A Guide for Background Characters to Survive in a Manga - Chapter 36

Upon learning that Si Zhaohua’s ability is [Angel], Mu Tieren didn’t feel fear; instead, he laughed loudly like a big fool and said, “So what? His ability sounds famous, and famous abilities are usually documented in books with their weaknesses. We just need to use his weakness against him.”

Hearing this, everyone was momentarily stunned. This was an approach they hadn’t considered before—defeating Si Zhaohua by exploiting his ability’s weakness? It might actually be feasible!

Jiang Tianming immediately stood up. “Then I’ll go to the library—”

Before he could finish his sentence, Mu Tieren forcefully pressed him back into his seat. “Finish your meal first, then rest well. There’s a day between the individual and team battles, so you can check it out then.”

Watching their conversation, Su Bei finally realized the necessity of Mu Tieren’s presence in the team. Before, since he hadn’t participated in the investigative process, Su Bei had found Mu Tieren somewhat dull compared to the other uniquely characterized members of the protagonist group.

He had even wondered if such a seemingly insignificant character could really stay with the protagonist group until the end or if he would drop out midway.

Now he understood. Mu Tieren wasn’t without purpose; on the contrary, he was the safety lock that the author had placed to keep the team anchored during moments of despair.

Jiang Tianming and Wu Mingbai, although they seemed to have vastly different personalities, were actually quite similar. Both were intelligent, cunning, and had strong pride, and they would be affected by setbacks in similar ways. If one fell into a slump, the other would likely follow for the same reason.

Then there was Lan Subing. She was extremely socially anxious. Although she had improved significantly around people she knew well, expecting her to comfort others was still somewhat unrealistic. Moreover, being well-protected by her family, she had a certain naivety that made her easily hurt.

Mo Xiaotian didn’t need mentioning—he wouldn’t be easily discouraged, but his support was limited to emotional encouragement and practical help.

Only Mu Tieren had unshakable resolve, as if nothing could bring him down. Usually, Jiang Tianming was the smarter one, but when facing a formidable enemy or enduring a harsh blow, it was Mu Tieren who could remain calm and think things through.

This kind of person was exactly what the protagonist group was lacking!

And Su Bei?

Given his current role, he was the kind of person who would suddenly disappear just before the team faced danger.

No, he had one more use.

Seeing that everyone was still somewhat distracted by Mu Tieren’s words, Su Bei swallowed his last bite of food and lazily spoke up, “While you’re worrying about not being able to eat because of Si Zhaohua, the expected number one, have you considered that there are still many people ahead of you?”

—As the one who knows the future, he was responsible for kicking the protagonist group back on track when they veered off course.

Who knows what these people were thinking. Today was only the first round of the arena competition! Aside from Mo Xiaotian, none of them had even faced anyone from Class B, yet they were already worrying about how to defeat the top student in Class A.

Even though Su Bei knew they would surely make it to the final day, the characters in the story didn’t know that. Without confidence in defeating their upcoming opponents, they were already fretting over how to beat the top student. Wasn’t that absurd?

If it weren’t for him, perhaps after a minor setback from other classmates tomorrow, the protagonist group would realize their mistake. After all, none of them were the type to get carried away—they had just lost their focus momentarily.

But since he was here, he might as well lightly nudge them back on track and save them the trouble.

After speaking, Su Bei picked up his tray and left the cafeteria.

After he left, the group exchanged looks, and it was Jiang Tianming who reacted first. Rather than getting angry at Su Bei’s borderline mocking words, he nodded seriously. “The words weren’t pleasant, but they’re true.”

“Let’s work hard tomorrow, at least until we face Si Zhaohua.” Lan Subing clenched her fist to cheer everyone on. She also needed to think about how to effectively use her ability tomorrow. As the eldest daughter of the Lan family, Lan Subing had her own pride. She absolutely would not fall in the first three days!

Mo Xiaotian, who had barely been affected, shouted enthusiastically, “Yay! After the monthly exam, everyone come to Class A!”

“Shut up.” Wu Mingbai scolded him quietly while quickly rushing over to cover his mouth, glaring at the other students who were giving them strange looks.

Mu Tieren didn’t mind, though. Stretching out his long arms, he gathered everyone up and started leading them out. “Hahaha, let’s go. Class A might be tough, but we’ll give it our best.”

Meanwhile, back in the dormitory, Su Bei didn’t rest to recover his energy. Instead, after tidying up briefly, he headed straight to the library.

The protagonist group didn’t need to worry about Si Zhaohua so early, but he did. He needed to quickly learn about Si Zhaohua’s ability and see if there were any adjustments he needed to make to his own ability.

