1% Lifesteal

He honestly didn\'t know why he had told her about what he\'d done. Yes, she had pestered him for roughly half an hour, refusing to drop the subject until he spilled the tea, but he was still surprised that he\'d actually caved and shared his tale of borderline adultery.

"Can we please drop the subject?" he begged. "You\'ve sated your curiosity; now either shut up, or I\'ll kick you out."

"Okay, okay," she said. "Just one more time—bahahahahaha!"

He flicked her forehead, and she reeled back. "Ow!" she yelped. "That frickin\' hurts!"

"You think I could time a Flowing Strike with a flick?" he threatened. "Do you want me to find out?"

"Okay, I get it, geez." Sophia took another gulp of the drink. "So… do you just plan to sit here alone all night?"

"What?" he scoffed. "Does your company not count?"

"Really?" She raised an eyebrow. "You seriously spent this much money just to what, treat me? Do you have a secret crush on me?"

He rolled his eyes. "My plan was to find some people to join us; some cute girls maybe."

She grinned ear to ear. "Well, what happened, big guy?"

His hand reached for the glass of fancy champagne, and he gulped it down in one swing, shuddering as it went down. "I don\'t feel like it anymore."

She snorted a bit, but her amused smile vanished as she nodded. "Yeah. I get that." She took a sip and put her glass down. "Were you friends with the guy?"

"Who? Theodore?" he asked. Then he shook his head. "Hell no. That guy is a fucking prick."

She stared at him with a discerning gaze. "But it still bothers you, doesn\'t it?"

Sighing, he poured himself another glass. "I\'ve accidentally hurt many people in my life. And it only seems to be getting worse." He downed the entire glass in one gulp again and immediately poured himself another. "Every time, I had an excuse." He downed the glass again. "They hurt me first. I had no choice. I didn\'t mean to do it." He chugged again. "But no matter how justified, it always hurts me in the end. And if it keeps going like this?" He tried drinking again, but—

Sophia\'s hand firmly gripped his wrist, making him stop. She was leaning forward, her blonde hair covering her eyes. "Don\'t," she said softly.

He tore his arm out of her grip, spilling some of the drink on the floor, and downed the rest of the glass. He put it back on the table as he shot her a grin that didn\'t reach his eyes. "I\'ll be fine. You don\'t even know me. Don\'t pretend like you care."

The two of them sat there in silence.

His eyes scanned the dancing crowds, watching the mass of people having fun and enjoying themselves. The lights flickered through the dance floor, and the music filled his ears, deafening even his thoughts but doing nothing to lighten his sour mood.

The glass he was just about to take a sip from touched his lip. He pulled it back and placed it on the table, shooting Sophia a quick glance.

Eventually, he opened his mouth. "Do you feel guilty about nearly getting me killed?"

She appeared frustrated at the inquiry, so he disclosed. "Don\'t get me wrong," he said, sighing. "I\'m just curious."

After a long moment of silence, she answered the question. "Not exactly guilty, no…" she said. "But… I do acknowledge that mistakes were made. And I resolve not to put myself or others in a situation like that again. Do I pass the test, Professor?"

He scoffed, "And what would you feel like if I had died in that situation?"

"Oh, please," she said. "It didn\'t come to that, so why does it matter?"

"Just humor me for a bit, will you?"

She groaned. "Yes, obviously, I would feel guilty."

Yet another bout of silence descended between them.

As the minutes passed, nobody even offered to join them. The unpleasant atmosphere between them was quite obvious to anyone who took as much as a glance.

Rather than allow the mood to get any more sour, he resolved to change the subject. They had come there to get to know each other better, didn\'t they? Naturally, he would not be telling her particularly specific details about himself, but still, even something vague was vastly preferable over the suffocating silence.

"Okay." He clapped his hands and rubbed his palms. "Come on, enough of this. Let\'s talk about something."

"All right… What would thou wisheth to talk about, sire?" she replied sarcastically.

"Tell me something about yourself."

"Hnngh," she groaned. "Do I have to?"

"Come on."

"How about you go first?"

He snapped his fingers into finger-guns and pointed them at her. "Okay, sure, sure, uh… You know what, how about this—ask me something specific."

Even without sharing his real-life story, he had memorized the whole biography of Liam Cuttingsworth, the man whose identity he had taken. He had no qualms about borrowing some details from those documents.

"Okay, sure… Uhm… Hmm. Give me a moment to think." She cupped her chin and narrowed her eyes as her brow danced along with her inner contemplation. "Cats or dogs?"

