[1% LIFESTEAL] Chapter 13 - A Formal Introduction

Janhalar pulled his smoking fist out of the pile of scrap wood that used to be his desk, and his assistant, a frightened young woman, whimpered as she took a few steps back.

“You are free to leave,” he said, and she quickly bowed before practically running out of the room.

Absolutely unbelievable.

Not even the city lord could pull something like this, which could only mean one thing—Janhalar was simply that goddamn unlucky.

Even after scouring the area around the break, spying on every survivor of the incident, personally checking the entire dump yard, and having the whole building searched a few days after that boy left, the unique remnant was still nowhere to be found.

This could only mean two things—either that slimy bastard had stolen it, or it was in the young man’s possession.

He had many reasons to believe that Harold wouldn’t do that, or perhaps even couldn’t have done that, and even if he did, Janhalar was confident he’d find out eventually.

So, he didn’t have any other option. For a brief moment, he considered contacting Madam directly, but the likelihood of her turning him into a non-descript pile of biomass was too high.

There was a silver lining to this tragedy, however.

He leaned down and picked up a piece of paper from the pile of debris.

A document that held information about an individual that just happened to be Janhalar’s favorite type of person.

‘Dr. Leonard Garfield.’

***

This was the first time that Freddy got to experience the food service in this building. As nothing but a brown stain remained on the plate where, minutes ago, a glorious steak had been, Freddy felt incredibly salty that this event was hampered by the awkward atmosphere.

Mark had reluctantly agreed to Freddy’s invitation, probably just to be polite. Any attempt by Freddy to start a conversation was about as effective as throwing an egg would be at shattering a concrete wall.

“Like I already said,” Freddy tried again. “I don’t mind anything you’ve done today.”

This was the third time he was saying something of the sort, and the same as all his previous attempts, Mark merely frowned a bit at that, forced a smile at Freddy—and this time, he got up.

“Thank you for the meal, Mr. Stern,” Mark said, turning around to leave. “I hope to see you around.”

‘But not at work,’ Freddy added inwardly.

Before the mountain of muscle could leave, Freddy asked him one final question. “Why… did you accept the job?”

“Hmm?” Mark turned around.

“It’s just that, you know… Judging by what you said, I assume you’re quite well off,” Freddy said. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not prying or—”

“Hahaha, it’s alright,” he said. “It isn’t some big secret. The gym owner owns a private training facility here. Unfortunately, he isn’t selling access to it, but he does allow his employees entry.”

“If you need that, then… why are you quitting?”

“I told you already, my actions violate the—”

“But they don’t. You weren’t on the job yet. Besides, it isn’t like you’re getting fired. You’re voluntarily quitting.”

Something flashed through the blond man’s expression, and he responded with a slightly grimmer tone. “That is just a technicality. It’s merely an excuse that doesn’t change what I’ve done.”

“But I’ve already forgiven you. And besides, it wasn’t like it bothered me to begin with.”

“It was a major mistake. I shouldn’t be allowed to walk away from it without suffering the consequences.”

“But does that mean that your only option is to quit?” Freddy asked.

“With all due respect, Mr. Stern, why are you so insistent?”

That question made Freddy wince, but before he could respond, the young man continued. “You have known me for only a day. Is there a particular reason you want me to stay on the job?”

After a bit of hesitation, he responded. “I don’t fuckin’ know, man,” Freddy said honestly. “It just kind of rubs me the wrong way. I can’t help but feel guilty about this. A guy my age is losing his job due to my stupidity.”

“You’re not—!”

“I know, I know, I’m not to blame, it’s not my fault, I get it, but… that doesn’t change how I feel,” Freddy said, curling up on his chair and placing a hand on the back of his head-.

Mark paused at that, and with a sigh, he conceded. “Alright,” he returned and offered Freddy his hand for a handshake. “Honestly, if you were the son of anyone influential, I’d be in some really deep shit for what I did today. You’re a good man, Mr. Stern.”

Freddy grabbed his hand and pleaded, “Please just call me Freddy, dude. That’s cringe.”

“Hahaha, alright. You can call me Mark, too,” he permitted. “But, I will add that I still feel guilty about my actions. Don't hesitate to ask if you need help with anything.”

“Alright, sure! I won’t hold back.”

Mark got ready to leave again, but then he paused. “Oh, by the way, do you wish to do another session tomorrow, or do you want to wait until the day after, when we officially start?”

Freddy thought about that for a bit, but it didn’t take long for him to decide. “I’d love to continue tomorrow.”

“Alright then! See you tomorrow at eight.”

“Eight?” Freddy asked. “Isn’t that a bit late?”

