Chapter 326

Moreover, to prevent them from slacking off or working passively, Meng Huai added another restriction. Starting half an hour after the exam began, at least one person had to be eliminated every half hour. If this quota wasn’t met, one person would be eliminated randomly.

And ‘elimination’ here meant being eliminated from S-Class.

So, if they didn’t want to test their luck, everyone had to work hard to eliminate others, or at least time it correctly. Getting eliminated for such a bizarre reason would be incredibly frustrating.

Knowing some inside information, Su Bei could tell that this monthly exam was quite farcical. Whether it was the name tag ripping format, the twist where the winner was actually the loser, or the random elimination, it was all just messing with everyone.

But Su Bei only saw it this way because he knew the truth. The others, unaware of the inside story, didn’t think so at all. After all, it was an internal battle within S-Class, with only 13 participants, so it wasn’t a huge deal. Solving the problem through a game seemed perfectly reasonable.

“Can we form alliances?” Zhao Xiaoyu immediately raised her hand and asked after hearing the teacher’s explanation of the rules.

This question was crucial, and everyone pricked up their ears. If alliances were allowed, they could just find a partner, rip each other’s name tags, and both escape danger.

Everyone had initially assumed it wouldn’t be allowed. After all, if it were, the nature of the competition would change. It would no longer be a cunning effort to get oneself eliminated but would instead become a popularity contest.

However, to everyone’s surprise, Meng Huai actually nodded. “Of course, you can.”

But in the next second, he crushed their hopes. “However, name tags cannot be ripped off simultaneously.”

In other words, they couldn’t form an alliance where two people ripped each other’s name tags at the same time to achieve mutual elimination. Only one person could be eliminated at a time, making alliances pointless.

So, although they wanted to find a partner before the competition started, given this rule, they decided against it. It was every man for himself. In this situation, an alliance was more likely to be exploited.

The elimination match began quickly. Meng Huai led the group to a shopping mall off-campus. The mall had been booked for the event and was completely empty. However, booking it didn’t mean they had bought it, so Meng Huai’s requirement was that they couldn’t use overly powerful abilities. It was best if they could avoid damaging public property; otherwise, they might be the ones paying for it in the end.

The purpose of this was likely to prevent the students from hurting each other, which would be hard to deal with when the truth was revealed. But in Su Bei’s opinion, his worry was unnecessary. With these rules, who would use a powerful, lethal ability? To eliminate someone else, only to get themselves kicked out of S-Class? Besides, their class wasn’t the type to be full of schemes and backstabbing. No one would actually use deadly force on a classmate over an elimination match.

At the start, everyone was scattered across the five floors. Su Bei was on the middle third floor, right at the elevator entrance.

The first thing to do upon entering the game was to complete the mission and gain the qualification to be eliminated. The rules didn’t mention what the mission was or where to find it. Based on Su Bei’s experience with these kinds of games, the clues were usually hidden in the nooks and crannies of the map, like in mirrors, books, or similar places.

Mirrors… Su Bei headed straight for the restroom on his floor. Just as he suspected, there were mirrors in the restroom. After adjusting his luck, Su Bei began experimenting with each one. First, he wiped a mirror with his hand, but there was no effect. Then he splashed it with water, also with no effect.

He thought for a moment. In the world of Ability users, it might have something to do with abilities. And among all of them, one person’s ability was also very suitable for testing things out. Su Bei took a lighter from his Storage Ring and heated the mirror’s surface with its flame.

Sure enough, after a short while, a line of text gradually appeared: “Have a classmate use their ability on you to complete the mission.”

It sounded like everyone had a different mission. This was good news; otherwise, others might deliberately avoid using their abilities on him, preventing him from having a chance to get out.

After all, Su Bei was quite confident in himself. Once he qualified for elimination, it wouldn’t take him ten minutes to get himself eliminated. The others probably understood this as well, since on the surface, he was indeed the strongest in S-Class.