"Never had pets, so… But yeah, uh… if I had to say, I\'d probably choose… neither."

"Wow. Do you hate animals?"

"I wouldn\'t go that far," he scoffed. "I just never understood the idea of having animals as pets. Why let yourself care for something that will live such a short life?"

"There\'s ways to make your pets live a very long time."

"Costly ways. I\'d rather spend my money on something else. Anyway, it\'s my turn," he said, changing the topic. "Uh… Did you go to college?"

"No," she said.

He waited for a long moment, and when it became clear that she wasn\'t going to continue, he gestured with his hand.

"What?" she asked. "You gave me a yes or no question, and I gave you the answer."

"Okay, that\'s fair," he conceded. "What were you like as a—"

"I believe it\'s my turn?" she interrupted him.

He sighed and rolled his eyes. "Sure, go on."

"Okay, uhm…" She tapped her lips with her index finger. "Oh, okay, I got a good one; why are you so afraid all the time?"

He froze at the question. "What do you mean?"

"Well… When you first met me, you jumped back like you saw the devil. Then there is your obsession with keeping everything a secret. Hell, you even blocked your frickin\' bedroom door with your nightstand to, what, stop me from killing you in your sleep?"

"Those are pretty rational things to be afraid of, thank you very much."

"Oh really?" She side-eyed him. "Come on, at least admit that the nightstand was a little paranoid."

"I don\'t know about you, but I\'ve seen the world for what it is, Sophia," he said. "The world is a terrible place of horrible people itching to make it even fucking worse. So yeah, that\'s why I\'m afraid. I\'ve been on the other side of that equation."

"Projecting much?"

"Excuse me!?" he shouted.

She shrugged. "You were just talking about hurting people and stuff. Did you ever consider that the world isn\'t that terrible and that it might be your own fault, just a tiny bit?"

"Fuck no," he said, feeling anger rising in his chest. "I wouldn\'t even call it an exaggeration to say that this world is hell. I\'ve lived through some shit your spoiled ass couldn\'t even imagine."

She paused. "You don\'t know my life."

"You\'re goddamn right I don\'t. Come on then, enlighten me. Prove me wrong."

"About what?"

"Prove to me that you aren\'t just a spoiled fucking princess." He leaned in.

She gaped at him. "Okay, how about you back off a bit?"

"While I don\'t know you, there\'s one thing I\'m absolutely certain of: you are completely new to the real world. You wanna know how I know that? Because you clearly"—he jabbed at the exposed skin just below her neck—"haven\'t learned that you can\'t just do and say whatever you want."

"Don\'t touch me," she said with a scathing glare as she leaned back.

He cooled off a bit and pulled back. He grabbed the glass again and took a sip. "Okay, my turn to ask a question. Who the hell are you?"

Her eyes met his for a long moment. "Ask me something else."

"No," he refused. "Either tell me or get the hell out of my sight."

For some reason, it almost sounded like the music grew louder at that moment. The air became more suffocating, the crowds more deafening, and the lights blared brighter.

After a few long seconds of staring, she smiled a smile that did not reach her eyes. "Okay."

Then she got up and walked away.

He watched her figure slowly move out of sight, blending into the crowds and vanishing. He bit his knuckles and threw the glass in his hand to the floor. "Why am I afraid, huh?" he chuckled. "Spoiled brat."

This whole idea suddenly felt so stupid. Why was he trying to keep her close? Why did he bother with trying to, what, forge a connection? Build rapport? He saved her from dying a horrible death, and she gave him a captured spark of undeath. He didn\'t need her any longer, and she didn\'t need him.

For a brief moment, he worried that she would get herself in trouble and, by proxy, get him in trouble as well. As soon as he realized he had the thought, he barely resisted the urge to kick the table over.

She wasn\'t wrong.

And he hated that.

He hated living in a world where he needed to be so paranoid—where he needed to be so cautious and calculating. Take a wrong turn and he was suddenly a survivor of a monster invasion. Sign the wrong contract and he was suddenly a liability. Own the wrong thing and he was suddenly a thief.

Make one wrong move and he\'s suddenly either a dead man or a murderer.

He finally realized why the thing with Beatrice bothered him so much. He had made Theodore an enemy. And the man was friends with Jacob, who had shown himself more than willing to abuse his power to make Freddy\'s life difficult.

That was the kind of world he lived in. A world where, without the power to back it up, any, even the tiniest mistake, was enough for a minor issue to escalate into serious trouble.

If he couldn\'t even go out for drinks without having to worry, then…

"What exactly am I working towards?"

Total invincibility?

Absolute power?

