Chapter 20: Chapter 20: Let Me Praise Myself First

-Skill 1: [I Can See Everything, Right Down to Your Underwear]: Within a three-meter range, you can see all of the target’s Superpowers.

-Skill 2: [Your Cover is Blown]: Within a five-meter range, all Disguise Techniques, Escape Techniques, Concealing Skills, and Disguise Techniques are rendered ineffective. Invisible Items, Confusing Arrays, and False Information Barriers will automatically reveal their flaws. The world will revert to its original form in your eyes.

-Skill 3: [One Look and You’re Hooked]: Permanently enhances all vision-related abilities (Observation Power, Dynamic Vision, Night Vision Ability, Long-distance Vision Ability, etc.). The degree of enhancement increases with each use, with no upper limit.

-(Locked) Skill 4: [Open Your Damn Eyes and See, I’m About to Scream]: A trigger-based skill that automatically issues a warning when you encounter mortal danger, are being spied on by a High Level Superpower User, or are affected by a nexus of fate.

’What an incredible S Level Superpower! Not only can it see others’ Superpowers and Skills, but it can also see through all disguises. Thinking about all the bizarre abilities that awakened during the apocalypse, this Eye of Barrier Breaking is incredibly useful. She even remembered some zombies evolving abilities to confuse humans, but with the Eye of Barrier Breaking, she was confident she wouldn’t be easily fooled again.’

What shocked her even more was that the Eye of Barrier Breaking could actually detect locked, grayed-out skills. Even though she couldn’t use the hidden skill, this was something she had never seen before, not even in her past life.

’Could my own Taker Superpower also have a hidden, grayed-out, locked skill? Did that private investigator see my hidden skill too?’

With that thought, she used the Eye of Barrier Breaking to inspect her own Superpower again. Sure enough, an extra line of text had appeared after her Superpower’s description. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Superpower Name: [Taker] (S Level)

-Skill 1: [What’s Yours Is Mine]

You will obtain all the Abilities of any being you kill with your own hands.

-Skill 2: [By Force, It’s Still Mine]

You have a chance to steal a portion of the Abilities from beings weaker than you. The probability is random.

-Skill 3: [I Can Do Whatever I Want With My Things]

You can freely distribute the Abilities you have taken. The success rate is directly correlated with "emotional weight."

-(Locked) Skill 4: [I Am a Taker, But I Can Also Be a Guardian]

?

’Just as I thought, there’s a Skill 4: "I Am a Taker, But I Can Also Be a Guardian." The literal meaning is clear enough—she can be a Taker or a Guardian. But what does the question mark after the skill mean?’

The description for Skill 4’s Ability was completely blank. So what exactly was Skill 4, and how was she supposed to use it?

Sue Lawrence found that even when she used the Eye of Barrier Breaking, the question mark remained perfectly clear.

’I’ll just forget about it for now. I can’t figure it out anyway.’

Looking further down, another line of text followed: Luck Value: 399+0.075+86.

’399 was what I stole in my past life, 0.075 is from Tiana Lynch, and 86 is from the private investigator. I took 100% of his, but it only amounted to 86??’

’It seems those four people really did have top-tier luck, each with a value of 100.’

’Anyway, I should pat myself on the back. I’ve gained another very useful Superpower. The only thing is, I can’t see my own Luck Value, and of course, I can’t see anyone else’s either.’

’Weird. What’s the principle behind it??’

After the initial joy, a strong sense of unease washed over her.

’Why is everything happening ahead of schedule?’

In her past life, Superpowers had only started awakening one after another after the apocalypse began. But now, with ten days still to go, Maeve Walsh’s Space Ability and the Eye of Barrier Breaking had appeared early. There was even an S Level Superpower!

And then there was the increasingly frequent abnormal weather in the news, the early stocking of military-grade bomb shelters...

Everything was deviating from the trajectory of her past life.

’Did my rebirth cause a butterfly effect? Or has everything truly moved up?’

