Chapter 344

With that matter settled, Su Bei truly lived a life detached from worldly strife for a while. From the endless stream of news on the official Ability User website, it was clear that humans collaborating with Nightmare Beasts were now causing trouble all over the world, aiming to destroy various nations’ defenses.

Many of the defenses they destroyed would take a long time to repair. The consequences of this were obvious: when the Nightmare Beasts launched their final assault, a large portion of the defenses would definitely not be fully repaired.

But the government was helpless against them. All they could do now was maintain a passive defense. After all, a thief can strike on any of a thousand days, but you can’t stand guard for a thousand days. The Nightmare Beasts and the traitors were causing trouble without any regard for the cost or consequences, and they simply couldn’t be stopped.

However, despite this, everyone’s mentality was quite optimistic. They all knew that as long as they survived this final assault, humanity would have victory firmly in its grasp. So, although this final assault was bound to be tough, with a delicious carrot dangling in front of them, everyone was highly motivated.

The manga’s plot updated again, this time laying the groundwork for the second season’s grand finale.

After lying low for several months, Su Bei was finally unsealed. He regained his abilities and Mental Energy. He felt his strength and methods returning.

After briefly reacquainting himself with the abilities he hadn’t used for months, Su Bei began developing a new one based on his previous inspiration. Although he didn’t know how long it was until the grand finale, he figured it wouldn’t be more than two months. He had to develop a new ability as soon as possible to astonish everyone when the time came.

“Actually, your current abilities are more than enough to play a role in the finale. There’s no need to be in such a hurry to develop a new one,” the “Manga Consciousness” couldn’t help but advise, seeing him cooped up all day for his research.

Su Bei shook his head. “With no school and no danger, now is the best time for research. I’m not doing this to show off in some grand finale, but for my life afterward.”

What he wanted to research was a way to transform destiny into cause and effect. The cycle of cause and effect was inherently a part of destiny, but if he could master it, he could change the past and the future.

Currently, Su Bei could only change the future, and this change was not stable. While the Major Destiny Pointer’s direction was already very clear, the same position could still lead to multiple possibilities.

Take the common ‘go out’ point, for example. Leaving this house is ‘going out,’ leaving this town is ‘going out,’ and leaving this world is also ‘going out.’ Therefore, every time he adjusted the pointer, it involved an element of gambling; the only difference was the probability.

Besides, although the Major Destiny Pointer had more than twelve points, Su Bei found after exploring that many of the smaller points were somewhat repetitive, at most increasing his precision slightly. As for the lower half of the compass, that was another story entirely; he hadn’t even finished exploring it. After all, that side was filled with ways to die, and even if he used Nightmare Beasts to test them one by one, there weren’t that many opportunities.

That was why Su Bei had to approach development from a new direction. Since his Mental Energy couldn’t support the breadth of his ability, he could only dig into its depth.

Of course, digging into the depth of an ability was very difficult. But fortunately, Su Bei had already received inspiration for it before and had long since planned his research route, so the research went quite smoothly.

By the middle of the fourth month of his faked death, Su Bei had successfully developed a new ability.

“I shall name it ‘Causal Correction’!” Su Bei said with a sense of accomplishment, looking at the brand-new Destiny Compass.

The “Manga Consciousness,” which had witnessed the entire process, played a clapping sound effect in Su Bei’s ear. “Congratulations, congratulations. This new ability is indeed very strong.”

It wasn’t flattering Su Bei, just stating the truth. Su Bei’s new ability was indeed extremely powerful, a skill that could distort time and reverse cause and effect.

“Causal Correction,” as the name implied, could modify the cause and effect of an event. It could either modify the effect through the cause or modify the cause through the effect.

However, this Causal Correction couldn’t truly change destiny; all it could do was correct it.

For example, say Little Hong had an allergic reaction yesterday because she ate an apple. The result—the allergy—could not be changed, but the reason for the allergy and what happened before could be altered.

That is, he could go back to the past and cause Little Hong to have an allergic reaction through another method. This change in method could naturally influence the result. For instance, if he used medicine in the past to make Little Hong allergic, then upon returning to the present, he could give her the antidote, directly ending her allergic reaction.

By the same logic, if Little Hong had died in the past, as long as he could return to the past in time to give her a revival item, he could also create the effect of resurrection.

“In time” here referred to delivering the item within its usage window. After all, when he finished changing the past, he would still return to the present. The present time could not be changed. Little Hong would still be in a state of death, so only if the item could still be used on her could she be revived by it.

However, he could only act along a single causal line; his actions could not deviate from it. Using the apple allergy example, it meant he could only appear at the time points when Little Hong ate the apple and when she had the allergic reaction. The more time points a causal event involved, the more time he could rewind.

Once he went out of range or the cause and effect were broken, the current correction would fail, and the spent Mental Energy would not be refunded.

