A Guide for Background Characters to Survive in a Manga

33:

On the eve of the monthly individual battle, the official website had already released the competition schedule. On the first day, each person only needed to participate in one round of competition, and Su Bei’s opponent was a student from Class C.

The opponent’s special ability was listed in the data as “Rubber Man,” capable of rubberizing himself, significantly increasing his resilience.

Honestly, with his ability, he could have been placed in Class B, but perhaps the school felt he still needed some training, so they assigned him to Class C.

Upon seeing this opponent, a bitter smile instantly appeared on Su Bei’s face. He really shouldn’t have overestimated his luck as a cannon fodder; out of 200 people from Classes C, D, and F combined, he had to encounter one of the most formidable opponents.

This luck was truly unmatched.

Such a special ability was a significant restraint for someone like him who planned to rely on combat skills. After all, the opponent could easily perform movements that many others couldn’t, making techniques like shoulder throws ineffective against him.

Moreover, being rubberized meant he was less prone to injury, as that kind of elastic material wouldn’t be easily cut.

Despite this, Su Bei didn’t hesitate to bet all his points on himself. If he didn’t believe in himself, he might as well concede defeat.

Their wager probably wouldn’t attract much attention, with not many betting on it. However, he assumed his opponent would also bet on himself, so as long as he won, he could at least earn the opponent’s points.

After placing his bet, he couldn’t help but ask, “Comic Sense, is my terrible luck inherent, or is it because of my cannon fodder status?”

His luck had always been poor, but not to this extent, right? Out of 200 students, only about a dozen were worth caution, and he had to face one in the first round?

Comic Sense couldn’t help but sigh at his misfortune: “The peak of your bad luck was the moment you were killed by the murderer, but after being saved, your luck will gradually return to normal. However, this change might take six months to a year, so…”

So his current streak of bad luck was beyond the usual, making this damned situation in the first round somewhat excusable. Su Bei could already imagine facing an all-A opponent on the third day.

Now, he needed to ponder how to defeat that rubber man. Lying in bed, thinking, Su Bei gradually drifted into sleep.

The next day, the competition officially began. The school divided the playground into ten arenas, each separated by five meters, allowing ten matches to proceed simultaneously. Each arena was 20×20, with two referees standing on the main stage, one in charge of overseeing five arenas.

Su Bei was in the third round of competition, and it was soon his turn. As he was the first in the protagonist group to compete, Jiang Tianming and the others were cheering for him below the stage, although Su Bei didn’t really need it.

Standing on the arena, the green-haired boy opposite him flaunted his special ability, casually contorting his body, taunting Su Bei.

Indeed, he was flaunting. He twisted his body into an S-shape, then a C-shape, his main feature being his whimsicality.

While flaunting, he also shouted a suggestion to surrender: “If I remember correctly, you’re a student from Class F, right? If you ask me, you might as well just give up. It saves you trouble, and it saves me trouble. If you fail today, you can take a four-day holiday right away. How nice is that?”

Watching him with such an easygoing demeanor, Su Bei’s eyebrows twitched, a glint of sharpness flashing in his eyes as if he knew why this ability, which should have been in Class B, was assigned to Class C.

His expression turned to astonishment: “Is this your ability? It’s amazing! You can change into so many shapes!”

Hearing this, the green-haired boy immediately puffed up with pride, twisting his arms in a showy manner: “Of course, I’m not afraid to tell you, after this month’s exam, I’m probably going to be moved up to Class B. Bad luck running into me, you better surrender now, or it’ll be worse if you get hurt later.”

However, Su Bei shook his head, feigning difficulty: “I actually don’t want to compete, my ability… being assigned to Class F, you know it’s not very useful. But our class teacher is very strict, if I surrender directly, I’ll definitely be punished after the monthly exam.”

His words seemed reasonable. Although the green-haired boy had never been to Class F, he had seen the robust teacher of that class. The teacher looked like the Spartan type, one who would physically punish students.

Thinking that Su Bei was considering surrendering, the green-haired boy relaxed quite a bit. Of course, the reason he could relax was that he didn’t think a student from Class F could cause any trouble.

“So what do you want to do? Stage a fake match?”

“No need for that trouble,” Su Bei shook his head, looking out for both sides’ interests, “Just use your ability to perform a few powerful moves for me. When our homeroom teacher sees how lethal your moves are, he’ll have no objections to me surrendering directly.”

The green-haired boy thought it made sense and agreed decisively. Then, activating his ability, he coiled his body like a snake into a large circle: “See? This is my entwining technique, able to coil around a person like a snake, binding them until they suffocate.”

He quickly retracted his ability after speaking, his face pale, forcing a relaxed look towards Su Bei: “Now you can surrender, right?”

“Let’s shake hands and end the fight peacefully,” Su Bei said with a smile, nodding and walking towards the boy.

