(Flowing Cloud Empire, Azure Profound Sect)

On a battle stage, that was around the size of half a football pitch, a handsome young man could be seen raising his large black steel sword up to the sky with a proud smile on his face.

His opponent, who was another young man, could be seen kneeling on the ground with a bruised and bloody face completely unconscious.

Soon a judge, who was an old man with a huge white beard, appeared and loudly announced to everyone around the obvious result of the match,

"I hereby proclaim that the winner of our sect's 777th outer disciple tournament is Lin Fan!"

The hundreds and thousands of spectators, who all had similar style robes, began clamouring in disbelief.

"Impossible! Lin Fan is only at the 5th stage of spirit tempering realm, how could he defeat Wang Gouting who is at the 3rd stage of spirit refining realm?!"

"So cool! Lin Fan was able to destroy that irritating guy with a few moves! He has my respect!"

"From now on, I'm taking Lin Fan as my big brother!"

Each comment consisted of unabashed praise and admiration, whilst some were mocking the defeated opponent who clearly had a bad reputation.

However, a plain-looking young man who stood in the crowd of people shouted at a volume just loud enough that the surrounding people could hear his words clearly,

"Hmph, he may have done well here but his future is definitely dim!

Don't forget that Wang Gouting is Elder Wang's only son!

Who doesn't know that Elder Wang adores his son immensely!

From what I see he's only shooting star destined to fall just as quick as he rises!"

Although these words weren't heard by everyone, they affected the opinions of the nearby disciples and this quickly caused a domino effect whereby the praises of others soon turned into a mix of pity and mild disdain.

"It's a shame he messed with the wrong person. Elder Wang definitely won't let this slide!"

"Hmph, who told this Lin Fan to show off and beat Wang Gouting's face into a pig's head!"

"I heard from my cousin's partner's little brother's goldfish, that this Lin Fan was persuaded with benefits to step down and let Wang win. But it seems he doesn't know what's good for him!"

After Lin Fan received his rewards for winning he left with swagger and the crowd subsequently started dispersing, however, one person remained standing there in a daze.

It was the same plain-looking young man who mocked Lin Fan's future!

His name was Zhang Wei, and currently, he was feeling truly delighted for the second time since he came to this damn world!

Why?

Because this stingy System of his finally gave him something that was somewhat valuable!

[Host has successfully completed his task as the 'negatively opinioned' background character!]

[Host's efforts will be rewarded with a random item!]

{Host receives a rare grade martial art, shadow panther steps}

After seeing the messages in front of him, Zhang Wei thought.

Has the dog System finally gained some conscience and decided to reward me fairly?!

It's about damn time!

Five years! Five whole years of struggling in this unfamiliar world, and revolving my life around this f*cking Lin Fan in the hopes of getting a smidgen of help from the System!

Just thinking of everything I had to do makes me almost shed tears!

Five years ago, Zhang Wei was chucked into this world with nothing and no one.

He was only given two things, one being the memory of this world's Zhang Wei who had the same age, looks and situation as the current Zhang Wei.

The other thing was a System.

For the first part, Zhang Wei had always been an orphan in his previous life so naturally, this didn't change here.

From the memories he was given, his parents died a few years back when Zhang Wei was only twelve and the only reason he hadn't died out in the streets was that a cultivator owed his family a favour and helped him get a place in the servant quarters of the Azure Profound Sect.

Once the current Zhang Wei had transmigrated, he was seventeen years old and in a relatively stable position.

His progress in cultivation using the extremely basic breathing technique given to servants was average, his basic martial arts progress was also average, and his financial situation was also alright for a servant.

Overall, almost everything about him was extremely ordinary from the moment he crossed over.

But Zhang Wei was okay with that at the time, after all, he also had a System!

He thought that everything would be all fine with the System in his possession.

Fatal mistake.

Once the System introduced itself and Zhang Wei saw the bland grey text over his head that told him he was a 'background character', he felt very insulted.

He still remembered the System's introduction as clear as day.

[Hello, Host!]

[I am the one and only, Ultimate Background Character System]

[My job is to motivate and help you do the work required of an essential background character, and in exchange for doing such tasks you will receive rewards!]

[So for your own interest, please work hard to become a great background character!]