Most importantly, the skill’s Mental Energy consumption wasn’t large. Although he returned to the past, the established destiny wouldn’t be changed, so the Mental Energy cost was only based on the time points he rewound to.

However, the cooldown was a bit long—ten days per use, the longest of all his current skills. The same cause and effect could not be corrected a second time, and a failed correction also counted as a use.

It was worth mentioning that the upper limit for this skill’s rewind was his time of birth, sixteen years ago. He did not exist on a causal line before that, so naturally, he couldn’t go back.

This skill was not for combat, but it was an unexpectedly excellent tool. Used at a critical moment, it could definitely turn the tide. Most importantly, Destiny-type abilities were always difficult to defend against. When he went back to the past to change the cause, what could people who only existed in the present do about it?

Perhaps only time-type Ability users like Elvis would have some means to counter it, but at least he couldn’t do so right now.

For the time being, he had no use for this ability, but Su Bei wasn’t in a hurry. Unless Jiang Tianming and the others left the academy immediately in the third season, he would have plenty of opportunities to use his abilities. He wasn’t worried about not being able to use it.

Having developed a new ability, Su Bei was in a great mood. He spent the next few days playing to his heart’s content, as if trying to make up for all the time he had lost. Back then, Jiang Tianming and his team had handled the avalanche so swiftly that the local tourism industry wasn’t affected at all, so Su Bei had a wonderful time.

However, staying here long-term was just like staying in the Nightmare Beast World long-term; it would become uncomfortable. After all, it was cold, sparsely populated, and the scenery was monotonous. It was novel for a day or two, but staying longer would make one feel very bored.

Just as Su Bei was hesitating about whether to find an opportunity to leave, he finally received an invitation from the main storyline.

The message was from Principal Wu Di, sent through the notebook of the ‘Destiny’ organization. In simple terms, it was a sincere invitation for the leader of the ‘Destiny’ organization to participate in the final great battle, hoping he would contribute to humanity’s cause.

“Looking for the leader of the ‘Destiny’ organization?” Su Bei raised an eyebrow when he saw the message. “Is this also part of the author’s design?”

Apart from Su Bei himself, no one knew better than the “Manga Consciousness” that he was the leader of the ‘Destiny’ organization. And it was obviously impossible for the author to be ignorant of this fact.

“The author intends to use this to shock the readers, but it’s entirely up to you. If you don’t want to expose this identity, you can refuse and appear as an elite member instead,” the “Manga Consciousness” replied. Having Su Bei appear as the leader would be the icing on the cake for trending topics, but it wouldn’t hurt if he didn’t.

To be honest, if his identity as the organization’s leader were truly revealed, it might actually cause some trouble for the author. Both choices had their pros and cons, so the author naturally left the decision to Su Bei.

Su Bei thought about it. First, he definitely had to participate. Although the ‘Destiny’ organization was a neutral faction, it was absolutely on humanity’s side. If they didn’t participate in the great battle against the Nightmare Beasts, their status would surely plummet after it was over.

When the manga ended, the manga world wouldn’t stop running. He still had to live here, and the ‘Destiny’ organization was the biggest trump card in his hand. It had to be managed well, so he had to participate in such a collective event. Not only participate, but he also had to play a major role to prove his value.

This was the real reason Su Bei was willing to agree to the author’s request. He couldn’t care less about trending topics in the real world; the tangible benefits in the manga world were what he needed to focus on.

As for revealing that he was the organization’s leader, at first glance, it seemed to have no benefit for him other than shocking everyone. He was still a student and needed to attend the academy for another two years. Announcing his identity would only bring him endless trouble and harassment.

Besides, the organization he was in wasn’t some righteous institution; it was a neutral intelligence organization! If the leader’s identity was revealed, the entire organization would be in a precarious state.

After all, even if people didn’t understand the organization’s internal structure, they could guess that as the leader, he must possess some powerful items, perhaps even something that gave him access to all the organization’s intelligence. Capturing him would be an immense gain with no downside, no matter which side did it.

But if he only let the readers know, or guess, the truth, the benefits for him would be considerable.

Once they discovered his extraordinary status, readers would probably be willing to believe whatever incredible abilities Su Bei displayed later. After all, he was already the leader of an organization, so being a bit stronger was normal, right?

Moreover, letting the readers know this had no disadvantages for him; it was all pros and no cons, so there was no reason not to do it. Before, some readers might have accused him of getting special treatment from the author. But things were different now. What kind of author’s favorite disappears from the manga for four or five chapters straight? Su Bei wasn’t worried at all about the readers misunderstanding.

Now that he had a plan, he had to carefully design its execution. He would appear in the manga world as Su Bei, a member of the ‘Destiny’ organization, while simultaneously leading the readers outside the manga to guess that he was its leader.