1% Lifesteal

Freddy was back in the woods, holding two ether scrolls. Both of them were for tempering techniques. The first was named Abyssal Depths. And the second was named Hundred Wet Hells.

This time, he didn't bother hiding his purchase.

While it was true that producing an ability by oneself was most optimal, this wasn't the case for tempering techniques. Not only were the more complex ones too difficult and time-consuming to create, but few tempering techniques aimed to be appropriate for the user's body.

No, it was more accurate to say that tempering techniques aimed to hurt the user to temper them, just like when a hammer came down on hot steel to forge it. While he was thrilled to have found Hundred Wet Hells, even if it cost him most of his savings, the Abyssal Depths tempering technique was a spur-of-the-moment decision.

He had initially aimed to find Flowing River, or rather, the technique considered the most optimal to use in conjunction with Flowing Strike.

What changed his mind was… well… he lived by the words "most simple is likely best." But in this case, the path wasn't necessarily the best. It was just the most well-known.

Flowing River resulted in a body with designated water streams that supported Flowing Strike. On the other hand, Abyssal Depths simply compressed water into the user's body.

The difference was simple: while Flowing River considerably lessened the backlash of using Flowing Strike, Abyssal Depths amplified it—but it also boosted the power. Drastically.

Greater water density naturally resulted in far more momentum. Usually, this would mean that he was on the fast track to, yet again, burst his limbs like fragile ketchup packets.

This was where Hundred Wet Hells came in and why he gambled with the Abyssal Depths and Flowing Strike combo. There was another reason, too—Abyssal Depths was one of the rare few tempering techniques that could be reversed. So it wasn't like he couldn't jump ship and switch to Flowing River. It would just be a moderate waste of time and money.

According to Mark, there was a rivalry between earth-affinity and water-affinity archs. Objectively speaking, when it came to external toughness, earth was king. But when it came to internal toughness, water was the undefeatable champion.

Hundred Wet Hells and tempering techniques like it were the primary reasons why this was the case. But even among such techniques, Hundred Wet Hells was the most extreme. Not only had it been costly, but he had to sign a waiver disclosing that he understood the risks of using it before being allowed to buy it.

As far as internal toughness was concerned, it would be the only tempering technique he needed. If he could handle using it, that was.

Unceremoniously, he cracked open the ether scroll. The runes imbued within graced his eyes, and he felt their power pulse into his spirit, gradually constructing the basis of the ether shell. Not even seconds later, the once-radiant runes faded into vague burn marks on the paper, and, with a large splash, the shell in his soul had formed.

He repeated the same thing with the other scroll and was finally ready. Freddy fetched the large pile of flesh that had grown considerably and put it into his lap, holding the knife close to the surface of the biomass.

With a deep breath, he initiated Hundred Wet Hells…

And instantly lost consciousness.

***

In the biggest building in the 24th district, there was a large room. The walls, floor, and ceiling were lined with rectangular, dark metallic plates, and right in the center sat a heavily reinforced metal door, seemingly not connected to anything.

Several people sat at the benches scattered around the room's walls, all dressed to delve into the passage behind the artificial barrier. With three shrill rings, the door cracked open, and a large, armored man with a giant sword strapped to his back walked out, dragging a massive bag behind him. His synthetic armor was camouflaged with shades of green and yellow, and his bag shared the same colors.

Everyone who spotted him couldn't help but shoot him a glance, but it wasn't long until he walked through the room of onlookers, summarily ignoring all of them. Stepping into a room adjacent to the one holding the passage, he walked over to a clerk and dropped the massive bag on the table.

The moment he released his grip on his loot, he removed his helmet, revealing the beautiful wheat-blonde hair and shimmering verdant eyes hidden beneath, shining with the bright warmth of a fall pasture.

Mark smiled politely at the woman, nodding at the bag of monster parts he had collected.

The clerk, a middle-aged woman with short, black hair, gave him a slip, slapped a tag on the bag, and picked it up as if it weighed nothing, dragging it to a room in the back.

