Method of Suffering and Grinding

Caolu Academy's first official activity left Director Huang pleasantly surprised and deeply concerned.

He was delighted that the academy had produced a super genius in martial arts like Ma Ran.

As long as they strengthened his education, kept Ma Ran's thoughts from going astray, and cultivated him properly, given enough time, he would inevitably become an outstanding guardian of civilization.

Even if Ma Ran wasn't good at combat and would never truly be assigned to the battlefield, he could still play an impressive role and create enormous value simply as a dedicated researcher of inner energy.

What concerned him, naturally, was the "extraterrestrial fiends" mentioned by the Black Rock Stele.

Director Huang immediately reported this intelligence to his superiors.

As for Ma Ran, after receiving approval, he returned to his dormitory.

Because he had withdrawn early, the competitive girl Su Qiangwei took his place and participated in both rotation groups at once.

While everyone else calculated for three hours a day, she calculated for six!

Because she had exhausted herself too much, Su Qiangwei's calculation efficiency was terrible during the final few hours.

Over the entire morning, she calculated the locations of only four acupoints in total.

Her face deathly pale, she was dragged off for a medical examination and forced to drink a bellyful of glucose solution.

The stubborn girl declared that she could continue and demanded to resume in the afternoon.

Director Huang flatly rejected the request.

Working hard enough to calculate for six hours in the morning was risking one's life.

Doing it again in the afternoon would be suicide!

No matter how firm one's willpower was, it couldn't surpass the limits of a mortal body.

She wasn't made of iron. Flesh and blood inevitably had their limits.

Unlike what the others guessed, Ma Ran didn't continue cultivating inner energy after returning to his dormitory.

Instead, he devoted himself wholeheartedly to researching Script Master.

Script Master had one function and one function only—creating illusions.

If you said it was weak, then it was indeed very weak. It couldn't provide the human body with any enhancements whatsoever.

Strength, stamina, agility, speed, mental strength.

Not one of the attributes humans could think of was increased by it.

But if you said it was powerful, then it was powerful enough to defy the heavens!

Because...

The illusions it created were almost flawless!

A top-level Script Master could control sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch in every way, leaving no blind spots.

Unfortunately...

The threshold for studying Script Master was extremely high.

Its practitioners needed to possess powerful willpower.

If their willpower wasn't firm enough to resist Script Master's erosion, they would suffer mental collapse at best and genetic collapse at worst. Under the influence of its arcane power, they would mutate into bloodthirsty, inhuman life forms, completely losing their humanity and their memories of being human.

This was an extraordinary path that couldn't be made accessible to everyone.

Yet in Ma Ran's eyes, it was also the "cleanest" extraordinary path.

Study Script Master, bear the risks, and gain illusory abilities.

Compared with Black Rock Martial Way and the superpower route, it was ten thousand times cleaner!

Because the planet that had created Script Master had already been utterly destroyed in internal strife. No backdoors or hidden schemes had been left behind.

Caolu Academy's afternoon activity was relatively easy: a course in ideological and moral education.

The professor teaching it was a middle-aged man surnamed Liu.

He had a square national-character face, a broad and full forehead, and lively brown-black eyes. His voice was loud, and he was brimming with enthusiasm and warmth. His lessons were not only professional but also vivid, lively, and engaging.

Professor Liu also seemed exceptionally considerate.

He knew that everyone had just come into contact with supernatural abilities that morning. Most of them had calculated the location of at least one acupoint, and they were all eager to master the ability known as "inner energy."

As long as no one disrupted the class, he turned a blind eye even if the people below the podium weren't paying close attention and were secretly trying to refine inner energy.

During the second ideological and moral education class, Director Huang, who had come to inspect the academy, couldn't stand it anymore. "Fellow members, don't think this ideological and moral education course is useless."

"In fact, it's extremely important!"

"You should all still remember, right?"

"I mentioned before that Black Rock Stele martial arts is merely the first extraordinary path mastered by Caolu Academy."

"The second path is called superpower awakening."

"Its entry threshold is even higher than cultivating inner energy!"

"It tests the firmness of your convictions and beliefs!"

"The supplementary effect of ideological and moral education on superpower awakening has already been proven to exist."

"In about three days, Fulan Academy will provide us with some instruments specifically used to measure the relevant values."

"Anyone who fails to meet the standards won't be qualified to set foot on the second extraordinary path!"

"Professor Liu Binbing just told me..."

"Some smart people, such as Ma Ran, have been listening attentively the whole time."

"Learn from them!"

Although the old saying went, "He who bites off more than he can chew will choke," Director Huang's words were clearly implying that the two extraordinary paths of "inner energy" and "superpowers" didn't conflict.

Everyone present was young. Who hadn't dreamed of cultivating both magic and martial arts?

Martial arts in the left hand, superpowers in the right.

Just thinking about it made them feel incredibly cool!

Ma Ran, however, didn't pay much attention to Director Huang's words.

In fact, he hadn't been listening to the lesson seriously either. He had been continuously sketching Script Master in his mind.

However, thanks to the combined support of his talent for learning magic and his acting skills, Professor Liu hadn't seen through Ma Ran's performance and thought he really was listening attentively.

"Brother Ran, did you hear that? Superpowers!"

Sitting beside Ma Ran, Dong Huaiming trembled with excitement. "Old Huang just mentioned 'belief' and 'conviction'..."

"Could he have been talking about telekinesis like the kind in Chronicle?"

"If we obtained that kind of ability and developed it properly..."

"Flying swords, invulnerability, Cellular Longevity, expanding the brain region—maybe all of them could become reality!"

Hearing this, Ma Ran chuckled and shook his head.

"It won't be that simple."

Everyone understood things in theory.

Take "electromagnetism," for example. Even any middle school student could explain it fluently.

Many people believed that as long as they successfully mastered either the superpower of "lightning" or "magnetic fields," they could quickly master the other as well.

They even believed they could sense the Earth's magnetic-field trajectories and merge with the planetary magnetic field, allowing them to fly through the air without support, travel through the heavens and earth, and move at a speed equivalent to the Earth's rotation.

In practice, however, it was incredibly difficult.

Before Ma Ran's rebirth, one hundred percent of those who had entertained similar ideas had gotten stuck at the stage of "mastering superpowers."

As for the "entry threshold" mentioned by Huang Weiguo...

Rather than testing the specific values of "belief" and "conviction," it was more accurate to say that it measured mental strength.

Using ideological and moral education to enhance the members' resistance to "superpower erosion"...

Ma Ran could only evaluate it as, "The general direction isn't too far off."

Using this method to train mental strength indeed had no side effects and was effective.

But it was a process that required gradual accumulation over time.

By contrast, the method that was more effective in short-term training was...

"Method of Suffering and Grinding."

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