1% Lifesteal

It was a bumpy ride. It had been for most of the way there.

Freddy looked out the bus window and down the deteriorating roads surrounded by thick forest on each side. The bus's massive wheels handled the trip quite well, but the constant jostling and bouncing had worn on most of the passengers—even Freddy had to admit that it was starting to exhaust him.

At first, he had no real direction in mind when he set off on his journey—he just wanted to make some distance from the previous town and go a bit deeper into the Northern Belt.

But he had heard some strange rumors on the few stops the bus had made at smaller settlements. There was a city. It was called Repentawa. Well, it was more of a large town by the American Empire standards, with just a bit above 200,000 residents. By the standards of the Northern Belt, that was considered a small-to-medium-sized city. But its population wasn’t the thing that caught Freddy’s attention.

The rumors surrounding it were the main reason he was heading there.

The first time he heard the rumors, he didn’t think much of them. The second time, they piqued his curiosity. The third time, he knew he had to check it out.

As for what these mystical rumors were?

The city didn’t entirely suck to live in!

Crime was still rampant, the infrastructure was still ass, and the local government was as rotten as anywhere else, but at the very least, organized crime held just a bit less power over the citizens than in most cities in this godforsaken place.

Nobody knew why this was the case, but it made it an appealing place to move to.

Freddy shared this sentiment.

He planned on building himself up, maybe dipping his toes in some business ventures if the opportunity arose. The fewer crime lords he had to contend with, the easier his life would be.

He extracted his Northern Belt ID from his storage ring with a small, barely audible puff of air. It was the same size and roughly the same layout as the empire ID, but while the empire ID had a very professional look to it, the Northern Belt one was…

The blue, stylized coloring almost made it look like a pass card for a ski resort rather than an official government document. It was pretty but flashy—tacky even. He sighed and put it away. It was still a valid ID, at least within the Northern Belt. It would serve him just fine.

After another few hours of insufferable commute through a mountainous, frozen hellscape, he finally spotted Repentawa, tucked neatly in a valley.

Frankly, it looked shittier than he expected. Even from afar, he could tell that the concrete buildings were run down and old, giving most of the city a depressing vibe. There were new construction projects around the edges; the settlement was expanding, likely a sign of the new people that were coming in.

As was the case practically everywhere, there were some nice buildings a short drive out of the city on almost every side. These appeared to belong to the local powers, who had a habit of putting some space between themselves and, well, everyone else.

At any rate, with the city close on the horizon, his journey was nearly finished. It had taken so much longer than he expected, and that was more than just a minor annoyance.

Sophia’s head was rotting away. Anything less than direct, potent, supreme-quality healing could do nothing to buy him more time. He had somewhere around seven months remaining to help bring her back to life. That was far less than he had been hoping for.

Slowly but surely, the bus made its way toward the city. Half an hour later, it finally stepped on a high-quality road, and another fifteen minutes later, Freddy had reached his destination.

It wasn’t all that different from the last town he stayed at—the civilians were armed, drakes and carriages were the main modes of transport, and it was bitterly cold. Passersby all looked to be in foul moods, and nobody as much as glanced at one another.

Freddy sighed, taking a deep breath and smiling broadly. “Feels just like home.”

Thankfully, he didn’t have to pull any bullshit to get some funds this time.

He had four decent-sized storage rings to sell. Sophia’s, Jacob’s, and of the two cultists. He hadn’t sold the cultists’ rings yet because he had thought he might find a use for them, but what better use was there but to earn a shit ton of money?

Swiftly, he headed for the nearest bank, where he opened an account and immediately traded the storage rings in exchange for a cash deposit.

Banks weren’t trading centers—they didn’t usually buy or sell things. However, stuff with stable value, such as storage rings, could be exchanged for money at any bank.

They didn’t deal in speculative goods or anything that lost value with time. But storage rings lasted forever. Due to their limited supply, they also barely changed in value over time. Combined with their tiny size, they were a better way to store value than even gold.

While Freddy had no trust in the government, the banks were the singular exception. Every bank was empire-owned, and an incredible amount of effort went into ensuring that if anyone put their money into a bank, it would be safe there.

In fact, even just blackmailing someone to take their money out of their bank account was punishable by death.

There was a good reason for this—with such incredible disparity in personal power, there had to be some way to ensure that ordinary citizens and low-ranking archhumans could keep their money safe. If such a thing didn’t exist, the economy simply collapsed.