He walked to a changing room, put on his regular clothing, and went to the training facility he had access to. In the back rooms of the gym, there was an elevator that took him deep underground.

From highly specialized weight-lifting equipment to rooms full of golems and animatronics he could spar with, it was a facility that would pass even the 25th district quality checks. He was alone, so he started his training session without any ceremony.

Dressing into his equipment and grabbing the massive practice sword, he entered the sparring room and walked up to the tablet beside the entrance, selecting a single opponent—an animatronic swordsman. Once he got ready, the door on the other side of the room slid open, and his sparring partner walked out.

It was a primarily gray mannequin roughly shaped into an average-sized male adult. This was merely the warm-up, and it didn't take him long to thoroughly disarm the puppet and give it a good slash across the chest. Wherever his weapon made contact, the color of the animatronic's surface changed, with yellow indicating light, orange heavy, red critical, and black marking lethal damage.

His talent, Rebalanced Musculature, allowed him to wield large, two-handed weapons with almost comical ease. Most of his smaller muscles were greatly strengthened, and his entire body had a much wider effective range of movement.

He didn't have to worry about damaging the equipment here, as it was made to tolerate a whole load more pain than what he could dish out. So he promptly selected two enemies on the tablet. It didn't take long to finish the fight.

That felt like enough warm-up to skip straight to five opponents, a level he knew he was comfortable with.

Three rushed at him in a wedge formation, while a fourth flanked him and a fifth stalked from behind the frontline. Mark ran at the flanker, capitalizing on its isolation to finish it before the others could reach him.

He swung an overhead strike that the animatronic blocked with its sword, causing its shoulders and hands to light up yellow. A kick left an orange spot on its torso, and given that it couldn't retaliate in that state, it wasn't hard to sneak a thrust at its neck, leaving a black spot that finished the fight.

Suddenly, he heard a beep.

He turned around and spotted one of the mannequins frozen in place. Its blade nearly touched his back, right around where it would have thrust through his heart in a real fight. The others had also been deactivated, signaling his failure.

His eyes shot open. He couldn't believe it. Kicking the frozen mannequin out of frustration, he moved to another room that held punching bags.

After fifteen minutes of throwing furious strikes at the object before him and yelling like a maniac, he finally ran out of essence.

He dropped to the floor nearby, sitting with one arm around his knees and clutching his hair with a shaky hand.

***

Freddy's eyes popped open not long after he was knocked out. His entire body hurt like hell, and he instantly stabbed at the fleshy blob before him.

"Holy fuck, what the fuck was that!?"

He already knew that this tempering technique would be… troublesome, but he hadn't expected to get knocked out instantly.

Hundred Wet Hells was a tempering technique that basically turned all the water in one's body against them. Pretty much any way it could harm one from within was part of the Hundred Wet Hells tempering process.

He likely got unlucky, and his first attempt touched something in his brain that it probably shouldn't have. Thanks to Ethereal Mercy, he was at no risk of dying from this much, but it was still scary to see that it could knock him out before he realized what happened.

It took a surprising number of stabs at the fleshy blob to eliminate all the pain in his body, leaving him hesitant to try that again. Pain and discomfort had become more commonplace recently, but that didn't mean he could tolerate something like this.

Still, he had walked into this one fully expecting to just toughen up and push through it, and now his pride was absolutely not going to relent, even if he had to suffer for his arrogance.

With a lot of hesitation, he triggered the ability again.

Perhaps getting knocked out was lucky, he thought, as the searing pain rapidly spread through his body, forcing him to cancel the ability almost immediately. He had thought that prolonged meditative gathering was a test of willpower. Compared to this? It barely qualified.

It was akin to being boiled alive, but from within, and the urges to puke and scratch every inch of his skin warred for priority. He couldn't breathe, his vision morphed into blurry blobs, and his hearing echoed with an intolerably loud sound of sloshing tides.

Rapidly stabbing the flesh blob until the pain disappeared, he got a hold of himself and breathed again.

He finally understood why he had to sign a waiver and provide confirmation that he was legally an adult. It wasn't hard to imagine hordes of overzealous teenagers trying themselves against this torture method and getting themselves hurt.

