Chapter 360:

Just as Su Bei expected, using the gears as a medium, they were indeed able to touch the Destiny Lines related to themselves and see their contents.

Seeing that everyone had closed their eyes, immersed in experiencing the stories on other Destiny Lines, Su Bei wasted no more time. He reached out and touched the Destiny Line that exuded a strong aura of Su Bei, entering another story that belonged to him.

What Su Bei hadn’t expected was that the turning point of this Destiny Line was at the node of his parents’ death. In this Destiny Line, Su Bei’s parents were still alive.

Because of the changes he had made to the past, his parents were members of the ‘Destiny’ organization, with his father being its leader. However, on the surface, their identities were still a police officer and a soldier, and they were indeed serving the country.

There was a very interesting point in this timeline: the reason for the establishment of the ‘Destiny’ organization. Su Bei hadn’t designed this detail, but in this timeline, the chain of logic was completed.

The establishment of ‘Destiny’ initially began as a plan formulated by the state based on Su Bei’s father’s ability, [Information Retrieval and Secrecy]. This plan was, naturally, to gather intelligence and form a new intelligence network.

[Information Retrieval and Secrecy], as its name implied, could classify and integrate acquired information, and no ability could extract classified secrets from it. Paired with the notebook item, it formed the core tool of the ‘Destiny’ organization.

In the original world line, his father’s death led the higher-ups to believe the plan was a complete failure, resulting in the members recruited at the time never being put to use. But in reality, the prototype program for the ‘Destiny’ organization had already been set up; the plan was just short of being officially launched.

Therefore, in this timeline, the ‘Destiny’ organization was a neutral organization on the surface, but it secretly belonged to the state.

Under this premise, Su Bei’s experiences were naturally completely different from his current ones. Looking at that ‘Su Bei’ who had been raised by the state since childhood and exuded an air of righteousness, Su Bei couldn’t help but shudder.

Although that ‘Su Bei’ also liked to slack off and had many small habits similar to Su Bei’s, their temperaments were worlds apart. Even with a nonchalant demeanor, the other one was clearly staunchly on the side of justice. Moreover, he was obviously very direct, the type to speak his mind.

The righteous ‘Su Bei’ also came to Endless Ability Academy. His ability was [Destiny Gear], and he was also assigned to Class F. And the reason he went to Class F had genuinely become because he foresaw interesting people in Class F, so he specifically discussed it with his parents to come here for a month first.

The plot of encountering an assassin in the bathroom on the first day of school overlapped with Su Bei’s experience, but their reactions afterward were completely different.

Because Su Bei had to be an enigmatic person, he didn’t mention it at all. But the ‘Su Bei’ in the other timeline reported it directly to the academy.

Unfortunately, his report had little effect. Due to the plot’s demands, the main storyline had to proceed. In the subsequent plot, ‘Su Bei’ participated far more than Su Bei himself. Although he liked to slack off, his inner sense of justice was far greater than Su Bei’s.

The Destiny-type ability always allowed him to be one step ahead when danger occurred. Su Bei mostly used this ‘one step ahead’ to escape, while he used it to make arrangements in advance, hoping to resolve the danger as soon as possible.

After watching the general story of this timeline, Su Bei felt a bit dazed. A very righteous ‘Su Bei’ was truly a study in contrast. If he hadn’t been commissioned by the ‘Manga Consciousness’, perhaps he would have been such a person too.

No, that’s not right. If he hadn’t been commissioned by the ‘Manga Consciousness’, his ability would still have been the initial [Gear]. With such a weak ability, it would have been impossible for him to risk his life to participate in the protagonist group’s adventures, let alone experience all these things.

Withdrawing his Mental Energy, Su Bei touched the next Destiny Line.

As expected, yet still surprising, he searched through all the timelines and found only one destiny where he had awakened the [Gear] ability. And on this line, it was remarkably similar to the original manga; he died in the bathroom right at the beginning, with no story to follow. This was also the earliest he had ever died across all Destiny Lines.

In the other Destiny Lines, where he had awakened the [Destiny Gear] ability, his safety was, if nothing else, truly maxed out. Especially since he wasn’t someone who liked to court disaster, he almost always survived until the grand finale.

The only time he didn’t live to the grand finale was when he was firmly on the side of justice. It was a very clichéd story: during the final battle, he sacrificed himself to save more people.

Honestly, Su Bei found it hard to imagine himself actually sacrificing his own life to save others, but this was indeed a story that happened on another Destiny Line. The influence of education on a person was truly crucial.

Besides this line, the most subversive one was probably the Destiny Line where he didn’t attend Endless Ability Academy at all, but went to the neighboring Skydome Ability Academy instead.

Miraculously, in this line, he had a great relationship with Huangfu Mingzhe, and the two were even jointly hailed as the ‘Twin Stars of Skydome Ability Academy’. But on second thought, it was quite normal. This year’s class at Skydome Ability Academy was clearly led by Huangfu Mingzhe. Since his own strength was not inferior to the other’s, he would certainly have a place there. When two very strong people are in the same class, unless their personalities are particularly incompatible, isn’t it normal for them to become good friends?

