Damon returned to his room and sat down on his bed. He lowered his head as he placed his forearms on his knees, becoming eerily still and silent. The next second, his body trembled slightly, looking like he was truly motional. However, the sound the young man made dispelled that idea completely.

"Heh heh heh…" Damon chuckled to himself under his breath for a few seconds, until he burst into full-blown laughter.

"Hahahaha!" He threw his head back and laughed happily that one might believe he had finally received the news that a top university had admitted him.

A couple minutes later, Damon stopped and leaned back on his bed, covering the back of his head with his palms. He then crossed his legs and began thinking with a serious expression.

'We are damn lucky.'

One might think that Darmon would be insulted or hurt that Ambrose had rejected him or that he had been 'bamboozled', but the truth of the matter was that he had no reason to be down. The Overseer had been right, they had been thinking too much into things while knowing (relatively) too little.

If a tiger would announce that it would absolutely exhaust all means to slaughter a lion cub, who would dare to protect that cub on the premise that it might grow up to be equal in power to the tiger, perhaps actually surpassing it.

Using this analogy, the Vampires could be likened in power to a wolf. A wolf was not going to pick a fighter with a tiger to save a lion cub. That would be detrimental to it and its pack. No, it would rather watch from the sidelines and wait for an opportunity to gain some benefits, be it either in the form of finishing off the weaker party after a fight, or by sucking up to whoever won in order to maintain peace.

The Vampires had every right to reject the Humans, though it meant nothing to Damon and co, since they had been planning to betray the Vampires from the onset. The plan had always been to rely on the only ones they could count on, themselves.

The misunderstanding that they had to trick the other party had only occured due to Damon and Felicia interpreting too much into Ambrose's reactions.

If they had known that he didn't dare, they wouldn't have asked Jose Rivera to hack the AI and organise that meeting. Overall, it only changed their plan from being covert to being open. Humanity would still close itself off under Damon's rulership until that would no longer work, giving them time to grow.

What happened after that was still up in the air...

Damon suddenly frowned. He thought about what Ambrose told him. Assuming he hadn't lied, an act he had little reason to do, two other people had researched on Abilities and the companies in the same timeframe when Felicia and him had done their research about the laws and the history.

Others only started doing such things now, so it wasn't a big deal. But upon encountering such a life-changing event, the first actions you took tended to spell out what kind of person you truly were.

Damon was someone obsessed with rules and regulations, wanting to do as the Romans did in an unfamiliar environment, so he had focused on familiarising himself with the laws.

Felicia was someone more inclined to know about how the various species of the universe thought and interacted, so she had studied up on the history and social norms of the IUAS.

So what about the one who had studied companies and the one who had studied Abilities?

Damon theorized that the former was someone looking for a way to change their fate economically and take advantage of the new situation. The person should be someone well versed in business and economics, a tycoon who always analyzed the flow of money wherever he went.

A person like that would be well worth getting to know, as he would be a crucial help during the 'private' stage of the integration of humanity into the IUAS.

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As for the latter… they were likely the type who had awakened something amazing and wanted to understand where they stood in the scope of the universe. This could be done out of greed or fear for their future, so it was hard for Damon to tell.

However, he simply placed his prime suspicion on Xela. She was a young and excitable girl who was quite adorable, but she had proven to be shrewd as well. Upon awakening the Ability to revive the dead, she must have panicked deep down and feared for her future.

After her research, she had likely calmed down and resumed her chipper nature, whether forced or genuine, was unknown. However, it also prompted Damon to remember the last thing Ambrose said.

That was to stop wasting time with these theatrics and focus on studying things related to Essence like Abilities. Damon partially agreed with this as he had planned to anyway, but since there was no pressure from the Overseer, he might as well do that now.

He got up and walked to the terminal once more, activating it and logging in. Then, he scrolled through the Ability Encyclopedia for a few hours. By the time he was too sleepy to continue, Damon felt like his brain was buzzing with ideas.

So many goddamn Abilities of every type existed out there. However, they were categorized into different types. For example, there was his Probability Manipulation which was of the Reality Manipulation type.

There were the various elemental Abilities, which were part of the Element Manipulation type. There were Abilities that affected the person themselves, which were Body Manipulation type.

Unfortunately, there was no Mind or Mental Manipulation type, as that fell into Body Manipulation.

There was the Ability Manipulation type, which basically affected other Abilities directly or indirectly. There was also the Area Manipulation type, which were mostly Abilities that formed domains.

There was the Energy Manipulation type, like Devour or Empower which directly affected a specific type of energy to processed energy. Then, there was the Essence Manipulation type, a rare type that directly affected various essences like Worldly Essence used by sapient species or Chaos Essence used by the Universe itself.

There was a very specific warning in the description of Abilities that struck Damon hard, and was likely why Xela had become calm. Firstly, Abilities could not be extracted. Not by science nor by the existence of other Abilities known so far. It was tied to the soul, so unless soul extraction technology existed, it was impossible.

Secondly, Abilities could not be earned postnatally. As far as was known, there were no reports of Abilities being acquired while spelunking or through the use of Worldly Essence.

In other words, what you were born with was what you would awaken, and you would not get another no matter how hard you tried.

The only 'exception' to this were fellows like Henry Jasek who could replicate other Abilities.

And this led to the main warning that Damon took seriously. Abilities were not absolute. A person with an A-Grade Ability would not always trump over a person with a C-Grade Ability. Putting aside stats, even if they were of the same species with the same stats, this still held true.

Why?

Because in the universe, it was largely acknowledged that the raw power of an Ability, while relevant, was not the true deciding factor. It was the utility of the Ability that decided the winner in any situation.

A direct example would be Damon himself. He had three EX-Grade Abilities, but if he faced off against, say Nicholas Spencley, who had Mental Manipulation, the other party might convince his Avatar to sell out the real body's location then commit suicide.

Heck, if he had enough skill, he might even affect the real body's mind through the Avatar, making them commit double suicide.

Likewise, Nicholas would dread the day Damon ever physically touched him, for with Devour, he could turn him into an empty husk.

The wording of Abilities might seem great, but it really boiled down to how they were used.

If Levi Thane, the one with Liquid Manipulation, caused your blood to rupture your cells, you would die in the most painful way.

If Kyle Greer, the one with Vibration Manipulation, vibrated your fragile organs, they would turn to mush.

If Connor Baines, the one who could open shadow portals, shot a bullet into a portal that opened up right beside your head, he could blow your brains open.

In essence, the important thing was to learn how to use his Abilities and how to counter as many Abilities as he could. Right now, Damon knew that his and the other Humans' Abilities were added to the database.

While they would cause an uproar, others would begin looking for loopholes and weakness so that they wouldn't fall prey to him. He had to do the same.

The first thing he would start with was something he should have done the very day he had been awakened, yet he had put it off because he had feared the possible consequences. Damon stood up from his bed and stood in an empty spot in the room, then closed his eyes.

He focused his 'Avatar' Ability and imagined activating it. It felt as if an ethereal existence scanned his body with a red-hot beam from head to toe. Before he could get used to this feeling, he nearly passed out from shock, because something suddenly grew out from his chest.

Damon opened his eyes to see his body splitting in half painlessly, but the sensation was weird. It was slow and periodic, so Damon realized it couldn't be done in battle, at least not at this Stage. Unless of course, this slowness was due to unfamiliarity and lack of skill, in which case practice would resolve it.