A Guide for Background Characters to Survive in a Manga - Chapter 330 : Chapter 330

Translator: AkazaTL

Proofreader/Editor: JWyck

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Chapter 330

With his clue, Wu Mingbai directly used his ability to explore underground. That protective wall naturally couldn’t just block Mental Energy; it could also block abilities. But this also showed that there was indeed a problem below. Otherwise, if it was just a wasteland, who would bother to hide it with an item?

“Wait a minute, let me see if there is an entrance.” Wu Mingbai’s current ability was no longer comparable to what it was in the past. Let alone such a small piece of land, even if it were ten times larger, he could explore it clearly.

Using the Earth Element to slowly probe outwards along the barrier, in just five minutes, Wu Mingbai had already detected the general scope of the entire underground space.

“Found it! We have to go that way. There is a hidden space over there that leads directly to the ground. It should be the entrance below,” Wu Mingbai retracted his ability and was about to lead everyone in that direction.

But Jiang Tianming quickly stopped him, “Wait, is there any other way in? If there are people in this space below, wouldn’t we be directly exposed if we go in through the main entrance?”

That was true, but Wu Mingbai had not failed to think of it. He shook his head, “There is no other way. My ability can’t detect anything in other places, so we can only enter from the entrance.”

Then there was no choice. Jiang Tianming very decisively changed his mind, “Then we can’t go down together. Let one person go down first to check the situation.”

Now the problem was, who would be the one to stick their neck out?

Although the nail that sticks out gets hammered down, there was no doubt that no one present was afraid of trouble, and some even enjoyed looking for trouble.

Seeing that Jiang Tianming and the other two were already fighting for the chance to go down, Su Bei watched the show with Zhao Xiaoyu and Ling You next to him. A team needed good people like them who didn’t fight or snatch, so that others could have a chance to perform.

“We are really good people.” Thinking this, he couldn’t help but sigh. Then he received strange looks from Zhao Xiaoyu and Ling You.

She originally wanted to complain, but Zhao Xiaoyu wasn’t the type of deadpan snarker like Lan Subing. Rather than complaining, she was more interested in extracting useful information from the other party’s words. “You mean there’s something good down there?”

“Not really, but there’s definitely the stimulation they need down there,” Su Bei’s lips curled up, and then he added, “But I don’t know what it is specifically.”

The last sentence made Zhao Xiaoyu, who was about to continue asking, close her mouth and show a thoughtful expression. Something stimulating, but not necessarily good or bad. In her opinion, it meant that the risk was definitely worth taking, but whether they could get something good was not certain.

Then it was indeed right not to go now. Compared to the unknown reward, Zhao Xiaoyu pursued stability more.

Ling You had a different idea. Although she rarely spoke, she was not without her own opinions, “Are you sure we don’t need to report this to the teacher in advance?”

It was one thing not to know there was danger below before, but now that Su Bei had clearly said there was a problem, it was a bit like courting death not to report it to the teacher.

Jiang Tianming, who heard her question from not far away, took the initiative to explain, “This is what I think. Being able to skillfully use items to isolate the abilities and Mental Energy of ability users doesn’t seem like the work of a Nightmare Beast. And if it’s man-made, since they can build an underground space not far from the Three Academies Base, there must be a mole in the Three Academies Base. If we rashly report the news back, wouldn’t we be alerting the enemy?”

If this was a Nightmare Beast’s territory, then there was naturally no need to worry about this. It was difficult for Nightmare Beasts to plant moles among humans. People entering and leaving the Three Academies Base would be checked by a special detector at the gate for traces of Nightmare Beasts. Not to mention the high-level officials of the base who worked on the seventh floor; they had a full-body check-up every day.

If this were the real world, there would naturally be no need for such frequent check-ups for the high-level officials. But this was the Nightmare Beast world, after all, and they couldn’t be too careful. Once a high-level official in the base was controlled by a Nightmare Beast, all the ability users in the base would face a devastating disaster, and the efforts of the three academies for so long would be in vain. They had no choice but to be cautious.

And if the enemy was human, it would be different. Humans were not so vigilant against their own kind. Who knew which person in the base was a mole.

His reason successfully convinced Ling You. The green-haired girl nodded, “Alright then, but I think it should be fine to tell the class teacher about this?”

The others, even Teacher Jiang who was leading them, might be problematic, but Meng Huai was definitely not. It wasn’t because they trusted their class teacher very much, although that was also true. But the main reason for making this judgment was that the other party was not in the Three Academies Base at all and did not understand the internal affairs of the base. How could he be a mole?

“No problem,” Jiang Tianming nodded. “Then you contact Teacher Meng, and we’ll go down.”