Unfortunately, the green-haired boy wasn’t a fool. Seeing this, he became instantly wary: “Wait, don’t move! I don’t want to shake your hand!”

Su Bei wouldn’t listen to him. Seeing that the boy couldn’t be fooled, he made a split-second decision to rush forward, covering three meters in a single step, almost instantly reaching the green-haired boy.

Before becoming an ability user, the green-haired boy was just an untrained ordinary person, and at this moment, he couldn’t react in time, directly caught by Su Bei in an unforgiving shoulder throw.

He instinctively wanted to activate his ability to save himself, but the performances just now, especially the last one, had greatly drained his mental strength.

It’s known that the green-haired boy was temporarily placed in Class C precisely because of his poor mental strength. If it weren’t for his poor endurance, he wouldn’t have shown off his ability to try and scare Su Bei into surrendering, leading to his current powerless state, unable to launch any effective attacks.

He had been tricked!

It was only now that he realized Su Bei’s request for a performance was ill-intentioned. Had he known, he would have used his “Rubber Man” ability while his mental strength was still sufficient to throw Su Bei off the platform.

Instead of trying to intimidate him into stepping down to save mental strength, he ended up being turned against, now powerless to make any effective counterattacks.

To him, who was devoid of any special abilities, he was nothing but a fish on the chopping board to the well-trained Su Bei.

But now, there was no chance for him to feel remorse. After being thrown over the shoulder and slammed to the ground,

the green-haired man felt dizzy, as if he had spun several times. When he came to his senses, he found himself standing below the arena. The referee, who had appeared at some point, declared Su Bei the winner.

“How could you do this!” The green-haired man’s face was pale from overusing his abilities, but flushed with anger, giving him a somewhat sickly appearance. He pointed at Su Bei on the stage, infuriated, “You’re cheating!”

“All is fair in war,” Su Bei replied leisurely as he walked down the stairs from the stage, winking at him in good spirits, “Thanks for the victory and the points, classmate.”

At those words, the green-haired man suddenly remembered the points he had bet on himself before the match—the 15 points earned from three weeks of classes and the 5 points for helping the teacher, a total of 20 points.

“Ah! My points!” The green-haired man screamed in agony, kneeling on the spot with comic expressiveness, looking up at the sky in pain, “I will never reconcile with you!”

Su Bei: “…”

Enough, he had had enough! He was truly fed up with this comic book world!

Yet, no one else seemed to find anything amiss with the scene. Mo Xiaotian ignored the green-haired man and was the first to rush to Su Bei’s side, “Su Bei, you’re so amazing, you handled Class C without breaking a sweat!”

Even though he was from Class A himself, he didn’t look down on Su Bei’s achievements at all, instead, he looked up to him with admiration.

Jiang Tianming, amused, glanced at the green-haired man still reeling from his first-round defeat and approached, “You’re too aggravating. What were you planning to do if he just sat there?”

Hearing this, Su Bei also looked at the green-haired man and said with a smile, “You failed today, but you get a four-day holiday, isn’t that great?”

Hearing this, the green-haired man felt a sense of déjà vu, and after a moment, he realized—weren’t these the exact words he had said to Su Bei on the stage!

He was instantly enraged, his face turning red with shame and annoyance, and he jumped up, pointing at Su Bei’s nose, “You, you, you, you—”

He stuttered without knowing what to say.

Su Bei turned to Jiang Tianming, raising an eyebrow, “See, he got up, didn’t he?”

“Hahaha!” Wu Mingbai laughed so hard he almost seemed foolish, “I’ve learned, I’ve learned, what a great method!”

It was unclear whether he meant he had learned a method to defeat an enemy or to infuriate someone.

Lan Subing gave Su Bei a thumbs up with her serene face, but perhaps it was Su Bei’s imagination, he seemed to hear her cheering jubilantly in her heart.

The most normal person present was definitely the class leader, Mu Tie Ren. With a face full of admiration, he patted Su Bei’s back: “That shoulder throw of yours wasn’t bad at all. We should practice together sometime.”

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Su Bei nodded happily. Since arriving at the Superpower Academy, it had been a while since he had practiced with anyone. With Mu Tie Ren’s physique and his own superpower, even without practice, he would make a good sparring partner, especially since he had trained before.

Standing at the back, Feng Lan and the others spread out slightly before approaching. After some thought, he asked, “Are you holding back your strength?”

Su Bei was taken aback for a moment, not understanding why he would think that. Suddenly, he remembered telling the other party during their first run that he was running slowly to conserve energy, and with a stroke of insight, he understood Feng Lan’s meaning.

That was a difficult question to answer. This segment might just end up illustrated in a comic. If he were to fail later on, it would be like…

A public execution. Better to stick with the old routine. Su Bei put on a thought-provoking expression: “What do you think?”

