These people are so stupid it actually hurts.

Perry has a unique ability that basically lets him steal other’s abilities, though it only works on humans and not on the monsters in here. He only has to touch another person and within five to ten minutes he can 'steal' the person's ability. His ability is so unfair compared to mine! But that's something I'll think about later...

When this ‘entity’ came here and trapped everyone, they all had the extremely bright idea to escape by giving Perry their abilities and asking him to go and confront said entity. I mean who gives away their one shot at survival to another person?!

Oh, but this is where the fun just begins.

Now that there were several useless idiots without their abilities, no one thought about how it would be smarter if they sent these dead-weight idiots to go confront the ‘entity’. This would make them at least slightly useful in providing valuable information about its abilities. But, as if proving how dumb everyone here is, they all instead decided that they would now protect the ability-less useless people for their ‘selfless sacrifice’.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, no one even thought about using any sacrificial people! James told me that there were many who had given up on life and simply wanted to die, and one would think that if these people wanted to die they would at least make their deaths useful by facing the ‘entity’ and giving everyone else information. But no. Everyone decided that they were just ‘overwhelmed’ and ‘in stress’ and that once Perry fucked the ‘entity’ over they would all be fine again. Which is how it was decided that everyone would ‘support’ these suicidal dumb fucks and send Perry instead.

‘Urgh… My head hurts…’

Perry, accompanied by 15 others, went and faced this entity without any prior information. They all thought that as Perry had a lot of abilities he would obviously be awesome enough to one-hit kill everything and the entity would just shit itself and give up.

Contrary to popular belief, the entity didn’t shit itself, instead it used an ability to make Perry an underling and Perry has since been terrorizing everyone!

There were so many better ways in which to go about things, why in the world did these guys choose to go this route?! When asked, James simply answered, “It was a tense time man. No one was thinking straight and this was the quickest way to get things done.”

This can’t be right! I refuse to believe that in a gathering of more than a hundred people no one realised how stupid their plan was. There just has to be some other explanation!

*sigh* Let’s leave this aside for now… I still have to ask which abilities these idiots gave to Perry but I’ll ask it later.

“Alright, enough about Perry. Tell me everything you know about this entity.” I asked exasperated.

“Well, we didn’t actually see it exactly… so we don’t know much…” James answered tentatively.

“What do you mean?” *eyebrow twitch*

“All we saw was a large amount of darkness, and from within a chilly voice spoke saying a cliche ‘welcome humans, welcome to your deaths’ before suddenly Perry went crazy and started attacking us! We all fled, but sadly Perry managed to kill some before we got away…”

......

‘Someone kill me now. I don’t think I can live with anymore stupidity on this planet.’

I ended the conversation right then and there. James wanted details about me but I made an excuse about how I needed to check up on Ariel. There was a lot more information I wanted to get from James but this conversation I just had was too stupid for me to go anymore! I asked James to keep my presence here a secret for now and teleported James back to where everyone was and left. I could trust James to keep his mouth shut about me, his loyalty was really unquestionable.

He did make me promise to meet him up later and I agreed. I need more information anyways…

I moved along the halls with hiding presence active, deep in thought before I came across a bathroom. I went inside and after confirming that there was nothing around I deactivated hiding presence and looked at my reflection on the mirror. I currently looked exactly the same as I did before all this happened. I stopped using appearance manipulation and saw the changes happen in front of me…

My eyes immediately turned into crimson red. They were bright enough to easily be spotted in a dark room. My light brown skin turned pale white as my hair started losing colour as well. In a span of a few seconds I went from looking like a normal person to looking like a humanoid monster.

The eyes I could get used to, but it was my pale-white skin and hair that got me worried. I was eating despite my metabolism ability, and blood wasn’t the only thing in my diet, so why was my skin and hair losing colour? I had repeatedly tried using healing on it to see if it would revert back but nothing worked. It wasn’t my physical appearance that I was most worried about though, it was the possibility of how else could drinking blood affect me that got my mind racing.

Thinking back to the conversation I just had with James, there was no relief from my side seeing my friend, no thoughts about how I could help him or anything, the only thing that I was constantly thinking about was how stupid everyone else was and how I needed to save my own skin. I had never been one to think much about saving people, but this felt a little too extreme.

Recently, I was more than willing to let anyone die if it meant that I got a new ability in the end or if I survived. It wasn’t like me to think this way. I knew that I would never have gone out of my way to save anyone, but just a few minutes ago I was thinking about how it would be smarter to use human beings as sacrificial lambs to give information. Would I have been able to think this way before I got this absorption ability? I’m not too sure…

There’s a difference between not saving people by leaving them to their own fate and actually using people by sending them to their deaths. Sure, it was the smarter thing to do, but would I have always thought this way or was this ability changing more than just my physical appearance?

These weren’t just some random people, these were people I actually knew. We had shared a long time together, and yet I felt nothing. I don’t think I was always this emotionally dead inside… was I…? I had even started ignoring Ariel and only saw her as a ‘healing aid’ rather than an actual person.

I decided to discuss things with her and see the conclusions she came up with. She was smart, so she may have good ideas, and I also needed someone human to get a different perspective. If she could come up with something that could save others while also being a smart idea, then why not? There is no reason not to save these people and get out with them all. I would obviously leave everyone apart from my friends on their own once we exited this university, but I have no problems of helping them all out a bit in here.

That being said, if there is no other way then I would obviously put my own skin ahead and sacrifice them all in a heartbeat!

….

