[1% LIFESTEAL] Chapter 171 - The Muscle and the Wallet

[AUTHOR'S NOTE]

Fellas, I'm happy to announce that after many stressful check ups, it turns out that the complications our doctor was suspecting weren't actually there! It was a misdiagnosis. The baby is perfectly healthy and so is my wife. The birth won't have to be induced, which is a massive burden off my shoulders.

By the way, thank you all for your understanding and support!

Now that I have that burden off my shoulders, the words basically wrote themselves :D

So, enjoy!

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The word “magic” was not often used to refer to matters of ether. Not by anyone respectable, at least.

But at one point, ether was magic. Before it came to the world. Before it twisted reality. Because then, it didn’t exist. And when it arrived, it could be called nothing but.

For a long while in the early Post-Rift Era, people called ether magic.

But a strange word, magic was. It was reserved for the unfamiliar, strange, perhaps even the nonexistent. It was a word that, as people started to understand ether, fell out of fashion. In fact, it swiftly became rather embarrassing to call it magic. People took it as a sign that you were a simpleton. It would be like calling quantum physics magic in front of an old-world scientist.

At best, you’d make someone laugh.

At worst, people would think you were literally insane.

But past the strange, unfamiliar, and nonexistent, the word magic was commonly used in a far more plain, everyday way.

One might perhaps see a young woman say her new facial cream “works like magic.” One might see a chef compliment a steelworker’s knife, saying it “cuts like magic.” One might see a sick man take a particularly effective medicine and say that “it magically healed him.”

Of course, this use was accompanied with the understanding that, no, the facial cream didn’t work magically and the knife didn’t cut magically and the medicine didn’t heal magically.

But they all did work really, really well. Convenient beyond reasonable expectation. Just as one might idly fantasize about—like magic.

It was thus that Freddy’s stage 3 Hydraulic Flex worked like magic.

During his research, Freddy had read many books that discussed concepts known to slot into certain abilities. And those books had a habit of ranking these concepts, sometimes individually, sometimes in combination with others.

“Redirection” was always ranked rather low.

There were a few reasons for this.

The first was that it was a bit redundant. With every bit of progress, people became more capable of resisting the effects of inertia on their bodies, making “redirection” relatively unnecessary.

The second was that it required a fair bit of strength to use effectively. The redirecting aspect was conceptual, so it didn’t put extra strain on muscle or anything like that, but it did rely on the user’s movements as a guide. Theoretically, it was capable of turning the momentum of someone’s run into a force that sent them flying directly upwards. But in reality, nobody had the kind of strength and explosive power needed to do the sudden movement necessary to guide this redirection.

And the third reason was that it was simply outmuscled by too many good alternatives.

But Freddy was a rare case where these reasons simply didn’t apply.

Even with the ability to resist inertia, Abyssal Depths would always make it difficult to maneuver, and he had more than enough strength to get excellent use out of it. This made it quite the competitive option.

But where he’d been planning on relying on it to stop being clunky in a fight, it turned out that it was capable of far more than just getting him from A to B more smoothly.

Deep inside the interspace in the passage beneath Valhalla, Freddy ran in a straight line in a dry desert realm of hard, cracked soil. He gathered as much speed as he could muster, then he clenched his entire lower body. His abs tightened, his hamstrings stretched, his quads pulled, and his calves tugged. He activated Hydraulic Flex. With an explosive and instant twitch of his legs, he was redirected up into the air. Not at an exact 90 degree angle, but pretty close.

What had been a solid run at maximum speed turned into quite a bit of air time, giving him a good look of the barren C-class realm that stretched on for miles.

Then, when he reached the apex of the jump, he muttered. “Twisted Pendulum.”

He had initially presumed that the ability, given how it twisted his perception of time, doubled the effect of gravity during the penalty. But as he tested it, he realized that that wasn’t at all the case. No, it in fact quadrupled the effect of gravity. This was because gravity was expressed as acceleration per period of time. But acceleration was a function of speed per period of time.

Thus, gravity, which was speed per period of time per period of time, actually squared the time part of the function, which, when halved by the spirit ability and then squared, went from 1 to 0.25.

But this was only from his perspective. Kind of.

Some fucky maths that Freddy couldn’t even begin to decipher happened here.

From an outside perspective, he truly did look like he was falling only “twice” as fast. But from his perspective, because he was falling twice as fast while perceiving time twice as fast, he fell four times as fast. And because his body was actually genuinely affected four times as hard, he hit the ground four times as hard. But he actually only hit the ground twice as hard as he would based on how fast he was moving from an outside perspective.

