I woke up the next morning, had breakfast and immediately flew off out of the window. I had taken a couple of extra precautions last night, surrounding myself with an earth wall while I slept and I also used hide-presence when I went to sleep hoping that it would remain active while I slept too, though I have no way of knowing if I really stayed hidden during the night or not. The healing ability had stayed active while I was unconscious so hopefully this one would have stayed active too...

I immediately went to the area I had narrowed down and started searching. I first circled around it going from store to store quickly, seeing which stores had the most stuff missing from them. It was difficult to judge a pattern, but I pushed through. Soon I had more or less figured out an area of about 2 blocks from the original 8 blocks, where the possibility of the survivors staying was highest.

I tried flying all over the place using heat-vision and improved vision at the same time, but it was to no avail. Only thing I could see were the trolls and a few other creatures roaming about here and there. Either the survivors weren’t in this area or they were someplace in the area but I just couldn’t see them even with heat-vision…

I still thought that the possibility of the survivors staying somewhere nearby was high, so I stayed in the area and decided to try and get a few more abilities under my belt!

As the trolls were the most numerous creatures I could see, I decided to start with them. Trolls generally have regenerative abilities in stories, and I was hoping it would be the case here too. I searched around for a troll who was somewhat secluded from others, and after finding one I immediately lifted him up with telekinesis and landed on a nearby house’s roof along with it.

I didn’t waste time and quickly killed him by taking off its head with a new knife I had picked up from one of the stores. The blood was gushing out and smelled absolutely disgusting! I tentatively dipped a finger in the blood and put the droplet into my mouth.

If the smell was disgusting, it couldn’t even be compared to the taste! It was like nothing even close to something I had ever tasted! It actually filled up my whole mouth with that disgusting smell and I nearly puked out my entire stomach’s contents! I swallowed it quickly and shuddered, thinking the horrible part was over and done with. And then I puked…

After I had vomited everything up, I got farther away from the disgusting and smelly troll corpse and waited for the voice of mind-me. I had to wait for about 10 minutes, during which I puked once more! It really was the most disgusting thing that I had ever put in my mouth, and my mouth was still filled with the after-taste!

Blood successfully absorbed. Ability gained: Enlarged stomach. Your stomach capacity has permanently increased, allowing you to eat more of your favourite foods!

…………………..

…………………..

What. The. Fuck.

I lifted up my shirt and found out that my new abs were now less pronounced and there was just a little fat that could be seen.

So after all that shitty experience with the disgusting smelling blood, I actually got this fucked up ability?! Give me a fucking break! What kind of ability is that? And it sounded a lot like mind-me was being sarcastic as well! I tried ‘switching off’ the ability but it didn’t work. Mind-me did say that my stomach capacity had permanently been increased… so does this mean that all the good abilities can be activated and deactivated whenever you like but once you get a shitty ability you are permanently stuck with it?? WHAT THE FUCK!

That’s it! Time to kill off these disgusting, smelly, no good, ugly, obese jerks and wipe them out of this city!

So, I spent the next couple of hours wiping out every single troll I could see. I found a neat way to kill them off without having any of that disgusting blood fall on me. I simply flew in the air and used telekinesis to twist their necks and that’s it! It was fast, effective and clean. It wasn’t as satisfying as perhaps repeatedly punching them and beating them to a pulp would have been, but it was a compromise that let me stay away from smelling worse then shit, so I gladly obliged.

I was continuing my ‘clean’ massacre, when I spotted a person! It was a brawny looking guy who was standing in the window of one of the buildings, staring wide-eyed at all the bodies of the dead trolls down below.

I was using hiding presence as usual, so he could only see the dead bodies of the trolls. I had no idea how long he had been standing there, but I can imagine how weird it must have looked for trolls to seemingly twist their own necks and then slump to the ground, dead.

Nevertheless, I finally found a living person, or more importantly, I finally found survivors who could lead me to the teleporting guy and perhaps some more useful abilities too!

I flew up close to the guy, who was still staring wide-eyed at the spectacle below. He stood there with his eyes large and his mouth hanging open for a good 5 minutes or so before I got impatient and threw a tiny pebble into his open mouth. He choked, coughed a bit and then looked around in alarm. Seeing nothing close, he shook his head and with one last glance at the dead troll bodies he turned around and walked inside the building. Seems like my pebble worked on getting him moving again!

I followed after him by floating a few inches off the ground. He exited the room with the window he was using to stare outside and started descending the stairs. He had been on the third floor, and he now went all the way down to the underground car parking. He descended all the way down to the last floor of the car park, which was a bit unnerving for me as the images of the abominations was still engraved in my mind. Still, I preserved and continued to follow. The car park was filled with a variety cars that had a thick layer of dirt and dust on them, completely useless because cars also no longer seemed to work ever since the monsters arrived.