It wasn’t long before it was Feng Lan’s turn to compete.

As expected, the main characters’ matches were all scheduled for later, with more bets placed as the matches progressed. By then, his own match would be over, and with fewer choices available, naturally, the bets would increase.

Feng Lan’s opponent was a student from Class D. If he remembered correctly, the superpower was “Sharp Tongue,” currently able to make the tongue extremely hard. Not very harmful, but quite disgusting.

However, as long as you didn’t let the opponent get too close, it was useless, which is why they were in Class D.

At first glance, Feng Lan didn’t seem to have much offensive power either. His physical fitness was indeed good, but Su Bei, who had been running with him for so many days, knew very well that this guy had no systematic training in fighting techniques.

Clearly, his family was the type that believed superpowers were everything and disdained the methods of ordinary people. They only trained his body to enhance his mental strength, not intending for him to learn any ordinary self-defense techniques.

Under these circumstances, the match should be evenly matched.

But Su Bei knew it wouldn’t be that simple. If Feng Lan, the prophet, was evenly matched with a Class D superpower user, what prestige would he have?

So, he was very interested in this battle, just as Feng Lan was curious about what trump cards he had, Su Bei was also curious about Feng Lan’s.

He wasn’t the only one interested in this question. Not only had the main character group arrived, but Si Zhao Hua and his group had come as well.

Enemies on a narrow road, neither side looked at the other with kind eyes. However, they didn’t start arguing under the arena, avoiding giving others a show.

Unexpectedly, Zhao Xiao Yu and Wu Jin also arrived. The moment he saw them, Su Bei knew he had guessed right; they had indeed joined Si Zhao Hua’s team. They had come at this time, probably to assess the strength of their team’s fighters.

The arrival of several Class A students attracted a crowd of onlookers. Su Bei quickly logged onto the official website with his phone and placed a bet, hoping to earn a bit.

Soon, the battle began. The Class D student was aware that his superpower probably wouldn’t be of much use, so even facing a Class F superpower user, he didn’t underestimate his opponent. Cautiously and vigilantly, he circled around Feng Lan, trying to find a breakthrough.

Yet, what no one expected was that Feng Lan was the one who initiated. He walked straight towards the boy from Class D, who retreated step by step in fear, warning with effort, “Don’t come any closer, or I’ll have to fight back!”

Alas, his warning was in vain, as Feng Lan continued to approach him steadfastly.

Finally, unable to bear it any longer, the boy from Class D struck first, throwing a punch towards Feng Lan’s face. His punch was swift, and at such a close distance, the likelihood of hitting was high.

But before the boy could take pride in his surprise attack, Feng Lan easily dodged the punch with a tilt of his head. The boy nearly fell over due to the momentum.

Had it been Su Bei, he would have retaliated with a kick at this moment, not necessarily knocking the opponent off the stage, but at least temporarily disabling him to secure victory.

However, Feng Lan lacked such combat awareness. He simply turned around slowly, waiting for his opponent to get ready. The boy from Class D, watching his leisurely movements, felt mocked and became furiously enraged.

He clenched his fist again, charging towards Feng Lan. This time, as he was about to punch, he also tried to trip the white-haired boy who had embarrassed him.

To everyone’s surprise, as the fist was about to smash into his face, Feng Lan deftly dodged with a tilt of his head and a step back, causing the enemy’s attack to miss entirely. As both the upper and lower body attacks were evaded, the boy from Class D fell to the ground.

This time, he finally realized something was amiss. Failing twice, he understood that there was quite a gap in strength between him and the white-haired boy.

Hesitating for a moment, he stood up and said, “You’re too strong, I concede. Let’s go down together.”

Hearing this, Feng Lan nodded calmly and walked with him towards the staircase. Just as they reached the stairs, the boy from Class D suddenly revealed a sinister expression, placed his hands on Feng Lan’s back, and pushed hard!

Ai Baozhu, who noticed this scene from below, couldn’t help but exclaim in shock. However, the stage had isolation measures in place, preventing those on it from seeing or hearing the outside, to prevent cheating with the help of the audience.

Now, many thought the boy from Class D was about to succeed, and Feng Lan was about to falter, but Feng Lan suddenly sidestepped, leaving the exit open.

Caught off guard, the boy from Class D fell clumsily due to his own pushing force.

When Feng Lan also stepped off the stage, the referee rushed to announce the result: “Feng Lan wins!”

Su Bei watched Feng Lan approach thoughtfully, now understanding what his reliance was.

Unexpectedly, the “Prophecy” had such a function, able to predict events a few seconds into the future. Otherwise, how could Feng Lan, untrained by the system, always dodge the attacks as if he had foreseen them?

And considering he didn’t even break a sweat during the match, activating this ability must not have consumed too much mental energy.

