1% Lifesteal

After that fight, nobody stepped in his path when he headed back out into the caves. The crowd cheered wildly, and he heard those noises gradually quieten as he left the area.

The punch had sent a notable healing pulse throughout his body, but not an impactful one. It was only 1% Lifesteal, after all, and the sheer amount of healing needed to help him recover from the numerous layers of scars and permanent injuries wouldn't be covered with a single punch.

Still, though, he had forgotten just how good using his talent felt. So, with a pep to his walk, he strode out of the makeshift arena, feeling refreshed. But he most certainly wasn't feeling good.

Frankly, if he had to fight that same man again, he wasn't sure if he'd be able to win, at least not that easily. Such a trap wasn't going to work twice, and the moment anyone realized just how bad he was at actual fighting, nobody would let themselves fall for such a trick.

But—

"Pfff!" he snorted after making it a bit away from the crowds. "Hahahahahahaha! The look on his face! Ha! Holy shit, he was like, 'Aw, fuck, this man gon' kill me, ain't he?' Hahahahahah!"

His laughs echoed around him, even though his stomach was killing him. Indeed, although his little Flowing Strike trick had worked, it wouldn't become a cornerstone of his fighting style any time soon. His internal organs felt like they had been scrambled, and it wasn't like he could heal up quite yet.

Still, despite the force of the impact feeling like a damn explosion had gone off inside him, it had done surprisingly minor damage. Hundred Wet Hells held up to its reputation.

"Now then, let's go do some actual work."

***

After quite a bit of looking around, he settled for a relatively secluded area. A worker or two passed occasionally, but it was out of the way enough, at least, that nobody was working beside him. Too far out, and he'd step into severe danger zones, where the risk of a monster appearing was too high to take lightly.

He settled for a patch of the wall that another worker had already started on. The growth had been stripped, and a roughly two-by-two-meter wall patch had clearly been worked on, but only the surface layer had been removed.

Putting his equipment on the floor beside him, he picked up the pickaxe and lifted it. Flowing Strike worked its way through his arms, and the tool came down with all the might he could muster—only to awkwardly bounce off the uneven surface and wrench itself out of his arm, pulling on one of his forearm muscles.

"Ow, what the—"

Was this wall just that damn hard?

The noise of the impact had been deafening, and he could still hear the echoes through the cave.

Picking his tool back off the ground, he started again; this time, he swung without using a Flowing Strike. It was pretty damn tricky. His missing ring finger on his left arm made holding the handle a bit clumsy, and if the pickaxe landed at an odd angle, it would just twist or ricochet off. Surprisingly, even the fact that he was missing some toes was a hindrance. He struggled to direct his force correctly, as getting into a proper stance was tricky.

With some practice, however, he was starting to get the hang of it. Every subsequent swing landed more precisely, and before long, he was transferring the force into the wall instead of his arms. Every swing landed with a metallic clink, and sparks flew off. But he made almost no progress.

The wall was hard, and he was beginning to suspect that this place had been given up for a reason. A few shards of rock chipped off, and as far as he could tell, nothing about them marked them as ore of any kind.

A tiny shard of rock chipped off and hit him in his exposed throat. It didn't make him bleed, but it startled him somewhat.

Given his slow progress, he started to suspect that he was doing it all wrong. Pulling the guide out of the strap on his toolbelt, he went to the tools section, which he skipped entirely on his first read-through.

"Aaah, okay," he chirped in realization.

Apparently, slamming the pickaxe right in the middle of pure rock as hard as this wasn't a good idea unless you had substantial force behind it. The goal was to strike where the stone's structural integrity was weakest—seams, bends, nooks, and places where rock protruded. Either that, or just find softer material.

A cursory glance at the almost smooth stone surface revealed no such weaknesses. Maybe he really did pick the wrong place. He'd seen other workers do it, and while it took some force, it wasn't rare to see big chunks of stone falling off.

Too lazy to read through the plentiful text in the guide, he decided to try something. Leaving the pickaxe aside, he picked up the sledgehammer.

Flowing Strike yet again coursed through his arms, and with the weight of the sledgehammer, his dense body, and the momentum of the ability, the tool landed with a resounding thud that instantly broke off a large chunk of wall. While it looked like the entire stone surface had collapsed, it was a relatively thin layer. Still, it was progress, and with it being removed, he was beginning to spot some of those weaknesses the book discussed.

After grabbing the pickaxe and chunking a few chips off, he revealed a large crack, perfect for the wedge he had brought. It was a small, triangular piece of metal meant to be placed into cracks and then slammed with a sledgehammer. Its purpose was to force large fragments of stone apart.

So, he promptly put the wedge into the crack and swung the sledgehammer. He completely missed the wedge, and the sledgehammer slid down the rock, flying just slightly to the right of his leg.

