1% Lifesteal

Over the next few days, Freddy gradually got more comfortable with his new job. And in no small part, his newly upgraded stage one Adaptive Water Body was to thank for this.

The upgrade had unexpected results in several aspects. When his Create Water upgraded, the outer shell basically didn't change at all, besides a few minor adjustments to the individual runes.

Water Body had been a straightforward shell, barely more complex than Create Water. But the upgraded version…

What had once been a handful of ethereal lines stretched over an invisible spherical surface had expanded into an intricate mess of hundreds upon hundreds of runes, some overlapping, others connecting through wiggly, ghastly strings, and some shifting as he tried directly observing them.

Freddy was ignorant about anything more advanced than the basics, so this newly formed shell left him utterly dumbfounded. Had that vestige been notable in some way? Or was the concept of evolution rarer or more complex than he'd thought?

People were meant to sense precisely what their ability did through a sort of intuitive "soul sense," but this thing was an absolute mystery. Sure, he could feel what it did, but he didn't understand it. The main problem was that… well… the shell was like a page full of text. But he could only observe the entire page at once without focusing on any of the words or only one word at a time.

The problem was that he didn't know where the page started and where it ended, so he could only observe the words entirely out of order. No matter how he read it, even if he knew all the individual words, without order, there were practically infinite ways to arrange them.

As he used his newly upgraded tempering technique, if he could even call it that anymore, he eventually got the hang of what it did. Mostly.

His knee was still fucked up, but as he used Adaptive Water Body, he found it easier and easier to cope with. The caves that used to frequently cause headaches through their rapidly shifting temperature, the awful smells, and the probably-toxic fumes no longer bothered him. And finally, the horrid food that used to upset his stomach sat much lighter in his belly—even though he still decided to upgrade to the paid stuff when he felt he could afford it.

It wasn't a healing technique. It did not make problems magically vanish. It simply helped him adapt to cope better. This ability enabled him to "evolve" to better handle his current circumstances. The way it did so happened entirely through the way water moved in his body, and given that water made up most of it, it could do a lot.

However, in principle, it was basically the exact opposite of a tempering technique. While a tempering technique aimed to force a body to fix a problem it introduced, this ability helped fix issues already there, making it an… adaption technique? An evolution technique?

This was the first time Freddy encountered anything like this, whether in practice or theory.

He had his guesses about how it helped him adapt, such as supplying nutrients to crucial parts of his body, adding extra liquid, removing impurities, or whatever, but the truth was that the process was so complex that it might as well just be voodoo bullshit.

While it seemed exceptional, it didn't come without its demerits. First, the essence consumption was intense. It both acted slowly and drained him quickly. Without Essence Extraction, this ability would be functionally useless until he ascended a rank or two.

Second, while it did a great job of adapting him to his current circumstances, which he roughly felt to be based on the previous two to three days of his life, it raised an important question—what would happen when he healed and left the caves? Did it mean that all the adaptation would effectively go to waste? If so, that would remove one of the primary benefits of a tempering technique—the permanent impact on one's physique.

Still, he theorized numerous ways to utilize this ability and was already itching to give it another upgrade. Perhaps he could upgrade it with life through water or generic water.

Even at its current stage, it did wonders for his productivity. His knee was deteriorating much slower now, and it hindered his movement way less than it used to.

As he got more experienced with foraging, his daily income multiplied. There was the usual acquisition of experience, but his talent proved invaluable in maximizing his profits.

Experienced foragers could tell how healthy a plant was through wilt, firmness, color, number of leaves, size of certain parts, and numerous other symptoms that betrayed an herb's condition and value. But there was little even experts could deduce about plants they knew little to nothing about.

For Freddy, however, checking an herb's state was trivial.

A single cut, or even just a tiny poke, was enough for him to quite literally feel how healthy, well, anything was. His 1% Lifesteal had a stronger response to organic matter with higher vitality.

While rare specimens were a decent bonus, most of his income came from consistently retrieving high-quality common herbs.

