Chapter Two: Absorption

"My head..." Wang Yuan groaned while rubbing his head.

He had just been unexpectedly shocked when he touched the dead rodent, and he didn't know the reason why. When he opened his eyes, he noticed that the sun has reached midway through the sky. It seems he has been sleeping for quite a while.

'Was it some kind of special ability that only activates after death? Like, "If I die, you'll die with me!" sort of thing? But I'm not dead. At least, I hope not.'

Wang Yuan slowly got up, and looked at the rat. It's still there, laying motionlessly, like it has been before. It didn't move an inch.

Wang Yuan checked his surroundings, before grabbing a stick from the ground.

He gulped, and slowly tried to poke the rodent, hoping it wouldn't electrocute him again.

'Huh?'

However, just as he was about to poke it, he noticed a small, incredibly faint green glow coming from the dead rat, coating its entire body. He could've sworn it wasn't there before.

Not only that, but his body as well, it gave off a similar aura, albeit it was white instead.

"What is this?" Wang Yuan muttered under his breath, before trying to grasp the aura coming off from his body. However, it was to no avail, it just went through his touch.

'Could this be Chi?' The first thing that came into his mind, was that this was Chi, like the novels he had read. The lifeforce that exists in every being, and that could be used to train your body.

'But don't you need to cultivate to see it? Along with some other extremely hard training?' Wang Yuan was rather puzzled. He recalled in the novels he read that whenever someone is able to sense and see Qi, that usually means they have a reached a level where their strength has become many times superior to that of a human, and they could do ridiculous techniques.

Wang Yuan, however, didn't feel any of those changes. He tried hitting a tree with all his might to test out his strength, but...

"Fuck! Fucking hell-- ow!" Wang Yuan vehemently cursed as he waved his fist around, trying to cool the pain down.

After a few moments, Wang Yuan looked at the corpse of the rat with a pained expression. He slightly poked it with a stick, but nothing happened.

He heaved a sigh of relief, before throwing the stick away.

"Hmm, how am I going to skin you?" He muttered to himself, before looking at the fork in his hand.

"It's not ideal, and it's probably going to take quite a long time. I doubt I could make a good stone knife with all these useless rocks, though. They are extremely weak, so the fork might really be my only option here."

He let out another sigh, and looked at the rodent with eyes full of determination.

---

The sound of burning could be heard, and shortly after came the sound of chewing.

'Tastes like horseshit, and it's really rubbery, but that's not a problem. I just hope It's not poisonous to eat or anything.' Wang Yuan kept trying chewing through the extremely rubbery meat, and eventually, a chunk of it came off.

The rodent's body was on top of the flame, stuck to a stick. It was already very thoroughly cooked. It was quite a pain to skin it, and it was not perfect at all. In fact, it took several hours to finally skin all of it, and it wasn't a fun experience at all.

Next to Wang Yuan were the rodent's scarlet eyes. Although they felt more like jewelry, than anything.

He kept them because most of the rodents aura was coming from it, and even after the rodent's body has been cooked, the eyes still ooze out aura.

He looked at it while trying to bite off the rubbery meat.

'It's like calling to me. It's strangely tempting.' Wang Yuan picked one of the eyes, and examined it. While it was quite tough on the outside, with a bit of force, Wang Yuan could easily squash it.

He really wanted to eat it, this strange aura it was oozing was even more tempting than the meat.

So, just like that, he gulped one of the eyes.

'Raspberry?' Surprisingly, it was sweet. He expected it to taste disgusting, as he always hated eating fish or pig's eyes.

Wang Yuan waited for a few seconds, but nothing happened. He didn't feel his body undergo any changes at all, despite the abundance amount of aura each of those eyes were oozing. He shrugged, and continued eating the meat.

After a few minutes of constant eating, Wang Yuan let out a satisfied burp, and stretched his body. The meat didn't taste amazing, sure, but it was enough to satiate his hunger.

He looked at the other eye, and gladly ate it, as if it was some sort of dessert.

'Not bad. Killing that rodent wasn't all that hard, I could probably kill more of them, I just need to be wary of their stone throwing attack.' Wang Yuan thought for a moment, 'And their eyes could be used as a dessert--Ugh!'

Wang Yuan immediately grabbed his head as he let out a cry of pain. A sudden, extremely painful headache just appeared all of a sudden. Was it because of the meat, or the eyeballs? He didn't know, but he knew he should've been more careful than to eat those eyeballs.

But they were just so tempting!

"God... damn it." Thankfully, the pain was getting weaker with each passing second.

Wang Yuan let out an annoyed groan, and stood up. However, something strange happened.

A vision appeared in his mind. It was like a picture was suddenly painted in his mind, and he can't remove it.

'What in the-'

It was the rodent, and it was surrounded by darkness. Its eyes were glowing red, its body emanating a huge amount of green aura, and it was screeching very loudly at the darkness before it.

This screech increased the intensity of the headache, which caused Wang Yuan to wince in pain.

"What's this--"

"KYAAAAAAAAH!"

Another screech came by, and Wang Yuan felt tears beginning to fall from his eyes. His vision blurred, and he couldn't see right anymore.

"KAAAAAH!" This ear-piercing scream was pushing Wang Yuan to the limit, his body beginning to violently shake.

It was an unbearable pain, it was as if someone was opening his brain, and just turning it into slush.

Wang Yuan clenched his fists, and gritted his teeth. He could even feel blood dripping from his hand due to the pain. Wang Yuan took one deep breath.