Such an invincible close-combat ability seemed a bit wasted. Su Bei concluded, watching Si Zhaohua and others crowd around Feng Lan first. After a moment of thought, he decided to send him a message.

[East, West, South: I think you should systematically learn close combat skills.]

After sending the message, he looked towards Jiang Tianming: “Who’s next? The class leader?”

Mu Tie Ren said: “I’m the twentieth round, it’s indeed almost my turn.”

As expected, it was his turn next. Compared to the others’ fights, Mu Tie Ren’s was exceptionally quick. He was up against a student from Class F, simply walked over, picked the person up, and carried them off the stage, without wasting any time.

“Is this what absolute power looks like?” Lan Suling muttered softly, glancing at her own arm. It felt like her next words would be “Should I also practice?”

Scared, Jiang Tianming and Wu Mingbai each grabbed one of her arms. Jiang Tianming earnestly advised: “You’re a mage, skilled in spellcasting, don’t learn from the class leader who’s a warrior.”

Wu Mingbai nodded repeatedly: “Ah Jiang is right, we of course support your training, but there’s no need to become like the class leader.”

“Hey, hey, hey!” Mu Tie Ren laughed and scolded, “I seem to have heard some discriminatory words.”

At that moment, Su Bei suddenly noticed that Wu Jin had entered the arena. His opponent was a student from Class C, who looked like a sure loser.

Su Bei raised an eyebrow, suddenly thought of something, and walked over unhurriedly, deliberately making footsteps and not hiding his presence.

Jiang Tianming and the others subconsciously followed him. When they stood in front of Wu Jin’s stage, Wu Mingbai asked in confusion: “What are we doing here? Do you know someone on the stage?”

“That one seems to be in the same group as Feng Lan.” Su Bei pointed at Wu Jin, then watched with a look of anticipation, “He’s also a member of the group that doesn’t get along with you guys.”

Hearing this, Jiang Tianming glanced at Wu Jin. The other party had medium-length purple hair and wore thick glasses. Despite the peculiar style, he was surprisingly unnoticeable.

Remembering that the other party seemed to be from Class F, he was somewhat surprised: “He’s in our class, right? Seems like his name is Wu Jin, I haven’t spoken to him since the start of school.”

“I haven’t spoken to him either.” Mo Xiaotian raised his hand, looking somewhat dejected.

Even he hadn’t managed to successfully speak with the other party; that was quite reclusive. Lan Suling nodded seriously, whispering: “Feels even more silent than me.”

While they were talking, Wu Mingbai specifically observed the situation on the field. Wu Jin was muttering something under his breath, then running around the field being beaten by his opponent, soon his face was bruised blue and purple.

Even he couldn’t help but wonder: “What’s there to watch? That Wu Jin is bound to lose, right?”

Jiang Tianming and the others nodded as well, they didn’t think there would be a second outcome. Having seen the data, they were clear about the abilities of both sides, one was [Silence is Golden], and the other could currently enhance physical fitness by double [Double Enhancement], it was obvious who would win.

Seeing their expressions, Su Bei suddenly laughed, he snapped his fingers: “Since you all think the other side will win, wouldn’t it be more interesting if Wu Jin won?”

The crowd exchanged puzzled glances, not understanding his meaning, yet they saw Su Bei unhesitatingly give all his points to Wu Jin.

“You’re crazy!” Mu Tie Ren’s eyes widened, “That’s 400 points!”

Suddenly, he seemed to realize something: “Wait a minute? Where did you get so many points?”

Previously, when they were searching for the murderer, each person only got 100 points. With the points from three weeks of classes, that should add up to 115 points. Mu Tie Ren knew about Su Bei selling information on special abilities a few days ago, as he was one of the customers, but he was also aware that the prices weren’t high, and Su Bei had stopped after selling just a few copies.

Under these circumstances, having two or three hundred points would be the limit, so where did 400 points come from?

The others were also surprised, and the smartest among them, Jiang Tianming, quickly realized the truth: “Did you earn it through betting?”

Su Bei just smiled without a word.

The others, trusting Jiang Tianming’s judgment, were somewhat astonished, not expecting that Su Bei could earn so much in just one day through betting.

Only Mu Tie Ren was still frowning, worriedly saying, “I don’t know how you made the right judgment before, but in this game, Wu Jin has almost no chance of winning. Aren’t you afraid of losing 400 points by betting like this?”

Indeed, everyone felt that Su Bei was a bit impulsive. This wasn’t just watching a drama unfold; it was turning himself into the drama.

Seeing everyone’s worried looks, Su Bei smiled. His expression drew their attention, and they suddenly noticed an oddly patterned gear in his hand that hadn’t been there before.

Su Bei, with downcast eyes, casually spun the gear in his hand. His tone was leisurely, but his words were assertive: “Since I’ve placed a bet, then he must win, even if he can’t.”