18 Acting

With a single, "The wind's strong outside. Let's continue this conversation in the cafeteria," Ma Ran found thirty-one followers trailing behind him.

Perhaps they needed something from him, or perhaps the aura around Ma Ran was simply too overbearing. Although he said nothing, the club members followed behind him of their own accord. Not one of them came up to walk beside him.

Wan Haihao had to admit that blending into this huge crowd and following closely behind Ma Ran felt pretty damn cool.

Everyone walked at an unhurried pace, but their steps were steady.

No one spoke casually.

Everyone had merged into a strange atmosphere of silence.

It felt as though they had been transported to an ancient battlefield, following an unmatched warrior into battle to cut down the enemy banners.

I've been led astray by Xiaoming...

This kind of thinking is a textbook chuunibyou train of thought.

Wan Haihao smiled bitterly and quickened his pace. Catching up to Ma Ran, he looked at the young man's shoulder-length hair and lowered his voice. "Your hair grows really fast..."

He had noticed this phenomenon two days ago, but he had kept it bottled up, not daring to ask recklessly.

Now that the atmosphere was right, he finally had a chance to bring it up.

Ma Ran turned his head slightly, his black strands dancing lightly in the air.

He smiled faintly and spoke in an even tone. "Once you reach the Third Stage of Inner Qi, you'll be like this too."

"Under the nourishment of Inner Qi, vitality flourishes and cellular activity increases. It's normal for hair to grow faster."

"Once you reach the Fourth Stage of Inner Qi, this phenomenon will naturally disappear and return to normal."

Ma Ran had not reached the Third Stage of Inner Qi.

That shoulder-length hair was not real, either.

It was an illusion Ma Ran had created while studying the Yao Script during this period.

He had conducted in-depth research into the illusion system of the Yao Script in his previous life. Now that he had picked it up again, he had quickly mastered the basics.

The wigs Ma Ran created could perfectly deceive the five senses of humans. They could even be touched by hand.

At present, they had only one flaw—they had no actual weight.

That flaw was not worth worrying about too much.

For Ma Ran, deceiving the eyes of the people around him was enough for the time being.

Without needing to calculate the positions of his acupoints, and with the boost from the Inner Qi Genius medal, if he spent twenty hours a day cultivating desperately and accumulating Inner Qi, he would need approximately 2.33 days to rise from the Second Stage of Inner Qi to the Third Stage.

The Fourth Stage of Inner Qi would require 4.66 days.

The Fifth Stage of Inner Qi would require 9.32 days.

The Sixth Stage of Inner Qi would require 18.64 days.

The Seventh Stage of Inner Qi would require 37.28 days.

The Eighth Stage of Inner Qi would require 74.56 days.

The Ninth Stage of Inner Qi would require 149.12 days.

It sounded as though it would not take too long. Added together, it would not even take a year.

But...

What Ma Ran lacked most right now was time!

Besides, those were only theoretical estimates.

After cultivating under an excessive workload for a long time, the efficiency of accumulating Inner Qi would inevitably drop dramatically.

To prevent hidden injuries from building up in his body, he would also have to set aside a certain amount of time to rest.

So...

In the end, reaching the Ninth Stage of Inner Qi would take at least three times that amount of time!

After displaying his might before everyone yesterday, Ma Ran had put his Inner Qi cultivation aside.

Not cultivating did not mean that Ma Ran's Inner Qi cultivation would remain stuck at the Second Stage, unable to advance.

With the help of the illusions from the Yao Script, he could act as though he had advanced and gain widespread recognition...

Then Ma Ran would truly advance successfully!

Every afternoon, when they met for Moral Studies class, the club members all felt that Ma Ran's bearing had become sharper and his aura had grown considerably stronger.

That...

Was merely acting.

A lift of the eyes, a slight furrowing of the brows, a sidelong glance...

Every one of Ma Ran's gestures and expressions was filled with detail.

As someone who made a living through acting, he had long since honed his acting skills to perfection!

From the refined young master of an ancient aristocratic clan to a gambler in a street gambling den whose eyes had reddened from losing...

Ma Ran could effortlessly control any bearing, releasing or restraining it at will!

"The Third Stage of Inner Qi?"

Wan Haihao stared intently at the black hair hanging over Ma Ran's shoulders. His emotions were a tangled mess. "You've already filled eight acupoints!"

"That's incredible!"

His sincere praise carried a hint of dispiritedness.

When faced with blows and setbacks, most people chose to run away.

A tiny minority, like Su Qiangwei, fought against the current and performed at one hundred and twenty percent of their ability.

Wan Haihao belonged to neither of those two groups.

He had enjoyed smooth sailing from childhood, never encountering any real setbacks. When he finally suffered a blow, he would sink at a speed others could not understand, denying all his past achievements and accomplishments.

Ma Ran looked deeply at this senior student.

A comrade-in-arms...

You might not know this.

I understand you better than you understand yourself!

Curious, observant, intelligent yet fragile, while viewing responsibility and honor as more important than life...

A warrior!

Even after failing the Method of Suffering and Grinding, suffering a mental breakdown, and facing the arrival of disaster, Wan Haihao had still struggled out of his sickbed and fought to protect his companions.

In his previous life, Wan Haihao had died very young.

But his heroic figure, fighting until the very last moment, would forever be engraved deep in Ma Ran's mind!

And it was not only Wan Haihao.

Su Qiangwei, Dong Huaiming, Zhu Hanyi, He Nanguang, Liu Huadie...

Ma Ran remembered the face and voice of every one of his comrades.

He had never dared to forget.

Suppressing his memories, Ma Ran gave Wan Haihao another deep look and said, "Inner Qi cultivation is a gradual process. You can't be impatient. You have to avoid arrogance and impetuousness, carefully capture every wisp of biological energy, and slowly convert it through your acupoints."

At this point, his tone suddenly shifted. "However..."

"I've been researching a way to enter the path quickly."

Ma Ran's voice gradually grew louder, allowing all thirty people behind him to hear clearly. "As long as you calculate the exact locations of your own acupoints, you can quickly refine your first wisp of Inner Qi."

"Now, I've already achieved some results."

With so many people watching from nearby, Ma Ran ate a simple breakfast of three bowls of beef alkaline noodles and a basin of egg-and-shredded-pork fried rice.

A junior student who had probably been in middle school earlier had a good eye. He took the tray, bowls, and chopsticks away for Ma Ran, then wiped the tabletop clean with tissues.

Ma Ran smiled at him and spoke in an even tone. "Everyone can think of acupoints as miniature organs that haven't fully developed."

"By accumulating biological energy through eating, converting it into Inner Qi, and filling the acupoints..."

"That doesn't mean it's over."

"After you fill your first acupoint, you'll face a problem."

Ma Ran raised one finger. "How do you make the acupoint refine Inner Qi automatically?"

His thoughts tended to jump around.

Hearing this, many of the club members present looked utterly dumbfounded, unable to follow the turn in the conversation.

They had not considered things that far ahead. They had only asked how to refine their first wisp of Inner Qi, to see whether there was some shortcut they could take.

"I think... I may understand what you mean."

Wan Haihao was the first to recover.

His voice was much quieter than usual, and he seemed to lack some of his usual confidence. "In theory, the Nine Stages of Inner Qi correspond to five hundred and twelve acupoints."

"Suppose that right now, we were all at the Ninth Stage of Inner Qi..."