When he tested it, it made perfect sense. It only became confusing when he started thinking about it.

But ultimately, the maths behind it didn’t really matter. What mattered was that even the penalty part could be used to his advantage. He jumped high, then fell fast. And very, very hard.

As he fell from the apex, he dropped to the ground like a meteorite. His legs struck with immense force, sinking his whole foot into the rock-hard earth while cracks spread all around him.

Satisfied, he pulled his feet out of the earth and started running again. Soon enough, the penalty part of the spirit ability ended, and the speed at which he was moving got that much faster.

Because of the aforementioned freaky physics, now, the effect flipped. He wasn’t being affected half as much. He was being affected only a quarter as much.

When he reached maximum speed, he braced himself and used another Hydraulic Flex. He soared into the sky, flying so high he damn near reached the fake veil of the blue realm sky.

Then, the effect of Twisted Pendulum ended.

He mentally calculated the timing real quick, and then took a deep breath as he used a double-starred Tsunami Strike. “Twisted Pendulum,” he activated the spirit ability again as he started falling down.

Having reached that much higher, he fell that much faster and hit the ground that much harder. His Tsunami Strike timing was a little off. But it really didn’t matter.

His feet exploded, with even his bones turning into dust half way up his calves. The soil crumbled, kicking the dust up and sending a shockwave in a perfect circle around him. Once the dust cleared, he found himself lying at the bottom of a crater. The ground around him was smoking and glowing red hot from the energy of the impact.

While this required impeccable timing, precision, and a good amount of setup—not to mention the injury he suffered from it—it was by far the most powerful attack he had at his disposal. For now.

He theorized that Sanguine Avenger could maybe hit a little harder. But he would have to take a lot of damage, heal, take a lot of damage again, heal again, and repeat until he gathered enough retaliation. It wasn’t nearly as practical.

During the century of solitude, he had gotten quite accustomed to his abilities. But those were his abilities at stage 2. At stage 3, they had changed so much that he was painfully aware of just how much better he could get at making the most of them. He almost lamented not having another century to practice. Almost.

Out of all the upgrades, he was most hopeful for Hydraulic Flex.

He healed his feet after quite a while of smashing the spark of undeath and got back up.

Then, he started running.

With little more than a twitch of his leg, he could completely change the direction he was moving in. This was, at times, more than a little tricky to use.

For starters, it was awfully dizzying. The sudden lurch of his body instantly reorienting its momentum was something he was struggling to get used to. His mind interpreted it as the whole world shifting by whatever angle he shifted the momentum. This was less problematic when he leaped up, but when he ran straight and then changed directions by 90 degrees, it made him feel nearly sick enough to throw up.

But he could do more than that. He could stop moving almost immediately. As in, he could go from a full sprint to standing perfectly still with a single well-timed press of his foot. It required precise timing and he had to direct the force perfectly against itself to cancel it, but he got hold of it rather quickly.

However, this, perhaps more than anything else, made him want to puke his guts out.

Going from moving to standing so quickly confused his brain so profoundly that, for a few moments after stopping, the whole world felt like it was moving opposite of the direction he’d been running in.

There were other tricks he could do, too.

For starters, wielding his Sanguine Avenger became as effortless as swinging a hollow piece of plywood around. With Hydraulic Flex, he could control the sword’s momentum in a way that made it look and feel weightless in his grip.

Could. Theoretically.

In practice, he… well, he could do better than before. But to truly master this might take years of work.

After a while longer of testing and tuning, he knew this was all the time he could afford to set aside for this.

Around five days ago, he had started practicing his upgraded abilities. While he would have a lot of time to practice against the monsters, he couldn’t take crazy risks and go overboard. But he needed to know what he was capable of.

Unfortunately, five days just wasn’t enough. He got a better feel for Hydraulic Flex’s redirection properties and did some more in-depth testing of Twisted Pendulum. But that was all he managed to do.

Perhaps he’d gotten a little too used to the way he trained at the dungeon. Back then, he had all the time in the world to slowly dissect his abilities and optimize the way he used them. But he was no longer in the dungeon.

This time, he only had five days. And while he hadn’t achieved nothing per se, he wished he had done more.

The monster wave would hit any day now. Today at the earliest, three days from then at the lastest.

Standing in the middle of the desolate realm, he got hold of his surroundings. It was pretty flat, but there were a few craggy hills off in one distance, which was where the way out was located. He started walking there, then, once he found his bag with the extra resources, he picked it up and started heading outside.