This was the result of their discussion just now. Three people were not too many. Anyway, there were still three people on the shore waiting for them, so there was no need to limit it to one person.

Ling You glanced at him and finally swallowed the words “Can’t we just not go and wait for the class teacher to come?” She knew very well that it was impossible to get these people not to take risks. Since that was the case, there was no need to say more.

Su Bei, who had no task, was standing on the side watching Wu Mingbai dig a hole. Suddenly, the voice of the “Manga Consciousness” sounded in his ear, “I thought you would go down with him?”

As the consciousness of the world, although it was not entirely clear what Su Bei was thinking, it was very clear why he had come here. Su Bei came here to participate in the end of the plot, and this place below was obviously problematic. Why wouldn’t he go in?

“Because it’s too early,” Su Bei shook his head and replied. “The author gave a month, how could it end in the first week? It’s far from time.”

After thinking for a moment, he added, “Besides, I don’t think they can destroy all the meteorites just by going down once. That would be too ridiculous.”

It’s not like the Nightmare Beasts would deliberately collect the meteorites just to let people wipe them out in one go, right? Even a fool would know that in the current situation, scattering the meteorites in various corners of the Nightmare Beast world was the best way to protect them.

But speaking of which, until now, he still couldn’t figure out how the protagonist group alone could completely destroy all the meteorites. It might be possible in ten years, but for now, no matter how talented they were, they were only geniuses among students.

Before, he had even speculated that a time-turner would suddenly appear and bring their ten-years-later selves over. Or that they would go to the future for a period of training, just like the cliché in a certain manga.

He didn’t hide this thought from the “Manga Consciousness.” Its voice suddenly became strange, “Your imagination is quite rich, but this kind of special cliché definitely can’t be applied. And it’s not necessary.”

Not necessary? Not necessary for what? Su Bei keenly sensed new information. Combined with the previous context, the “not necessary” that the “Manga Consciousness” was talking about should refer to the fact that it was not necessary to be extremely strong to clear the meteorites.

If not by strength, then what? Then it could only be by external forces, such as items, such as unity.

But no matter which one, the underground space this time should be able to give him some inspiration.

In a flash, Wu Mingbai had already finished digging the hole and jumped down with Jiang Tianming and Si Zhaohua. Su Bei looked at the small pointers above their heads and knew that this trip would probably not be a good one.

Not long after they went in, Meng Huai sent a message back to Ling You.

[TroubleGoDie: Have them mark the coordinates and return to the base first.]

[TroubleGoDie: …Have they already gone in?]

[TroubleGoDie: Did they bring the teleportation balls that Teacher Lei gave them?]

Ling You, who had just seen the message, briefly explained the current situation. Knowing that they had gone in with the teleportation balls, Meng Huai was not too worried anymore. He didn’t say much more, just told them to report what they saw inside after they came out.

As Su Bei had expected, in less than an hour, the three of them returned the way they came, as if fleeing. After jumping out of the hole, Jiang Tianming held a teleportation ball in his hand and said urgently to the three who were confused on the shore, “Run quickly! We stole their things!”

Su Bei was the first to react. He directly crushed the teleportation ball and returned to the base. With him taking the lead, Zhao Xiaoyu and Ling You also quickly returned to the base, followed by Jiang Tianming and the other two.

The teleportation ball teleported them to the room where they first arrived at the Three Academies Base. This room was originally for receiving teleported ability users, so there were always people guarding it.

Seeing the six of them appear in the room at the same time, the man in charge of guarding and receiving them stood up in shock, “What’s the situation? There was no mention of new people coming today?”

“We are not new people, we are… forget it, can you please find Teacher Jiang Yan? We are her students,” Jiang Tianming said politely.

Looking at his humble and polite appearance, if he didn’t look so dusty, as if he had just had a fight, Su Bei would have really thought that nothing had happened down there.

Jiang Yan soon arrived. She had apparently received some news from Meng Huai. At this time, her face was cold. After saying a few words to the staff, she took them away.

When they arrived at her office, Jiang Yan got straight to the point, “Where is the place you went to? What did you find?”

“The place we went to should be a research base of the ‘Black Flash’ organization. I saw a black lightning mark on the back of the neck of a staff member inside,” Jiang Tianming was the one who answered. “As for the discovery, this seems to be some kind of Earth Element ability machine.”

As he spoke, Wu Mingbai next to him took out a silver machine the size of two people from his storage space. Wu Mingbai was responsible for explaining, “What we overheard at that time was that this thing can simulate the creation of various kinds of stones and convert Nightmare Beasts of other attributes, turning them into earth attributes.”