Su Bei guessed that he had found his mission relatively quickly; few others on the field had likely gotten theirs yet. So he should hurry and complete it before the others found out.

Leaving the restroom, Su Bei unhesitatingly returned to his starting point, entered the elevator, and after a moment’s thought, pressed the button for the first floor.

Since he knew the mission involved someone else, the first thing he needed to do was meet up with anyone as quickly as possible. And by taking the elevator now, the “ding” sound as it arrived would surely attract someone.

Actually, it wasn’t hard to find the others. Although the five-story mall was large, with thirteen people, there would be two or three on each floor. He just needed to shout, or wait for someone else to shout, and he’d be able to find a teammate.

But neither of these options fit his persona. Shouting out proactively would seem a bit too eager, while waiting for others to shout and then seeking them out would appear too passive. What he needed to do was proactively make others find him.

Just as Su Bei had thought, when his elevator reached the first floor, someone was already standing at the door.

It was Si Zhaohua.

This was not a great choice for Su Bei’s mission. Si Zhaohua had no reason to randomly use his ability; after all, his Angel ability wasn’t one that could be used lightly.

“What are you doing coming down in the elevator?” Seeing it was him, Si Zhaohua raised an eyebrow, suddenly suspicious. “Is there a mission on the first floor?”

He had guessed half of it right. Su Bei answered very honestly, “No, I’ve already gotten my mission.”

That was way too fast. Si Zhaohua’s eyes widened slightly. “Where? What is it?”

“Do you think I’m going to tell you?” Su Bei walked forward slowly. “How about you help eliminate me in exchange for this information?”

Si Zhaohua refused decisively. “No way. I can definitely find it myself.”

The ultimate test in this exam was how to get oneself eliminated. Completing the mission was just an appetizer. An appetizer couldn’t be more substantial than the main course, so he’d be able to complete his mission sooner or later. There was no need to rush.

Su Bei wasn’t surprised by his refusal. He casually summoned a gear and shot it toward Si Zhaohua, asking at the same time, “With your ability, how would you get someone to eliminate you?”

“Do I have to use an ability to get someone to eliminate me?” Si Zhaohua subconsciously shot out a feather to counter his gear.

Having completed his mission, a hint of a smile appeared in Su Bei’s eyes. “No, but it’s obviously much easier if you can use an ability.”

After saying this, he suddenly stopped in his tracks and adjusted the Major Destiny Pointer above his head to the “Exit” position. Now he was completely motionless. If destiny wanted him to exit, it would have to get him eliminated.

Si Zhaohua didn’t notice anything wrong with his sudden stop. After all, they were just walking around aimlessly, so it was normal to stop when you didn’t feel like walking anymore.

Because Su Bei had just attacked him for no reason, Si Zhaohua also took the initiative to shoot a feather at Su Bei, giving him a taste of his own medicine.

He had expected Su Bei to dodge the attack the same way he had, but surprisingly, Su Bei just stood there without moving, as if he wasn’t afraid of being hit at all.

But even if he wasn’t afraid, Si Zhaohua was. He didn’t want to hurt his friend for no reason. So, just as the feather was about to touch Su Bei, Si Zhaohua quickly maneuvered it to swerve, and it slid past Su Bei’s side.

“Why didn’t you dodge?” Having averted the crisis, Si Zhaohua asked with a frown.

Su Bei shrugged, stepped aside, and gestured for him to look at the ground.

Si Zhaohua looked down and saw a name tag that had fallen on the ground at some point. The name on it was clearly Su Bei.

When his feather had swerved past Su Bei, it had, by a strange coincidence, sliced off his name tag!

Only then did Si Zhaohua realize. “You did that on purpose!”

He looked at the time on his watch in disbelief. “The exam only started seven minutes ago!”

To find the mission, complete it, and get his name tag removed in just seven minutes—that was way too efficient!

This was the advantage of not being a plot character. Without a storyline arranged by the author, he could leave whenever he wanted, without worrying about unexpected incidents.

