1% Lifesteal

Freddy had focused entirely on growing Puddle of Blood. As he neared its completion, his dilemma was resolved—he decided to go with Crimson Mercury. There were many reasons to choose it over Rich Blood, but the one that mattered the most to him was the essence efficiency.

Although he had made up his mind, he still didn’t have Crimson Mercury and, thus, couldn’t truly use the blood affinity for anything of value. But after a month of observing the party in action and seeing numerous others fighting the gorels, he was confident that he wouldn’t need it either way.

Stepping out into the passage realm by himself distinctly differed from being there with the others. Thankfully, it was day, but if anything, that made him anxious, as that meant there was a risk that it would suddenly turn into nighttime at any moment.

There was an air of danger and uncertainty; his back felt more exposed than ever before. As soon as he made his way past the beginning of the green zone and stepped out of range of anyone’s sight, he took a small ball out of his storage ring.

It was the perception-boosting pill. This thing was quite big, so swallowing it wouldn’t be easy. This was also his first time taking one, and he hoped it wouldn’t cause any problems for him. Still, even if it did, there was always his talent to make those problems disappear.

He pulled a bottle out of his rucksack and took the pill. Nothing happened. He looked around, trying to see whether anything about his perception had changed. The path he was walking down had the signature smooth stone beneath his feet and was surrounded by tall, jagged rock formations. The boulders surrounding him were large and looked unstable, with numerous cracks and small protrusions that cupped dead leaves and had patches of grass sprouting scattered around.

He observed the moss near the bottom, combing his fingers through its tender, furry surface as he took it in. He didn’t feel much due to his gloves, but he did hear the smooth scraping sound of rugged fabric rubbing against the surface.

The changes came slowly, but as they did, they arrived in sudden bursts. The nondescript mossy surface grew clearer, even through the touch of the glove. He jumped back as he suddenly heard metal clashing and gorels screaming. It was distant. So distant that he usually wouldn’t hear anything from that far away.

As he backed off and looked around, he found all his senses cranked up. The loamy soil, verdant, fresh gust, and weak notes of burning fur, flowing blood, and rotting corpses filled his nostrils. The sounds in the distance grew increasingly pronounced, and he felt more confident that he could tell which direction they were coming from.

There was a party of three… no… a party of four heading down another path just behind the rock formation he stood before. He could hear their armor clanking, the cloth rubbing, and weapons clattering.

The stone before him suddenly looked more textured—just looking at the surface made him keenly aware of which parts were more fragile than others.

He gulped.

That was… a lot more potent than he expected, in more ways than one. His back and ass were sweating profusely, and he felt severely uncomfortable in his armor. Each imperfection, every bump and turn that didn’t perfectly sit against his sensitive skin, was like a hotspot on the surface of his body, making him shift awkwardly as he tried to make the feeling go away.

The back of his head suddenly started hurting, and soon enough, it felt as if drills were piercing his temples. His breathing sped up. A high-pitched buzzing filled his ears. His eyes shifted around involuntarily, making him lose his sense of direction and worsening his dizziness.

He swiftly pulled the machete from the storage ring and ran to the closest plant. The poor sapling never knew what hit it. One moment, it was growing up to become a mighty tree; another, it was not.

But his wanton slaughter didn’t end there. He cut grass, trampled moss, and brutally plucked flowers from their lofty perch upon the stone walls surrounding him. After a while, the side effects subsided, and he could finally breathe.

Thinking back on that man, August, the person who had told him what this medicine was, the man hadn’t actually known what this pill was immediately. He only figured it out after taking a good whiff and analyzing it, likely through his talent.

He did say that the medicine was potent. He also clarified that it had severe side effects. But Freddy hadn’t been expecting something this intense. It was possible that these pills either weren’t meant to be consumed this way or that he needed to become at least a three-star to safely take them.

Well, that was none of his concern. But it was good to know that he was right to take them somewhere safe where he could remove the side effects. Now that he felt fine, he couldn’t stop a grin from spreading on his face.

Their effect was truly magnificent.

He got up and continued down the path. Soon enough, he heard rustling. He climbed up a nearby rock and looked in the direction the sound was coming from. Not too far from where he was, right past the rocky formation and inside the woods, a gorel guard was scouting the area, kicking up leaves and sniffing around.

He would have never spotted the black fur of the creature lurking in the shadows under normal circumstances.