The fact that Class S hadn’t been established yet was an opportunity for Su Bei. The moment he heard Si Zhaohua’s words, he realized that his earlier response to Jiang Tianming had accidentally hit the mark—it really wasn’t necessary to rush.

He didn’t know if the protagonist would end up in Class S, but he had to ensure that he could. Yes, “could,” not “had to.” He only needed the qualification to enter Class S; whether or not he would join depended on where the protagonist ended up. Wherever the protagonist went, that’s where he would be.

An ability like [Angel] should likely fall under the category of professional abilities, which are not uncommon and are generally very practical. For example, if someone awakened the [Programmer] ability, they could choose to become an actual programmer in the future if they didn’t want to pursue a career as an ability user.

This type of ability, besides being useful in combat for offense and defense, can genuinely enhance the wielder’s programming skills.

Sure enough, in the special category of books introducing professional abilities, Su Bei found information about the [Angel] ability.

Although this ability is rare, every time someone with the [Angel] ability matures, they invariably become a prominent figure, so it is not unknown.

The book didn’t have much to say, only mentioning that the [Angel] ability has no evolutionary path, much like how faith cannot change. It can only evolve from one pair of wings to two pairs, then three pairs of wings.

This brought up a point that hadn’t been discussed yet: “The evolution of abilities.”

“What? Abilities can evolve?” Su Bei’s eyes widened in surprise, not expecting to stumble upon such a pleasant surprise while researching the [Angel] ability.

Originally, he was just an ordinary person, and since both his parents were also ordinary, he naturally knew little about the specifics of ability users.

With new content sparking his curiosity, he couldn’t continue searching for more information on [Angel]. He set the book aside and immediately began looking for books introducing ability evolution.

Ability evolution isn’t exactly a secret, so Su Bei quickly found relevant books. From the introduction in the early chapters, he learned that when an ability develops to a certain extent, it can undergo evolution.

The book provided a few very simple examples, like [Fireball] evolving into [Fire Element], or [Singing] evolving into [Sound]…

That’s right, this is essentially just a deeper development of abilities, not really new knowledge. It’s simply a matter of development reaching a point where quantitative changes lead to qualitative changes, resulting in significant transformation, even to the point of renaming the ability.

Having understood this, Su Bei quickly lost interest in this so-called “ability evolution.”

He turned back to the book on [Angel]. [Angel] is an ability that excels in both offense and defense; its wings are nearly impervious to weapons, and each feather is incredibly sharp.

But using feathers to attack is just a basic attack for the [Angel] ability, something like a “normal attack” in gaming terms. This inherently powerful ability comes with a special move called “Judgment.” The more wings the [Angel] has, the stronger the Judgment.

The most powerful Six-Winged [Angel] in history used the “Judgment” ability to annihilate an entire city of Nightmare Beasts, reducing them to ashes.

It’s precisely because of this that whenever this ability appears, high-level Nightmare Beasts immediately start hunting the user. Only top-tier organizations like the Ability Academy can protect such rare ability users, which is also why Si Zhaohua attends the academy and doesn’t mind showcasing his ability.

After flipping through the pages and finding no mention of any weaknesses for the [Angel] ability, Su Bei raised an eyebrow. Although the absence of information in the book doesn’t necessarily mean there are no weaknesses, it’s clear that the weaknesses of [Angel] are not easy to uncover. The protagonist group might be in for a tough time this round.

Leaving the library, Su Bei had a good sense of things. Si Zhaohua is likely capable of getting into Class S, and by using the [Angel] ability as a benchmark, it’s clear that to get into Class S, an ability needs to be strong enough, ideally well-rounded with no significant weaknesses.

He couldn’t help but sigh. If only he knew of a few more abilities that were guaranteed to get into Class S—having just one as a reference isn’t very useful.

With a sigh, he opened his phone. It was now eight in the evening, and tomorrow’s match information should be out soon. As expected, the official website had updated with the latest news.

Seeing his opponent, Su Bei finally breathed a sigh of relief. This time, once again his opponent was from Class C, and if he remembered correctly, her ability was [Mist Rising]. This ability currently doesn’t have much offensive power; it only creates thick fog in the surrounding area.

Although the information didn’t provide specific details, if nothing unexpected happened, the opponent should be able to see clearly in the fog, while only the enemy’s vision would be affected.

For an ordinary person, facing such an ability in a match would indeed be challenging; one could easily be lured to the edge of the arena and pushed off. After all, in thick fog, they wouldn’t just lose sight of their opponent but also their own position in the arena.

But for Su Bei, there was no need to worry. His combat ability was enough to easily deal with an untrained person, even if he were blindfolded.

After checking his opponent, he glanced at the other members of the protagonist group’s opponents. After looking through them, Su Bei raised his eyebrows and cheerfully whistled, “Looks like tomorrow will be an easy day of spectating.”

