A Guide for Background Characters to Survive in a Manga

Chapter 25

Su Bei was amazed by what he saw in the thread: people gossiping, taking sides, arguing, and even shipping characters together. It truly lived up to the chaotic nature of a heated discussion post, filled with a mix of different opinions.

But what shocked him even more was the cold and detached "Manga Awareness," which muttered to itself, "You're right... I really don't understand you humans."

Hearing this, Su Bei cheerfully closed the post, saying, "Well, you’re not human, after all. We humans are just such 'emotionally rich' beings."

Having achieved his goal, he went off to wash up in high spirits. There was a good show to watch tomorrow, so he needed to get a good night's sleep and recharge his energy.

The next day was Saturday, so there were no classes. Su Bei didn’t have a habit of sleeping in, so he got up early and went for a morning run.

This month, only first-year students were at the school, and very few of them had a habit of running in the morning. As a result, there were only a handful of people on the track.

As usual, Su Bei walked over to Feng Lan and prepared to run with him. However, unlike usual, Feng Lan spoke up, "Have you guys found the culprit?"

He was always so straightforward.

"What makes you say that?" Su Bei didn’t answer directly but instead asked a question in return. After all, Feng Lan hadn’t been involved in their investigation of the culprit, so how did he know they had found them?

"For the culprit?" Su Bei raised his eyebrows in surprise. It wasn’t surprising that the school wanted to investigate the culprit; after all, the black lightning tattoo on the back of his neck was impossible to hide. Once the school discovered it, they would immediately connect him to the organization behind him. So it was only natural that they’d want to study him.

What truly surprised him was that the school had asked Feng Lan to make a prediction.

Now, he was really curious about what Feng Lan’s prediction might reveal.

When Su Bei had initially created his ability, he had deliberately chosen a different direction from Feng Lan’s to avoid overlapping and affecting their respective popularity. Back when Feng Lan had made the prediction, "Something will happen at the start of school," Su Bei could sense that it wasn’t a prediction about a specific person but rather a broader event.

So Su Bei had tailored his ability to focus on individual predictions, effectively distinguishing himself from Feng Lan without appearing too overpowered. After all, his ambitions were great, and he sought much more than just the power of prophecy.

Feng Lan nodded. "The school only mentioned an on-campus murderer, but I think it’s probably the one you guys have been investigating."

The school had asked him to make a prediction, so they must have wanted to learn more about the organization behind the culprit. Su Bei was equally curious about this organization, so he needed to know what Feng Lan had predicted.

As he thought about it, Su Bei started running again and casually asked, "Will the prediction results be shared with the victim's parents?"

If they were going to tell the parents, then others involved might also find out.

Unfortunately, Feng Lan denied this possibility. "It’s not cheap to hire me. I doubt the school would share my predictions with anyone else."

Upon hearing this, Su Bei didn’t say anything more and focused on his run. Although he was a little disappointed, he wasn’t discouraged. Since the prediction involved that organization, it might still be revealed in the manga.

If it wasn’t mentioned in the manga, he could always find another way to get the information later.

After finishing his run and breakfast, Su Bei spent the rest of the day in the library. Now that his ability had been altered by the manga, he finally had a specific target for his research: the compass.

The compass was a complex item. Although he had gained some understanding of the Fate Compass through experiments and his own innate knowledge of his ability, it was clear that the compass still held many secrets. If he could fully understand these secrets, he might not just advance to Class A; he could even leap into the mysterious Class S.

The library of the Ability Academy held records of numerous abilities. Since the academy’s founding, most ability users in the Dragon Kingdom had enrolled in the academy, resulting in an ever-growing collection of documented abilities.

Previously, Su Bei had been researching fate-related abilities, but the category was vast and complicated, so he hadn’t found anything particularly useful—at most, he had found some new ideas to deceive people.

But the compass was different; it was a very standard object-based ability. While there were also many object-based abilities, they were clearly categorized. After excluding weapon-related abilities, he quickly found compass-related abilities.

In the 200 years since the academy was established, there had been ten documented cases of compass abilities. Among them, only one was related to fate and prophecy.

This ability was called the [Fate Compass]!

Finding this ability made Su Bei’s eyes light up, and he eagerly began reading it as if he had discovered a treasure.

The [Fate Compass] was a prophecy-type ability, with the power of prophecy manifested through the compass needle. The user could channel their mental energy to ask questions, and the needle would provide an answer.

In the Dragon Kingdom, compasses were traditionally used for feng shui readings, with the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches on the compass forming countless hexagrams.

The principle behind that ability user's [Fate Compass] is actually quite similar to fortune-telling—it requires a complete understanding of the hexagrams on the compass to accurately interpret the prophecy.

But this isn’t something that can be easily learned. At the very least, the owner of the [Fate Compass] at that time never managed to learn it. As a result, he wasted his ability and, by the time he graduated, could only use the compass to help people find lost items.

It was truly a waste of a valuable gift.