“Is it related to that matter?” Jiang Yan muttered to herself, but quickly came back to her senses, “I see. Don’t worry, our Three Academies Base will investigate this matter thoroughly.”

The next second, the voice of the “Manga Consciousness” sounded in Su Bei’s ear, “《King of Abilities》 has been updated, please check.”

The manga update was expected. Su Bei was only briefly distracted by the prompt sound, and his attention quickly returned to this machine.

Undoubtedly, this was a machine created by the “Black Flash” organization to help the falling meteorites “survive” better.

So this incident only solved a conspiracy of the “Black Flash” organization?

Something was wrong, right?

Su Bei’s brows couldn’t help but furrow. This was completely different from what he had guessed before. He originally thought that this would give him some inspiration, but in fact, it was just a small side story involving the main plot?

At this time, Jiang Yan’s phone suddenly rang. She looked down and then said to everyone, “The other people in your class are back. I’ll go and pick them up first. You wait here, and I’ll bring them over together later.”

Of course, she didn’t call them over to discuss things together, but to criticize them uniformly. Jiang Yan always liked to implement the joint punishment system. According to her past experience, this was the best way to deal with students.

Lan Subing and the others soon arrived and learned about their experiences today from Jiang Tianming. But before Jiang Yan could start her criticism and education, Mu Tieren suddenly discovered something, “Teacher, can I study this machine? I feel like I should be able to figure something out.”

He himself was a mechanically modified person and could even turn his limbs into various mechanical creations. Having been ill for a long time makes one a good doctor. His research on machinery was naturally far superior to that of ordinary people. In fact, before he awakened his ability, Dr. Mu had always been training him as his future successor. Mu Tieren had been learning related knowledge since he started following Dr. Mu. Dr. Mu’s original idea was that after he died, this child could also modify his own parts and stay alive.

It was just that plans couldn’t keep up with changes, and he actually awakened his ability.

The shape of this machine and its function were a bit like the nutrient converter that Dr. Mu had researched. This made Mu Tieren vaguely feel that he might be able to use his existing knowledge to study this machine and make it play a positive role.

However, because he was not sure to what extent he could do it, he only said ambiguously that he could study it.

As soon as these words came out, let alone Jiang Yan, the other members of Class S also looked at him in shock. Zhao Xiaoyu looked at the silver machine hesitantly, then at Mu Tieren, “Class monitor, you actually have this kind of talent.”

Su Bei also had hidden shock in his eyes, because he suddenly realized that the real thing that could be connected to eliminating the Nightmare Beasts might be Mu Tieren’s research.

And this machine that could convert ordinary stones into meteorites and other elements into earth elements, “After all, I am also…” Mu Tieren smiled embarrassedly, “It’s just that there was no use for it before.”

That was true. In the ability world, only a very few ability users’ abilities were related to machines, so only these very few people would go to study related things. This was a very minor path in the ability world.

In fact, many people had given up the path they should have taken because they suddenly awakened their abilities, but sometimes the original path might be the most suitable for them.

This matter was of great importance, and Jiang Yan, who did not understand the other party, could not make a decision immediately, “I need to ask Meng Huai. If he has no opinion, then I have no opinion.”

In fact, if this machine had been obtained by the Three Academies Base itself, she would never have let Mu Tieren, a sixteen-year-old child, try to study such a precise instrument. What if it broke?

But this item was obtained by Jiang Tianming and the others, so Jiang Yan had to consider their thoughts. It was obvious that they were all willing to let Mu Tieren give it a try, so she would not be the bad guy. As long as Meng Huai, as the class teacher, also agreed, she had no objection.

After all, although this machine was very important and was evidence of the cooperation between the “Black Flash” organization and the Nightmare Beasts, in essence, it would definitely be destroyed. If this thing was left in the world, it would easily give the Nightmare Beasts an opportunity. Even if it could exist as evidence, it must not be left behind.

Besides, the cooperation between the “Black Flash” organization and the Nightmare Beasts was already a certainty. It didn’t matter if there was one more or one less piece of evidence.

With this matter as an interlude, Jiang Yan forgot about educating the students. After Meng Huai sent a positive reply, she took Mu Tieren away and let the others move freely.

“Then I’ll go back to my room first.” Su Bei waved his hand casually and turned back to the dormitory.

Why was he in such a hurry to go back? Although it was because he wanted to read the manga. Su Bei knew that if he asked, they would definitely be willing to answer. Even if he went to have dinner with them now, he should be able to get the answers he wanted.

But the description from their mouths was definitely not as clear as what the manga showed. Besides, Su Bei wanted to see the details this time, and Jiang Tianming and the others would definitely not be able to get to those really useful details when they talked.