So, without further ado, he started walking toward it. Moving across the uneven rocky areas wasn’t recommended due to the danger of rocks crumbling beneath his feet, which could easily result in a broken leg or two, depending on how unlucky he got.

But as he traveled forward, he found it trivial to distinguish between rocks that ‘seemed’ unstable and ones that didn’t. It was hard to tell exactly what his perception was going off when he sensed this stuff, but he felt pretty confident. Too confident, in fact, as he stepped on a rock that wasn’t entirely stable and nearly tripped as it shifted below his feet.

Okay, this pill might have been potent, but it was no perception talent. Naturally, it had limits. So, as he proceeded, he did so with caution.

Eventually, he passed the unstable ground, stepped onto firm soil, and walked into the thicker forest beneath the shadowy canopy.

He immediately took the flashlight from his storage ring, making it appear in his hand with a quiet popping sound of air rushing out of its way, and turned it on to scout the area for other gorels. He couldn’t hear or see anything else, but the gorel guard was already sniffing the air, clearly having sensed his approach as it shifted around like a hyperactive, bulky dog and checked every direction, wheezing, and growling.

Freddy put the flashlight in his left arm, keeping it turned on in case the day suddenly became night, and pulled out the dagger, holding it in his right arm. The weapon was highly menacing, looking jagged and uneven. It was clear that getting stabbed by this thing would leave complex, nasty injuries, and that was likely intentionally done to further attune the weapon to the concept of bleeding.

If he was being honest, daggers weren’t his thing. Weapons weren’t his thing in general. But he could easily hold the handle in a reverse grip and still punch stuff. He didn’t have to use the dagger just because he held it in his hand.

And there was another thing he had realized. This wasn’t really a weapon. Thinking back on his fight with Janahalar, equipped with the knowledge that it could transfer its effect on any weapons conjured, he quickly realized that the man had never used the dagger directly. In fact, Freddy had barely even realized that the man had been holding the dagger at all.

This likely meant that this wasn’t meant to be used to stab but as more of a glorified dagger-shaped wand.

With the flashlight and knife both in reverse grips, ready to be used, he stepped forward until the gorel finally pinpointed his position and started running at him.

When it reached him, he kicked it, not even using Flowing Strike or Hydraulic Flex. The thing took his foot head-on and was knocked back. As soon as it reoriented itself, he kicked it again, this time in the back of the head. It didn’t get up this time, merely whimpering and howling as he brought his foot down and cracked its neck. A rush of ether flowed into his star, making it grow just a tiny bit.

That whole thing about not needing Crimson Mercury? Yeah… After a month of watching others fight these things, he had made an undeniable conclusion. He was way overqualified for this realm.

The thing with danger assessments and recommendations was that passage owners aimed to protect themselves legally. “Acceptable risk” for a party of one-stars and a beginner two-star meant that if one satisfied that requirement, one was mostly going to be fine unless they really fucked up or got mega unlucky. People still got injured daily because, well, the world had no shortage of idiots aching to seriously fuck something up.

Even then, his power wasn’t that of an average two-star. Not only did he have great equipment, but he also had fantastic abilities and an honestly overpowered talent. If there was anyone who didn’t need to be afraid to delve here alone, it was him. He picked up the dead, primarily intact gorel and dragged it back. The way there had taken him around twenty minutes of walking, and the way back was roughly the same.

When he left it on the counter, with just that, he had already earned almost what his average daily wage had been for the past month.

And then he headed back in. For his next prey, he came across three gorel workers dragging branches. He picked up a giant rock. Activating Hydraulic Flex, he threw it with the might of god, smiting one of the poor things before it could even react. The other two hissed and growled, immediately rushing at him.

The thing with Gorels was that they had the earth affinity. But these things were dumber than the rocks they should be able to manipulate. As for their essence control, the most they could do was add some momentum to their hits in a sort of quasi-Tectonic Strike. It was important to remember that their attacks could still break human bones like dry twigs. Well, other humans. Not his.

As soon as the first one reached him, he used Flowing Strike and slammed it right in its face. The force transference kicked in, sending the chunky worker flying like a football and slamming into a tree twenty meters away.

Once the third arrived, he grabbed it by its swinging arm, casually taking the brunt of its strike, picked it up like a toddler, and slammed it back-first against the closest boulder.