He stood frozen, keenly aware that he had nearly just smashed his shin into a million bits. Lifting the tool again, he repeated the movement, slightly slower this time, and managed to hit the wedge. He did so repeatedly until, finally, when he felt confident enough, he used Flowing Strike.

It landed right on the small piece of metal, to even his own surprise, but the rock didn't break off. In fact, most of the force had been transferred right back into his arms, and he felt his bones strain to their limits.

After cursing and swearing for a while as he waited for feeling to return to his hands, he repeated the damn movement, having to swing seven times until, finally, a massive boulder broke off from the wall, nearly crushing his foot as it tumbled down.

As he barely avoided the tumbling piece of rock, he thought that maybe the workers shouldn't have as much freedom as they do.

***

Freddy cursed his decision not to bring the foldable cart with him just because it had looked inconvenient to carry along. The weight-reducing part of the bag was, by no means, a weight-eliminating function. Shit was still heavy when placed inside, maybe seventy percent less, but that wasn't as much as it seemed when a couple of larger pieces of ore already became heavier than he himself, even after the reduction. He realized that fulfilling his quota might take several trips back and forth.

Or, well, that was what he had thought.

After returning to the camp, he placed the bag on the counter, where a burly man grabbed it and emptied it on the floor behind him. He picked up the pieces inside, one by one, and without even looking, threw them into one of the baskets behind his back.

Once he was done counting the ores, he turned to him and said, "Hm, 4,200. Name?"

He stared at the man, utterly dumbfounded. Glancing at the clock above him, he realized it had only been around seven hours since the start of the day. And this bag was a fraction of the work he had actually done. He had picked up a few interesting pieces of rock without even knowing what they were, and apparently, he had hit the jackpot.

"Freddy Stern," he answered.

The man wrote something down and shooed him away.

Well then. That left him with most of the day free to do whatever he wanted. He left the line, carrying his equipment back to his tent.

It all left him so confused. But maybe that was the point. Perhaps this expedition was designed to disarm the workers and give them a sense of safety, freedom, and ease so they wouldn't riot or protest.

That way, they need less staff to keep them under control. Or maybe they were doing it this way to encourage people to volunteer to stay even after their debts had been paid off?

Something about this whole thing kept gnawing at him. Either way, his goals didn't change. He still had a plan to make.

After leaving practically all his equipment in the tent, keeping just the uniform and the shoes on, and taking only the baton and dagger for self-defense, he promptly returned to the caves. And then he began exploring them.

The immediate surrounding area, which was marked as a green zone, was the same for the most part. Clean of growth, constantly populated by workers, numerous tunnels boring into solid stone, and many signs detailing directions, section characteristics, warnings, and so on.

It also seemed that the work was tallied and the profits were split based on relative worker merit, meaning that roles could be split more evenly. One person mined, another carried the ore, a third installed support beams, and so on.

The so-called yellow zones began appearing once one stepped out of the immediate area. It was the area that had already been mostly explored, but it hadn't been processed as thoroughly as the green zones, so some dangers might still be present.

What characterized the yellow zone was the lack of organized groups, the numerous messy holes in the walls, patches of stripped area, fewer signs and directions, and slightly less pronounced illumination. The plant growth was present but clearly disturbed by the constant commute of the many workers looking to go out further.

Even further away was where the red zones started. It was the part that had already been contacted in the sense that people had explored it and made their way through it. Most of the vegetation was removed through fire or some other specialized talent. Some of the more recently claimed sections were still charred, while other areas, notably those with few promising ore deposits, were already beginning to be reclaimed by nature.

What characterized a red zone, more than any of the other characteristics, was a distinct sense of danger. Noises that just barely crawled above the limen of hearing, shifting, subtle vibrations, and bugs. A lot of bugs.

And finally, the absolute frontier, which he had already made contact with earlier that day—the "black zone."

As he stepped past the charred remains of a recently claimed red zone, he made it down an open cavern that continued getting narrower and narrower the deeper he went. Eventually, the walls closed in on him, and just past a turn, he reached the entrance to another cavern. One that hadn't been claimed.

This was the part of the caverns that hadn't been reached yet, and what waited inside was anyone's guess. He couldn't stop himself from gazing at it, peeking from behind a wall. The mere sight of the overgrown, thick, clearly untouched caves inspired a sense of awe and excitement. That wasn't just the wilderness. It was the far beyond, a step out into the untamed infinity of the interspace.

It was like looking into the night sky, but if one could stroll among the stars. The sheer weight of a world that seemingly had no limits humanity knew of was overwhelming, and gazing at the entrance to a maze one had little to no hope of escaping from felt like staring into the maw of a beast preparing to swallow one whole. What could be waiting in there? How many beings, unknown treasures, and perhaps other civilizations were there?

Humanity had already contacted several sapient species; hell, even he did when he encountered those little creatures. But most seemed rather primitive, with the most advanced species being the Khorks, a species of swine-men who had reached a quasi-medieval level of development.