And what until he reached that point?

Was he always going to be scared?

…

Was he always going to be paranoid?

A couple of girls walked up to his table. "Hey," one of them called. "Do you mind if we join you?" she asked, yelling over the loud music.

"Feel free to sit down," he said, getting up and leaving the club.

***

Over the next few days, Freddy focused on earning as much money as he could while spending each free second on training.

He pushed back his library and gym visits while focusing on growing his abilities.

The day of the interview came and went, with nobody looking for him or telling him anything.

Sophia seemed to be avoiding him whenever he came across her in the hub.

Good.

The world seemed to have finally left him alone for the most part. At least for the time being. Still, he was already making concrete plans to move to another hub. He even had a target in mind and was already studying up on the details surrounding it. Things were, at least on the surface, looking all right.

Yet he felt more bothered than he had for a long, long time. A constant sense of… emptiness permeated his body, and no matter how hard he worked to distract himself, as soon as the next quiet, lonely moment arrived, he sank into the same pit of despair.

A week passed, and he sat in the lobby of the Santorio hub, watching the crowds pass by as he casually sipped on a coffee. He wasn\'t wearing his helmet, and, as he probably should have expected… nobody cared. He was reading a magazine on famous archhumans.

Some of those people had talents, even as one-stars, that would obliterate him before he could even think about fighting back. Instant Teleportation, Holy Sword, Telekinesis—hell, there was a guy whose talent allowed him to create semi-sentient metal golems that could independently grow in power over time.

He couldn\'t help but feel infinitely bitter at this. Would he ever stand a chance against someone like that? No, but really? It was a power that felt like it existed in a separate world from his own, like something he\'d hear about in an ancient myth and not read in a fucking newspaper.

Even with the strange, unique abilities in his soul, he just couldn\'t compete with the true elites of society.

That thought made him more and more uneasy with every passing day.

He closed the papers he was reading with an angry slam and threw them on the table, pulling his notebook out of the backpack instead.

Only one thing consistently improved his mood—tracking his progress. Fantasizing about the peak of power was one thing, but even if he wasn\'t the most powerful person in the world, the stronger he was, the more freedom he had.

GATHERING:

Second star—116% essence capacity

TALENT:

1% Lifesteal: Dynamic-quality healing

SOUL CONSTRUCT:

Scythe: Essence Extraction

TEMPERING TECHNIQUES:

Blood affinity:

Pool of Blood: Stage 1—57% Progress

Crimson Mercury: Stage 0—98% Progress

Water affinity:

Adaptive Water Body: Stage 1—Complete

Thousand Wet Hells: Stage 1—13% Progress

Abyssal Depths: Stage 1—23% Progress

ACTIVE ABILITIES:

Blood affinity:

Gore Knuckles: Stage 0—95% Progress

Water affinity:

Flowing Strike: Stage 1—24% Progress

Hydraulic Flex: Stage 1—7% Progress

Create Water: Stage 1—23% Progress

Pressure Jet: Unfinished ether shell

Perished water affinity:

Perished Water: Stage ?—? Progress

That Other Ability: No clue

UNIQUE ABILITIES:

Blood Sacrifice: Stage ?

Leviathan\'s Fury: Stage ?

UNIQUE CURSED ITEMS:

Blood Ring: -4% essence cost, +3% power for blood-affinity abilities. Can be used to release Bloodshed.

CURSED ITEMS:

Dagger of Bleeding: Melee attacks cause extra bleeding

He was focusing most of his effort on growing Thousand Wet Hells, Gore Knuckles, Pool of Blood, and Crimson Mercury, so those were seeing the most significant growth. Although Thousand Wet Hells appeared to be progressing painfully slowly and was only getting slower with time, its effect on his toughness was already quite noticeable, even at 13% completion of stage one.

It made sense, too. With this ability, he had created something that, under most circumstances, couldn\'t even be used by ordinary humans. Needless to say, it was unsurprising that it had such an enormous impact.

His Gore Knuckles were still pretty brittle, and whenever he used them against gorels, they cracked apart like fragile stone. This wasn\'t unexpected, given that he hadn\'t yet upgraded either Gore Knuckles or Crimson Mercury. Once he upgraded both the tempering technique and the ability, the spikes should have the properties of wrought iron.

That still wasn\'t the toughest substance in the world, but it would be a great improvement on the near-useless trash it was at the moment.

Create Water and Abyssal Depths had grown far less than they could have, but that was mostly because he was investing little to no effort into developing them.

And finally, to his surprise, the unique ring had grown in potency. It had taken so long that he had started to suspect that it would take forever to grow in power, so it was a pleasant surprise.

