... volume."

"That's targeted discrimination."

"That's quality control, Professor. However." Vandenberg raised a finger.

"I am not unreasonable. Demonstrate one commercially viable application of your hexagram research. One implementation that exists outside of an academic paper. Proof that your thirty thousand publications have produced something other than thirty thousand more citations." He paused.

"Do that, and you may parade as many fraternity brothers through our awards ceremony as you like. I will seat them personally."

"Get me the San Francisco Declaration." Whitmore pointed at the boxes of files.

"And the Ryniewicz brief. Section four." The graduate students dropped to their knees and started rifling through the boxes, searching through the files. Vandenberg tapped his collar mic twice. He didn't say anything. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. Two security guards burst through a side door.

"Professor Whitmore, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"Not until you acknowledge the Ryniewicz brief, which clearly states..." One guard grabbed his collar. The other grabbed his belt. They lifted him off the floor and carried him toward the exit.

"You can't do this to me!" Whitmore's legs kicked uselessly in the air.

"I thought this was America!"

"This is Clarivate, Professor." Vandenberg's voice followed him across the lobby.

"Private property. You are trespassing."

"I have rights! I have documentation! I have thirty-eight years of..." He grabbed the doorframe with both hands. The guards pulled. Whitmore held on. For a moment, the three of them struggled in the entrance. Whitmore's phone rang. Money money money money, money Everyone stopped. The guards paused mid-pull. Whitmore's grip on the doorframe slackened. Even the graduate students looked up from the scattered papers on the floor. Vandenberg stared at him.

"Really, Professor? That's your ringtone?"

"Excuse me." Whitmore released the doorframe and tried to look dignified, which was hard while two security guards held him off the ground.

"I need to take this. It's Leo Chen." The guards looked at Vandenberg. Vandenberg pinched the bridge of his nose and waved a hand. They set Whitmore down. Whitmore straightened his jacket, pulled out his phone, and answered.

"Hello, Leo Chen? This is Professor Whitmore." He paused.

"Uh huh. Uh huh." A smile spread across his face.

"Wait. You're saying you have an idea for a practical application of the hexagram formation system?" His eyes found Vandenberg.

"A commercially viable application of the hexagram formation system." He turned to Vandenberg and smiled.

"Something that the NFL would be interested in?" Vandenberg frowned.

"I understand completely, Leo. I'll be there as soon as I can." Whitmore ended the call and slipped the phone back into his pocket. He turned to Vandenberg.

"I'm afraid I need to be in New Jersey. Leo Chen requires my expertise." He straightened his tie.

"I'll be back, Mr. Vandenberg. With a practical application." He stepped toward the exit, then paused.

"And when I return, you better be ready to put my name on that list." He pushed through the doors and walked out. The graduate students scrambled to gather the scattered papers and hurried after him. At the door, one of them turned back to Vandenberg.

"Our names." Chad pointed at his own chest with both thumbs.

"Me too, bro."

Whitmore arrived in New Jersey the next afternoon. Leo explained what he wanted. A sparring puppet. He had seen the autonomous ones in the Everlasting Empire, thousands of years old and still walking, and figured they could copy them and build him a sparring partner. Whitmore listened to the whole pitch, then explained why it was worthless. The biggest problem was time. A functional combat puppet that could match an NFL flyer was not a weekend project.

Even a rushed prototype would take a decade, which meant it would not arrive in time for the Super Bowl, and more importantly, it would not arrive in time for Clarivate's 2030 list. Leo had never heard of Clarivate and didn't particularly care about his list, but Whitmore seemed upset, so he nodded sympathetically. Whitmore proposed a simpler solution. Instead of building an autonomous puppet that could think and fight, they would add physical contact to the holographic projector.

The holographic projector already simulated opponents. Leo could load any player in the league and the system would replicate their positioning, habits, and tendencies. The only thing it couldn't do was hit back. So Whitmore built formation drones that followed the holograms. One drone tracked the weapon arm. Another tracked the torso. A third tracked the flying sword beneath the projection's feet. Each drone followed its assigned target and provided a solid surface behind the hologram.