Ironic that he was quick to judge the arrogant pricks who burned themselves by getting this technique when it was hard to deny that he might have very well been one of them.

The embarrassment of having to face the fact that he had thrown a fuck ton of money away was enough to get him to at least try himself one more time.

This time, before he started using the technique, he was already stabbing the mass of flesh. The instant he triggered it again, he kept his focus dead-locked on the inpour of life force.

To his surprise, this actually created an unexpected result. While, yes, his veins did feel like his blood was replaced by angry wasps and his head was indeed trying to explode, the feeling his talent gave off was just enough of a distraction to fight off the desire to cancel the ability. Not enough to not puke all over himself, though.

Using his talent felt good. Really good. It was like a drug, and the sensation only got more intense when contrasted with the agony he was living through. It wasn't uncommon for people to use… pharmaceutical aid, so to speak, to ease the pain of tempering techniques, but that was a stupid idea and an excellent way to permanently disfigure oneself or straight-up die.

But, given his drug of choice, he had no such concerns.

His perception of time was screwed sideways, and, to his surprise, his essence ran out before his desire to stop could prevail.

While his talent had kept him going, it was most certainly not keeping up with all the damage the technique had been causing, and it took him a good while of stabbing and feeding the mass of flesh to return to full health.

It was only then that he could finally grin in excitement. Not that long ago, he had wondered what kind of freak could torment themselves for power.

Now, he meditated to recover just a bit of his essence and approached a tree. Flowing Strike flew out, smashing into the bark, shaking the tree, and leaving a small dent. The impact was still there. The backlash didn't go away.

But his grin widened nonetheless.

The difference was already noticeable.

***

The morning after, he was in the gym, continuing his routine. As expected, the tempering hadn't boosted his strength. It wasn't designed to do that. Not directly, at least. But with time, having a more durable body would allow him to exert more strength without pain or discomfort.

For a while already, he had noticed that his trainer seemed… off. At first, it made sense, given the situation with his family, and he wasn't insensitive enough to needlessly pry. But at that moment, as he observed the young man… there was something off about him.

Occasionally, his gaze would drift away, and not how it did when someone was distracted by thinking about something.

Indeed, he could recognize that look anywhere. He had seen it in a mirror numerous times—those were the eyes of someone overworked and dead-tired.

He finished a set of deadlifts and walked over to Mark, snapping his fingers before the blonde man's face. "Hello? Wakey, wakey, sweetheart!"

"Huh?" Mark replied dumbfoundedly, his eyes slowly refocusing. "Oh, sorry… I was just dozing off a bit."

"Hmmm…" He gave the young man a good look and asked, "Are you delving into the passage in the main building?" He had many reasons to suspect that Mark was doing so, but he had been unwilling to ask about it.

The man nodded, wiping his right eye with the back of his hand. "Yeah," he answered unapologetically, apparently not intending to hide the fact. "Not gonna lie, it's been messing with my schedule a lot."

"Why?" he asked.

Mark chuckled. "Because it's damn exhausting, that's why," he spat, his fatigue at least partially being pushed away by frustration. "I delve solo, so I have to do everything myself. Scouting, carrying, fighting, dissecting, everything!" he shouted, attracting a few gazes. He took that as a cue to calm down a bit. "It's just too much. And I can't be sloppy, either, since there is always a risk that a deviant will catch me off-guard."

"That's not what I meant," he said with a shake of his head. "I asked why you're delving into the passage!" he said, coming off as a bit more aggressive than intended.

Mark scoffed at that.

Freddy shook his head. "Dude, you can't do this to yourself."

"Fred," Mark started, gesturing with his arm. "I'm sorry to say this, and please don't get offended, but this is my personal business. I appreciate your concern, but maybe keep it to yourself in the future, all right?"

"Aight, aight, dude, chill," he placated, lifting his hands in mock defense. "I didn't mean anything bad by it."

They continued their training, but not even half an hour passed until Freddy sighed and opened his mouth again. "Have you thought about what you're going to do next?"