At first, the best he received from his efforts was half-spoiled, low-quality, ineffective, and otherwise flawed products. But not even a week into his new career, he was among the elite.

Even though he stuck strictly to abandoned yellow areas, spending so much time roaming the caves maximized his odds of encountering danger. On four separate occasions, he had come within a hair's width of having to confront a monster.

Two of those times, he had managed to escape before the monster could follow him. Once, he received timely help from nearby scouts, and last, when he found himself cornered, he somehow managed to scare a creature away by banging his baton against the wall and yelling like a moron.

Funnily enough, he'd somehow failed to see what he was even dealing with in every encounter, only hearing noises from behind a corner.

As his value and the quality of his rewards increased, he finally began making noticeable progress in his recovery. He could choose what he wanted, so he requested a relatively ordinary selection of products, precisely what would be expected from someone dealing with his specific conditions. While he aimed to fix his skin to conceal the effect of 1% Lifesteal, he had to somehow justify why his overall condition was improving so rapidly.

After finally breaking through $10,000 of income a day, he visited the medic station to receive non-emergency treatment for his knee. Nobody present was skilled enough to perform surgery on him, but there just happened to be an elite healer capable of providing him with supernatural-quality healing, just a single step below the supreme quality.

This person was there to exclusively treat the staff, and no worker was… meant to have access to their services. His little stunt of squashing a rebellion and his value as a top-tier provider of high-quality herbs seemed to have granted him some unique privileges. The administration had probably estimated that improving his productivity was a worthwhile investment.

It didn't take him long to upgrade Abyssal Depths. Between liquid compression, water compression, and just compression, he discovered a liquid compression vestige first and unhesitatingly evolved his ability. It had maxed out at increasing his body weight by 30%, and now it could keep going past that, up to 60%.

Hundred Wet Hells would have to wait, though. Nothing he found so far was worth taking a risk on.

Soon, the days turned to weeks. Every single day, his skin appeared healthier.

As he kept retrieving more and more quality herbs, the administration kept investing in him. And as his income increased, so did his non-emergency treatment credit, which he used to fix his missing teeth.

The healer worked on regrowing his missing ear, ring finger, and toes—his testicles were unfortunately out of the purview of anything below supreme-quality healing. The treatment could help regrow the scrotum, but it would be little more than an empty sack.

He still felt rather loud echoes of his previous state. But outwardly, every day that passed made it more difficult to tell that anything was wrong with him. The bit of healing he received from 1% Lifesteal while foraging was only enough to moderately boost his recovery. But it gradually accumulated.

Eventually, the staff decided he was healed enough to stop providing him with the healer's services. That was the exact moment he had been waiting for. He quivered in anticipation as he went to a secluded area, carrying a machete on his toolbelt.

He stared at the thick, verdant vines. His mouth salivated, and his entire body shook as he lifted the machete—and brought it down. An involuntary whimper escaped his lips as he felt the intense rush of vitality. So he swung the blade again.

All throughout his body, one after another, his numerous wounds healed. He felt a popping echo beneath his skin, a rubbery stretch in his muscles and tendons, clicking in his joints and bones, and a faint, electric tingle from his brain to the tips of his toes and fingers.

The ever-present stiffness, the lumpy scar tissue, the numbness, the pain. As minutes passed and more of the cave herbs were sliced apart, it all vanished. The empty sack between his legs felt complete again, and he spit his fake teeth out one by one as his real ones grew back to take their place.

As he finally stopped feeling the changes, he dropped the machete and wept, curled up into a fetal position in a dark corner of the cave.

After all that time.

After all that suffering.

He was finally whole again.

***

Janhalar stood in the middle of a busy street in the seventeenth district. Despite the thick crowd leaving little space for pedestrians, everyone who encountered him avoided him with a wide berth. He stood like an ocean predator among a flock of fish, with a near-perfect circle of personal space on each side.

The patriarch of the Kraven did no such thing as disguising himself for the convenience of these animals.

He kept his senses tightly focused on the items equipped on his person—the red robes, jagged dagger, and the pearled ring that strongly resonated with the unique remnant he was searching for.