However, she quickly calmed herself. No matter what happened this time, she would ensure her family survived.

With that thought, Sue Lawrence continued looting the corpse.

She quickly found three cell phones, a recording pen, a pair of high-powered binoculars, a monocular night-vision device, two solar-powered chargers, an expandable baton, pepper spray, a multi-tool military knife, and a signal detector on the private investigator’s body. What surprised her most was the multi-functional watch.

The watch didn’t need batteries at all; it was powered by kinetic energy from the wearer’s body. It was accurate to the second, had adjustable time zones, was waterproof and shock-resistant, and even concealed a miniature camera, a walkie-talkie, and a signal emitter. It was a god-tier reconnaissance tool for the apocalypse.

She hefted the backpack, unable to stop grinning. The man Jason Sterling sent wasn’t a detective; he was clearly a "walking loot box" sent to deliver her gear.

But when she tried to drag the detective’s body, her spirits instantly deflated.

Although she had plundered a pile of combat and reconnaissance skills, plus the S Level Eye of Barrier Breaking, her physical strength hadn’t improved one bit. She was still as weak as she was in her past life, unable to even truss a chicken. At best, she was a glass cannon with zero stamina, a glaringly obvious weakness.

Sue Lawrence gritted her teeth, her face flushing red with exertion. She gripped the corpse’s collar tightly, forcing it into the black body bag, then heaved it onto her back and staggered toward the trunk of her car.

Every step felt like she was treading on cotton. The weight on her back was suffocating, but the thought of Jason Sterling, Donovan Lawrence, and the rest of them made her grit her teeth and bear it.

After tossing the body into the trunk, she immediately went to search the detective’s car.

Opening the car door, her eyes fell on a high-performance laptop and a network switch.

Sue Lawrence skillfully booted it up. Her [B Level Network Technology] allowed her to crack the password quickly. The screen was filled with photos of her: leaving the villa, driving on the highway, shopping downtown. There were even pictures of her in the supermarket. The only thing missing was the fatal scene from the woods just moments ago.

’Good thing it wasn’t connected to the internet.’

Sue Lawrence breathed a sigh of relief. She took out the three phones, unlocked them one by one, found the account used to contact Jason Sterling, and scrolled through the chat history.

The chat log was pathetically short. It only contained Jason Sterling’s initial payment and surveillance request. The detective sent a photo and a location every two hours, with no other communication.

’Less contact, fewer loose ends.’

Seeing that it had been nearly two hours, she found a photo on the phone of herself getting out of the car by the lake earlier. She found a spot with an internet connection and sent it, then took out the GPS tracker from her pocket and left its current location.

There was no response from the other side, which clearly meant they had accepted her "fake report."

She quickly cleaned up the footprints and bloodstains on the ground, drove the detective’s car to a slope by the lake, and released the handbrake.

The car slowly rolled down the incline toward the frozen lake. With a KRAK, it broke through the thin ice and sank to the bottom.

The icy lake water quickly submerged the vehicle. A new layer of thin ice soon formed over the hole. Within a week, the entire lake would freeze solid, completely concealing this "perfect crime."

Closing the trunk, Sue Lawrence felt a growing sense of urgency. She had to get Maeve Walsh’s Space Ability as soon as possible. Otherwise, the next time she was in a situation like this, she wouldn’t even have a place to hide a body.

She drove her car, deliberately circling the city. Every now and then, she’d ask a passerby to help her take a picture, maintaining the detective’s pattern of sending a "report" to Jason Sterling every two hours.

When messages came in from other people, she would use old replies saved on the phone, responding in the previous owner’s tone with, "On a business trip, we’ll talk when I get back." It was a flawless deception.

’I’ll use the private investigator’s location to keep Jason Sterling off my back, then get the Space Ability. That way, with a perfect alibi, no one will ever suspect me.’

But before that, there was something even more important to do. She had already arranged it with her father and older brother. Tonight, they were going to the mine to clean out the supplies Jason Sterling had hoarded!