At the west end of the last floor of the car park was a small room. Presumably it had been used by the guards stationed at the car parks to stay during the night shifts. The guy knocked on the door of the room thrice, paused, then knocked two times again. The door immediately opened and the guy I was following immediately exclaimed in a loud voice, “You guys won’t believe what I just saw!”

His voice echoed throughout the car park and immediately a voice from inside reprimanded the idiot who I had been following. I quickly slipped past the door before it closed up and saw the inside of the room, or what previously had been a room.

From outside it looked like a small room that could barely manage to fit in two people at once, but the inside of the room was extremely spacious. It looked as though the back wall had been smashed apart by something or someone, and someone had probably used Earth manipulation to make the room larger. I wouldn’t have done something like that, the risk of the whole building caving on top of me was too great! Either the guy using the Earth manipulation was an idiot who didn’t think things through or he was some sort of architect or engineer and had actual knowledge on how to expand the room safely...

There were also a few shelves situated on the walls made out of Earth which were filled with canned food, water bottles and a lot of other stuff that they had taken from the stores. A whole side of the room was taken up by two double beds and a single bed, and there were two couches and a dining table in the room too. The ‘original’ side of the room, the one which hadn’t been made using Earth manipulation, had a door which probably led to a small bathroom. Though the lack of running water and living so deep underground left me puzzled as to why there was no lingering smell coming from the bathroom...

I was perplexed as to why these people would choose someplace so deep underground to stay in. They were in the last floor of the underground car park and were in a corner, making it extremely easy for a group of monsters to surround them! Though them being so deep underground did make it impossible for my heat-vision to see them, were they perhaps hiding from a type of monster that could also use heat-vision…?

The room contained a total of 7 people, 4 women and 3 men. There were two girls who looked like they were in their teens, a middle-aged woman that looked to be in her late twenties to early thirties and another older woman who looked to be in her forties. There was the brawny idiot who I had been following from the room, another scrawny looking older man presumably in his 40s and the teleporting guy! I had found my main target!

I was slightly disappointed in there being only 7 people, and by extension only 7 possible abilities for me to absorb, but the presence of the teleporting guy made it completely worth it! I ignored their chatter about the brawny idiot recounting what he saw outside and thought about what to do now.

I certainly wasn’t going to go through all the trouble I went through in the ballroom, by pretending to be their friend and sneaking around absorbing their abilities. I just couldn’t be bothered to go through all that acting once again. I wanted a much more direct and quick approach this time.

I could just knock them all out and absorb their abilities, but the recent experience of the shitty ability from the troll stopped me from gathering unknown abilities again. I needed some way for them to reveal their abilities so I could know which ones to absorb and which ones to leave alone. I didn’t want to wait around to see when they revealed their abilities, as that could take forever and not all abilities will be revealed that way. For example I wouldn’t know when someone was using abilities like observation as there is nothing that indicates when it is being used.

They were all starting to get ready to leave so I immediately thought of something and decided to go with it. I rushed to the teleporting guy and knocked him out. I already knew what his ability was and he didn’t need to stay awake for me to know I wanted his blood! Before the others could relax, I took control of them through telekinesis and froze them all in place.

I ignored all their surprised and alarmed shouts and stayed attentive. I wasn’t sure if controlling them through telekinesis would make them unable to use their abilities or not, so I waited to see if they fought back…

…..

A couple minutes passed by and they were still panicking. There were no signs of them using any ability so I decided to start with the next phase of the plan.

“Humansss….”

I whispered in a raspy sort of voice. I couldn’t use my own voice, because I needed my voice to scare them and my own voice was a bit nasally and sounded anything but scary. So, I decided to play a sort of ghost or phantom type creature and try to scare them by whispering…

They all went silent and looked around in fright. I was enjoying all of this!

“Humans. Don’t fear. I have not come to hurt you. All I want from you is for you to reveal your abilities to me…”

I wanted to do the whole evil maniacal laugh but decided against it. This was all too corny already…

“Wha… What do you mean you want us to reveal our abilities! What are you?! Show yourself!”

One of the teenage girls spoke out. Good, she was frightened. Being afraid will make her think less logically and makes it easier for me to get them to do what they want.

“You don’t need to know what I am! All you need to know is I can kill you all off easily. You all can’t even move right now because I am in complete control of your bodies!”

I lifted them up in the air and moved them about a bit to show I wasn’t lying. Everyone screamed. I think I am enjoying all this a bit too much…

“Why should we tell you our abilities you monster!” The brawny idiot spoke up.