The next day, the match order was Lan Subing, Wu Mingbai, Jiang Tianming, Mu Tieren, Mo Xiaotian, and Su Bei.

After receiving this order from the group’s messages, Su Bei couldn’t help but ask, “Wasn’t our match order deliberately set by the author?”

After seeing yesterday’s order, Su Bei was certain that the match order was intentionally arranged by the author; otherwise, there was no way to explain why the core members of the group were saved for last.

But today’s match order made him doubt this assumption—why had the protagonist group been moved to the front? Could he have been wrong?

However, his “Manga Awareness” confirmed his guess: “It was set by the author.”

“Then why…”

Before Su Bei could finish asking his question, “Manga Awareness” already guessed what he wanted to know: “Putting Jiang Tianming and his group at the front today was to make them face strong opponents and adjust their mindset.”

Su Bei suddenly understood. He had already noticed this issue by noon—Jiang Tianming’s group had been too focused on Si Zhaohua and neglected their own situation.

Thanks to Su Bei’s taunting earlier, they likely snapped back to normal. Unfortunately, it didn’t change the fact that they still had to face strong opponents.

Suddenly, Su Bei thought of something: “So it seems like the rest of us will have our battles glossed over tomorrow, right?”

The manga’s length was limited, and even if the author wanted to stretch things out, they couldn’t depict all twelve matches for the six of them. The first day’s matches might get full coverage, but the second day would be difficult. With Jiang Tianming’s group already in the spotlight, it seemed likely the rest of them wouldn’t have much screen time.

Without needing a response, Su Bei already knew the answer. He wasn’t disappointed, though. His battle the next day was against a weak opponent, so it wouldn’t be very interesting anyway.

He started thinking about how to spend the free time he would have the next morning, as he wouldn’t be featured.

He had two options: One, he could go watch Ai Baozhu and Zhou Renjie’s matches to learn more about their abilities. Or two, he could take the opportunity to interact with Zhao Xiaoyu and Wu Jin.

He hadn’t approached them before because there hadn’t been much opportunity. Wu Jin was quite unremarkable in class, and Zhao Xiaoyu mostly hung out with the girls. Su Bei couldn’t just walk up to them out of nowhere, right?

But now, with the midterm exams providing a good opportunity, having witnessed their performance, it would be perfectly reasonable for Su Bei to approach them.

After a brief hesitation, he decided to do both. Zhao Xiaoyu was on the same team as Ai Baozhu, so she likely wouldn’t miss her teammate’s match. Su Bei figured he could approach them then.

He checked the official information and confirmed that all four of them, except Ai Baozhu, had their matches in the morning.

Early the next morning, Su Bei opened the door and coincidentally saw Feng Lan. He suddenly remembered that Feng Lan also had a morning match.

“Good morning, want to go together?” Su Bei asked. The two hadn’t spent much time together lately, since they were in different teams and busy with their matches.

Feng Lan nodded and after a moment asked, “Do you also have a morning match?”

“No, mine’s in the afternoon. Jiang Tianming and the others are in the morning,” Su Bei replied ambiguously, making it sound like he was heading to watch Jiang Tianming’s match. In reality, he had already turned down their invitation to join them, saying he wanted to act alone today.

Feng Lan didn’t ask further and they walked together to the field.

Scanning the area, Su Bei saw that Wu Mingbai was currently in the arena, meaning Lan Subing had already finished her match.

Lan Subing looked pale, but surprisingly, she had pulled down her thick scarf, revealing her face.

What had happened? Su Bei raised his eyebrows in surprise but quickly moved his attention away, knowing he would see it all in the manga tomorrow.

He refocused on his target, Zhao Xiaoyu, who was the first to compete in Si Zhaohua’s team that day.

The second to compete would be Feng Lan.

That was the reason Su Bei had come now. Watching teammates’ matches was not something Feng Lan usually did.

Seeing Su Bei following him to Zhao Xiaoyu’s match, Feng Lan looked at him with a surprised expression, wondering why he had come along.

“Her performance is pretty interesting,” Su Bei said casually, folding his arms. There wasn’t even a hint of romantic interest in his tone—only curiosity about the match.

For the first time, Feng Lan gave his teammate on the stage a serious look, as if trying to remember this person Su Bei found “interesting.”

Zhao Xiaoyu was already engaged in battle with her opponent, a student from Class D. Her opponent’s ability wasn’t very strong, at least not enough to be useful in the arena.

As a result, Zhao Xiaoyu used the same strategy as yesterday: fighting while retreating, pretending to resist but showing no real chance of winning. This tactic was highly effective against untrained opponents. Once her opponent let their guard down and became overconfident, the tide of battle would instantly turn, leading to their defeat.