One might be tempted to presume there would be a more valuable way for him to spend his time during this crisis. And at first, he had tried to step up. He talked to Travis, to other influential people, the builders, the coordinators—and quickly realized that he had absolutely no idea what he was doing.

Lots of stuff was happening. There were many logistical and administrative challenges to overcome. Stuff he was way underqualified to handle.

Admittedly, he had built up a bit of a fantasy when this all got started. That he would step up as the master strategist and plan out the perfect way to fight back.

But no.

He was, ultimately, still an uneducated musclehead.

Even with all his reading, without formal education he was, at best, somewhat of a smartass that could cite a number of fun and interesting facts. At worst, he was a proud fool.

While he’d read a smattering of books on construction out of sheer boredom, he didn’t really understand the first thing about building a wall. Same went for… well… pretty much everything else other than fighting.

Rather than fruitlessly try to push his way into meetings and waste everyone’s time, he had made the decision to stick to his role.

In this fight, he was the muscle. He would fight longer and harder than everyone else put together. And there was no reason to be ashamed of that.

Granted, he wanted to get better at all sorts of things. But that would have to wait.

As he made his way back to Valhalla, he felt a certain degree of trepidation. He had told Travis where he was, and there was a messenger who would have rushed to get Freddy in case of an emergency. The messenger hadn’t appeared. Hopefully, that meant everything was going fine.

His walk through the interspace was quite calm and quiet. He’d wrecked every single step on the way to the realm he’d trained in, and even a few out, so there were no monsters to speak of. Not that there had been many to begin with.

This passage took to a truly barren part of the interspace. Even more so than the one in the center of the city. There were no dungeons. No spirits. Barely any vestiges, even. It wasn’t worthless—no passage truly was.

But it was the next worst thing.

Technically, he could just go 50 steps out and stumble upon a richer part of the interspace. But it wasn’t so simple in practice.

Tight or inaccessible passages, poor terrain, dangerous realms—there was plenty of stuff working against just going out there.

And, perhaps most importantly, past a certain number of steps, passages had a habit of shifting. They disappeared and reappeared, and the new ones lead to completely different parts of the interspace. Needless to say, this resulted in a vast number of people getting stranded.

There were ways to track a path back to Earth. Some devices could be tuned to certain realms, with their range depending on the size of the target realm. Earth was presumed to be in an infinitely large universe—which Freddy now knew wasn’t the case—but the solar system realm was still more than big enough to be detectable from immense distances.

But while these tracking devices seemed wonderful, they weren’t exactly perfect.

Most importantly, they didn’t discriminate between passages and realms. This often resulted in them pointing at a passage the size of a coin or leading through realms filled with toxic gas or lava or dangerous monsters.

This was the main reason why some passages were considerably more valuable than others. And the one beneath Valhalla was, unfortunately, among the most worthless ones of all.

It would still be a massive boon for Valhalla. And there was still more to explore.

He took his mind off such idle musings as he finally reached the exit and stepped into the small cave beneath Valhalla.

As soon as he walked out, he was greeted by the aforementioned messenger. It was a man in his thirties, a close friend of Travis’s, as Freddy understood. The man had some early whites in his hair on the sides, and generally had the build of a desk clerk more than a fighter. He was seated against a boulder, and as Freddy stepped through, he rushed to his feet, anxiously straightening his jacket as he politely bowed his head a bit. “Hello, sir,” he said meekly.

“Hello there, buddy. You’re Jeff, right?”

“Yes. Can you please wait a moment?” the man requested with a politely raised finger as he dug around his pocket and pulled out a small communication crystal. “Travis told me to call him as soon as you’re out.”

“Sure thing, man.”

Jeff nodded with a cheerful smile and rubbed the side of the crystal with his thumb. It lit up, and a moment later, Travis’s voice echoed from it, “Is he out!?” the man asked in a tone that immediately made Freddy perk up and squint.

He scowled and took a few steps forward. “Hey!” he called. “Travis!? Is there a problem?”

“A problem!?” the man asked with a borderline manic laugh. “Oh shut up, you prick! Why didn’t you tell me!? Actually, you know what? I don’t care. I could kiss you on the lips right now.”

Freddy raised an eyebrow with a start. He shifted from one foot to another and placed his hands on his hips. This wasn’t exactly the direction he expected the conversation to go. “Okay, what the hell is going on?”

“You’re still playing dumb? Man, be honest with me—are you the empress’s son or something?”

