[1% LIFESTEAL] Chapter 19 - Expired

Freddy was back in the woods, holding two ether scrolls.

The first one held the Abyssal Depths Tempering Technique, and the second one contained the Hundred Wet Hells Tempering Technique. He didn’t hide that he was buying them this time since he was confident that Madam would find out anyway.

While it was true that producing an ability by oneself was most optimal, this wasn’t quite as true for body 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 the way 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 the Flowing River Tempering Technique, or rather, the technique that was considered the most optimal to use in conjunction with Flowing Strike.

The thing that changed his mind was… Well… Freddy 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 greatly lessened the backlash of using Flowing Strike, Abyssal Depths amplified it.

Greater water density naturally resulted in far more momentum when using Flowing Strike. Usually, this would mean that Freddy was on the fast track to, yet again, bursting his limbs like fragile ketchup packets when using Flowing Strike.

This was where Hundred Wet Hells came in and why he decided to gamble with the Abyssal Depths and Flowing Strike combo. Well, it wasn’t like he couldn’t just also get Flowing River, but if it didn’t work out, the money he’d so recklessly spent would go to waste.

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 reason why this was the case. But even among such techniques, Hundred Wet Hells was up there with the most extreme. Not only had it been costly, but Freddy had to sign a waiver disclosing that he understood the risks of using it before being allowed to buy it.

Unceremoniously, Freddy 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 had 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 twenty-fourth 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 that spotted him couldn’t help but shoot him a glance, and 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 golden hair hidden beneath. 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.

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

Dressing into his equipment and grabbing the practice sword, he entered the sparring room and walked up to the tablet beside the entrance, selecting a single opponent—a swordsman animatronic. 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 grey 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.

Mark’s 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, and it didn’t take him long to finish that, either.

He skipped 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 for Mark to thrust at its neck and finish 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.

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

Not even fifteen minutes later, he dozed off for a moment. The instant he regained himself, he threw several furious strikes at the object before him, yelling like a maniac. 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 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.

Freddy had likely gotten very unlucky, and his first attempt touched something in his brain that it probably shouldn’t have. 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 even realized what happened.

It took a surprising number of stabs at the fleshy blob to eliminate all the pain in his body, leaving Freddy somewhat hesitant to try that again. Pain and discomfort had become more commonplace recently, but it 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, Freddy triggered the ability again.

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

It was akin to being boiled alive, but from within, and the urges to puke, scratch every inch of his skin, and just knock himself out warred for priority.

Rapidly stabbing the flesh blob until the pain disappeared, Freddy 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 nightmarish torture method. Although Freddy was quick to judge the ‘arrogant pricks’ that burned themselves by getting this technique, 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 once more. 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 lifesteal.

To his surprise, this actually created an unexpected result. While, yes, his veins did feel like his blood was replaced by angry ants 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 stop him from throwing up 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 literal drugs to ease the pain of tempering techniques, but this was a stupid idea and an excellent way to permanently disfigure oneself or straight-up die.

Freddy had no such concerns.

His perception of time was screwed sideways, and, to Freddy’s 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 Freddy 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. Although he still felt the impact on his body…

The difference was already noticeable.

***

The morning after, Freddy was in the gym, continuing his routine. As expected, the tempering hadn’t boosted his strength. It wasn’t going to, either, not as long as it was still tier zero.

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

Occasionally, his gaze would drift away, not how it did when someone was distracted by thinking about something, but in a way that just seemed tired.

Freddy finished a set of deadlifts and walked over to Mark, snapping his fingers before the blonde man’s face. “Hello? Wakey, wakey, sweetheart.”

“Huh? Oh, sorry… I was just dozing off a bit.”

“Hmmm…” Freddy gave the young man a good look and finally asked him, “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.

Mark nodded. “Yeah,” he answered unapologetically, apparently not intending to hide the fact. “It’s been messing with my schedule a lot, not going to lie.”

“Why?” Freddy asked.

Mark chuckled. “Dude, you have no idea how tiring it is. You have to maintain constant vigilance, and even when surrounded by inferior enemies, there is always the risk of running into a trap or a monster you won’t be able to handle.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Freddy said with a shake of his head. “I asked why are you delving into the passage?”

The young arch simply smiled at that, and Freddy scoffed. “Dude, you can’t do this to yourself.”

“Fred,” Mark started. “I’m sorry to say this, and please don’t get offended, but this is my personal business, and I’d prefer you keep your opinions to yourself.”

“Aight, aight, dude, chill,” Freddy said, lifting his hands in mock defense.

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?”

“Wha—?” 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 brought them a long way, but I don’t think it will be necessary much longer. I already know enough to continue on my own.”

“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 Freddy as if he were an executioner.

“Whoa!” Freddy said as he took a step forward. “Are you ok, 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, is he fast!”

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

They had been broken through by the young man.

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

He walked in on Mark flipping a table and then kicking it into two pieces. Then, with a few heavy breaths, he turned, glaring icy daggers at Freddy. “This is your fault.”

“What the fuck are you talking about, you maniac!?”

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

“What are you—!” Freddy tried but—

“I said shut up!” Mark yelled. “You with your freak talent, your secrets… You are to blame for this!”

“Blame for what!?” Freddy yelled back.

“My family…” Mark said, hyperventilating and breaking into tears. “I have not been contacted yet. They’re afraid of Madam. But if she fires me… Oh, God.” He said, clutching his heart and dropping to the ground. “I’m dead. She’s gonna kill me.”

“Okay, first, calm the hell down!” Freddy yelled. “What on earth are you talking about!?”

Mark strangled his throat with one hand and screamed through that, his voice barely coming through. “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, Madam 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 was wrong with Mark 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…

But a defense. “None of this is my fault,” Freddy said, barely holding his tears back.

“Does it matter!?” Mark asked. “Do you really think I care?”

“It does matter!” Freddy yelled, his voice going surprisingly deep. “And you should care!”

The utterly alien outburst coming from Freddy stunned Mark into silence.

“Apologize,” Freddy said coldly.

“For what?” Mark replied, voice growing colder as well.

“You know damn well what.”

The two men spent a few moments staring at each other until Mark meekly dropped his head. “I’m sorry for smashing you into the wall.”

“Not just that.”

Mark winced and added, “And I’m sorry for saying this is all your fault.”

Freddy leaned his head back and placed a hand on the back of his own neck. “Apology accepted. I just wanted to ensure you’re rational enough for what I’m about to do.”

“What are you—?”

“I know you’re listening in on this.”

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

Freddy continued, “I think this much is enough. I’d like to request a formal audience with Madam Morleppe or a representative.”

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

Without any warning, Freddy bent down and hugged the mountain of muscle. “Don’t worry, bro. I owe you one, and I won’t let anything happen.”

Mark grabbed the short sleeve of Freddy’s gym shirt and nodded.

They both waited in the wreck of what used to be Mark’s kitchen, and not even ten minutes later, Matt walked into the room.

He looked at Freddy and nodded. “Very well. Madam will see you in person.”