"Shut up!" With all his might, Wang Yuan let out a blood-churning shout of his own, and as if magic, the darkness surrounding the rodent suddenly, and almost crushed its body.

Wang Yuan widened his eyes in shock, as the pain in his head lessened.

"K-KYAAH!" The rodent let out another scream, but it was weaker than before, and its effect on Wang Yuan was lower.

"I said, shut up!" And just like that, the darkness immediately smashed the rodents, quickly causing it to cease to exist, not even a drop of blood spilling out of its body.

The image in his mind immediately disappeared, and the pain disappeared as well. Wang Yuan began to violently cough out blood and wheezing.

"F-Fuck rats as well." He muttered in-between coughs.

After what felt like an eternity, his vision finally cleared up, and he felt quite a bit better.

'What the hell was that?!'

Wang Yuan was puzzled and shocked. The rodent was already dead, and yet this image suddenly appeared in his mind, and somehow caused him this much agony.

'Was it that rodent's soul, by chance?' He began theorizing, before letting out a sigh. He had no idea what it was, but he guessed it was probably because of the eyeballs, since it happened immediately after he consumed the last one. He admitted it was a horrible and stupid decision from his part to eat the eyeballs, as unlike the meat, he didn't need them to survive.

Regardless, if he hunted another Rat, he'll decide to leave the eyeballs alone.

"Stupid rats, and stupid me for eating those eyeballs. Now, where can I find a good water sour-- huh? What's this?"

Wang Yuan immediately stopped his speech midway. He wasn't sure what was happening, but his vision... has improved!

He didn't have a good eye, he never did. But yet somehow, he could see perfectly. He could make out everything perfectly within 30 meters, even a housefly. Not to mention, his sense of smell seems to have improved greatly, and his hearing as well. He could hear many things, and much more clearly than before.

He looked at his hands in disbelief.

'This is... unreal! I-I could see everything so clearly! Could it be that rodent's eye? Was that what all that weird image in my mind was all about?' He let out a chuckle, while observing the surroundings.

He always wanted to have superpowers, but he didn't imagine such an increase in his five senses could make him feel this way. It was amazing, in simple terms.

'Wait, I still have some other things I need to check.'

While the enhanced senses were amazing in their own right, he needed to check another thing.

The rat could easily leap 120 meters away from their current location in a single second. Although it couldn't do it consecutively, it was still quite a good move.

As such, Wang Yuan got ready.

"Three, Two, One."

Wang Yuan gulped, before clenching his fists.

"Zero!"

...

5 meters. That was the distance he has leaped, nowhere near close the distance of that rodent.

'That's... quite underwhelming.' Unlike the enhanced senses, he didn't seem to have gained the rodent's ability to leap far away.

"Maybe I need to do some sort of movement, or something? Maybe I need to put all my mind into i--WAAH!" Right as he said that and moved a single inch, his entire body suddenly leaped forward at an incredible speed.

"HOLY- Aw!" He passed 30 meters, before his speed slowed done, and smashed into one of the trees nearby, and slid off like a cartoon character.

In total, he passed 50 meters, and all of it happened in a single second. It was quite a long way away from the rodent's leap, but it was still spectacular.

Wang Yuan rubbed his head in pain, but his expression was clearly that of a happy one. He looked behind him, noticing the amount of distance between him and the campfire he was at just a second ago.

"Haha! Yes! This is perfect!" Wang Yuan cheered, and did a silly dance.

He tried to do the move again, but it didn't work. He thought it had a cooldown or something, so he decided to wait for it. In the meantime, he began to theorize.

"There's no doubt it," he muttered, 'I have absorbed a part of that rodent's abilities and strength. It might not be to the same level, but its still very versatile. It could make my life much, much easier, and finding a water source won't be that hard. I think, there are 2 options that could explain how I got these sudden abilities."

"Either A: I actually have some magical superpower that lets me absorb my opponents powers and stats after I kill them,

Or B: Anyone is able to get each others abilities as long as they absorb them, just like I did. Although I haven't seen any animal other than a rodent that is able to leap this far, neither did I see a bunny able to fly in the air, or a bird that is able to leap a hundred meters in a single second. Then again, this could perhaps explain why a large bird is able to uproot a tree, or why a bunny is able to kill such a bird. Perhaps they managed to eat other dead, strong animals that died by accidents, and absorbed their strength. However, I still don't know much about this world, so I can't just discard this theory. I need to observe this world a bit more."

Truthfully, he wanted it to be option A to be the right one, but he felt option B had more merit, as it could explain quite a bit of questions he had.

Regardless, he still had one more ability he wanted to test out.

Wang Yuan picked a small rock from the ground. He looked at it with an expression full of doubt.

He wanted to know if it had inherited the rodents strength to shoot those powerful rocks. The rodent had to eat them in order to produce such a powerful ability, and so, he tried to eat them.

His teeth was indeed stronger, but it was not quite enough for it to break this rock yet. He looked at it in disappointment.

'Perhaps there's another way?' The rodents body was, after all, limited.

To test his theory out, Wang Yuan put the small rock between his thumb and index finger, just like when you want to flip a coin. He put all his mind and attention into it. As he was about to fling it, a white, blinding light suddenly came from the rock.

Wang Yuan's face immediately beamed with happiness. His theory was correct, after all!

His eyes showed fierce determination, and as the light began to shine more and more, Wang Yuan's grin became even bigger.

And finally

BOOM!

He has flicked the rock with all his might, and a small sound of explosion came from his hand. The rock moved at a rather fast speed, something close to 25 meters per second, and when it finally made contact with a tree, it made;

A small dent.

"...Eh?"