It turned out that if mortals couldn't hold on to money, they wouldn't take money as payment. Who’d have thought? Well, not the empire! They had to suffer three major collapses before it finally clicked.

Freddy left the bank with a big, warm smile on his face. While he had known that storage rings were expensive, he had such a massive one that he had never bothered to check the price.

It turned out that his little trip to the bank—after taxes and fees were accounted for—left him with just over nine million dollars.

The air smelled so much fresher than it did the last time he was outside, which was only like an hour ago. He felt like an entirely new man.

The first thing he did was visit the nearest hospital. He was referred to a private clinic for his exotic needs, where he reserved the services of three expert healers. He had to wait around four months for them to free up their schedules since they would have to work for quite a few days in a row to finish Freddy’s insane request.

With a contract ensuring that they would reconstruct Sophia’s body for the affordable price of six million dollars, Freddy was finished with the most important thing on his list of obligations.

It wasn’t guaranteed to work. She still might not wake up. There was a good chance he’d have to spent more money on further procedures, but this was a huge step forward.

A body reconstructed through supernatural-quality healing wouldn’t be… particularly healthy. It was likely that it would be deformed and that it would be prone to sickness and organ failure. But as long as it helped Sophia open her eyes, it didn’t really matter. A couple of those sparks of hers would get her right back up to perfect health.

Despite signing away a huge chunk of his wealth, he still had three million dollars sitting on his bank account.

The second order of business was finding a place to stay. Given that he'd seen the type of insane shit landlords got up to around here, he had no intention of renting.

And… well… he did have a solid chunk of cash burning a hole in his pocket. Perhaps getting himself a piece of real estate wasn't the worst idea.

He stayed at a fancy hotel for a few days while he was shopping for a place to buy. The older buildings had some really cheap apartments, but he didn't have to settle for some moldy old place that would depreciate in value.

So he turned to the fancier side of the city for his needs.

After having several lawyers comb through the contracts to ensure there was no funny business, he signed a deal and became the proud owner of a 1.7-million-dollar penthouse.

It felt surreal. He sleep walked through the whole thing without really taking the time to think about what he was doing.

Finally, once everything was paid for and all the contracts were signed, he walked into his new 300-square-meter apartment.

It was decorated in a soft, beige style, but with warm colors and fancy furniture to keep things from being too monochrome. A massive BC sat in the middle of his opulent living room. The bed took up half of his already gigantic master bedroom. There were four guest rooms, each bigger than any place he'd rented out.

The walls were mostly made up of large windows looking over the vast frozen wilderness surrounding the settlement, where the morning sun peeked through the thick clouds above, showcasing its heavenly columns of light, while on the other side, he got a solid view of the city itself.

He moved robotically and sat on the giant couch, sinking into the soft pillows like a ship settling into the ocean.

His eyes opened slightly. “That's right… it's my birthday today,” he said with a chuckle. “I totally forgot!” He started laughing wildly.

It was the 9th of March—the date commemorating the day all his troubles began. He hadn't celebrated it for so long that he nearly forgot about it altogether.

As his hysterical laughter intensified, it was soon joined by tears. He pinched his brows as he leaned over and wept his heart out. “Fucking hell,” he swore, swallowing heavily and wiping his face with the back of his hand.

How long had he dreamed of buying an apartment? He'd worked tirelessly, gathering wealth penny by penny in hopes that one day in the distant future, he could become an archhuman, and only then would he have even been capable of saving for real estate. It had been a dream above a dream, a pure fantasy that couldn’t be realized within one lifetime.

But now, more for convenience than anything, he had purchased a massive living unit… just like that.

But… he supposed it made sense.

Somewhere along the way, between all the moments of suffering and horror, he had become a peak two-star.

A one-star was already quite far removed from everyday mortals. Two-stars were elites. Peak two-stars? He was already pushing into the bottom rung of the owner class—the elite among the elite.

Buying an apartment like this barely even qualified as a large purchase anymore. It had no rooms for training or gathering. Frankly, this was a bit too frugal for someone of his station.

The things he had to really save up and fight for were far more expensive than this.

He needed a genuinely incredible amount of wealth to reach the third star. Without essence elixirs and ability-growth resources, he’d need decades to grow his abilities enough to push forward. It was even worse due to the two spirit abilities he had in his soul. While it wouldn’t hinder the growth of his abilities by much, any bottlenecks he encountered would become thrice as harsh.

That was why a two-thirds reduction in growth was so crippling.

But for that day, he put the stressful thoughts of the future away. This wasn't the time to look upon the cliff he stood before.