During the Tri-School Competition, ‘Su Bei’ naturally represented Skydome Ability Academy and participated. The final result was a two-to-three loss in the individual battles and a defeat in the team battle. There was no helping it; after all, their opponents were the protagonist group of a classic shonen manga. It was impossible for them to win.

Looking at this story that was so completely different for him, even Su Bei, who had already seen many Destiny Lines, couldn’t help but sigh. He had never thought that he would have entirely new friends, while the original protagonist group had become relatively unfamiliar people to him.

If the ‘Su Bei’ from this Destiny Line saw his situation, he would probably be very emotional too.

Of course, this wasn’t what surprised Su Bei the most. Attending a different academy and forming different bonds was a very normal thing. After a brief moment of surprise, he completely understood.

What truly astonished Su Bei was that after looking at so many Destiny Lines, there wasn’t a single one where he became a villain. His stance always wavered only between neutral and good, never once crossing the line.

If he hadn’t seen the Destiny Lines, Su Bei would never have known he was such a righteous person. He had thought that, given the chance, he could easily be swayed to the villain’s side.

Back when the manga was still being updated, he had thought more than once about whether to just defect to the other side. On the villain’s side, he wouldn’t have to participate in too much of the early plot, and as long as he could find a way to redeem himself in the later stages, he could survive.

Moreover, compared to the good side, which almost always had to operate in the open, the villain side, working in the shadows, would surely obtain more intelligence. In the early stages, he often used information asymmetry to his advantage. Su Bei often wondered at the time if the villain’s side would be more beneficial for him.

But in the end, he gave up on the idea. At that time, he still needed the plot to strengthen himself. After joining the Black Flash Organization, he wouldn’t have as many opportunities for screen time, which was definitely not good news for him.

But no matter what, he did have the idea of going to the villain’s side; he just gave it up after weighing the pros and cons.

Yet in countless Destiny Lines, Su Bei had never truly gone over to the villain’s side. It couldn’t be that every time he weighed the pros and cons, staying on the good side was always the better option, right?

Although he didn’t want to admit it, it seemed he really was a genuine ‘good kid’.

“Of course!” Because he hadn’t intentionally hidden his thoughts, the ‘Manga Consciousness’, which happened to overhear, immediately agreed. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have dared to entrust the mission of saving the world to you back then!”

Although a very important reason it had sought out Su Bei was that he was the most suitable and most likely person to complete the world-saving mission at the time, the more important reason was that Su Bei had always possessed a righteous heart.

Perhaps he appeared very indifferent many times, but when it came to major issues, he had never dropped the ball.

If Su Bei were someone easily swayed into becoming a villain, then even if he were the most suitable candidate, the ‘Manga Consciousness’ would absolutely not have chosen him. Rather than entrusting the one and only chance to revive and save the world to a villain, it would prefer to let that chance rot.

“Well, thank you so much for that,” Su Bei said sarcastically. He didn’t really think that living to save the world was much better than dying back then, at least not at the time. As for now, Su Bei had to admit that enjoying life while being alive was indeed more wonderful.

Opening his eyes again, Su Bei looked at the others. Unlike himself, whose Destiny Lines were relatively monotonous, perhaps because they were the proper protagonist group, their Destiny Lines were much more numerous, and they were still immersed in watching.

Su Bei was a little curious about what destinies they were seeing. He moved closer and first touched one of Jiang Tianming’s Destiny Lines.

In the scene of the destiny, Jiang Tianming was wearing a black formal suit, sitting atop a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood. There was no light in his eyes; his entire being was like a walking corpse, yet he exuded an extremely powerful aura.

It’s a villain route! he exclaimed inwardly. The Jiang Tianming who had become a mass-murdering archvillain was clearly less vibrant than the current one. He didn’t seem to enjoy killing; it was unclear for what reason he had become like this.

However, Su Bei felt it was probably related to the third season of the manga. In the third season, Jiang Tianming’s father deliberately exposed Jiang Tianming’s true ability, [Death Call], and then killed a few people to frame him. Even abilities couldn’t uncover the truth.

Undoubtedly, Jiang Tianming’s father’s frame-up was successful. At that time, forget Endless Ability Academy, even the outside world had heard about it. Many people demanded that Jiang Tianming be locked up.

If they hadn’t successfully proven Jiang Tianming’s innocence back then, perhaps he really would have been taken away by his father and become a puppet of darkness.

A protagonist, ah, they just seem simple on the surface, but in reality, if they take even one wrong step, they can no longer be the protagonist.

But then Su Bei thought again, the path he had walked also had no margin for error. If he hadn’t managed to gain the trust of the protagonist group early on, failed to get screen time in front of the readers, or failed to make himself strong enough, the mission would have failed long ago.

So Su Bei could say with absolute certainty that he was a genuine protagonist!