“I want to see if your abilities are worth it for me to absorb! Don’t worry, even if I absorb your abilities you humans won’t lose them. Now, quickly reveal your abilities to me or dieeee!”

“And how exactly will you absorb our abilities…?” The middle-aged woman spoke up. She was a lot calmer then the others, which could either be beneficial for me or it could ruin my whole plan.

“Why… by drinking your blood obviously!”

I decided to tell them the truth. It would make it seem like I really was a monster who wanted their blood and not a human pretending to be a monster. It would also make them more afraid, and I could already see paler faces.

“Go fuck yourself!” This was the brawny idiot.

I sighed. I really wanted to avoid doing this, but I guess this would make things a lot more quicker and I could get out of this hole sooner. That decided, I used telekinesis to break off the brawny idiot’s right wrist. He screamed extremely loudly and everyone was looking alarmed at his wrist now hanging loosely. I then quickly healed him back him and the idiot stopped screaming.

“That’s what you get for insulting me you fool! Know your position! I can hurt you and heal you back up repeatedly! We can either do this the easy way or the hard way! Make your choice stupid humans!” Let’s hope this works…

The calmer middle aged woman spoke up, “I already know this thing is telling the truth guys. He actually has the ability of absorbing abilities by drinking blood.”

Huh…? How did this woman know of my ability…?

“Mr... ghost…? I have the ability that allows me to know what the abilities of others are, so I already know of your ability. If you want to find out the ability of these guys just take my blood and use my ability to find out what you want. Just don’t hurt the others!”

……

…..

This beautiful, beautiful woman! If she is speaking the truth then all I need is her ability and I will no longer need to risk getting shitty abilities ever again! This ability is even better then the teleporting ability! It is like it has been perfectly made for me!

The others were shouting at the woman saying she was crazy and not to trust the ghost etc etc, so I quickly knocked them all unconscious by hitting them all on the back of their heads.

I proceeded to jump around in joy for a minute before calming down. I had been flying around with a bag full of syringes all this time just in case I ran into the survivor group, and now I proceeded to take all the blood these guys were so generously giving me!

________________________________

At the end of 30 minutes I was standing in the middle of the still unconscious bodies of the 7 people with a huge grin on my face. Turns out the beautiful woman was telling the truth about her ability!

Blood successfully absorbed. Ability gained: Ability-identification. You will now be able to identify the abilities of others, humans or nonhumans alike.

Using her amazing ability I found out the ability of the others. I just had to think ‘ability-identification’ and mind-me informed me of all the abilities in my surroundings, or I could focus in on one person and use the ability to find out what ability that one person had. They had Earth manipulation, water manipulation and enhanced strength, all these three abilities I didn’t need. The other three had X-ray vision, metal manipulation and teleportation which I already knew about, these three were great additions for me!

If I could use X-ray vision along with night-vision, heat-vision and improved vision, I could practically see everything! Metal manipulation would also be useful in some cases, for example I could now make a sort of ‘base’ out of metal which would be much more sturdier then the earth wall I had erected in place of the door of my apartment. And teleportation was obviously useful as well!

I proceeded to help myself to multiple syringes full of blood from them, which is why I was grinning like an idiot…

Blood successfully absorbed. Ability gained: X-ray vision. You will now be able to see through most surfaces.

Blood successfully absorbed. Ability gained: Metal-manipulation. You will now be able to manipulate metals and make them do what you wish.

Blood successfully absorbed. Ability gained: Teleportation. You will now be able to teleport from one place to another instantly. However, you can only teleport to places you can see or to places you have visited previously.

I was too excited to try experimenting with these new abilities, so I healed them all up and they woke up a few minutes later. I whispered a “Thank you humans” to them, though I was basically thanking the middle-aged woman, and got out of there!

I couldn’t believe how good this day had been!

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Author's note: Yesterday was a crazy day for me and I couldn't find time to write at all! So, this is a longer chapter for you guys. I will also try to get a few more chapters released today!

In case you are wondering if his new identification ability will basically make everything easier for him, then you are wrong. Sure, it will make a lot of things easier, but he will still face a few hardships.

I asked a few chapters ago if you guys wanted me to release an 'abilities so far' chapter, and not many of you responded :P Now the MC has 30+ abilities, so I was thinking it would be best if I asked you guys again. Let me know and I will release it either later today or tomorrow if you guys want me to... That chapter will also explain a few more things about abilities. I have been getting a few questions so I thought I would clear things up in that chapter.

Hope you guys enjoy this chapter. Thanks a lot for the continued support and thank you very much for reading! :D