Zhang Wei was very heartbroken and cursed the System after hearing that he couldn't become the MC, but still looked on the bright side of things and thought that being a background character was easy and laidback.

Since he could get rewards for simple stuff, it didn't seem like too bad of a deal. Plus, wouldn't he eventually become like those template carefree protagonists who stay low-key?

It sounded rather good after thinking about it, as in his previous life he constantly had to work hard in school for good grades and take part-time jobs to fund himself all the while stressing over what occupation he'd want to do when he got older- It was incredibly tedious!

He'd much rather just chill around after cultivating to a decent level with the system and do what he wants, whenever he wanted to.

And on the topic of his previous world, he didn't miss it much at all. He never got much time to make close friends as he'd either be working or studying, and his family had passed away when he was young so he didn't have anyone waiting at home for him.

Therefore, for him, crossing over to this free world was nothing short of a new opportunity!

Compared to his boring previous life, this place had mystical cultivation that could allow him to fly without machinery and all sorts of other cool things.

Of course, he also knew the dangers and all but in the face of all that excitement, he didn't care!

He set a plan to find the 'protagonist' and leech off him to become powerful and then began going through life just like the old Zhang Wei would- They had similar personalities so others didn't notice anything weird, and with the memories of old Zhang Wei he adjusted to everything easily.

Through doing so, he got to learn a bit more about the System as every person had some text above them just like he did.

Most had the same grey text with the words, 'Background Character'. However, to Zhang Wei's delight, there were also some people he saw that had the words, 'Side Character' and 'Antagonist'.

'Side Characters' had their text in a turquoise colour and 'Antagonists' had their texts in crimson.

Why was Zhang Wei happy about this at the time?

Because wherever there are side characters and antagonists, there must be a protagonist somewhere!

Like that, a year passed by with Zhang Wei turning eighteen and there was still no 'Protagonist' in sight- During this year he was doubting if such a person even existed!

Throughout that year, Zhang Wei adjusted to his new lifestyle perfectly and also got a few useless rewards- such as pots and tea sets- from the System by interacting and trying things with side characters and antagonists.

Although he probed them and the System multiple times to understand what it meant to do tasks befitting a 'great' background character, he still didn't understand very well.

Zhang Wei also got the chance to experience cultivating himself, which was a very lacklustre thing. It consisted of breathing in and out in a certain rhythm whilst sitting down, and maintaining that for as long as possible.

As mentioned before, his talent was painfully average so he didn't make much progress at all from his predecessor and was still at the 3rd stage of the foundation-building realm.

In the foundation-building realm, a person isn't much different from an ordinary person except that he/she is a bit stronger and fitter than before- You aren't considered a true cultivator until you reach the body-refining realm.

Same with martial arts, it was just repeating sets of movements over and over again until you perfected them so it wasn't too interesting.

Anyways, the turnaround came a few weeks after he turned eighteen.

He was working on cleaning and sweeping up an outer disciple's courtyard with a few other people, one of which was a 'Side Character', however, he didn't really think much of it as it wasn't rare for him to work with a side character or two on occasion.

But just when he thought it was going to be uneventful, he caught a gleaming golden light out the corner of his eyes.

He quickly turned his head around to see what it was, and honestly believed it was just some cultivator's trick.

However, he was very wrong.

When he realised what it was, his eyes widened to the size of a saucepan!

At the entrance of the courtyard was a boy that had a huge smile on his face, and looked around the same age as Zhang Wei. He was dressed in servant attire- normal yellow robes and black shoes- was quite handsome, and had a dirty broom in his hand.

Nevertheless, it wasn't the boy himself that attracted the shock of Zhang Wei but rather the source of the glorious light that was atop his head, which formed words that simply said,

[Protagonist]

The System also gave a notice to him at that moment which affirmed what he was seeing wasn't an illusion.

[Congratulation Host for finding a wild protagonist!]

[To guide the Host in a right direction, the System will give occasional hints as well as introduce certain aspects of the System as you encounter them.]

[So make sure to utilise those hints whenever you receive one, and also take the initiative to be creative with your assistance, in order to maximise your chances of getting rewards!]

"Brother Lin!

What are you doing here?!

Quickly go away, or else Old Steward Qin will punish you again!"

...