“What!?” Freddy asked with a disbelieving laugh. “I’m sorry but I really don’t understand.”

A few moments of silence elapsed before Travis’s voice finally came through. “Really…? I heard from the adjudicator himself that you’re the one to thank for all this.”

“All this?” Freddy thought for a moment, and then suddenly his face lit up with realization. “Oh! You’re talking about the funding!”

“Oh YoU’re TaLkinG AbOUt the FunDing!” the man repeated in a mocking voice. “Yeah, yeah, shut up. I don’t buy it for a second that you forgot about that. Now come on, I’d like to talk to you about this in person.” The crystal shut off.

Freddy eyed the crystal, and then the man holding it. Jeff raised his hands. “Mate I’ve been sleeping in that bag over there in the corner for the last five days so I have no clue what he’s on about.”

“Okay… I guess I’m gonna have to find out for myself.”

Freddy quickly made his way out of the hidden cave, leaving Jeff to clean up his temporary living quarters.

As soon as he stepped out into the training chambers, he spotted Sophia in the middle of training. She was one of a few select people who Travis had authorized to use the special training rooms to prepare for the incoming monster hordes. One of eleven people.

Among the rest, Freddy also spotted Lara. Nine of the people present were elite Valhalla two-stars. Among the other two, one of them was Sophia.

And the other was Lucas.

There weren’t any others who were trusted enough to train here, and for whatever it was worth, Lucas was a truly talented individual.

The two of them made quick eye contact. As soon as Lucas noticed him, he moved off the machine he’d been using and marched over to the nearest gathering chamber, slamming the door behind him as he entered.

Freddy sighed.

“Oh, so you’re finally out,” Sophia said as she approached him, sipping out of a thermos bottle.

He looked over at her and couldn’t help but gape.

She was wearing a simple white t-shirt and grey sweatpants. But her choice of clothing wasn’t the thing that caught his attention.

It was her body. She was absolutely jacked. And taller. And beyond that, he could tell that she had modified her own body, shifting her shoulders to be a little wider and drastically reducing the size of her breasts. She had basically completely removed them. While she was nearly eye-level with him, her overall mass was nowhere near Freddy’s own. Clearly, she had prioritized remaining mobile.

She noticed his gaze and then looked down at herself, a pleased grin on her face. “Like what you see, pal? Man, I didn’t know you were into this stuff. I respect it, big guy.”

He chortled. “I’m surprised you’d go that far. Put a bag on your head and I’d genuinely think I was talking to a man.”

She shrugged. “I got myself a cheeky body mod ability. It is mad flexible. I could play with myself all I wanted since I knew I could just undo any damage I did. Turns out that that does wonders for quickly developing an insanely advanced Body Modification.” She raised her arms and flexed her biceps to demonstrate.

The striations showed incredibly clearly, displaying an almost complete absence of body fat. Veins bulged, twisting and coiling around her arms.

Freddy poked at her biceps. It was hard as stone. Dense. Clearly, she had done a little more than just alter the shape. He nodded, clearly impressed. “And you can undo it?”

“Yup. Not instantly, but it wouldn’t take more than a few hours. Like I said, my Body Modification is really flexible.” She leaned in a bit. “By the way, if we find time, I think I could make a few more adjustments to your body.” She poked a finger at his hip. “The healing did a great job of keeping your body balanced the last time, but this time, I know what I’m doing. I can think of a number of ways I could improve on my work.”

Freddy grinned. “Sounds good. But let’s first go see when the monsters are coming. Wouldn’t want to be indisposed if the crisis arrives.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Yeah… I don’t think that’s gonna be a huge problem, honestly.”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

She stared at him with abject confusion. “Don’t look at me, I’m not the one who gave the adjudicator all that money.”

At this point, he was outright scowling. “Wait, what the hell did he do?”

There was a moment of bafflement on her face before she broke out into a shit-eating grin. “Oh you don’t even know, do you?”

“Know what?”

“I think you should see for yourself,” she said with a giggle as she turned around and gestured for him to follow after her.

Freddy obliged since he was already heading towards Travis’s office. The two of them made it to the floor with Travis’s office, and as soon as he made it in front of the first window, he finally realized what was happening.

He practically glued his face to the window as he stared out, mouth gaping in awe at the sight. “No fucking way.”

There was a wall. Somewhere between 30-40 meters tall. Tons of people were walking atop the battlements, and from what he could see in the distance, the wall surrounded the entire city.

It was already finished.