It must be said that her acting skills were impressive. Even someone like Su Bei, who had been in plenty of fights, would have had a hard time spotting that she was deliberately feigning weakness.

As expected, the outcome mirrored the first day: her opponent couldn’t control her laughter and easily defeated by Zhao Xiaoyu.

Zhao Xiaoyu was clearly in a good mood after winning. She was well aware of her own limitations, and passing the first two days of exams with her basic abilities from Class F was already a success. As long as she performed well in the team battles, she wouldn’t have to worry about advancing to the next class.

In fact, in the Ability Academy, aside from Class F, there was a general sense of equality among students. The primary differences lay between the students themselves, not the teachers.

Zhao Xiaoyu didn’t blame Meng Huai’s teaching methods. In fact, she believed that training physical strength was the best approach for Class F students.

But the problem is, she wanted to improve her ability!

If she ended up having to return to the normal world, what would her hard-earned awakening and the three years she lost amount to?

As Zhao Xiaoyu stepped off the arena and saw Su Bei, she was clearly taken aback. She couldn’t figure out why he had come to watch her match.

After nearly a month in Class F, Zhao Xiaoyu believed she had gained clarity about many things. First and foremost, Su Bei, Feng Lan, and Lan Subing were undoubtedly not staying in Class F.

Then there were Mu Tieren and Jiang Tianming, who also seemed likely to leave Class F, though Zhao Xiaoyu couldn’t be sure due to uncertainties about their abilities.

Naturally, Zhao Xiaoyu wanted to integrate with this group of potential Class F standouts, especially the first three. With their abilities, it was clear that Class F couldn’t contain them. Getting close to them would be far more useful than getting involved with someone like Si Zhaohua, whom she barely knew.

However, being the smart person she was, she quickly realized how difficult it would be and decided not to waste her time.

Still, what she hadn’t expected was that the people she couldn’t even approach before were now actively coming to watch her match. Zhao Xiaoyu knew for sure that it wasn’t Feng Lan who had brought Su Bei along, so why was he here?

Puzzled, she walked over and asked, “Su Bei, Feng Lan, why are you guys here?”

“You did well in the match,” Su Bei began with a polite compliment before getting to the point, “Do you know what Ai Baozhu and Zhou Renjie’s abilities are?”

So that’s why, Zhao Xiaoyu thought. Although she didn’t think Jiang Tianming’s team could compare to Si Zhaohua’s, she still asked, “Why don’t you ask the person next to you?”

Compared to her, who was a late addition to the team, Feng Lan, who had been recruited by Si Zhaohua from the start, was more likely to know about their abilities.

Su Bei glanced at the indifferent-looking Feng Lan beside him, who seemed uninterested in the matter: “Do you think he’d ask?”

Zhao Xiaoyu instantly understood.

Even Feng Lan was mildly intrigued by the conversation now, turning slightly: “I could ask.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Su Bei promptly stopped him.

If Feng Lan went to ask, Si Zhaohua would surely notice something suspicious. And if he asked who had told him to ask, Feng Lan definitely wouldn’t hide it from him.

At least for now, Su Bei didn’t want his information-gathering to be exposed. And by “exposed,” he meant publicly, especially to the protagonist group, not just a few individuals. It didn’t matter if Feng Lan and Zhao Xiaoyu knew.

Feng Lan wasn’t the gossiping type. While he would probably answer honestly if asked, who would think to ask him if someone was trying to gather information?

As for Zhao Xiaoyu, if she didn’t want to answer the question, she might spill the beans, but she would definitely respond first.

Watching their interaction, Zhao Xiaoyu smiled and said, “You two really have a good relationship.”

Then, with a slightly strange expression, she asked, “But I still don’t get why you’d come to me with this. You know I’m on their team, right?”

Su Bei smiled back, his expression carrying a hint of deeper meaning: “Even if you told me, your team would still win, wouldn’t it?”

The most important thing was that, while Zhao Xiaoyu wanted her team to win, she also didn’t want too many people, especially those from Class A, to steal the spotlight.

This was easy to understand. Zhao Xiaoyu wanted a good score to move up from Class F, the higher, the better. But everyone knew that teachers would be watching the team battles closely. If she simply let herself be carried by Class A students, how could she earn a good evaluation?

But if the three Class A students were successfully targeted by other teams, leaving room for Zhao Xiaoyu to shine, her problem would be solved.

Of course, this all depended on her team winning, even if those students were targeted. Otherwise, the whole plan would backfire. And it was clear Zhao Xiaoyu was confident about that.

At her core, Zhao Xiaoyu is a sophisticated egoist.

So, after thinking over Su Bei’s words, she nodded with a complex expression and said, “I promise you”