Chapter 290

“But destiny tells me I’ll most likely participate in the competition,” Su Bei said, not feeling comforted at all, continuing to probe half-truthfully.

He might not necessarily have to participate in the final competition. The protagonist group attending this time, including him, totaled six people. Normally, a team battle only required five participants, so if he was lucky, he could very well be the one who didn’t compete.

However, regardless of whether he had to participate, he had to consider the worst-case scenario first. And if possible, Su Bei naturally hoped to compete. For a plot that was highly likely to involve the main storyline, even if he could watch it in the manga later, it would never compare to experiencing it firsthand.

Hearing him say this, the Gourd Nightmare Beast was taken aback and asked suspiciously, “You’ll definitely participate? As a substitute, you should be able to stay off the field, right?”

It wasn’t as if it hadn’t looked into the rules of this World Competition. Each school had a total of fifteen contestants. Even if all the main selections were to have an accident, the reserves were more than sufficient. There was no need to worry about everyone being forced into a difficult situation.

It had also learned about Su Bei’s status beforehand. After all, Endless Ability Academy had always been a major concern for the Nightmare Beasts. They naturally had to study their participating members carefully.

“Who says a substitute can’t play?” Su Bei said nonchalantly. From the fact that the other party was still willing to negotiate with him even under these circumstances, he had already figured out that the Gourd Nightmare Beast probably couldn’t harm him. Since that was the case, he naturally wouldn’t let go of such a good opportunity to gather intelligence.

The Gourd Nightmare Beast didn’t know the sinister thoughts of humans, nor did it guess that its paper-tiger identity had already been seen through by Su Bei. It simply thought Su Bei just didn’t want to cause trouble, so it put on a show of trying its best to help find a solution.

After carefully considering its words, the Gourd Nightmare Beast comforted him, “If you must participate, then just do your best to win.”

It didn’t dare to lie. Who knew if Su Bei had the ability to discern lies? What if he found out it was lying and decided to go for a mutually destructive outcome?

Su Bei’s brow furrowed almost imperceptibly. This was undoubtedly bad news. From the other party’s words, did it mean that only the final winner of the second round of the competition could escape unscathed?

So, the protagonist group had a high probability of winning, but that didn’t change the fact that this was very difficult. Moreover, Su Bei had another concern: did the “win” mentioned by the Gourd Nightmare Beast refer to the entire team’s victory, or an individual remaining until the very end?

If it was the former, he wouldn’t have to worry about much. Although the opponents were all top-tier Ability users, and two years older than them, the protagonist’s halo wasn’t just for show. Su Bei was 80% certain that Jiang Tianming and the others could win. At that time, he could just ride their coattails to victory.

But if it was the latter, and he had to survive until the very end to be considered the winner, then things wouldn’t be so simple. Su Bei didn’t have a protagonist’s halo. Besides, even on the protagonist’s team, it wasn’t uncommon for members to be eliminated midway through a major competition for various reasons. He really didn’t have much confidence in lasting until the end.

Compared to taking such a risk, Su Bei would rather hope not to participate in the competition at all. Therefore, he feigned disbelief and asked, “So what if we win inside the competition? What we face when we come out will probably be a complete mess. I don’t believe you haven’t made arrangements for the people outside the competition.”

“Don’t worry, the people outside aren’t our target this time. Even if there’s danger, it won’t be a major one,” the Gourd Nightmare Beast replied. “We are all control-type Nightmare Beasts. We just need to control them at the critical moment to prevent them from causing trouble.”

The Nightmare Beasts present all had one thing in common: they had all traded their attack power for control abilities. They gathered here precisely so that even after the humans discovered the problem, they wouldn’t be able to save the students in the competition.

Although this reason sounded logical, Su Bei knew clearly that the Gourd Nightmare Beast was lying. If the Nightmare Beasts’ only targets were students like them, then what were all those Nightmare Beasts currently gathered in the Nightmare Beast World for?

It was known that the Gourd Nightmare Beast and the others in the hotel were there to control the people in the hotel. A small portion of the Nightmare Beasts in the Nightmare Beast World were to control XXX and prepare to cause trouble in the illusionary world of the second competition.

So, were the remaining massive numbers of low-tier and intermediate-tier Nightmare Beasts also meant for hunting students in the illusion?

The possibility was very low. The students participating in the World Competition would definitely not be defeated by low or intermediate-tier Nightmare Beasts. Even if they intended to use a human-wave tactic, it didn’t make sense. There were certainly no shortage of AoE-type Ability users among the contestants. As long as they cooperated in time, it wouldn’t be difficult to wipe out the low-tier Nightmare Beasts in one go.

The Nightmare Beasts were truly cunning. This kind of lie, seventy percent truth and thirty percent falsehood, was the most effective at deceiving people. If he hadn’t visited the Nightmare Beast World beforehand and known the situation there, he might have actually been fooled by it.