Although he already had a guess in his heart about this matter, and estimated that what he wanted to get was probably related to Mu Tieren. But what if he guessed wrong and the fact was that the author had buried a foreshadowing in the process?

Because there was nothing for him in this manga, Su Bei could concentrate on the plot. He quickly skipped the introduction of the environment of the Three Academies Base and the adaptation stage. It was novel when he first saw it, but after a week, he had no interest at all.

Just as Su Bei had thought at the beginning, if one lived in this place for a long time, one would go crazy. He had only lived there for a little over a week, and he was already starting to feel physiologically sick of his room.

A world without color was already hard to get used to, not to mention that the room was so narrow and crowded. Unless one had no money, not many people would be willing to live in such a house even in the outside world.

Soon, the plot came to the place where they discovered the underground space. Jiang Tianming was very smart. When he entered the underground space, he directly activated his ability to neutralize abilities, so that the ability sensing device at the entrance didn’t work at all, and they could enter quietly.

Seeing this, Su Bei couldn’t help but shake his head. Although the technology of the “Black Flash” organization was also very advanced, their research was completely biased towards the ability side, so they could be taken advantage of like this.

But this was also normal. The supernatural thing of abilities itself was very restrictive to technology. Things like monitors, listening devices, sensors, etc., would all become a pile of scrap metal under the interference of abilities. People in the ability world naturally didn’t pay much attention to technological development.

But the consequence of not developing comprehensively and balanced was that at special times, they would be taken advantage of by cheaters like Jiang Tianming.

The underground space here was actually a research lab. On both sides of the road, you could see many blue containers, all of which contained element-type Nightmare Beasts.

The most significant difference between element-type Nightmare Beasts and other types of Nightmare Beasts was that if you used your Mental Energy to sense, you could sense the elements radiating from them. Element Ability users would be able to sense more accurately.

For example, Wu Mingbai almost immediately noticed the common characteristics of these Nightmare Beasts. However, because he didn’t know some inside information, they didn’t have any special thoughts about it. If Su Bei had been there at that time, he would probably have realized what they were studying immediately.

The concentration of earth elements in Wu Mingbai’s body was too high, allowing him to empathize with the earth. He accurately captured the movement from other places and dodged to the side with the other two.

A few seconds later, several people in white coats came out from the corner and came to one of the culture dishes. The leader tapped on the culture dish a few times, released the Nightmare Beast in a coma inside, and then signaled the people behind him to move it away.

Jiang Tianming and the other two secretly followed them and went directly to another lab, where they overheard their research content.

Unfortunately, before they could hear the whole thing, just as one of the researchers said, “I say we might as well do reverse research like before…”, they were discovered.

Seeing what the researcher said, Su Bei’s eyes lit up. This was what he had been thinking just now. If Mu Tieren could produce a research result that would make the machine run in reverse, it might really solve a big problem for them.

Normally, the difficulty of making a machine run in reverse was no less than making a new machine. After all, forward and reverse were not the same thing at all.

But from the researcher’s words in the manga, it could be heard that they first did the research on turning earth-element-type Nightmare Beasts into other-element-type Nightmare Beasts and turning meteorites into other stones.

And the change should have started after the “Black Flash” organization leader knew that Nightmare Beasts could not be turned back into humans, which was only a few months ago.

From this, it could be inferred that they had researched the new subject by directly researching from the original results in reverse. It was absolutely impossible to research it again so quickly.

Since the new research was evolved from the old research, it was definitely not impossible to turn the new research back into the old research. Su Bei was now almost 100% sure that Mu Tieren would be able to research what he needed.

Su Bei watched the rest of the plot purely with the mentality of watching a show.

After being discovered, the three of them agreed on a meeting point, then went their separate ways, each taking a different path, starting their escape.

Jiang Tianming, as always, had the worst luck. The group chasing him had the most security guards. They chased him relentlessly. If it weren’t for his many abilities, which always caught them off guard, he would have probably been caught by now.

But as everyone knows, danger is often accompanied by opportunity, not to mention this was Jiang Tianming! While he was running away, he did not forget to observe the pursuers behind him. He soon found that when he ran to the right, these pursuers would be particularly nervous, and their attacks would be particularly sharp.

This detail made him realize that there was probably something good on the right, so he ran all the way to the right and found the lab where the research results were hidden.

Relying on his ability-neutralizing ability, he directly opened the door of the lab, robbed the machine inside, put it in his storage ring, and quickly continued his escape.

The rest of the story was known to Su Bei. Jiang Tianming met up with the others, left the underground lab, and used the teleportation ball to leave with them.

As soon as they left, the people underground swarmed out like ants, looking at the vast fog and roaring in helpless anger.