By this point, his eyelid had developed a permanent tic. Each moment he failed to find the goddamn unique, his fury rose to higher levels. It was still out there. The ring was proof of that. So why couldn't he find it?

He'd searched every area that lowly scumbag could have even theoretically hidden the remnant in. How was this situation even possible? They hadn't found a trace of proof that the unique had been stolen by Madame, Basilisk, or some other third party. So how had a barely sapient one-star ape managed to hide it?

He cut that train of thought off, took a deep breath, and refocused on the task. Suddenly, his steps faltered, and he decided to stop there. This was his third walk through the entirety of Pittersville. The remnant clearly wasn't in the city.

It was time to expand the search to a broader area.

***

"Huak! Hur! Huah!" Freddy exhaled with every strike he sent at the giant boulder.

Each fist landed with a resounding crack, and his bare hands made swift progress in crushing the stone into a pile of pebbles. He was back in the hidden cave and, as he had long anticipated, back to training.

His body felt divine. He ate much better recently and regained much of his lost muscle. That, combined with his newly upgraded Abyssal Depths, had likely pushed his body weight above 100 kg. And, oh man, did he feel the momentum behind his punches.

Unfortunately, however, his Flowing Strike was growing quite slowly. He had pushed it around about 90% completion through his use while mining, but it had been a slow grind to get there, and by that point, it had nearly crawled to a stop.

It wasn't hard to tell why that was the case. This was no utility or tempering ability. It was a combat skill, something he had to use in a fight to see it grow. If anything, how far he'd managed to progress without battle was the impressive part.

But he was in no rush to complete it. After all, it wasn't like he lacked abilities to work on.

After stretching, healing a bit, having a snack, and briefly using his Adaptive Water Body, he got up and prepared to work on an ability he hadn't put any work into in a long time.

The unfinished shell for Hydraulic Flex sat lonely in his ethercosm, still well away from completion. So, he got to work.

After many hours of clumsily jumping and flailing his limbs, he was quickly reminded of just how ambitious his idea to produce this ability was. Hydraulic Flex was a high-level ability. Even though he had gotten a lot of practice with essence manipulation, manifesting it while still a one-star was quite the undertaking.

If he was being honest, if he had any real talent for essence manipulation, with how much he'd worked on it while being held captive, he should have already been much better. Thankfully, his soul construct was there to help him compensate.

Even with his slow progress, he could afford to work on it as much as he had time for. Many hours of practice later, he was slowly starting to get the hang of it.

A key trick, as he had discovered, was actually pretty counter-intuitive.

Every time he used Hydraulic Flex, he, well, flexed. He would focus on the muscle while manipulating the water within and try to flex and flex simultaneously. Timing this was arduous, but he had long ago concluded that this was the key to making it work—but he was wrong.

Using internal water manipulation to tighten a muscle also triggered the muscle's flexion reflex even without conscious thought. Relaxing the muscle beforehand was the trick to making it work consistently.

This seemed obvious, but doing that wasn't an easy task. Not only was it counterintuitive, but it also clashed with a lifetime of muscle memory and basic instinct.

Surprisingly, however, it took him much less time to get a hang of it. Perhaps all that time getting… intimately familiar with the internal workings of his body had helped him develop greater control over it. Or maybe it was something else. He was just guessing, after all.

Once bored of practice, he swapped with the other ability he was trying to attain—Pressure Jet.

It didn't take him long to give up on it, at least for the time being. No matter how much training he put in, as long as he didn't have sufficient skill with essence control, he wouldn't be able to do it. No matter what he tried, he couldn't even direct the water into a measly squirt, let alone a compressed jet he could cut something with.

He wouldn't stop trying to get the ability, but he would have to first turn his focus on his lack of control.

After cycling between his tempering techniques, checking the Netherecho for something to upgrade Hundred Wet Hells with, finding nothing, and gathering a bit longer, he picked up the bag with today's haul and returned to the camp.