It seemed that nowhere was safe this time. The hotel had its dangers, the competition had its dangers, and the capital of Sessbia had its dangers. Comparatively, it was safer to go to the competition. At least the protagonist group was there, and it was highly unlikely that the entire team would be wiped out.

Su Bei nodded thoughtfully. “I understand. I’ll be leaving then.”

“Hey, wait!” the Gourd Nightmare Beast quickly called out to him. It hadn’t said all that just for Su Bei to gather intelligence and then walk away.

When Su Bei turned his head, it asked with dissatisfaction, “You’ve gotten so much information from me. Shouldn’t you do something in return?”

“Do what?” Su Bei asked, feigning confusion.

He certainly knew the other party wanted a guarantee, a promise that he would never tell anyone what he knew. He could give this promise, but he couldn’t be the one to offer it.

Making a promise voluntarily could give the other party an opportunity to press for more. Only by first showing a willingness to back out could he push the other party’s expectations to their lowest.

Sure enough, hearing him say this, the Gourd Nightmare Beast immediately became anxious. “Of course, make a promise! Promise that you won’t reveal our plan! You’re not thinking of going back on your word, are you?”

Not understanding what Su Bei was getting at, it then added anxiously with a threat, “Although we don’t like to kill people, we can still keep you trapped here forever.”

Even at this point, it was still trying to glorify itself, spouting nonsense like “we don’t like to kill people.” Even Su Bei couldn’t help but twitch his lips upon hearing it. What Nightmare Beast doesn’t like killing? Even if it wanted to hide the fact that it had no attack power, there was no need to tell such a blatant lie.

However, what it said afterward wasn’t wrong. A group of control-type Nightmare Beasts could certainly trap him here indefinitely. Su Bei knew that the only reason they hadn’t acted was because they were worried his disappearance would attract the attention of others.

In fact, if he really did disappear, others would definitely notice. By then, an investigation would easily reveal these Nightmare Beasts hiding in the hotel. From what the Gourd Nightmare Beast had said earlier, Su Bei could tell they were only able to hide here by exploiting a loophole in the hotel’s protection system.

Even he could “see” these Nightmare Beasts on the rooftop with his Destiny Gear. It would be even easier for Ability users with specialized searching abilities.

A single move can affect the entire situation. Once they were discovered, the Nightmare Beasts’ entire plan could be jeopardized. So, they couldn’t take the risk and could only try to make Su Bei keep the truth to himself.

Of course, choosing the lesser of two evils, if Su Bei refused to promise, they could only trap him here. Being discovered was better than being exposed immediately; at least it would buy the Nightmare Beasts some time to react.

Su Bei knew this as well, so after lowering the other party’s expectations, he gave his promise readily. “I promise I won’t tell anyone about this, alright?”

“Let’s sign an agreement,” the Gourd Nightmare Beast said, not trusting his verbal promise. Just as humans thought Nightmare Beasts were cunning, Nightmare Beasts also thought humans were cunning. Especially a guy like Su Bei, who seemed completely devoid of integrity and morality.

Su Bei had no objections. He couldn’t reveal the truth anyway; the author wouldn’t give him that chance. He was very satisfied with getting a pile of intelligence for nothing.

After signing the agreement and leaving the rooftop, the moment Su Bei turned on his phone, his screen was flooded with message notifications. After briefly scrolling through what they had sent, dark lines quickly appeared on Su Bei’s forehead.

The author had made their move, hadn’t they? In just half an hour, he had missed two plot points. The first was the match between Jiang Tianming’s group and Elvis, which he had deliberately missed.

The result of the match was very unexpected. Everyone except Jiang Tianming had lost. Only Jiang Tianming managed to win by revealing another ability, catching Elvis completely off guard.

His newly revealed ability was also a time-type ability, but it was very peculiar, called [Time Sponge]. This ability was based on the principle that “time is like water in a sponge; if you squeeze, you’ll always find some.”

It was a purely supportive ability. Using it could release a bit of time. Currently, the amount of time Jiang Tianming could release was five seconds. These five seconds could be applied to himself or others, giving himself an extra five seconds.

This didn’t mean others would be paused; it was just that he himself gained extra time. Within these five seconds, he could think about what to do next, recover Mental Energy, or pre-cast a few abilities, but he couldn’t affect others.

By itself, this ability was rather useless, but it had a miraculous effect against opponents with time-type abilities. The time he applied could disrupt the flow of time Elvis had altered on him. Jiang Tianming seized the brief moment of chaos in Elvis’s ability and defeated him in one fell swoop.

Honestly, Su Bei hadn’t expected Elvis to have become so strong now. It was just as Lan Subing had joked, what kind of steroids had he been taking?

