Chapter 338

Su Bei: “?”

“What kind of weird setting is that?!” he couldn’t help but complain. “Isn’t it too early for the side stories? Why is there something this bizarre? Am I about to start a new dungeon?”

This time, it was the author’s turn to be confused. He was utterly shocked. “No, what you just said is what’s really breaking the fourth wall, suddenly talking about side stories and all that.”

Su Bei put on a profound look. “While breaking the dimensional wall of the manga world, isn’t it reasonable that I might accidentally break the novel’s dimensional wall too?”

“Reasonable my foot!” the author said, on the verge of a breakdown. “Are you a character from some other work that I don’t know about? Anyone who borrows my worldview has to face my legal department! Don’t underestimate my legal department, which can rival Disney’s!”

As soon as he finished speaking, he covered the right half of his face, grimacing in pain. “Hiss! You really hit hard.”

“Thanks for the compliment, but I was just kidding earlier,” Su Bei replied nonchalantly. His inner chuunibyou had just flared up. He knew nothing about any other work.

The author immediately dropped his exaggerated expression. “I was kidding too.”

What legal department? He didn’t have one.

The two looked at each other, speechless for a moment. The author coughed. “Anyway, just be careful. Don’t get dragged into any strange incidents. Although our world doesn’t have Nightmare Beasts or abilities, it has many small worlds. But if I remember correctly, you should automatically return to the manga world in an hour… oh no, half an hour from now, right? Then it doesn’t matter. I won’t jinx it for you, just be careful.”

Su Bei gave an OK sign. “Got it.”

What the author meant by not jinxing it was that he wouldn’t say something like, “As long as you don’t die in the next half hour.” Once said, a line like that would sound too much like tempting fate. It was better to just understand it implicitly.

Pushing the door open and stepping into the outside world, Su Bei quickly headed downstairs.

The real world was quite different from the one he was in; it looked much more high-tech. Robotic sweepers could be seen moving along the streets, which looked clean and tidy overall.

There were also some flying vehicles in the sky, and judging by their size, they were clearly for private transport. The sky even had traffic lights, and the flying vehicles had to follow the signals. This magical sight was both strange and familiar. Strange, of course, because he had never seen such advanced technology. Familiar, because it was a bit like the future he had written about in his elementary school essays ten years from now.

Was this a technology-focused world? Su Bei was a little surprised.

Wait? What was that?

Suddenly, Su Bei noticed a person washing a car by hand in the distance. The rag in the person’s hand was continuously spraying water, achieving a self-sufficient car wash.

That water-spraying rag didn’t look like a product of technology, did it? No, wait, the rag was able to spray water because the hand holding it from behind could spray water.

Was this an ability?

Su Bei really wanted to go over and ask, but he was afraid of being seen as an outsider. After all, something that could be used openly on the streets couldn’t be a secret. If he asked, he’d be seen as clueless at best, and at worst, he might be arrested. After all, a manga character coming to the real world wasn’t an untraceable event. Who knew what they were thinking.

Suppressing his curiosity, he continued walking and soon arrived next to a school. At this time, the elementary school students were about to be dismissed, and little kids were trickling out of the school building.

Suddenly, Su Bei’s gaze froze. What was that floating in mid-air next to those few children?

A doll?

If he remembered correctly, this kind of setting, with a talking doll floating beside someone, was usually accompanied by transformations, right? Magical girls? That one show with the fairies? Or the one with the guardian characters???

Su Bei’s mouth fell open, a rare look of shock on his face. He didn’t even want to continue exploring anymore; he just wanted to hurry back and ask the author what kind of world this was. Robots, abilities, and now magical girls—what a hodgepodge!

This wasn’t right.

His head full of questions, Su Bei couldn’t take it anymore and turned around to go back. With so many power systems, he was genuinely afraid he might accidentally touch something he shouldn’t. It was safer to go back quickly; otherwise, he’d be in deep trouble if he couldn’t return.

However, before he had taken two steps, Su Bei vaguely heard a familiar phrase. The little girl up ahead seemed to be saying something about ‘King of Abilities’.

Well, it was the anime he was from, after all. Although he often interacted with readers through the forums, he had never seen a real manga reader. Su Bei couldn’t help but backtrack to eavesdrop on their conversation.

The girl with the little pink sprite next to her said righteously, “Ai Baozhu is the best! All of you who don’t like her have no taste!”

“It’s not that we don’t like her, we just don’t like her the most,” a little boy next to her couldn’t help but argue.

It was worth mentioning that he was accompanied by a little blue sprite, fitting the stereotype perfectly.

“Not liking her the most also means you have no taste,” the little girl with the pink sprite said seriously, then asked curiously, “So who’s your favorite?”

