Chapter 231

Sitting in the government-dispatched car, Lan Subing yawned widely. She had received her last mission late last night, and school started very early, so she hadn’t gotten enough sleep at all. She had originally planned to catch up on some sleep in the classroom, but who knew that research had brought new tasks.

Su Bei was next to her, giving her a sense of ease. She leaned slightly, took a pillow from her storage ring, rested against the door, and closed her eyes: “I’ll sleep for a bit.”

“Sleep,” Su Bei replied softly. He then took out the organization’s notebook and continued to read the secret intelligence within the “Destiny” organization.

To add an extra layer of concealment to this notebook, Su Bei had deliberately tricked the Manga Consciousness. He had the notebook protected with the same level of security as when he browsed manga forums on his phone, so to outsiders, it just looked like a high school math textbook.

Su Bei believed that no normal person would voluntarily pick up such a book and interrogate him about its contents. And as a high school student, it was perfectly reasonable for him to be seen reading it. After all, an Ability user’s future wasn’t just about graduating high school and eliminating Nightmare Beasts; they could also re-enter regular schools.

The driver in front glanced at the two Ability users in the back through the rearview mirror, then slightly widened his eyes. He often saw people sleeping these days, but it was his first time seeing someone read a math textbook.

“You’re quite the diligent student, young man,” the driver quietly said to Su Bei. “You don’t even forget to read in this short time.”

Su Bei smiled: “Life is about learning.”

“Well said!” the driver praised enthusiastically.

However, Su Bei interrupted him after just one sentence, pointing gently at Lan Subing, who had her eyes closed. “Shh!”

The driver realized he had disturbed her rest. He quickly nodded and continued in a hushed voice: “It’s you young people who have ambition. If only my child loved studying as much as you do.”

Su Bei didn’t reply again. Firstly, there wasn’t much to respond to, and secondly, no matter how quiet they were, it would definitely affect Lan Subing’s rest. Fortunately, the driver understood his meaning and wisely said no more.

He knew that in his profession, a single complaint from a passenger would lead to immediate dismissal. After all, at such a critical juncture, combat-capable Ability users were the most important; those like him, who lacked combat abilities and could only run errands, were replaceable resources.

And the driver didn’t want to be replaced. Don’t let the surface appearance of hard work, driving all day, deceive you—the money earned was genuinely good. If a regular driver could earn three to five hundred a day, he could earn almost a thousand.

The Ability Government generally treated Ability users, whether combat-capable or not, quite favorably. The government was indeed wealthy, burdened with the responsibility of saving the world, and the true government hadn’t held back on their funding. Coupled with years of accumulated commissions, they had more money than they could spend.

Following the navigation to a deep mountain, the driver skillfully parked as there was no road ahead. “Can I drop you off here?”

Su Bei nodded in agreement, then woke Lan Subing. The two got out of the car and walked into the mountain together.

The mission location wasn’t very specific this time. Initially, the Nightmare Beasts were discovered by a group of hikers exploring the mountain, on the mountainside. Later, reconnaissance personnel spotted them again at the summit of this mountain forest.

Therefore, it was highly probable that the Nightmare Beasts were gathered from the mountainside upwards. However, even with the search area reduced by more than half, finding those Nightmare Beasts would still be a considerable amount of work for them.

Since there were only two people on the mission, they certainly couldn’t split up to search. If something happened, they wouldn’t be able to find their teammate, leaving them without help.

Climbing halfway up the mountain, both stopped simultaneously. Lan Subing looked at the lush surrounding trees and asked, her face troubled, “How are we supposed to find them?”

Logically, Su Bei could find Nightmare Beasts by looking at his Destiny Compass, but the dense layers of trees here severely obstructed his vision. The Destiny Compass only displayed information when the target was within his line of sight, so it wasn’t suitable for this situation.

After some thought, Su Bei took out a megaphone from his storage ring and handed it to Lan Subing. “Try using the megaphone?”

They didn’t need the Nightmare Beasts to actively seek them out; they just needed them to make a sound that would allow them to pinpoint their exact location. Su Bei felt that this operation wouldn’t consume too much Mental Energy for the [Word Spirit] ability.

But Lan Subing clearly didn’t agree. She shook her head: “If we want to make the Nightmare Beasts produce a sound we can hear using this method, we’d have to narrow the ability’s range. And if that’s the case, patrolling the entire mountain would probably mean you’d have to eliminate them all by yourself.”

It wasn’t that she would be completely out of Mental Energy after doing this; in fact, she’d probably have at least half left. But the problem was that this wasn’t her only mission today. Lan Subing didn’t have Advanced Mental Energy, so her Mental Energy recovered very slowly. This was only the first mission of the day; she needed to save at least half of her Mental Energy to last the entire day.

