The Sequence Stone Tablet

Lin Yun hardly dared to imagine what a burden it would be if Jiang Mian were found to have another heart problem.

And on top of what Wang Chen had just described, Li Hao came from a good family and had now become an Awakened. He was growing ever more brazen.

With his temperament, he probably wouldn't let this go.

Jiang Mian had managed to hold him back this time, but the harassment, troublemaking, and even retaliation to come were all but inevitable.

How was a girl with no one to rely on supposed to deal with that?

Just thinking about it made Lin Yun's heart ache.

She wanted to protect every one of her students, but there were always times when she wasn't around, corners she couldn't look after...

"Are you feeling a little better?"

Lin Yun walked over to the bed and asked softly.

"Much better, Teacher Lin."

Jiang Mian's complexion had recovered quite a bit, though she still looked somewhat weak.

I'm so hungry...

She hadn't eaten lunch, and after all that exertion, an extreme yearning was rising from the depths of her soul.

She was hungry.

Lin Yun before her seemed like a fragrant, sweet cream cake. Just the pure aura coming off her was enough to stir the most instinctive hunger deep inside Jiang Mian.

She seemed to have gotten... "sicker."

At that moment, Jiang Mian could feel that her heart had completed the first stage of its transformation.

It still retained the shape of a heart, but a black core had already "grown" beside it, like the reactor powering her ability, sending strength throughout her body.

After initially condensing the Calamity Core, Jiang Mian had gained the ability to "smell" the auras of Awakened, allowing her to easily tell them apart.

But this brought its own problems. If the authorities found out, she would probably no longer be defined as an "Aberrant." She would be a... genuine Calamity, hiding among the crowd.

Worse still, because of her excessive "hunger," her core was now like an engine spinning idly.

If it kept going for too long, it would surely put an immense strain on her body.

With her teacher still right in front of her, she could only do her best to suppress all her discomfort and make sure nothing about her appearance seemed unusual.

"Would you like me to help you again? You heard what the school doctor said. We can't take chances with your heart. I can take you to the hospital for a checkup..."

The hospital?

What a joke!

She knew that ordinary medical equipment couldn't scan a Calamity Core, but it had only just condensed and was extremely unstable. Who knew if she could keep it hidden?

"No, no need!"

Jiang Mian refused instinctively, her voice tinged with a plea.

"Teacher, maybe I just haven't been getting enough rest lately... The hospital is too expensive. I'll go home and rest properly. I should be fine."

She blinked at Lin Yun, giving her a pitiful look.

Lin Yun simply couldn't withstand that gaze. Her heart softened, and she could only sigh gently.

"Alright, I'll give you leave. For the rest of this month... come in when you feel up to it. You only need to show up on exam day."

A whole month off?

That was an unexpected bonus.

"Okay! Thank you, Teacher Lin!"

"Can you get home by yourself? Would you like me to take you?"

Lin Yun still wasn't entirely reassured and pressed her for an answer.

Jiang Mian hurriedly shook her head.

"No, no, I'm fine. There's no need to trouble you, Teacher."

"Then... take care. If Li Hao gives you trouble again, or if you feel even a little unwell, you must tell me."

Meanwhile, far away from Base City No. 144, in Base City No. 1.

At the center of the Research District, a dark-red stone tablet floated in the air.

An old man in military uniform stood outside the laboratory, staring through the glass at the writing on the tablet, his face livid.

"[Silent Death], [Nightmare], [Cataclysm], [Chaos], [Slaughter]... Every Apex Sequence has awakened..."

The stone tablet had been brought out from deep within the Mist by a high-ranking powerhouse on the [Radiance] Path. It bore the five highest-ranking Calamity Sequences.

Another tablet, inscribed with the top five Awakening Sequences, had been brought out as well.

However, when the two tablets were placed together, they produced a bizarre reaction that defied understanding, so they had been kept apart, in Base City No. 2.

The authorities' system for ranking Sequences had originated from this very tablet.

The last time this had happened was a hundred and fifty years ago, shortly after the tablet was first obtained by humanity and the Mist descended.

By then, the Mist had already swallowed the world beyond their borders.

Meanwhile, their Xia Kingdom had only just finished uniting its remaining forces and building seven Base Cities—the prototypes of what were now Base Cities No. 1 to 7.

The instant humanity successfully deciphered the tablet's contents, almost all the characters inscribed on it had lit up at once, heralding the birth of those terrifying beings...

Back then, humanity had poured every last resource into raising a handful of Awakened with top-tier abilities, then defeated those Calamities one by one before they could grow powerful.

It had been a race to the death: either you died, or I did.

The old man's brows knitted together. There were five beings this terrifying.

And... compared with relatively pure Calamities, those transformed from human Aberrants were often even more dangerous.

They understood human society, thought like humans, knew humanity's weaknesses, and could hide themselves among the vast sea of people.

The last Apex of [Silent Death] had been just such a being.

He had once been an Aberrant who had "accidentally" died during the containment process.

In the early stages of his awakening, his ability had been laughably weak. All it could do was make people feel feeble; it had no other effect.

But after his death, his ability had undergone a qualitative transformation, becoming an instant-death curse that killed anyone who touched it. In the end, he had dealt humanity a blow that brought it to the brink of annihilation.

So, to eliminate the threat, the first thing they had to do was purge their own ranks—once, or even several times—and expose every hidden Aberrant.

This was bound to cause unrest on a considerable scale.

Moreover, after a century of development, Xia Kingdom's Base Cities had grown from the original seven to 188.

The area they had to search was now on a completely different scale, and the difficulty had risen accordingly.

But extraordinary times called for extraordinary measures.

Only by enforcing them decisively could they seize the initiative.

The old man had made up his mind. He took the special communicator from his waist and dialed an encrypted internal channel without the slightest hesitation.

Riding the little Electric Scooter that had been with her for six or seven years, Jiang Mian finally made it home without further incident.

After formally entering the First Order, her senses had grown considerably sharper.

The "fragrance" coming off her teacher earlier had almost made her lose control.

She could say with certainty that even if she wasn't a Calamity now, she was at least half a Calamity.

After all, what kind of human grew a Calamity Core inside their body?

Fortunately, she could still eat ordinary food. Otherwise, she wouldn't have been able to endure it. The only drawback was that the rate of conversion was a little low.

Jiang Mian sat on the bed, her upper body clad only in her underwear.

She gently pressed a hand to her full chest. Her heartbeat seemed a little slower than before, yet it was exceptionally powerful.

This was the change that had come after she entered the First Order.

"Troublesome..."