Frankly, he had severely underestimated the value this ring provided. The power boost, although seemingly relatively small, actually worked to help grow his abilities a lot faster, and the essence cost reduction allowed him to work more on his abilities, compounding into extra growth with time.

The item\'s value would grow exponentially with each additional percent in either the cost reduction or power.

Then there was his star, sitting at 116% essence capacity. He had to admit he was severely disappointed with the speed of his growth. But he could at least sort of understand why it was taking so long.

First, he had zero access to any kind of growth treasure. If he tried buying some to use semi-regularly, he would rapidly exhaust his savings, even with how much money he was earning.

He also didn\'t have access to a proper gathering ground. Moreover, whenever he gathered, he mostly focused on replenishing his essence rather than pushing his star forward.

Perhaps most importantly, he was just not achieving much of note. The gorel pit incident, true, had pushed him a bit, but other than that, he was just picking low-hanging fruit, grinding out the powers that were simply waiting for him to invest some time into them.

Sighing, he put his notebook back, overall pleased with his progress.

He continued sipping on his coffee as he watched the people walking by.

Before long, he spotted Sophia. She avoided looking at him as she hurried along, rushing into the passage. He scoffed at that.

Not too long after, he spotted another person. It was Theodore, walking side by side with four other individuals. Every single one of them carried equipment that likely cost millions of dollars. Their weapons alone looked like their price was in the seven digits.

The first among them was Jacob, the blond giant of a man, wearing light armor that revealed a good part of his body. Was the man a fire-affinity arch? Come to think of it, Freddy had no idea what the man\'s powers were about, but he had presumed that the man fought in melee. No weapon was strapped to his side, but the fingerless gloves he wore looked made of exquisitely fine, silver metallic scales, likely indicating that the man was either a caster or perhaps a brawler. Maybe a mix of both.

The second was Phillip, the Asian man who approached him to ask about Sophia. He was surprised to see the man in the group, but it made sense that he would have ties to the administration if he was in the same party as Jacob. The man wore full plate armor, with a helmet hanging on his back, and he carried a large shield with a shortsword strapped to his waist.

He didn\'t recognize the final two—a short, Black woman with curly hair tied in a practical ponytail clad in what appeared to be pearly white martial arts robes, and a slightly taller Caucasian, brunette woman wearing pitch-black leather armor. Both women carried blades, with the woman in white robes carrying a curved saber and the woman in black holding a sheathed dagger.

As for Theodore, the man seemed to have upgraded his style considerably. He used to carry a dagger by his side, but now he seemed to have shifted to using an elegant shortsword instead, upgrading his light armor to one that provided medium protection.

Nobody from the group even glanced at him—not the three strangers, not Jacob, not Theodore. The latter two were probably ignoring him, but to the first three, he was an absolute nobody.

He felt frustrated. He didn\'t believe that his reasons for avoiding the interview were just excuses, but he would have been afraid to attend the interview even if those reasons hadn\'t been there.

He was afraid of failing. He wanted to believe that he was at least becoming someone special and was deathly afraid of having that perception shattered. The day he tested himself against a serious challenge, he wanted to be ready. He wanted to have no excuses. He wanted to be prepared—both to succeed… and to fail.

Taking a deep, shivering breath, he downed the last drop of his beverage. He let a few more minutes pass, and then he walked down into the passage, entering the realm.

It was daytime, so very few people were waiting in the lobby. When he first arrived, the realm was still in turmoil after the last Crimson Twilight. But ever since, the gorel hives had stabilized, making the realm safer to delve into as the delvers finally managed to track the queen cycles.

He walked inside and swallowed one of the perception-boosting pills. They did little to boost his perception anymore, as he seemed to have built a lot of resistance to them. But in return, his perception was considerably sharper even when he wasn\'t consuming them.

There were still nearly 80 of them left in his ring, and he contemplated selling them for extra cash, as he had mostly gotten his use from them and saw more value in freeing up some space in the storage.

He also still had three other medicines in his ring that he had no clue about, and he planned to get them appraised soon.

He proceeded down one of the paths he had been frequenting as of late. It was a relatively obscure hunting spot between two smaller hives. Reaching it was a pain in the ass as there were no carved paths leading to the section, and that was precisely why he liked going there.

Nobody wanted to haul the bodies over tall, unstable boulders. Thus, nobody would bother him while hunting.

Before long, he tracked down three gorel guards scouting the area. At that point, dealing with these things had become trivial. They were highly predictable, and their behavior rarely varied.