If Elvis’s change surprised Su Bei, then the second matter made him sigh. Endless Ability Academy’s opponent in the previous match was Saint Dante Ability Academy.

Like Endless Ability Academy, Saint Dante Ability Academy was a popular choice to win this year’s competition. The champion of the last World Competition was this very academy.

And the result of the match shocked everyone. In five solo matches, Endless Ability Academy had lost only one! And that one loss was the support-type Ability user, Zhang Sheng. His ability lacked attack power compared to others, so losing to a strong offensive-type opponent was normal. It could be said that they defeated Saint Dante Ability Academy with an almost crushing victory.

To be honest, Su Bei wasn’t too surprised by this result. The abilities of Mu Yunfan and the others were incredibly formidable. With abilities like theirs, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call them protagonists. If there were many people stronger than them, then from a manga perspective, Su Bei felt the power balance of this manga would be a bit skewed.

The real reason for his sigh was that in a match against another top contender, winning four out of five solo matches was almost equivalent to securing the championship in this World Competition. If they were dominating in the solo matches, could they possibly stumble in the team battles?

If you looked at this point alone, it wouldn’t make you think of anything else. But if you combined it with another piece of information—that Mu Yunfan and the others would be unable to participate in the second stage of the competition for some reason—and looked back at the whole thing, you could see the problem.

For a team that had almost already secured victory, if other academies still wanted to win, they would naturally have to remove this thorn in their side first.

The reputation of Saint Dante Ability Academy had always been average. In past World Competitions, there were often cases where they would deliberately injure opponents in solo matches, rendering them unable to participate in the next round.

For a school with such a poor reputation, Su Bei had no doubt they would resort to some underhanded methods off the field.

Perhaps because he had read a lot of manga and novels before, he had a deep understanding of these tropes, and his intuition was always accurate. This time, he had a gut feeling that Saint Dante Ability Academy was up to no good.

Sighing again, he turned off his phone. Thanks to his enthusiastic classmates, if it weren’t for their active reporting of the battle situation, he wouldn’t have known so much had happened while he was on the rooftop, let alone deduce this plot point.

Unfortunately, there was no use in deducing it. Su Bei wasn’t going to warn Mu Yunfan and the others. Saint Dante Ability Academy probably still had some morals; at most, they would just temporarily immobilize them. But if he were to ruin their plan, and the author had to come up with a new one, there was no telling what kind of danger that would entail.

Suddenly, the notification sound of the Manga Consciousness rang out. The manga had updated at this very moment!

Su Bei was surprised for a moment, then he understood. That made sense. A lot had happened in the past two days: he was framed, he fought with Elvis, and the failure of Saint Dante Ability Academy which would likely have a follow-up plot. There was enough content, so the manga could indeed be updated.

Just as he thought, this manga update mainly covered these events.

It started with a few panels of the main team members, showcasing their devastating battles throughout the day, and incidentally using it to build up the atmosphere of the grand competition. The author did a great job in this aspect. The rows of arenas, powerful abilities, and brilliant special effects immediately conveyed the solemnity of the competition.

Next was Su Bei’s match. Seeing him get tricked, the readers were dying of laughter.

“Hahahahahahahahaha”

“If you can’t make everyone happy, then make everyone unhappy!”

“Su Bei: Are you serious?”

“Zhang Sheng, what a guy who loves to stir up trouble!”

“The others: …”

“Indeed, everyone is unhappy now hahahahahaha”

Seeing this, a fake smile appeared on Su Bei’s face. Same as before, once the competition was over, he was going to make Zhang Sheng suffer greatly.

Next was the part where he was framed for cheating. The author actually drew out the thought process of the opposing school. Su Bei had to admit, there was indeed no hatred without reason in this world. Just as he had thought before, they had acted so righteously indignant, but in reality, they were just making a foolproof choice.

Prioritizing benefits, while not conforming to universal values, was very understandable. The audience in the bullet comments also shifted from their initial anger to understanding after seeing the explanation.

“No way, why suspect Su Bei of cheating? My boy Bei is just that strong, okay!”

“Does anyone still doubt the caliber of a Destiny-type?”

“The thought of them being eliminated for a failed report makes me laugh.”

“Wait, you can do that?”

“I was just about to say that was a bit of a dumb move, but it turns out they were being farsighted.”

“Say what you will, but doing it this way does save time.”

“Advance smoothly if you can, save time if you can’t. Good plan! Just a little… unethical.”

With that matter resolved, the plot moved on to everyone’s match against Elvis. Everyone except Jiang Tianming was defeated, which greatly surprised all the readers.

Although they knew Elvis was strong before, he had now become this strong. This made everyone curious about his experiences, and at the same time, they sincerely realized that the protagonist group’s progress was a bit slow. They were even being left behind by a side character; wasn’t that a bit slow?