“It’s fine, just find them,” Su Bei prioritized efficiency. He needed to use the freed-up time to acquire knowledge. He couldn’t possibly take out a math textbook to review while searching for Nightmare Beasts. So, it was better to find them quickly and not waste time.

Moreover, he didn’t have Lan Subing’s worries. Advanced Mental Energy recovered quickly, and since they were eliminating low-level Nightmare Beasts, it wouldn’t consume much Mental Energy itself.

Seeing him say this, Lan Subing naturally had no objections. She directly raised the megaphone and used her ability: “Nightmare Beast, move!, Nightmare Beast, move!, Nightmare Beast, move!…”

While using the ability, the two climbed upwards. When they reached a quarter of the way to the summit, they finally heard some commotion.

Su Bei followed the sound and, sure enough, saw sixteen low-level Nightmare Beasts. These were sixteen wild boar-like Nightmare Beasts, clearly not very strong. However, they all had stone-like armor on their bodies, giving them outstanding defense.

Perhaps because they were of the same species and searching for something together, they were quite coordinated. All sixteen boars charged Su Bei at once, surrounding him completely, giving him no chance to escape.

If it were an ordinary Ability user, they might truly fall into trouble here. But how could Su Bei be defeated by them? He first attacked with ordinary Gears, but the power of those Gears was clearly insufficient to penetrate their armor.

However, this didn’t stump Su Bei. He then used the “Targeting Gear” skill he had previously acquired, successfully using it to determine that the weakness of these Nightmare Boars was in a tiny gap near their necks.

Once the weakness was identified, the rest was simple. With Su Bei’s precise control over his Gears, even though the gap was very narrow, he could still easily make the Gears accurately hit the Nightmare Boars’ necks.

“Pffft! Pffft! Pffft!”

Several sprays of blood mist erupted into the air. Before long, all sixteen Nightmare Boars fell to the ground simultaneously. Su Bei, however, didn’t have a single drop of blood on him, as clean as a passerby who had just arrived at the crime scene.

He selected a few Nightmare Boars that looked like they would taste good roasted and put them into his storage ring. Su Bei slowly walked back. He had gone alone just now to prevent Lan Subing from being attacked as well.

When the two met, Su Bei made an “OK” gesture: “Mission accomplished, let’s continue.”

Although sixteen Nightmare Beasts had already been eliminated, to prevent any stragglers or another wave of Nightmare Beasts from appearing in the mountain, they still had to patiently patrol the entire mountain.

They continued their search and, sure enough, found a few stragglers. By the time they finished eliminating them all and were ready to descend the mountain, two hours had passed.

Feeling light on the way down, and with her brain fully stimulated and awakened, Lan Subing found herself free to care about other things: “Speaking of which, Su Bei, why have you been reading math textbooks lately?”

Facing this question, Su Bei naturally gave the standard reply: “Because I still want to go to college in the future.”

But Lan Subing wasn’t so easily fooled: “But you didn’t show any intention of that before.”

Su Bei calmly replied: “Last semester I was still adapting to the Ability World, so it wasn’t a good time to study. The first half of this semester had the pressure of the Tri-School Competition, also not a good time to prepare. Now that everything has settled, I naturally should start planning for the future.”

“But you seem very urgent about it, anyone would think you’re dropping out to take college entrance exams immediately,” Lan Subing muttered quietly.

This question was a bit difficult to answer, so Su Bei started spouting nonsense: “I’m not urgent, I just want to make you all overwork yourselves to death.”

Lan Subing: “…”

She was speechless for a moment, then sincerely said: “Well, you succeeded. I saw Zhaohua and Xiao Huang secretly looking at textbooks after class too.”

Su Bei: “…”

Now it was Su Bei’s turn to be speechless. He had been focused on acquiring knowledge lately and hadn’t actually paid attention to this. Hearing Lan Subing say this now, he was utterly incredulous: “Their competitive spirit… will those two really go to college?”

You know, they were both children of Ability user families. Although Qi Huang’s family was considerably smaller, her close relatives were also primarily Ability users. Such children were usually educated from a young age about the Ability World and considered themselves future Ability users, not caring much about the ordinary human world, and naturally had no obsession with attending college.

Moreover, even if their families didn’t oppose them going to college, they wouldn’t allow them to delay their missions or opportunities to network in the Ability World because of university. And wanting to have both would consume far too much energy.

Lan Subing shrugged. She also planned to go to college, so she was perfectly fine with this: “Maybe it’s true?”

Thinking about the actual content he was reading under his math textbook cover, Su Bei couldn’t help but shiver. He hoped he wouldn’t end up failing to get into college because he hadn’t studied, while they did.

“No, don’t let that happen!”