Mark seemed surprised by the question. "Not… really… why do you ask?"

"Uhm…?" Freddy was about to ask but was so surprised that he couldn't get his words out. Did Mark seriously not realize it yet? Without saying anything, he merely raised an arm and flexed his impressive biceps. "See these guns, boy?" Then he jokingly kissed it and winked at Mark. "Your guidance has taken me a long way, but I don't think it will be needed much longer."

"What… What are you saying?"

"I mean, realistically…" Freddy started but paused once he saw the expression on Mark's face.

The young man appeared stricken. He was shaking, and his eyes were staring at him as if he were an executioner.

"Whoa!" Freddy said as he took a step forward. "Are you okay, dude?"

"S-Stay away from me!" Mark yelled as he took a few unstable steps back and then, without warning, started running away.

"Wait!" Freddy yelled as he ran after him. "Damn, he's fast!"

Mark appeared to be running back to their building, and despite being quite a bit slower than him, Freddy was well aware of where the blonde man was going. Once he reached Mark's apartment, the first thing he noticed was that the doors weren't just open—

The young man had broken through them.

"What the fuck…!?" he whispered under his breath and walked in apprehensively, worried about the constant sounds of banging coming from within.

He walked in on his trainer flipping a table and then kicking it into two pieces. Then, with a few heavy breaths, he turned, glaring icy daggers at him. "This is your fault."

"What the fuck are you talking about, you maniac!?" he yelled.

"Shut up!" Mark screamed hysterically. "This is your fucking fault!" He walked over to him, grabbed him by the collar, and threw him at a nearby wall, a smash that would have seriously injured him had he not gotten so much tougher.

"What are you—" he tried to say.

"I said shut up!" Mark yelled. "You with your freak talent, your secrets… You're to blame for this!"

"Blame for what!?" he shot back.

"My family…" Mark said, hyperventilating and breaking into tears as he let go of him and took shaky steps back. "My contract lasts for three months!" he yelled. "You're right; why would they renew it!? They're gonna fucking fire me, and then what!?" he shouted, clutching his heart and dropping to the ground. "I'm dead. Madame is gonna kill me."

"Okay, first, calm the hell down!"

Mark strangled his own throat with one hand and screamed through that, his voice coming through as a rough whisper, "They haven't contacted me yet! But once I lose this job, they'll come." Then he grabbed his head, pulling it down into his knees. "They'll ask me questions… They'll threaten my family. If I don't answer, my family is doomed. If I do… Madame will kill me. She'll kill me, and you'll get my heart. I'm going to die, Freddy."

He couldn't believe it. There were signs that something had been wrong with the man lately, but this… This was far worse than he dared to hope. Yet, what came out of his mouth next weren't words of comfort—

"None of this is my fault," he argued, barely holding his tears back.

"Does it matter!?" Mark asked through choked sobs. "Do you really think I care?"

With his fists clenched, he felt himself slowly panicking, losing control of his emotions. But far before it could get to that, he swallowed hard and opened his mouth to speak. "I know you're listening in on this."

Mark looked up, eyes wide open and mouth hanging loose.

He continued, "I think this much is enough. I'd like to request a formal audience with Madame or a representative."

Mark's breathing hastened, but he controlled himself, merely sitting there and waiting.

He was glad that the young man seemed to trust him at least somewhat, but that didn't stop him from walking over and giving him a good kick in the stomach.

"Oof, wha-what the—"

"Don't you 'wha-what the' me, you bastard!" Freddy snarled. "That's for throwing me at the wall!"

Mark looked down, smiling beside himself. "I guess I-I deserve at l-least tha-that much," he eked out, unable to speak correctly.

Without any warning, Freddy bent down and hugged the mountain of muscle. "Don't worry, bro. I'll do what I can," he promised.

Mark grabbed the short sleeve of his gym shirt and nodded, breathing a little easier.

They both waited in the wreck of what used to be Mark's kitchen, and not even two minutes later, Matt Canstone walked into the room. He took a single look at them and nodded. "Very well. Madame will see you in person."