Buzz!
The Black Rock Stele suddenly let out a buzzing sound, breaking the silence in the classroom.
Everyone immediately focused their attention on it and discovered that faint blue light now coiled around the Black Rock Stele like countless dazzling stars. Misty water vapor filled the area, and the humidity had clearly risen considerably.
At that moment, a hoarse, weathered male voice suddenly came from within the inscription.
"*&%...#￥(*"
The male voice babbled on for quite a while, but no one present understood a single word.
They could vaguely make out an emotion called hatred.
The academy members all turned their gazes toward Huang Weiguo.
Old Huang began to sweat on his forehead.
He had never encountered a situation like this either!
There had been no similar phenomenon in the archives!
The Caolian, Fulan, and Yingchuan academies had no experience in this area that they could draw upon, either.
Fortunately!
They had an audio recording prepared in advance!
"Please wait!"
As Huang Weiguo spoke, he took out his phone and opened an app called "Dajiang."
He uploaded the audio recording and briefly explained Ma Ran's situation.
"Alien languages, writing, and patterns have long been under study by our supernatural analysis department."
"Although no one can currently communicate normally in this language, we can still manage simple translations and voice-to-text conversion."
Less than thirty seconds later, a voice filled with hatred came from his phone.
It was still that same male voice.
Only this time, he was speaking Mandarin, and everyone could understand him.
"When you hear these words, I will already have died in battle."
"Learn my martial way and inherit my karma."
"You who have obtained my complete legacy naturally bear the mission of avenging me."
"Cultivate diligently!"
"Strive to break through the shackles of Martial Way Nine Stages as soon as possible!"
"The extraterrestrial fiends will descend upon your planet sooner or later."
"As much as possible..."
"Kill them!"
Listening carefully, one could hear a trace of unwillingness and longing amid those words filled with hatred.
That message contained quite a lot of information.
Everyone's gazes abruptly focused on Ma Ran.
The "you" mentioned in the voice could only refer to Ma Ran.
However...
The male voice had mentioned the words "complete legacy," which meant that Ma Ran had truly used only an hour to accurately calculate all 512 acupoints!
Although some people still had doubts about this, most of those present had already begun to believe it.
"A little harvest."
A faint light flickered in Ma Ran's eyes.
Within his field of vision, a mass of crimson liquid metal suddenly appeared and slowly condensed into a bronze-red medal.
With just a slight concentration of attention, Ma Ran learned its name.
Inner Qi Genius.
The medal's quality was far inferior to Study Demon.
However, Ma Ran was certain that it would complete its upgrade before long.
The leeks harvested this time were not limited to the academy members and staff present. They also included the staff of the other institutions on the same level as Caolu Academy.
This performance had yet to spread completely through the "Dajiang" app, and its influence was still gradually fermenting.
Even so, the proliferation ability called Inner Qi Genius had already transformed Ma Ran's physique.
Originally, Ma Ran's aptitude for cultivating Inner Qi could only be described as that of an ordinary person. He had been at an average level.
"Entering the Second Stage in the Blink of an Eye" had merely been a deception, an illusion.
It was the result of his accumulation beforehand.
One thing worth mentioning was that the process of converting energy into Inner Qi did not require assuming a specific posture, such as sitting cross-legged with the five centers facing the sky.
He only needed to focus his attention slightly!
Seven days had passed since the moment Ma Ran was reborn.
During this period, he had spent nearly twenty hours every day cultivating Inner Qi!
He ate huge amounts of food!
He cultivated desperately!
Even during the temporary exams, Ma Ran would quickly finish answering the questions and then continue accumulating Inner Qi.
Only when his body was utterly exhausted would he temporarily set aside his Inner Qi cultivation and study the Prison Text.
Why had Ma Ran created a persona for himself as a taciturn person who kept others at a distance?
Precisely so he could save as much time as possible and spend it converting energy into Inner Qi!
Cultivating Inner Qi to the Second Stage in only seven days was already the limit of what Ma Ran could accomplish!
Such desperate effort could not be maintained forever.
Now, Ma Ran no longer needed to work so hard.
The most powerful aspect of playing a role was...
He only needed to establish a persona that was widely acknowledged, and that would be enough!
By pretending to possess extraordinary talent, determination, and perseverance, and to work harder than anyone else, he would soon obtain a new medal ability!
The first stage of the "False Sage" script—the genius persona—had already been firmly established.
Starting from nothing was the hardest part.
What came next was the harvest phase.
After experimenting briefly, Ma Ran immediately reached a conclusion: his efficiency at converting nutrients such as sugar, fat, and protein into Inner Qi had increased to three times what it had been before!
If Ma Ran had possessed the Inner Qi Genius proliferation ability from the beginning, then based on the intensity of his efforts during this period, cultivating from zero to the Second Stage of Inner Qi...
Would have taken only about two and a half days!
"Legacy, karma, extraterrestrial fiends..."
After hearing that passage filled with hatred and unwillingness, Academy President Huang Weiguo's expression looked somewhat grim.
Starting four months ago, numerous uncontrollable dangers had appeared across the globe alongside supernatural phenomena.
The so-called "uncontrollable dangers" did not originate from the Earthlings who had gained superpowers, but from the aliens eyeing Earth covetously!
Just how powerful were those so-called extraterrestrial fiends to make the person who left behind the Black Rock Stele say "kill them as much as possible"?
He had not even dared to say "kill them all"!
Clearly, he lacked confidence.
Could Earth's technological and military strength deal with those "extraterrestrial fiends"?
While Huang Weiguo was lost in thought, Ma Ran stared intently at the Black Rock Stele.
He understood this Black Rock Stele better than anyone.
The stele had been infused with a trace of an alien world's origin, equivalent to a tiny shining light bulb in the endless darkness of the universe.
The "extraterrestrial fiends" mentioned by the person who left behind this message would use the Black Rock Stele to search for and lock onto Earth's location.
The Black Rock Stele could be considered a means of diverting disaster elsewhere. It could also be considered the final spark left behind by a martial way civilization.
Either interpretation worked.
Setting aside whether current technological methods had the ability to destroy it...
Even if they did, how could anyone persuade all the countries across the globe to make the same decision?
China was not the only country to have obtained these steles.
As long as even one stele survived, all the efforts of the other countries would be rendered futile.
They might as well turn waste into treasure and make good use of it.
Ma Ran had no favorable feelings toward the person who had created the Black Rock Martial Way Stele and left behind those final words, but neither did he feel much hostility.
At least that person had not hidden anything. He had clearly told everyone that the "extraterrestrial fiends" would come knocking. That was fairly aboveboard.
Compared with the Black Rock Martial Way legacy, the schemes and calculations hidden along the superpower-awakening path were more sinister and vicious!
"Phew..."
Ma Ran let out a breath, his mind filled with countless thoughts.
"I have to speed things up."
There were simply far too many disasters awaiting Earth!
When there were too many lice, the itching no longer mattered; when there were too many debts, they no longer weighed one down.
An additional Path to the Extraordinary would also give Earth's civilization a little more power to struggle and resist.
Hahaha, the second update is complete! Please vote for me!
See you tomorrow, buddies!
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