“Hmm? Oh, I was trying to be considerate, but if you want, we can move it back to seven.”

“Yeah, that’s a bit better, I guess,” Freddy said, still slightly confused.

“Great! I’ll see you in the morning!” Mark said, patting him on the shoulder, but he paused as he noticed the expression on Freddy’s face. “Is something wrong?”

“Ah… No… Hahaha… Everything is a-OK,” he said, too embarrassed to go back on what he said.

The arranged time made Freddy instantly regret his decision, but he gritted his teeth and accepted it.

It would be a different story if Mark were already his trainer, but he didn’t want to be too demanding while already taking up his free time.

They shook hands and parted ways.

Freddy’s sleep schedule had been atrocious for a while already, and coupled with all he had done today, he felt positively exhausted. It was 7 PM, and he didn’t want to mess up his sleep schedule further by going to sleep too early, so he waited for the next two hours, absent-mindedly flipping the pages of the water arts guide, really just admiring the cool illustrations, until the clock hit 9 PM and he went to sleep.

***

Except for the fact that he had overslept a bit and showed up thirty minutes late, the second day went by much more smoothly than the first.

This was in no small part because of Mark’s new approach.

If Freddy was being entirely honest, his trainer’s explanations bordered on condescending as he presumed that Freddy knew literally nothing, even some things that were common sense.

But hey, it was all justified because, more often than Freddy would like to admit, Mark was right on the money.

They did back exercises today, with Mark very gently easing Freddy into doing some deadlifting. As in, he brought a broom from storage to use instead of a metal barbell. They also did some rows and hyperextensions, with Mark making sure Freddy was fully in the loop before allowing him to start.

It wasn’t possible to have perfect form without a bit of training, but it was imperative that he knew what ‘perfect form’ was before developing bad habits and lopsided posture.

Next up were pull-ups, of which Freddy could do precisely zero. But, with some assistance from Mark and a special machine that supported his legs, he could kind of do it, but only after most of his body weight was already supported.

After they were done with the training, they changed into swimming suits and went into the pool, which was where they did their stretching exercises. Thankfully, there was a section where Freddy could stand without swimming because this was his first time in water like this. Ever.

The second day went by quickly, and Freddy left the gym feeling sore but good overall.

When he returned to his apartment, he ordered some ‘fried jipur.’ Apparently, it was an avian species similar to chicken, even though it tasted many times better.

After that, it was roughly 11 AM, and Freddy had exactly nothing to do for the rest of the day. He opened the water arts guide again, but it wasn’t long until he closed it. Reading it just kind of made him feel depressed.

There was a crap ton of cool stuff he could do eventually, but as it stood, it was like an apple on the highest branch, and he didn’t know how to climb the tree.

He sat on the carpeted floor of his living room, legs crossed. Again, it wasn’t long until he felt too uncomfortable to maintain the position, so he moved to flatly lying on the floor.

Now that he had a better feeling for water wisps after fiddling around the netherecho for a while, for the first time ever, he finally began with actual gathering.

It was a lot more difficult than he expected. He imagined water flowing, rivers, waterfalls, rain, fauces, anything that came to mind, and before long, his very soul echoed with the images, spinning like a vortex that pulsed into the netherecho.

The star in his ethercosm roiled, and he felt it oscillate with calm energy.

One after another, like blue stars lighting up the empty night sky, flickers lit up and began flowing toward him. One reached him, effortlessly seeping into his soul, and it seemed like—

Freddy gasped. He got up, holding his chest and breathing heavily.

“Oh fuck, man.”

That was like doing deadlifts with his soul. He felt like he’d been spinning in circles, and now that he stopped, the world was still rotating around him.

Meditation gathering was much faster than running around the netherecho. Not only that, but it also gathered wisps from the air and below the ground, pulling them toward the individual meditating.

There were restrictions, however. It only attracted wisps of one affinity, even if you had several, depending on which you were focusing on. It was also tiring and required a lot of practice. And finally, it couldn’t be done for too long.

Freddy was surprised by how many wisps there had been, and he very cautiously decided to check out the netherecho.

“I think it’s about time to stop being surprised at everything.”

He didn’t know why or how, but the netherecho was bursting with colorful wisps here. But there was something unusual as well.

There were no vestiges.

‘Could this apartment be warded to prevent them from appearing?’

He knew this was possible from the Basics of Gathering, but he didn’t expect this apartment to have such a feature.

It only made things easier for him, however, as he did the first thing that came to mind—he started gathering.

***

Freddy was out on the streets. He greeted anyone that greeted him back, and by this point, he was already beginning to recognize some people here.

Once he passed the kind old lady, he walked to the next bench, sat down, and entered the netherecho.

