Tony Snow had not submitted any articles to Annals of Mathematics before this, so logically, Professor Nicholas Katz, who was overseas, shouldn't have known his name. However, Tony had recently published a mathematics paper in Mathematical Advances.
More importantly, one of the chief editors of Mathematical Advances, Dr. Camillo De Lellis, was also a researcher at the prestigious Avalon Institute for Advanced Study. The letter he wrote to Tony, inviting him to Avalon and offering to write a letter of recommendation to Avalon University, was no joke.
Lellis had indeed mentioned Tony to several professors at Avalon, and that was when Katz first heard of him. Later, after Tony's paper was published in Mathematical Advances, Katz made a point to read it.
It hadn't been long before Katz saw Tony's name again—this time in a paper submitted to Annals of Mathematics. Katz was stunned. No wonder he couldn't help but blurt out an expletive in surprise.
Within just a few months, Tony had published two high-quality mathematics papers, in two different top-tier journals. Even more impressive, the author was a 22-year-old undergraduate student from a small, relatively unknown university.
Tony's paper in Mathematical Advances, titled "Weierstrass-Type Function Dichotomy," primarily used functions to study low-dimensional dynamical systems. This time, his submission to Annals of Mathematics, titled "Nodal Sets of Laplace Eigenfunctions: Proof of Lower Bounds in Nadirashvili's Conjecture and Yau's Conjecture," bridged discrete and continuous mathematics.
Though both papers were in the field of mathematics, they focused on completely different areas. In the past two decades, Katz had only encountered one mathematician of such caliber—Alexander Tao, who earned a PhD from Avalon University at 21 and became a full professor by 24.
Now, he had found another.
He didn't yet know that Tony's paper submitted to Cell Systems was still under review, or that he had also published an advanced paper on Artificial Intelligence in a national scientific journal.
If Katz had known that Tony wrote his Annals paper in just one day and had already made waves in three different research domains, he wouldn't have just cursed—he'd probably have pushed to recruit Tony to Avalon immediately.
After his initial shock, Katz began to review the submitted paper. Unlike Tony, who completed the manuscript in a day, Katz took three full days to review it.
He even stayed up late for it—something that was rare for the aging academic.
After finishing the paper, Katz quickly contacted his old colleague at Avalon, Professor Sergiu Klainerman, who was also on the Annals editorial board.
Following several days of internal discussions, the board made a rare decision—to fast-track Tony's paper for publication in the July issue, bypassing the usual queue.
Typically, Annals of Mathematics took around eighteen months to publish accepted manuscripts. Tony's paper, submitted in April, would normally appear no earlier than December of the following year. This kind of expedited treatment was practically unheard of.
Meanwhile, Tony Snow remained blissfully unaware of the storm he was stirring in academic circles overseas.
Shortly after waking up that morning, he received a message from Dr. Hugh Ashford—his former microbiology professor—reminding him not to forget their investment meeting scheduled for that afternoon.
Tony replied with a simple "Received," assuring him he'd arrive on time.
That morning, Tony attended class with Clara Quinn. While Clara focused on the lecture, Tony studied independently—something that had become a normal sight to their classmates and professor alike.
Tony explained his afternoon plans to Clara, then skipped the rest of the day's classes. After a short nap back in the dorm, he headed to Dr. Ashford's office.
To his surprise, someone else was already there—Mitchell Carter, a senior biotech entrepreneur Tony had briefly met through academic circles.
Seeing Tony's puzzled look, Ashford explained, "I invited Mitchell here to discuss the financing round. We're proposing a joint investment: 1.5 million credits each, in exchange for 8% equity per person. What do you think?"
Ashford's idea was simple: share the risk.
But Tony wasn't buying it.
Yesterday, Ashford alone had offered 3 million credits for 15% equity, and Tony declined. Now, they wanted the same total investment but were asking for 1% more? No way.
"Either it's 1.5 million each for 5% equity each, or Dr. Ashford alone invests one million for 5%," Tony said bluntly.
Ashford frowned. The extra 500,000 for the same share was hard to accept.
The three debated the terms back and forth. Finally, they reached an agreement: each investor would contribute 1.5 million, but receive 6% equity each.
Tony had conceded slightly, but not much.
The days that followed were filled with administrative and logistical tasks: money transfers, contract signings, lab equipment purchases, and securing office and experimental space for his startup—FutureTech Labs.
As a newcomer to the startup world, Tony didn't know all the ropes, so he hired a lawyer to oversee contracts and asked the university's principal to review terms. Ashford also connected him with reliable equipment vendors.
Tony then signed Ashford on as the lead researcher for FutureTech's first project: a complete realization of the wastewater biofilm treatment system that had sparked Ashford's initial interest.
Before proceeding, Tony and Ashford signed a strict non-disclosure agreement. Any breach would carry steep financial penalties.
The process was tedious and took several days to finalize.
With everything in place, FutureTech Labs launched its first round of experimental work, led by Ashford with assistance from interns Sam Griffin and Erica Bloom. For now, the team was small—but the groundwork had been laid.
And with Tony's ideas and their execution just beginning, the real breakthroughs were yet to come...