Su Bei waved with a grin. “Well, I’m leaving first. Good luck with the exam.”

The next second, an announcement from Meng Huai suddenly echoed through the mall’s speakers: “Su Bei has been successfully eliminated. Please leave the venue as soon as possible. The competition continues for everyone else.”

“What! Su Bei’s already been eliminated?” Lan Subing showed a look of disbelief. “That’s way too fast!”

Jiang Tianming, who had already met up with her, thought for a moment and quickly came to a conclusion. “The person who went down in the elevator just now must have been him. Let’s go check the elevator for mission clues.”

Meanwhile, after Su Bei left the mall, he saw Lei Ze’en waiting outside. While Meng Huai was monitoring the situation from the mall’s broadcast room, Lei Ze’en was responsible for receiving the successfully eliminated students outside.

Seeing Su Bei come out first, Lei Ze’en asked with some surprise, “I thought you would be the last one out.”

After all, Su Bei knew this was just a fake elimination. Since there was no real threat of leaving S-Class, he had thought that with Su Bei’s personality, he would slack off the entire time.

“Because it was too easy,” Su Bei said in a punchable manner, though he did have the skill to back it up. “It was easy to get out anyway, so there was no need to waste time in there. Besides, they’ll probably have a whole soap opera to act out inside, and I’d rather not watch that kind of drama.”

He meant it sincerely. Because this monthly exam was billed as an S-Class elimination match, they would surely enact some kind of “life and death separation” scenario. Knowing it was all fake, Su Bei was afraid he might laugh out loud on the spot.

Stretching, Su Bei asked lazily, “Can we go back after the competition is over?”

“Of course,” Lei Ze’en nodded. “You’ll have a two-day break. Classes will resume after the other grades finish their monthly exams.”

Su Bei blinked, suddenly remembering something. “Aren’t the first-years having their placement exams?”

Lei Ze’en smiled and nodded, mimicking Su Bei’s blink. “This is a great time to watch the excitement.”

Su Bei was just about to turn and leave to check out the first-year excitement when he suddenly spotted a fluffy red head of hair in a distant bush.

The Black Flash Organization is actually getting involved at a time like this? Su Bei raised an eyebrow in surprise, then took a roundabout path over to them.

Mo Xiaotian, who possessed the 【Air】 ability, sensed him as he approached. The moment their eyes met, he broke into a wide grin. “Su Bei, you’re here!”

“‘Here’ my ass,” Su Bei retorted, rolling his eyes. “You make it sound like you deliberately let me find you.”

Mo Xiaotian scratched his head with a sheepish grin, but his happy expression quickly faded as he asked with rare seriousness, “I heard your exam is going to eliminate three people?”

Su Bei didn’t answer directly. Instead, he studied Mo Xiaotian’s tone and asked curiously, “And if it is, what do you plan to do?”

“I plan to try and persuade you all to join our organization,” Mo Xiaotian answered seriously. “Although you might not have a good impression of the Black Flash Organization, at least we don’t force friends to be separated. And Grandpa really likes you guys; he’d definitely be willing to agree to your demands.”

“By ‘likes’, do you mean repeatedly sending you to cause trouble?” Su Bei tilted his head. “Don’t tell me you’re just here to watch the show this time.”

This reminded Mo Xiaotian that he couldn’t keep chatting, or he wouldn’t be able to complete the mission the organization gave him. But the problem was that someone outside of the plan now knew he was here. Mo Xiaotian looked hesitantly at Su Bei, then back at the mall, his meaning obvious.

Su Bei walked past him and waved over his shoulder as he left. “Hurry up and go. I won’t tell on you.”

Although he didn’t know what scheme the Black Flash Organization was plotting this time, he was sure it wouldn’t succeed. And if it wasn’t going to succeed, there was no need to report it. As for whether to get involved in this incident, Su Bei had no interest anyway.