Just as Su Bei returned to the car waiting outside, resuming his reading after the mission, Lan Subing suddenly tugged at his clothes in surprise: “Look at the news! The government knows what the Nightmare Beasts are looking for!”

The “news” she referred to was the Ability User News, which typically updated the latest developments in the Ability World on its official website.

Hearing Lan Subing, Su Bei leaned over to look. Sure enough, the top banner at this moment bore the relevant title: Why are Nightmare Beasts frequently agitated: Don't pick up roadside stones.

Clicking in, the first carload was useless literary fluff, recounting recent phenomena, then posting many recent complaints from Ability users. Finally, after repeating the title question three or four times in various ways to reach a thousand words, it finally began to answer the question.

In short, it seemed that a rare “Life Stone” on the surface had been unearthed by someone unknown, and the Nightmare Beasts, sensing its aura, naturally swarmed out.

After reading this explanation, Lan Subing was somewhat puzzled: “What is a Life Stone?”

“It’s a unique item from the Nightmare Beast World that can improve the quality of newly born Nightmare Beasts.” Su Bei’s hand unconsciously went to his chest, where a Life Stone, transformed into a Gear, lay.

“Can improve Nightmare Beast quality?” Lan Subing’s eyes widened in surprise. She had never heard of such a thing. No wonder the Nightmare Beasts were so frantic; this item was indeed very useful.

But she quickly caught a flaw in the conversation and asked curiously: “Didn’t you say these Life Stones only exist in the Nightmare Beast World? Why was it found in our world?”

Su Bei shrugged: “It’s not like Life Stones can’t be brought out.”

However, a Life Stone large enough to cause such a widespread Nightmare Beast rampage must be a very significant piece. How the person who brought such a large Life Stone out of the Nightmare Beast World managed to do it was unknown.

But now that the Life Stone was suddenly exposed, the person who brought it out of the Nightmare Beast World was probably no longer around.

“The young man is quite knowledgeable, truly living up to all those books you read,” the driver praised, having overheard their conversation from the driver’s seat. “Is this Life Stone useful for humans? I also want to improve my son’s ‘quality’ a bit.”

Su Bei’s mouth twitched: “It’s only useful for Nightmare Beasts.”

Of course, it wasn’t entirely useless for humans. For instance, the Life Stone fragment Su Bei possessed could help him fully replenish his vitality in extreme circumstances. However, this was only the function of a fragment; as the saying goes, too much of a good thing can be bad. If humans tried to use a larger Life Stone, they would suffer a backlash.

This information was obtained by Su Bei from the “Destiny” organization’s intelligence. Back then, someone had stumbled upon a guarded Life Stone in the Nightmare Beast World. Surrounded by powerful Nightmare Beasts, with no way to escape, he decided to directly absorb the Life Stone to boost his strength and force his way out.

The result was that he couldn’t control the absorption amount, and the excessive life force caused him to explode. As for how the informant knew this—the person didn’t say, but the information was left in the organization’s intelligence database.

It’s worth mentioning that because Life Stones are incredibly hard, they cannot be cut by ordinary tools. The Life Stone fragment Su Bei obtained was an extremely rare natural shedding. It was precisely for this reason that it could be absorbed by humans.

Hearing this, the driver immediately looked disappointed. Lan Subing, however, reminded by his words, suddenly remembered something: “Oh right, Su Bei, where did you read about Life Stones? I want to look into it too when I get back.”

“You know,” Su Bei said with a polite smile, “my sources of information are always very mysterious.”

Lan Subing understood; he couldn’t tell her. She pouted helplessly: “So, all we need to do next is find this stone, return it to the Nightmare Beasts, and the problem will be solved, right?”

“Not necessarily,” Su Bei shook his head. “First, finding a single stone across the entire country is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Second, even if they find it, do you think the government will return it?”

Hearing him say this, Lan Subing was a little surprised: “They won’t?”

But then she quickly realized: “You’re right, that’s something that can improve the quality of Nightmare Beasts. How could we possibly return it? If we couldn’t get it before, that’s one thing, but now it’s in our territory. Returning it would be aiding the enemy! As for the Nightmare Beasts getting angry, let them be angry; we’re already in a death feud anyway.”

Su Bei nodded: “But no matter what, as long as they can find the Life Stone, we’ll be liberated.”

Once found, the Nightmare Beasts wouldn’t conduct widespread searches like they were now; they would only target the Life Stone’s storage location for specialized attacks. How to defend against that would be the government’s job; at that point, they surely wouldn’t involve students like them anymore.

“I have a question: if the Nightmare Beasts truly all attacked the Ability Government for the Life Stone, could they withstand it?” Lan Subing suddenly asked a crucial question.

This was a good question, and Su Bei fell silent. Normally, he should have confidence in the government, but this was a manga world; who knew if the author would make the government falter just to get the protagonist group into the fray?