It wouldn’t be correct to say that he was perfectly safe here. There was always a risk of something going to shit. All it took was one deviant and a bit of arrogance to snuff out any overzealous delver.

But… yeah.

He had seen enough of this realm.

He knew which places were perilous and which parts were to be avoided. As long as he stuck to places slightly off the beaten path, where there weren’t enough gorels for parties to bother, his experience delving would be akin to walking into a kindergarten and beating the ever-living shit out of a bunch of toddlers.

He took his backpack off and opened it.

The foldable racks he would use to carry the gorel corpses were placed aside as he pulled out a snack.

It was bread. In fact, his giant rucksack was mostly just full of bread. Why bread? Because bread was cheap and relatively nutritious.

Ever since discovering that powerful talents changed minimally with evolutions, he had taken a much better look at 1% Lifesteal. And, frankly, while he had already known that the talent was powerful, he had still been way underestimating it.

Since then, he had had a long month to think things through and read up on supreme-quality healing and just healing in general.

As he pulled out a big loaf of bread and took a bite, he pulled out a can of energy drink from a twelve-pack and downed it. For a while already, all he had been eating was bread, and all he had been drinking was either coffee, milk, or energy drinks.

Was this a healthy way to live?

That simply wasn’t a question he ever had to ask.

The concept of healthy living simply didn’t apply to him.

He could be drinking pure oil for all he cared, and he’d still be golden. Adaptive Water Body helped a lot with speeding up and improving digestion, and as long as he removed any unhealthy side effects of his stomach terrorism, his diet simply didn’t matter.

His month of working as a helper had been incredibly fruitful. Not only had he gotten the opportunity to thoroughly familiarize himself with the realm, but he also got a closer look at how money was actually earned.

For the most part, the single biggest profit bottleneck was fatigue. After all, it wasn’t like continuously carrying big-ass monster corpses back and forth was easy. It was tiring, and tired archs were significantly more susceptible to making a critical mistake at the wrong moment. At one time, he saw Kyle take a nasty hit to the knee. The treatment cost the man well over two thousand dollars. The risk just wasn’t worth it.

For others, that was. Not for him.

He finished drinking the energy drink and took the last bite of the loaf of bread. And, with that, he picked up the bodies, and, this time, he ran while carrying them back. He wasn’t all that tired from the journey, but he downed another energy drink anyway.

Then, he returned to the realm and found another small group of worker gorels, kicking them to death and carrying them back again. And then drinking another energy drink. He repeated the same thing over and over.

Soon enough, people noticed.

“Wasn’t this guy a helper for Theo and his gang?” His enhanced perception allowed him to overhear one person ask. “What the hell happened to him?”

He ran past a group of four on his way out again. They laughed at him, taking a few jabs and saying he’d probably die by the end of the day. Once they saw him haul back eight workers on his back, adding up to a total of fifty-seven for that day, they found themselves without any further comments.

And with that, just as he was about to head out again, the day blinked out and night set. In contrast to what many had grown to believe that day, he wasn’t actually a suicidal dumbass. He still felt pretty buzzed from all the energy drinks, but he could tell that his focus was waning. His attention was drifting more and more often. Even though he could heal the consequences of abusing his body, it seemed his brain could only take so much work for one day.

As he clocked out for that day, he waited a bit and got his tally.

A fat grin spread from ear to ear as he saw the number on his receipt.

$12,571.

***

“Twelve K… oh yeah, oh yeah, tweeeelve K… Oh yeah, oh yeah,” he sang on his way to the gym.

“Tweeheeeeeeleleleleve fuuuckin’ K…! Ah, ah, ah, twelve mothafuckin’ K! Uh!” and continued as he started his work out.

A massive plastic container rested beside the bench he was working out on. It was a once-empty milk jug that he had repurposed, filling it to the brim with energy drink that he sipped on as he worked out.

He kept singing to himself as he placed his weights on the barbell. After placing 625kgs, he finally started the set. Lifting it once, then twice, he gathered the willpower and strength to push it a third time, finally overcoming his limit.

While this was impressive, he hadn’t let it get to his head. After all, Mark could lift more than this, even back when he was a one-star. He really missed that guy sometimes.

Still, he was making steady progress, and as long as he kept at it, he’d keep growing. The beast steroids were still in his dimension ring, but he hadn’t gathered the balls to try those.