Whenever Leo crossed swords with a holographic opponent, he hit the formation drone trailing the hologram rather than empty air. Whenever a holographic opponent struck at him, a drone delivered actual contact. The truly ingenious part was that the NFL had never thought to regulate holographic training machines. Ever since the Air Force had started providing decommissioned holographic trainers to professional teams, no one had tried to upgrade them. The machines worked. They were expensive to run.

They were even more expensive to fix. That was the end of the conversation. Whitmore's formation drones were not considered new equipment. They were just modifications to an existing training system that the league had already approved. The initial demonstrations were promising. Lord Mara approved the expenses out of the team account and told Leo to practice as much as he wanted. To Mara's surprise, Leo seemed to have an inexhaustible amount of T3 spiritual qi. The numbers made no sense.

The boy carried thirty-two million dollars in debt. His rookie contract barely covered living expenses. He had declined every sponsorship offer Vivian Xin had forwarded to him, which meant no outside income, no corporate qi subsidies, no family money flowing in from hidden channels. And yet the kid trained like money was meaningless. Mara added it to the growing list of things about Leo Chen that didn't add up. Leo settled into a rhythm.

Every three days he logged into the Azure Profound Continent for the divine sense press, and while he was there he refilled the Sunshifter's T3 reserves using his own spiritstones. It was expensive. Every refill cost him thirty T3 spiritstones. But Leo thought of it as investing in himself. The results showed. Week six against the Eagles. Leo had spent twenty hours sparring against their starting wing's positioning habits through the upgraded holographic system.

When the actual game started, Leo's body already knew the patterns. The wing committed left. Leo was already there. The wing tried to recover. Leo had seen this recovery fifty times in training. Leo scored in under two minutes. Week seven against the Broncos. Leo had spent sixty hours drilling against Hilda Walton's hologram and targeted her personally in the game. He spent four quarters pressuring her, matching her pattern for pattern.

Every technique he had practiced against her projection, he used against her on the field. With their ace wing occupied, the Broncos folded under the Giants' pressure. Vince orchestrated three successful ambushes. Damari took out their linebacker in a sequence so fast the replay analysts needed slow motion to follow it. Final score: Giants 19, Broncos 6. After the game, Leo found Hilda waiting outside the visitor's locker room. She smiled and asked for his jersey. Week eight against the Eagles again.

Leo made the highlight reels three times. Sports analysts who had written him off after the Saints loss started revising their takes. The narrative shifted from "promising rookie who needs development" to "the next Tompa Brady." Vivian was fielding more sponsorship requests than ever. Leo kept declining all of them. He knew he had more cards to play. More momentum to build. The offers would only get better the longer he waited. The legend of Flyer Seven grew.

Social media clips of his kills reached millions of views. Fan accounts tracked his improvement week over week with obsessive statistical breakdowns. Podcast hosts who couldn't name three other flyers started calling him 'the greatest of all time'. New York hadn't won a Super Bowl in eighteen years. The city had learned to manage its expectations, to treat hope as a luxury. But Leo Chen was different. Flyer Seven was nineteen years old and getting better every week.

For the first time in nearly two decades, New York allowed itself to believe. This might be the year.

Week nine. The San Francisco 49ers. Leo sat in the locker room before the game, running through his pre-match preparations. The 49ers were a playoff contender, sitting at six and two. Their starting wing, Christian McCaffrey, was leading the league in kills. McCaffrey was good. Not Mamones-level good, but dangerous enough that most flyers spent the entire game trying to survive rather than attack. Harbach walked over.

"Chen." Leo looked up. Harbach's face gave nothing away. He studied Leo for a long moment.

"The Struggle of Ten Thousand Swords Seeking Heaven formation," Harbach said quietly.

"You've been drilling it?"

"Since week seven, like you told me to."

"Use it." Leo's heart rate spiked. He'd been waiting for this since March. Since he drew it on Harbach's practice sword and watched it punch a hole in the ceiling.

"It's time to announce yourself to the league. Take McCaffrey out for the rest of the season." Harbach smiled.

"And make them remember who did it."