It was time for him to reflect on just how far he'd come.

Tears wouldn't stop flowing down his eyes. “Mom… Dad…” he called into the empty space around him. “I wish you were still here.”

He wasn't calling for his birth parents.

They could die in a ditch for all he cared.

But his adopted parents—Jill and Francis Stern—he wanted them back. He was ashamed of the path that took him there but proud of where he was. He wanted to show them. He was a big boy now—all grown up, manly, muscular, and hairy. He was healthy. He was powerful. He could take care of himself—them, too, if they were still with him.

Would they be proud?

For a long hour, he wept, letting it all out. Then for a brief moment, he thought he could find them again one day.

But the empire was a huge place. Who knew where they had gone? He'd need to mobilize quite the force to track them down… if they were even still alive.

And knowing their problematic lifestyle, they had probably run away precisely because they got into trouble they didn't want to drag him into.

A pang of anger flashed in his gut at the thought. Whether they were alive or not, he'd know one day. And he'd find out who had brought them such trouble.

Even if it was the empress herself, her days were numbered.

Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Freddy went back to chuckling. “God damn it, I'm losing it.”

He'd celebrate his birthday today. Despite all the times life tried to kick him to the curb, he was alive and thriving. For the first time, he truly understood why people celebrated their birthdays. It wasn’t some vain celebration of a random date.

Nobody was guaranteed to live another year. It only made sense to celebrate making it that far.

He had the whole day before him.

It was 1 p.m.

For the time being, he had no plans to jump right into delving and training. He wouldn’t make that same mistake again.

He had learned his lesson—the lone wolf shtick didn’t work.

What was a lone wolf but a big, ownerless dog?

In a forest of tiger packs and dragon dens, a wolf was more prey than predator. He needed backing from the tigers. He needed allies among the dragons.

That didn’t mean he would work for someone else. As a peak two-star, he was more than qualified to be a boss rather than an employee. But that didn’t mean that he couldn’t work with other people.

Automatically, this meant he would have enemies, too. And that was just a reality of life. There were always enemies to be made. The difference this time was that he would be choosing who he made into an enemy.

Taking a deep breath, he worked to relax himself. “Chill out, man,” he told himself.

This wasn’t a day for dark thoughts. It was a day to relax and have some fun.

He left the apartment and went to a spa. First, he got a massage. With his talent, his muscles were always in top form, but that didn’t make the massage any less enjoyable or relaxing. After that, he spent some time in the sauna and in the baths.

For a long moment, he was tempted to hit a nearby club but decided against it. He was still unfamiliar with the people of this city, and barging in cock swinging like he owned the place might step on someone’s toes. He wasn’t in the mood for that.

He got some nice wine and snacks. Then he went home.

For the whole evening, he drank away and watched the BC, flipping through the channels. He watched dumb comedy specials and shitty action movies.

At one point, he even brought Bloodshed out to watch with him. The skeleton wasn’t impressed by comedy, but it quite enjoyed horror films, especially the gory ones.

“Hehehey, damn, Bloodshed!” Freddy called as he rustled its bony head. “See? You can enjoy things, too.”

“I am merely fascinated by—”

“Shhh…” he shushed it as he pressed a finger to its bare teeth. “Just admit that you like Skinless Greg 3 and shut the hell up!”

For a brief moment, the skeleton almost appeared to snort disdainfully before it turned away and continued watching.

As such, the night went on, soon passing midnight and marking the end of his birthday.

This was nice, Freddy thought to himself as he turned the BC off and got ready for bed. He let Bloodshed stay outside. At first, he was bothered by the fact that it left blood all over the place, but it could just as easily make that blood evaporate into essence whenever it wished.

He wanted to encourage the skeleton to be a bit more independent. At least within the confines of the apartment, it didn’t have to be just a tool Freddy used sometimes.

To his surprise, the skeleton sat on the couch and turned the BC back on.

Freddy cackled.

“Is there a problem, Master?” Bloodshed called.

“Nah,” he said, swinging a drunken hand in the air. “Just keep the volume down while I sleep.”

Just as he said this, the horror movie showed a scene of a woman getting brutally murdered and screaming wildly.

“Understood,” Bloodshed said as it lowered the volume a bit.

Freddy shook his head with a rueful smile. “Good night, Bloodshed.”

The skeleton turned to face him and nodded.

With a goofy smile, Freddy walked away, leaving Bloodshed alone. It kept staring down the hallway, its empty eye sockets lingering on the shadow he left behind.

“Good night, Freddy.”