In the end, it was the driver who spoke first: “Kids, you have to have some faith in the government! They’ve held out so many times before; how could they not hold out this time? When the sky falls, the tall ones bear it. That’s a problem you should only worry about two years from now.”

After speaking, he couldn’t help but sigh: “Only first-year high school students, truly amazing. When I was in my first year, I couldn’t even defeat a low-level Nightmare Beast.”

These words dispelled Lan Subing’s concerns and also piqued her curiosity. She was very curious about what kind of ability the driver had, but she was too shy to talk to strangers, so she subtly signaled Su Bei with her eyes to ask.

But Su Bei couldn’t understand what she wanted to ask. The two stared at each other for a while, with a series of winks, gestures, and hand signs, until Su Bei finally, through guesswork, understood her meaning and helplessly asked: “Sir, what’s your ability?”

However, Lan Subing looked anxiously at the driver, then waved her hand below, mouthing the word “tactfully.”

This time, Su Bei suddenly understood her intention and added to the driver: “Of course, if you don’t want to say, you don’t have to. I was just asking casually.”

After speaking, he raised an eyebrow at Lan Subing, a look that said, “Are you satisfied now?” Lan Subing was indeed satisfied, leaning back contentedly in her seat, waiting for the driver’s reply.

“Hahahaha, what’s there to hide?” the driver cheerfully laughed. “My ability is [Smooth Driving], I can drive any kind of vehicle smoothly.”

The two looked surprised. They had never heard of such an ability. However, that was how the Ability World was: powerful abilities always converged to similar ends, while low-level abilities could be interestingly diverse. An ability like [Smooth Driving] didn’t even fit neatly into any known ability category.

Noticing their surprise, the driver continued while driving: “You shouldn’t underestimate this ability. I can drive not only ordinary vehicles like cars, motorcycles, and trucks, but also trains, planes, and subways. Not only that, even if you brought me a pig, as long as it’s properly harnessed, I could drive it smoothly!”

“Innate Driver Saint Body,” Lan Subing quietly commented.

Though she was teasing, her eyes were full of admiration. One must know that if the driver could say that, he must have personally experimented with those types of driving to be confident that his ability could handle them all.

To face his not-so-powerful ability and not be discouraged, but instead diligently conduct experiments to maximize its use – this mindset and initiative were truly admirable.

Su Bei almost burst out laughing at her comment, but he covered it with a cough, then clapped his hands: “Indeed, a very useful ability.”

To say nothing else, it was at least much more useful than his [Gear] ability. Especially since he could also tame mounts, essentially an all-around driver兼beast tamer. Su Bei even felt that this driver was being terribly underutilized by merely being used to pick them up and drop them off.

However, it was probably due to the current urgent situation; otherwise, a driver like him would be highly sought after and definitely not just working as a taxi driver.

Such an honest reaction, however, made the driver a little embarrassed. Having worked as a driver, he had seen all sorts of people; he could tell whether someone was genuinely sincere or being sarcastic.

In the past, he often encountered Ability users who, upon hearing his ability had no combat capability, would subtly reveal disdain in their eyes. He never expected that today’s two passengers wouldn’t look down on him at all because of it.

“Actually, it’s not as amazing as you think, after all, I can’t fight Nightmare Beasts with this ability.” He initially wanted to be modest, but then, speaking of this, the driver sighed with genuine emotion: “The main task of Ability users is still to eliminate Nightmare Beasts.”

When he first discovered his ability, how could he not, in his rebellious and passionate youth, have dreamed of sweeping away all enemies and saving the world with his powers? But reality was cruel; geniuses were always few, and he was clearly not among them.

“No, assisting in combat is also a form of fighting against Nightmare Beasts,” Lan Subing, for once, broke through her social anxiety to seriously refute. “Your willingness to stay here and help is you fighting alongside us.”

In fact, choosing to remain in the Ability World with a weak ability was also a display of courage. While the Ability World offered high salaries, an Ability user could also earn a high income outside if their expertise matched the job.

An ability like the driver’s, even outside the Ability World, would attract many big bosses offering high salaries. But he chose to take a government job, risking Nightmare Beast attacks. Just as Lan Subing said, they were indeed fighting alongside each other.

Lan Subing’s words seemed to carry a certain power, lifting the driver’s previously downcast mood. Before he could say anything, all three of their phones simultaneously chimed with a message notification.

“Ding-dong!”

“Again!” Su Bei didn’t even need to look to know it was a mission notification. He slumped heavily back, like he was giving up, and looked at Lan Subing: “Do you have any more chicken soup for the soul to soothe my current mood?”

Lan Subing similarly looked half-dead, wearing a mask of pain: “Someone soothe my mood first!”