During this period, only Jiang Tianming had improved; everyone else had stagnated. However, since the author had already highlighted this issue, the others’ improvements should be on the agenda soon.

Following that, the battles of Mu Yunfan and the others were depicted in relative detail, with each person getting about a page’s worth of content. After all their battles were over, the author deliberately gave Saint Dante Ability Academy some screen time.

Having been defeated in such a crushing manner, all their faces were grim. Even the supervising teacher had a dark expression. He first scolded his own students, and then the final panel froze on his gloomy gaze directed at Mu Yunfan and the others.

Now, without Su Bei having to say anything, all the readers, even those with little experience reading manga, could tell from this scene that they were about to become villains.

After reading the manga, he checked the forums. Besides discussing Elvis, the forums were buzzing about that final scene with Saint Dante Ability Academy. They were certain this academy was going to cause trouble, but they didn’t know how they would target the protagonist group.

There was nothing interesting in the threads about the former issue, and the latter one didn’t entice Su Bei to click either. The ins and outs of Saint Dante Ability Academy’s conspiracy were clear. It was impossible to know what they were going to do from the plot given by the author, so Su Bei had no interest in the content of the threads.

“Su Bei, you missed several exciting battles by coming back to the hotel early!” Qi Huang said with a shake of her head in regret as they were eating in the hotel restaurant. “The seniors are really amazing!”

“There are replays.” Su Bei took out his phone and waved it. The screen prominently displayed the official website for the Sessbia Ability World Competition, with newly uploaded videos. The battle videos of Mu Yunfan and the others had been edited overnight and placed at the top of the website as the “face” of the event.

Although Su Bei didn’t like to fight personally, he was still very interested in spectating. To be honest, if it weren’t for knowing that this was a manga world, Su Bei would actually be considered a hot-blooded youth. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have worked so hard to learn fighting techniques.

God knows he used to fantasize about being a hero saving a damsel in distress in a dark alley.

Now, he had completely lost such worldly desires. He only hoped that the manga plot would end quickly, fast-forwarding to either world peace or world destruction.

After showing the video on his phone, Su Bei put it away and sized up the five of them with great interest. “How do you guys feel after fighting Elvis?”

He had thought many of them would be dejected, but surprisingly, they weren’t. Except for Wu Mingbai and Si Zhaohua, the others seemed very calm, even Qi Huang.

Seeing Su Bei’s gaze fixed on her, Qi Huang, aware of the personality she projected, snorted. “We’ll just fight again next time. This time, my ability was countered, but I definitely won’t be defeated so easily next time.”

Qi Huang had already come to terms with her defeat against Elvis. Although she was usually very competitive, when everyone else had lost as well, there was nothing to be ashamed of in her own defeat.

Besides, as she said, she would surely improve by their next battle. Qi Huang’s straightforward and generous personality meant that even though she was competitive, she wouldn’t stay down for long over a single loss.

Si Zhaohua pursed his lips and admitted frankly, “I feel like I’ve really been slacking off lately. If Elvis can improve so much in just half a year, why can’t I?”

This was the reason for his dejection. The rapid progress of a peer filled his heart with anxiety.

Wu Mingbai thought much the same, but he felt it more directly, especially with Jiang Tianming as a point of comparison. The latter had also defeated Elvis this time. No matter what method he used, it was enough to show his progress.

Lan Subing wasn’t anxious at first, but after hearing him say that, she started to feel anxious too. “If you put it that way, we really have… sigh, and we just went to Wesi Island not long ago.”

“Something happened to us midway through that trip, so we didn’t get to experience many of the projects,” Jiang Tianming reminded them calmly.

They didn’t have Su Bei’s god-like perspective and had no idea what would happen next. Therefore, they were very casual when experiencing the projects and didn’t have time to get to the useful ones.

After speaking, he looked at Su Bei. “By the way, Su Bei, Elvis asked me to ask you when you’ll have a match with him. He asked if you’re scared.”

“When will he give up on such a clumsy goading tactic?” Su Bei shook his head with disdain, not intending to respond to the other’s challenge.

Lan Subing let out a “pfft” of laughter. If Elvis could hear his evaluation, she felt she could be defeated by him another ten times. “Just humor the tsundere.”

From the brief time they spent together, less than a month, they all knew Elvis was a tsundere. A cough and love cannot be hidden, and neither can being a tsundere.

After the joking around, Su Bei suddenly remembered something. “How many days are left in the solo matches?”

Because he knew that the second stage of the competition was the real main course, he hadn’t paid much attention to the earlier matches.

“One day left.” Si Zhaohua, who had been following the news, answered immediately. “Speaking of which, Huangfu Mingzhe and his team haven’t been eliminated yet. We should be able to run into them tomorrow.”

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My apologies, I was on the subway with a bad connection and couldn’t post, and then I forgot to update orz