“Of course it’s Jiang Jiang Jiang Tianming!” The little blue boy’s face lit up as he spoke about his favorite character. “I really love this protagonist. I feel like he’s a version of me—smart, witty, calm, and steady.”

“Have you no shame?” The little girl with the purple sprite next to her rolled her eyes, her arms crossed, looking very cool and sharp-tongued.

The pink-haired girl looked at her. “Xiao Qing, which character is your favorite? Don’t deny it, I saw you secretly reading ‘King of Abilities’ too!”

Unexpectedly having her secret exposed, the purple-haired girl couldn’t help but blush slightly before answering, “My favorite character… is probably Su Bei. I want to be someone like him.”

“Su Bei is my favorite too!” another little boy with a red sprite said excitedly. “He’s so cool, ahhh! Why don’t I have a Destiny-type ability?!”

The moment he said that, the little red sprite flying beside him kicked him without hesitation. “Saying that right in front of me, I think you’re looking for a beating, aren’t you?”

The red-haired boy immediately yelped in pain, clutching his forehead with teary, wide eyes.

Unfortunately, no one sympathized with him. Everyone started discussing Su Bei, as he was a major character in the recently concluded story arc.

“I wonder if Su Bei is dead or not… Sigh, I hope he isn’t, or I’ll really cry,” the pink-haired girl said, her little face drooping. “I quite like him, you know.”

At the mention of Su Bei’s death, the cool purple-haired girl’s mood also sank. “Why did it have to be Su Bei who died? If it were anyone else… I’m not saying others should die, I just feel like they’re the ones who would make that kind of choice. How could it be Su Bei?”

The children sighed in unison, all looking downcast.

Standing not far away, Su Bei found the scene a bit amusing. The doll the author had placed at the end of the chapter had actually led many readers to guess that he was still alive. Su Bei had been browsing the forums these past few days and had mostly seen fans who enjoyed the drama and hoped Jiang Tianming and the others would suffer a little longer. Now, seeing young readers who were genuinely worried he might die, he found it amusing and, surprisingly, a little touching.

Now that his crisis was over, manga readers as a species were of little use to him. But to have a group of people who wished him well without asking for anything in return was, in itself, a great benefit. It could make him feel full of strength whenever he occasionally thought of them.

Of course, only occasionally. If he thought about it too much, he’d feel embarrassed.

Checking the time, Su Bei turned and walked towards a public restroom. He was grateful that the real world also had public restrooms, giving him a good place to hide when he disappeared. Disappearing on the street felt like it would cause a commotion, which might bring trouble to the author.

Although bringing trouble to the author was something Su Bei looked forward to, if it affected his ability to draw the manga, he felt that ‘Manga Consciousness’ would cry when he got back.

Speaking of which, he had originally wanted to hurry back and ask the author about this world’s setting and how so many magical power systems could coexist. But eavesdropping on the children’s conversation had taken up a lot of time, so he had to honestly return to the manga world.

But he figured asking ‘Manga Consciousness’ would be the same. As the author’s subconscious, it must know a lot about the real world.

He had to admit, at the moment of his return, Su Bei was very grateful for his decision to hide in a restroom with no surveillance and no one watching. If he had been snatched away by a giant golden hand suddenly appearing from a magic array on the street, he would have died of social embarrassment.

Following the same process as his arrival, he returned to his room. Su Bei let out a long sigh of relief. “I’m back!”

“Welcome back!” ‘Manga Consciousness’ cheered enthusiastically, even setting off a small party popper to celebrate.

Su Bei poured himself a glass of water and gulped it down. After catching his breath, he asked, “I went to the real world and saw so many strange power systems there. Why is that?”

This wasn’t information that needed to be hidden; in fact, there was very little to hide from Su Bei now. ‘Manga Consciousness’ explained, “Because the real world’s dimensional wall isn’t very stable, it’s always connecting to all sorts of different worlds, including product worlds like this one. When some people enter by accident, they might bring that world’s abilities back out, which is how the real world with its very diverse energy systems came to be.”

So that’s how it was. Su Bei understood. But he soon became puzzled again. “In that case, shouldn’t authors be trying to construct powerful systems, then combine them with the World Cornerstone to make themselves and the real world stronger?”

“Of course not!” ‘Manga Consciousness’ sounded a bit surprised. “Why would you think that? If everyone blindly pursued powerful systems in their works, sooner or later, the real world would be invaded by people from the product worlds.”

After a moment’s thought, it gave a more direct explanation: “The primary condition for a world to be approved for integration with a World Cornerstone is that it cannot exceed the strength of the real world.”

“Very rigorous.” Su Bei gave a thumbs-up, but his mind was on something else. In that case, if they were to develop secretly where the author couldn’t see, would it be possible for them to break the dimensional wall on their own?

He couldn’t think about it anymore. Anymore thinking and he might turn into some kind of villain who starts a world war.