He started his usual after-work routine. Selling his goods, organizing his stuff, cleaning himself, visiting the poop cave, and finally, eating.

It turned out that the disgusting mystery slop wasn't the only meal on the menu. He could get much nicer meals in return for an increase to the next day's quota.

A tasty mushroom stew, a rather expensive meal he favored, steamed pleasantly on the table before him. His spoon sank into it, and he hauled the creamy dish into his mouth. Indeed, eating the way he did set him back a noticeable sum. Several hundred dollars, actually. The price of food was hiked up to absurd degrees. What was pretty ordinary grub went for the price of luxury cuisine.

Not that he minded anyway. He'd prefer to postpone repaying his debt for as long as possible.

"Hey, it's that guy," a voice rumbled behind him.

"Prick," a nasal voice responded. "Probably got that stew from Stephen Shite himself."

Ah, there it was. His meal wouldn't be complete without the not-so-subtle shit talk behind his literal back.

The preferential treatment the staff gave him didn't go unnoticed. It didn't take long for the ugliness of despair to shine through.

The overwhelming majority of the rumors surrounding him painted him as some sort of villain. Either a shady bastard profiting from others' hard work or an even shadier agent or "paid actor" secretly working with the camp staff, or whatever. He had no doubt that first the workers he showed up in the mines, then his forager colleagues, were the ones spreading such bullshit.

Either way, it was convenient for him. Be it his healing or other benefits, all of it was blamed on his connection to the camp administration.

He got up as he finished his meal, and—with a splat, a handful of the disgusting, free slop landed on his neck, right below his ear. A few tables away, a rowdy group of men cackled in delight. Indeed, this, too, was a common occurrence. He didn't even bother wiping the food off as he walked away from the eatery.

On his way back to the cleansing pond, a burly man intentionally bumped into him. Given his deceitful weight, it wasn't enough to topple him, but he decided to take the piss and collapse on the ground like a ragdoll. With a loud thud, his body landed on the nearby soil.

Then, he got up. "Hey," he said, turning to face the man who bumped into him. "Watch where you're going, pal. Touch me one more time, and I'll break your spine," he threatened. His provocation didn't work.

The man merely scoffed and walked away, appearing slightly rushed.

He sighed. If only these cowards dared to do anything more to him. Fighting outside the arena wasn't allowed. Unless it was in self-defense, of course. He had no interest in returning to the Wastes for many reasons, the biggest being his bad reputation.

People had enough reasons to hate him already. Losing to him in the arena might just earn him a few too many enemies.

Going to the pond, he washed himself and returned to the tent.

As he lay there, he didn't feel tired like usual. Sleep still tugged his eyelids, but it was the ordinary, healthy desire of someone who had spent an entire day awake, not the usual, sickness-and-pain-induced instinct for rest and recovery.

There was nothing he wanted to do now that he couldn't do tomorrow, so he decided to—

A shuffling of his tent flap broke him out of his half-asleep state, and a large, burly arm rushed to grab his leg and violently pulled him out.

His entire body lurched, and he was thrown on the nearby ground.

Several men stood in a circle around him, but he was too dazed and confused to count them. However, it didn't take a genius to puzzle out what was happening.

"You're the one who snitched on Ross, aren't you?" one of the men squealed. "You ratted him out like a bitch!"

Before he could regain his bearings, a dagger was stabbed right into his thigh, and a baton slammed into the side of his head. He fully expected to be knocked out cold and reflexively fell to the side. It was almost nauseating when he realized he was still fully conscious, with little more than a headache and a light bruise on his head.

"Slit his throat," one of the men said, and a dagger rushed to his neck.

Simply by instinct, he raised his right arm and caught the blow, grabbing the man by his wrist and stopping the attack dead.

"What the—aaaaargh!?" the man yelled as he squeezed and pulled, using his body weight as leverage to pull the man to the ground and throw him aside.

The sharp pang of pain in his thigh didn't even cause a flinch as he got up to his feet. The wound wasn't even that deep.

The other men immediately rushed at him.