However, Su Bei understood him well. If he had the [Fate Compass], he probably would have wasted it too. Feng Shui and mysticism aren’t easy to learn, especially without a teacher or textbook. If you have a passion for it, that’s one thing, but if you’re not interested, it’s as difficult as climbing a mountain.

Fortunately, his ability wasn’t the [Fate Compass] but the [Gears of Destiny]. Perhaps through the manga, he could take it even further and upgrade to the ultimate version of [Fate].

Back to the [Fate Compass]: after carefully reading the material, Su Bei did glean something useful. He keenly noticed the difference between the [Fate Compass] that he could see and the [Fate Compass] that the ability user possessed.

The [Fate Compass]’s needle pointed in the direction the user needed, while Su Bei's compass needle could only point to a fixed place—it only pointed toward where a major event would happen to the person involved.

"Can I adjust the direction of the needle myself?" Su Bei murmured to himself. He had previously thought about adjusting the rotation of the compass but had never considered adjusting the direction of the needle.

If he could adjust it, perhaps he could even change someone else’s fate!

However, all of this hinged on understanding what each direction of the compass represented. Only by understanding these could he change them according to his will. Until then, it would be best not to tamper with it blindly.

With a plan in mind, Su Bei closed the book and left the library. As soon as he stepped outside, his phone rang with the same notification sound as yesterday.

He froze in place, thinking for a moment that the culprit had escaped. But then he realized the school probably wouldn’t be that incompetent, so he quickly pulled out his phone.

Fortunately, he was right—there was no dramatic event involving the culprit escaping. It was just Meng Huai informing him to come to his office at 5 p.m. to wrap up the case.

Thinking there might be some argument later, Su Bei raised an eyebrow and planned to give the protagonist group a little gift.

Su Bei spent the rest of the afternoon browsing forums, mostly checking posts about himself. The forums were a true reflection of the readers' thoughts. By understanding the readers' minds, he could grasp his own future.

Soon, he concluded that readers particularly liked his mysterious and powerful traits, and a significant portion of them believed he would be a villain.

Mysterious and powerful were indeed the directions he was heading, and perfectly aligning with the readers’ preferences made Su Bei feel that all these years of reading manga hadn’t been in vain.

As for the idea of him being a villain, that was out of the question. He had no intention of actually becoming a villain—it was too exhausting and demanding, and in the end, the villain was destined to fail. Most importantly, if he chose to walk the villain's path, there would be a large portion of the manga that would never be drawn.

But Su Bei's goal was to get more screen time so that readers could better understand the powerful abilities he had crafted. Without screen time, what’s the point?

However, since so many readers liked the idea of him being a villain, it was clear that a purely heroic role wasn’t suitable for him either.

Fortunately, Su Bei had never planned to be purely good. These days, it’s hard to be a good person. If he was going to be something, it would be someone who walks in the gray area—a morally ambiguous character, both good and evil!

Time flew by, and as it neared 5 p.m., Su Bei grabbed his phone and headed to Meng Huai’s office.

By the time he arrived at the office, several students were already there. Compared to Su Bei, who was merely an observer, the actual parties involved were naturally more anxious.

When Su Bei entered, everyone nodded slightly, but in the somewhat heavy atmosphere, no one spoke. No matter how unreasonable Sun's parents had been, this was still a matter involving a human life.

Although everyone had been elated when they caught the culprit, once the initial excitement faded and they were reminded of a classmate’s death, and the fact that they now had to hand the culprit over to the victim’s parents, no one could smile.

Su Bei, however, could still manage a smile, though it was a mocking one. In his mind, he said to the "Manga Awareness": "It seems like it would be best if I died. After all, I have no relatives left, so no one would grieve for me."

The "Manga Awareness" remained silent.

After a while, Meng Huai entered the office, accompanied by Sun's parents. Knowing that the culprit had been caught, Sun's parents' expressions were relatively calm, apart from looking extremely haggard.

Seeing them in this state, the three students' eyes flickered with a hint of compassion. Regardless of everything, these were parents who had lost their child. Was their handling of the situation perhaps a bit too harsh?

Before they could fully process these thoughts, the couple walked over to Wu Mingbai, with an attitude completely different from that day. "Oh, we're so sorry! That day, we just lost control of our emotions. Honestly, we were just joking that day and didn’t actually expect you to help find the culprit. Who would have thought you’d take it seriously?"

Upon hearing these hypocritical words, the last shred of pity the three students felt for them vanished completely.

"Just joking," they thought. Only a fool would believe that. If they hadn’t found the culprit within the given time, these parents would likely have had a very different attitude.

A trace of mockery flashed in Wu Mingbai’s eyes, but he smiled brightly, "It’s fine. I actually enjoy a good joke."

Since their "joke" had been to force someone with little connection to the case to hunt down the culprit, Wu Mingbai's "joke" would be to ensure that when this couple left the campus, they’d find their company in ruins.

Note: I never thought about using Ko-Fi before, but since someone suggested it in the comments, I'll give it a try and learn how to use it!

For the upload schedule, I'll do my best to post every 2-3 days, depending on the chapter content and how busy my work is during the day.