33. Unexpected encounter

Before leaving his room, Abraham had activated his shadow cloak ability.

[Shadow cloak activated]

[ -1 MC for every ten seconds of use]

His own Shadow below started to lift up from the ground and slowly crept up his body. From his toes to his knees, all the way to the top strands of hair on his head.

Now when looking from the outside, a strange foggy mist could be seen covering him.

Under the darkness of the night, Abraham easily got out of the building and was walking slowly towards the metallic fence separating them from the poor and weak people outside. On his way, he passed close to military personnel that was patrolling but none of them noticed Abraham.

After crossing the fence, Abraham was met with a sea of tents all around the land. It was already close to midnight as such no humans were seen around the tents. All of them were already inside their tents either preparing or were already sleeping. After traversing the land, Abraham arrived at the far end of the last tent.

Abraham slowly opened the tent and looked inside. The tent was really small, it contained a mattress on the floor with some clothes and other belonging here and there. Abraham entered inside and due to his shadow cloak, no noise was made. Abraham quickly approached the mattress and came close to the man lying on it. He was wearing torn clothes with no cover to protect him from the cold of the night. Looking at the man brought past life memories to his mind and he felt pity for the state some humans had to live in. But he knew right now even though he was stronger than many other humans, he didn't have the power to change everyone's situation.

Abraham gave the man a light slap waking him up. As soon as he opened his eyes, Abraham activated the new Influence skill.

[Skill influence activated]

[Skill successful]

Around the man's eyes, a small red circle could now be seen, and his body went slightly stiff.

"Just say whatever you want, and it will happen. If you ask him a question, his brain will process the information and answer. If you tell him to forget something, he'll forget it. You can even replace the memory, but that's a little risky, to be honest, and doesn't work well if he gets pulled in for questioning." The system gave Abraham a quick detail on how the skill work.

Abraham got behind the man and after moving the man's shirt, he pierced the man's neck with his pointy teeth. Abraham felt the delicious sensation of blood flowing through his mouth. He stopped after consuming a little to avoid the man from feeling ill the next day due to blood loss.

"You never saw me, and you never met me. You wouldn't remember on waking up and will ignore the bite mark on your neck associating it with a mosquito bite. Go back to sleep." Abraham gave the command.

The color around the man's eyes returned to normal, and he quickly went back to sleep as Abraham had ordered.

One done, many more to go.

Abraham went on tent after tent doing the same action. Unlike the first tent, many contained more than a single person thus Abraham had to make sure everyone was under the influence skill. After collecting more than 30 unique types of blood from different tents, Abraham was approaching another tent when he heard crying from inside.

At such a time, the sobbing and crying of a little girl were echoing in the tent. He then heard an adult scolding the child. Abraham was going to skip the tent but came to a sudden stop on hearing the name of the child that the adult shouted.

It was a name Abraham was extremely familiar with due to reading the book so Abraham decided to see if the child was whom he was thinking. When entering the tent in the shadow, he saw a female adult putting the little girl to sleep. While the child had blonde hair, the woman's hair was brown in color.

Abraham waited for the perfect moment when the woman turned, he came directly in front of her and successfully activate his influence skill.

"Is your name Lucy Munrow and that is your child Layla?" asked Abraham.

"Yes" under the skill, the woman named Lucy replied. Abraham's doubt was confirmed and he could not believe his fate.

The child Layla was currently around six years old. In the original story, she became friends with Quinn and was present throughout the whole story. She later became Quinn's wife. On the other side, her relationship with her mother was not that lovely.

Layla was the product of a rape that happen to Lucy. A high-level ability user took advantage of her and now whenever Lucy would look at her child, those horrible memories would surface. She knew that the child was not to blame, but she could not help herself to love her unconditionally. On top of that, Layla had taken the same blonde hair color as the rapist. She had tried to seek justice for herself but in the current war, people were not willing to put a high-level user behind bars. That resulted in Lucy developing extreme hate for ability users.

Abraham was in a dilemma on exactly what sort of decision to take. For now, he decided to just modify her memories a little.

"You will treat Layla with love. You will not associate her with her father and instead of hating all ability-user, you will hate rapists in general".

"I'm going to teach you an energy. You will remember only the moment when I start helping you feel the energy". Abraham felt that was the best course of action.

He didn't want her to forget all her pain but make her life easier in the future. After teaching her to feel her Qi energy, Abraham left the tent and went to another one.

---

Lucy opened her eyes abruptly. She was in shock. She remember Layla was crying and after putting her to bed she turned and came face to face with a mysterious man. She could not remember the man's face or any features but she knew that the person in front of her was a man. The man first asked her about her name and Layla's name, after that she made her sit and put his hand on her back. The man didn't take any advantage of her instead he showed her an energy inside her body and the man told her about a Qi energy.

The man left after giving her some advice and told her that they would meet again in the future. Only after the man was gone, did she regain control of her body and was able to move again. Everything felt like a dream but she had a way to confirm reality.

Lucy remained seated and started to feel the energy inside her body. She was so immense in finding the Qi energy, that she didn't feel time gone. After around half an hour, she could sense some green particles gathering inside her body.

"Everything was real. Who was that man and why did he help me." involuntarily tears started to flow from her eyes. After the rape, this was the first time someone had helped her.

Looking at Layla, she felt sorry for her and she felt a sudden urge to raise her properly. She went to the bed next to her child and gave her a big kiss on her forehead.

Everything was going like Abraham has expected.