I think I have to become careful. I must not forget the principles I had set for myself all those years ago…

I reverted back to my original appearance and with conflicting thoughts still racing through my mind I exited the bathroom, activating hiding presence as I stepped out. The hallways were still filled with monsters, so I used identification in a wide-range to see if there was something of interest that could get my mind occupied.

Ability identification successfully used. The following abilities have been identified:

As I heard mind-me tell me of all the abilities, I could find nothing of interest before right at the end when I heard something very interesting!

Mimic. This ability allows the target to mimic everything about the living thing physically closest to it.

I remembered James mentioning something about a mimic, and this seemed to be exactly what he mentioned before!

I immediately started searching for something different in the area. The downside of using identification in a wide area was that it only informed me of the abilities in the area, but not where these abilities actually were exactly. So, I had to search individually.

I looked for any monster that looked different but after ten minutes I could not see anything other than the usual felines and brightly coloured insects that were in this hallway. I once again used identification in a wide area and got the same result of mimic being here. It was probably mimicking something right now, which meant I would have to use identification on every single thing before I could see which one was the mimic. *Sigh*

…..

…..

It took me about twenty minutes before I finally found the ‘feline’ creature that had the mimic ability. The risk of me going near it and it mimicking me made me stop and think of something other than barging in and fighting it head on. Mind-me said that it would mimic everything about the closest living thing, meaning it would be able to mimic all of my absorbed abilities making it a dangerous opponent to face. I would NOT like to face ‘me’.

I looked around and saw all the brightly lit insects, and immediately thought of a good idea. I grabbed the one closest to me and teleported to the empty classroom me and James were in before. I killed the insect before it had the chance to do anything and started drinking the disgusting blood.

Blood successfully absorbed. Ability gained: Sleeping-powder. You will now be able to throw out a powder that induces sleep. Warning! Using too much powder on one target could be harmful!

I ignored the warning and continued to go back and forth between the hallway and the classroom, teleporting insects one by one. Soon I had drank enough blood to be confident and went back to the hallway. I used the powder on a normal feline to see if it works and it went down in a matter of seconds!

I hovered in the air and spread out the powder as far as I could by using air-manipulation and saw everyone dropping to the floor and falling asleep. I had to take care not to get too close to the mimic as I spread the powder to avoid the mimic turning into me. I waited until I saw the mimic feline go down as well before going near it.

As soon as I got close the mimic immediately turned into me. I was expecting a sort of gradual change but this mimic changed in a split second! One moment it was a large, black feline and the next I could see 'myself' sleeping on the floor. I teleported both me and ‘myself’ back to the empty classroom and saw the bizarre sight of seeing myself in front of me.

The mimic was in my ‘real’ appearance, with pale-white skin and almost colourless hair. I ignored the appearance and weirdness of it all and immediately used a syringe to take some blood and drink it.

Blood successfully absorbed. Ability of telekinesis already present.

….

What?! Why telekinesis?

I drew some more blood and drank it but got the same message. Why isn’t it giving me the mimic ability? Does the mimic have to be in its original appearance for me to get it?

I teleported the mimic back to the hallway where everything was still asleep and distanced myself from it so that it took the appearance of a feline. I controlled the syringe through telekinesis and drew some blood to drink but all I got was the enhanced speed ability!

Hmmm….

I approached the mimic back again and took it back to the classroom so I could think in peace. I tried drinking more blood from the mimic which was now in my appearance but I once again got the telekinesis ability. Telekinesis is not a bad ability, but I really wanted mimic! How do I get mimic…?

I continued thinking before suddenly I thought of something amazing! I immediately teleported the mimic back to where Ariel was while also keeping hiding presence active on both of us. I saw as Ariel was pacing around the room in a worried way but I remained hidden for now.

As I had used hiding presence on the mimic myself, I could still see it while others couldn’t. I used this to my advantage as I controlled the mimic to go near Ariel, and saw as the mimic changed into Ariel! I gleefully controlled a syringe to take some blood from the mimic and, still keeping everything hidden, I controlled the syringe to come back to where I was standing.

If drinking the mimic’s blood doesn’t grant me the ‘mimic’ ability, but instead gives me abilities of whatever it was ‘mimicking’, then couldn’t I use this thing to go near unique ability holders and get their abilities? It should work! I wasn’t drinking blood from humans, I was technically drinking blood from a monster! This should definitely work!

I was beside myself as I saw the syringe getting closer and closer to me, but just before drinking it I stopped. I was suddenly reminded of the Council and their ability holder that could see all the abilities I had absorbed. If I drank this blood and got Ariel’s unique ability the whole Council would immediately know about it. Dammit!

I stashed away the syringe full of blood into my pocket dimension regretfully. There was no way I could confirm whether this works or not. If it does, then I have just found the answer to a lot of my troubles! I’ll just have to wait for now before trying to drink any blood this way.

For now, I need to find a way to keep this mimic alive and to also keep it a secret!

_______________________________________________

Author's Note: Sorry for disappearing for the past few days. I have exams from the 8th-12th of March, which is the reason why I haven't been uploading chapters. After this one there will probably be no more chapters till the 13th/14th.

Let me know of your thoughts about this chapter. I wrote this in bits and pieces over the past few days instead of taking a couple hours and writing it in a go, so the possibilities of mistakes are high. Please do point out if you see any!

I have also asked for some advice and I will be editing the start of this novel. Will let you guys know of the changes, though the changes will not affect the actual plot in any way. The edit will mostly be grammatical changes etc. If anyone has any thoughts on how to improve the novel I have written so far, please do let me know! Thanks!

Thank you for reading and for your continued support!

Also, my novel has now crossed 200 pages! Woohoo! :D