Putting such idle thoughts aside and turning the fuck back to get away from this very hazardous area, he continued his exploration.

Eventually, he felt mostly satisfied. The underground was perilous, yes, but it was maintained rigorously. He hadn't spotted any monsters, even in the red zones, so, at least, those didn't seem to be an ordinary threat one would encounter daily.

The biggest possible threat, actually, seemed to be the unpredictable structural integrity of the caves.

As he walked past a bald old man hammering away at a wall, he became the unfortunate witness to one such accident. A significant chunk of the wall broke off, falling onto the man. He managed to deflect most of the weight with his left arm, but the momentum behind the impact shattered his forearm and injured the man's back, knocking him down to the ground.

Freddy calmly observed the wall, making sure it wouldn't collapse further. Once it showed no signs of doing so, he helped the man and carried him down a part of the cave. No words were exchanged between them. The injured man could only produce pained grunts and effortful, deep breaths.

Eventually, several others spotted them, and a staff member was called. They took the man off his arms, walking away without thanks, while he walked away without any demands.

That hadn't been much effort, and what went around came around… Hopefully.

He'd still make extra sure not to land himself in situations where he needed such help. Or, well, he would try.

Freddy walked away from the commotion and briefly entered the Netherecho, ensuring he appeared on his shoulder, where he was at least partially hidden from danger.

The leafy floor of the cavern turned into a beautiful painting of lush, natural growth. Numerous wisps of ether flashed into existence around him. While many were of earth and nature variants, there were a few wisps of water, innumerable ones he couldn't even begin to recognize, and even a few of the fire affinity. There were so many, in fact, that he could barely see.

That was hardly an issue in the Netherecho, though. He merely willed himself to ignore their existence, and they vanished out of his sight.

Several vestiges popped up around him. One looked like a relatively anthropomorphic female wearing a leafy dress and lazing around on the floor. Slightly to its side was a small rock with roots growing through it. And behind him was what appeared to be a rather large stone golem. It took the form of a muscular man and repeatedly flexed as if looking itself over in an imaginary mirror.

Shit.

Seeing a remnant the instant he checked the cavern's Netherecho gave him a nasty sense of foreboding.

The creature noticed him almost instantly. "Who is you, pussy? Weak and fragile!" it said in a rough, manly voice. Then it pointed a finger at its chest. "Me solid. Rock solid! Stone hard and strong!"

A concept of solidity, he guessed, but it could also be something like strength through hardness? It was difficult to tell what precisely. And he certainly wasn't curious enough to wait for it to attack him. He left the Netherecho immediately, quickly moving to another area and checking again.

While, for the most part, he was after an area rich in water wisps, he was also doing his best to check every vestige he came across. They didn't necessarily have to be connected to water to be of value to him. He had maxed three tempering techniques, growing their shells to the peak of stage zero.

It was far from unusual for martial artists to have several tempering techniques, but having three while still being a one-star was definitely out of the ordinary. With three tempering techniques, Create Water, Hydraulic Flex, once he created it, Flowing Strike, and one more ability he desperately wanted to develop, that meant he had seven powers to actively work on.

For most people, that would take too long to grow while still a one-star, and it wasn't worth the effort. Ascending as fast as possible was generally much better for one's lifespan, given the immediate power boost. But he wasn't in a rush to ascend, given that he was forbidden from doing so and had an inordinate amount of essence to work with.

When one ascended a rank and attained a new star, their talent evolved with them. While this was relatively unpredictable, there were numerous methods to skew the direction in which the talent would grow.

The first was accomplishments, which generally improved the quality of one's talent. But the second one was equally important.

Depending on which abilities one had, one's talent would generally evolve to accommodate said powers if possible. This didn't have to be anything significant, but sometimes, a tiny change to the nature of one's talent could make a world of difference.

There were known cases of even non-combat talents becoming combat talents, although it was rare, and the talent was rarely anything special. That wasn't the thing that concerned him, however.

The number of abilities one had didn't make much of an impact on the direction of the talent. If they were of a similar nature, that was. But if one had a collection of drastically different abilities with little synergy, that could mess with the direction.

For this reason, discarding any abilities one didn't actively incorporate into their fighting style was recommended, and he would be doing precisely that to Squirt and Frog Leap.

That would leave him with three tempering techniques to develop his body, a movement ability in the form of Hydraulic Flex when he acquired it, an offensive ability in the form of Flowing Strike, a utility ability in the form of Create Water, and a special ability he would do his best to attain.

While he had no active defensive powers, seven was still nearly twice as many as the standard four archs worked on before reaching their second star.

Eventually, he stepped into a particularly overgrown and moist part of the yellow zone. And a single, brief step into the Netherecho revealed precisely what he had been looking for.

It was time for his tempering techniques to receive an upgrade.