This wasn’t the beginning anymore, where he couldn’t afford to miss a single main plotline. By now, the main plot was little more than a decoration to Su Bei. He’d still pay some attention to things involving Nightmare Beasts, but when it came to the Black Flash Organization, especially a plotline where they appeared alone and had nothing to do with Nightmare Beasts, Su Bei had zero interest.

It wouldn’t affect his ultimate goal anyway, and he didn’t need to be in the spotlight every second of every day. If he could avoid trouble, he naturally would.

Taking a taxi back to the academy, Su Bei went straight to the athletic field. Although the format of the monthly exams changed every year, one thing remained constant: they always took place on the athletic field.

After all, they were first-years who hadn’t even properly grasped what their abilities were. If they were really let off-campus and ran into danger, the academy wouldn’t be able to protect them all. Although danger could also be found on campus, like what the main character’s cohort experienced, it was still much safer than being outside.

Su Bei’s exam had started at 8 a.m. The time he spent on the exam itself was short enough to be negligible, and the round trip by car took an hour. So, only an hour had passed in the first-years’ exam by now.

It was the first-years’ monthly exam, but Su Bei saw many familiar faces on the athletic field. He walked over to Luo Li, a main team member from the previous World Competition, and asked curiously, “You came to watch the excitement too?”

Luo Li turned her head and saw it was him. Her stern little face immediately relaxed. “Oh, it’s you. Yep, I come to watch every year. I watched your year’s exam too.”

For some reason, that sentence sounded strangely mature. Seeing her say such mature words with a child’s body, Su Bei found it a bit funny.

But he didn’t laugh out loud. He just cleared his throat and asked seriously, “What’s the format for the first-years’ monthly exam this time?”

“The individual event is 1v1 battles, and the team event is a triathlon,” Luo Li answered, pointing at the field.

The scene on the field stirred a long-forgotten memory in Su Bei. During their monthly exam, the field had also been filled with one massive arena after another, with students competing on them.

Looking back at these competitions now, Su Bei had to admit they were rather childish. Very few people could actually use their abilities effectively; most of them still relied on their basic physical fitness.

He didn’t know if it was because the quality of students in the same cohort as the main characters was automatically higher, but most of the opponents Su Bei had faced back then were quite normal. But after standing here for a while, he witnessed countless abnormal maneuvers.

Mages missing their skills, warriors activating their abilities only to lose control of their strength and throw themselves out of the ring, supports buffing their opponents… It was truly an eye-opening experience for Su Bei.

Fists are still the most reliable weapon, Su Bei sighed, shaking his head. He thought for a moment and looked at Luo Li beside him. “Was the quality of students in our year this bad back then?”

“I don’t think so,” Luo Li said, her face full of disdain. She was still young and didn’t know how to hide her emotions well. “This is just pathetic. Are they even serious? Even if they just awakened their abilities, they shouldn’t be this clueless about how to use them. It’s like the abilities don’t even belong to them. If they’re this bad, isn’t their year’s World Competition going to be a disaster?”

As they were complaining, Feng Manman, having finished her student council duties, walked over. “You two seem to have some misconceptions about the skills of new Ability users. This year’s performance is perfectly normal. The current third-years performed the same way when they were first-years. But Lili, you weren’t here back then, so you wouldn’t know.”

Then she looked at Su Bei. “As for your year, the quality was indeed a bit better.”

“Big Sis Manman!” Luo Li called out in pleasant surprise. “You’re finally done with your work!”

Feng Manman nodded at her. “It’s the annual monthly exam. Just came to watch the excitement.”

Then, she suddenly remembered something and asked Su Bei with surprise, “If I recall correctly, shouldn’t you be in the middle of an exam right now?”

The student council had approved the funds for their class to book the mall, so Feng Manman knew some details about the exam.

“I’m done,” Su Bei replied lazily. “But only I am done.”