As he moved on from the bench, he went to the squat rack, where he could easily knock out 900 kgs already. “Twelve K, yeah yeah, twelve K, yeah yeah,” he kept signing, clearly annoying the guy who was working out near him. But he was in too good of a mood to let that stop him, “Twelve K, yeah yeah, twelve K, yeah yeah, twelve K, yeah yeah, twelve K, yeah yeah,” he continued. “Twelve K, yeah yeah, twelve K, yeah yeah, twelve K, yeah yeah, twelve K, yeah yeah,” and just kept going. “Twelve K, yeah yeah, twelve K, yeah yeah, twelve K, yeah yeah, twelve K…”

“Will you please shut the fuck up!?” the man beside him yelled. “You shithead!”

“Oh, sorry,” he said apologetically. “I wasn’t…”

“What the fuck is wrong with you!? Huh!?” the man yelled, getting up and angrily throwing a dumbbell to the ground, rushing at him and getting well into his personal space. “Do that one more time,” he threatened while pointing a finger at his face, “and I’ll shove my foot up your ass!”

“Ok, I’m seriously sorry, and I’ll stop, I promise,” he said again, but he really couldn’t stop himself from still smiling. It wasn’t like he felt threatened by this guy.

The man, however, clearly didn’t enjoy the look on his face. “Do you have a problem with me?” he asked, getting even closer. “Meet me outside, and we’ll fix things up; how’s that sound?”

“No, I’m…” he started, suddenly deflating a bit.

“What, now you’re scared?”

“Relax,” he insisted. “There’s no need to get violent. I said I’m sorry,” he reminded the man, his expression darkening as his right hand twitched.

“Stay in your fucking lane, pussy,” the man shot one final time as he finally retreated to continue the exercise.

He merely shrugged and walked over to the squat rack. There, he took a damn big gulp from his energy jug as he prepared himself for the set. One weight after another went up on the barbell. 300kgs… 400kgs… 500kgs…

The man paused a bit as he glanced at what he was doing.

600… 700… 800… 900…

1000… 1100…

1200 kgs.

He took yet another gulp from his jug, and he got under the bar. Then, he started the set. He immediately felt like buckling under the insane weight. After all, this was 300kgs above his maximum… when he wasn’t using Hydraulic Flex.

As he triggered the ability, it appeared like his load had halved. With all the focus he could muster, he dropped into a low squat and pushed himself back up. His muscles sounded like rubber gloves being stretched to their breaking point, and he did it again, finishing the set on the sixth rep.

By the time he put the barbell back on the rack, the guy was nowhere to be found.

His body hurt like hell, and he felt thoroughly exhausted. Still, he couldn't stop chuckling. "That was so worth it."

***

After finishing the workout, heading home, and cleaning himself up, Freddy had a massive dinner and decided to rest a bit. He was tired. His body ached due to his dumbassery, and he had no way to use his talent, so he’d have to cope with it.

The time gradually passed, and he had to take another energy drink to kick himself back into focus. While he would never grow sick by abusing these things, there seemed to be a limit to the utility. Time gradually passed as a reluctance to do anything seeped into his bones.

Soon enough, the clock ticked to 9 p.m. It was already an hour past the time he usually visited the library. That was a good habit he wanted to keep up, so he forced himself to get ready, get up, and walk outside.

As he left the building to visit the library, he suddenly changed his mind. That day… frankly, hadn’t he just achieved something he had been dreaming of for the longest time? He had come mighty far from his days back in the small studio apartment, and if that Freddy could see him now, he’d spit in his face.

Fuck the library. No nerd shit for that evening. It was time to celebrate, he decided, as he went for a quick shopping trip.

A thousand-dollar slim-fit white shirt? Why not? Tacky, honestly ugly torn jeans? They cost two thousand dollars, and the logo of Habuji, a massive luxury clothing company, was front and center. Into the shopping cart they went.

Wrapping the trip up with the relatively frugal $500 sneakers, which were a slight backtrack when he realized just how much he was spending, he put the stupidly wasteful clothing on and headed to a place he had been aching to go to for the longest time.

It was as if a kaleidoscope of butterflies was fluttering around his heart. He felt nervous and had to psyche himself up.

Soon enough, he appeared before the nightclub.

And then awkwardly shuffled into the long line.