Each time he approached one, it would hiss and growl once it spotted him, rushing at him and trying to tear him apart. They did nothing to parry or brace themselves against attacks, primarily relying on their bulky physique and wild swings to break their opponents\' defense.

All he really needed was one well-aimed attack to end them. Moments later, he had three dead gorel guards at his feet, and his Gore Knuckles were thoroughly shattered. He recreated them with a small burst of essence, marveling at how little reconstructing his weapons cost.

They weren\'t just cheap essence-wise; due to their construction as relatively thin spikes, they didn\'t really consume much blood, either. With his Pool of Blood at 57% progress and his undead body, he didn\'t have to worry about running out of blood.

Once the Gore Knuckles stopped breaking so frequently, he would have quite a bit of extra blood, and he wondered what other abilities to develop to use his reserves. Mentally, he was still toying with the idea of creating throwing javelins or spears for a more reliable form of ranged attack, but learning how to use them properly might turn out to be tricky.

Swiftly racking the corpses, he made his way back to the lobby. Once he arrived at the passage, he discovered something he didn\'t expect to see there.

A few parties were standing outside the massive passage, arguing about what was happening.

For some reason, a blurry barrier of sorts, looking almost like opaque glass, blocked entry back into the lobby.

He approached the group of people. "Hey," he called. "Can someone tell me what\'s happening here?"

"You tell us," a lanky man said. "We came back and found this thing here around ten minutes ago. I say it\'s probably maintenance-related."

"You dumb fuck!" a short, ginger man swore. "Why would they block us off for that?"

"I don\'t know!" the man retorted. "Why would anyone?"

"Can you please step aside?" Freddy asked.

The men complied, moving so he could approach. He placed the racked gorel corpses on the ground nearby and struck the barrier with his fist without using any abilities.

It didn\'t feel tough per se, but the barrier had clearly absorbed the force of the impact.

He pulled his hand back and tried using a Flowing Strike. The impact landed with near-perfect timing, but the barrier didn\'t even shimmer.

"Okay…" he said, warming his shoulders up. Gore Knuckles appeared on his fists as he activated both stars and landed another strike. The red spikes shattered into bits, and the barrier shimmered a bit, undulating like the surface of a lake someone had dropped a stone into. The effect only lasted a few moments before it calmed again, looking as if nothing had changed.

Freddy felt a much lesser impact on his arm, courtesy of his growing Thousand Wet Hells, but he had no time to admire his growth.

For some reason, someone had blocked the passage. Stuff like this did happen occasionally with public passages, and almost every single time, the cause was the same—sabotage. As long as it was closed, the Santorio Hub would lose money.

Sighing, he picked up the racked corpses and moved to a nearby boulder, sitting down on it.

What should I do now?

It could take a while for someone to crack the barrier open. The associated risk would hardly be worth it unless someone could keep the passage closed for at least a few days.

He could just wait around, but that seemed like a waste of time. If he was already trapped, he might as well use the opportunity to train in the passage.

He caught the image of a blonde-haired woman from the corner of his eye and turned to spot Sophia carrying a gorel corpse on her back. She suddenly dropped it as she just stood, staring at the passage.

Hmmm?

Her reaction was a bit strange.

Could it be that she was scared?

He nearly snorted at the thought, but she really did seem to be afraid, and not just a little.

Whatever, he thought as he turned his head away.

He couldn\'t stop himself from glancing at her a few seconds later.

Her reaction was getting weirder.

Her nostrils flared as she breathed rapidly, and her eyes were wide open, with her mouth slightly agape.

He scowled. Did she know something about this? Usually, he\'d take that as a sign that he shouldn\'t get involved, but for some reason, something about her reaction was triggering alarms in his head.

Fuck it.

He got up and slowly walked towards her.

Once he stepped within a few meters, the woman turned to face him briefly, then looked at the opaque barrier again.

"Hey there," he greeted awkwardly.

"Liam," she called. "We have to run."

He scowled. "Do you know something about that barrier?"

"Just… go and hide somewhere, okay?" She turned around to leave, but he grasped her by her wrist. "Let me go!"

"Okay, first of all, calm down," he said.

"No!" she screamed. "Let me go!"

"Tell me what\'s happening!" he demanded. "Do you know what that is?"

"Liam, listen to me," she said, staring at him with a crazed gaze. "That barrier won\'t go down for at least another three months, and by the time it does, this whole realm will be swarming with monsters!"

He scowled. "What?"

"That\'s going to create an artificial break! Liam… listen to me…

"We\'re in the middle of a terrorist attack."