“Should I say congratulations, then?” Feng Manman thought for a moment, then hesitated, but added with a certain tone, “Actually, congratulations probably aren’t necessary.”

After receiving the application to book the exam venue, Feng Manman had looked into what S-Class was doing. Once she learned they were having a monthly exam and that it was an elimination assessment to narrow thirteen students down to ten, she quickly sensed that something was off.

As mentioned before, the student council at Endless Ability Academy held significant power. If the second-year S-Class was going to start ‘downsizing,’ she would definitely have received advance notice!

Therefore, Feng Manman deduced that Meng Huai had no intention of downsizing S-Class at all. He was probably just scaring the S-Class students for his own amusement, or perhaps he wanted to test their bonds, which was why he told them that.

The reason she hesitated was that she wasn’t sure if Su Bei knew the truth.

Su Bei, who knew the truth, understood her meaning at once and immediately smiled. “Yeah, there’s no punishment even if you lose anyway.”

He continued watching the first-years’ exam. It was rare for Su Bei to find something so engrossing. As the saying goes, the strong are all strong in the same way, but the weak are weak in a thousand different ways. It was actually quite interesting to watch these novices win through all sorts of methods.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t been watching for long before he received a call from Meng Huai. “Su Bei, where are you right now?”

“At the academy. What’s wrong?” Su Bei asked, feigning ignorance. He knew perfectly well that the only reason Meng Huai would be calling was that the Black Flash Organization had begun their operation.

Sure enough, he could hear Meng Huai let out a slight sigh of relief. “It’s nothing, just stay at the academy and don’t come out. The Black Flash Organization has locked down the mall… Wait a minute, you didn’t leave early because you already foresaw this, did you? Feng Lan left early too!”

By the last sentence, his anger was palpable. “You two are something else! Useless at everything but number one when it comes to running away, is that it?”

Su Bei: “…”

Heaven have mercy! He was framed!

The reason he’d given for leaving was true; he genuinely didn’t want to watch the “heartfelt display of emotions.” He only saw Mo Xiaotian after he left the exam and found out about the Black Flash Organization’s plot. He absolutely did not know about it beforehand.

Feng Lan had dragged him into this!

Oh, heavens, distinguish the loyal from the treacherous!

“Teacher, I didn’t…”

Unfortunately, the teacher had no intention of listening to his explanation. He said viciously, “You just wait until I get back!”

Su Bei: “…”

A river of sorrow flows upstream.

“What’s wrong?” Luo Li asked curiously, seeing his strange expression.

Su Bei’s mouth twitched. “I was falsely accused… Ah, I see the culprit now.”

With that, he strode toward the entrance of the athletic field and soon stood before a certain white-haired person. “You got me into trouble, you know that?”

“…Sorry?” Feng Lan tilted his head in confusion.

Su Bei was speechless and didn’t press the issue. After all, he wasn’t entirely innocent himself. Although he hadn’t known the truth while inside the mall, he had seen Mo Xiaotian almost immediately after leaving.

So, in a way, Meng Huai wasn’t wrong to be angry. In any case, even after learning the truth, Su Bei had no intention of telling him.

After calming down, Su Bei asked curiously, “What did you foresee?”

This was a topic Feng Lan was familiar with. He immediately straightened his head. “It was chaotic. Mo Xiaotian. I think the Black Flash Organization is here.”

Indeed, those two signs were enough to point to the Black Flash Organization. Su Bei was also honest. “I saw Mo Xiaotian when I got out, but I didn’t ask what their plan was this time.”

The two of them had a tacit understanding not to ask each other why they hadn’t reported this to the teacher, and they started watching the first-years’ monthly exam together.

However, as they watched, they couldn’t help but talk about the incident. Feng Lan looked at the sky. “I wonder when they’ll be able to get back.”

He was a little worried that they were trapped there and would miss lunch.

“It should be soon,” Su Bei replied calmly. Based on past experience, in a small map like this, and without being teleported, they could usually get back within a day.