It hadn’t taken him all that long to squeeze his apartment dry, and now, a few hours later, he was out on the streets like some sort of addict, looking for more.

While his apartment was warded against the appearance of vestiges, the streets most certainly weren’t. Yet, he found that it wasn’t a problem.

He appeared within the netherecho, and the rainbow mist gradually receded around him, stopping at roughly a five-meter radius, marking the relatively short range he could move.

There were no vestiges in his vicinity, and one or two was the most he’d seen at once. It was likely that someone, or perhaps several people, cleaned the streets by destroying any that appeared.

Freddy gradually made his way from one bench to another, entering the netherecho and scouring it for goods. He couldn’t move too far from his body since the rainbow mist prevented him from making it any further than his range permitted, so he settled for moving his true body around to reach fresh areas.

It wasn’t long until he noticed something peculiar. He moved and sat right next to the central building, the twenty-five-story highrise in the center of the neighborhood.

Everywhere around it was packed with wisps of ether. There was only one explanation for why that was.

‘There is a passage in there…’

This neighborhood was built around a passage. He didn’t expect an entrance to the interspace in a place like this, but some things suddenly began making sense, such as why some people were walking around in armor and carrying weaponry.

While there were a lot of water wisps, compared to the thoroughly barren environment of his previous apartment, they were vastly outnumbered by air, earth, and loads of other miscellaneous ones.

After a day of gorging himself on wisps, he started asking himself—wasn’t this kind of easy? He could move quite fast with his projection, so cleaning the immediate range never took longer than ten or so minutes.

He confirmed something weird after trying meditation a few more times. His expeditions into the netherecho were considerably more profitable. It was true that he was untrained in meditative gathering, but…

Basics of Gathering never even referred to what he was doing as a legitimate method. Slaughtering vestiges and reaping the mass of wisps was a different subject, but collecting stray wisps with his projection shouldn’t be this efficient.

It wasn’t long until these doubts turned into a strong sense of anxiety. Could he be fucking something up? Or perhaps he was overexerting himself by doing this? There was a strong feeling that he was ignorant of some aspect of what he was doing, and he decided to try something.

During the morning before the moving crew arrived at his apartment, Freddy felt quite tense and tired. Back then, he decided to skip practice with all his other abilities and to just focus on the Water Body Tempering Technique.

He counted, and when he spent all his essence on it, he could maintain it for approximately thirteen seconds.

Freddy calmed himself, got comfortable on the bench he was sitting on, and started using the body tempering technique.

‘One…’

‘Two…’

‘Three…’

…

‘Fourteen…’

‘Fifteen…’

‘Sixteen…’

…

‘Twenty-five…’

‘Twenty-six—’

And at that point, his technique collapsed, leaving him feeling quite damn refreshed. Twenty-six seconds—precisely double the essence he had just a few days ago.

Rapid growth was expected for beginners… but this much?

Freddy scoffed.

Truth be told, he had nothing to compare this against. Maybe he was even lagging behind where he should be. With the intent to pull his head out of his ass and stop getting so full of himself, Freddy finally headed home.

He ate dinner, spent some time reading, and went to bed.

***

‘Ah, alright, so this is when it kicks in…’

Freddy woke up in pure agony. He was acutely aware of every single muscle he had worked on in the past two days and even some that he thought he hadn’t exercised at all, like his biceps.

Today was the day that he would ‘formally’ meet Mark, his trainer, and be provided his schedule. Matt would be here at noon, and it was 9 PM, so he still had three hours until the arranged meeting.

First, he went into the toilet and drank a ton of water. Now that his essence had recovered, Freddy began using his Water Body Tempering Technique without hesitation.

Some tier zero body tempering techniques didn’t do anything at all or had extremely minor effects. This was a common feature. While the ether shells were empty, the ability lacked supernatural elements.

Only when an ether shell’s true purpose was fulfilled did an ability evolve into something incredible. And that purpose was quite simple—trapping an ether construct within, either through beating them up until they were too weak to resist being sucked into the soul or merely convincing them to get in voluntarily.

Depending on what sorts of concepts an ether construct was connected to, the ability would evolve in different ways.

When Freddy had first entered the netherecho, there had been a vestige on his fridge—the one that nearly killed him. It looked like a glass orb containing shifting liquid within, and if Freddy had to guess, that was likely a vestige connected to some sort of ‘liquid containment’ concept.

Once his body tempering technique was ready to upgrade, Freddy could trap a vestige like that in the ether shell for the ability. The resulting effect would change his body tempering technique drastically.

The ability would evolve into one that tempered his body into being resistant to losing liquid, either through dehydration or bleeding.

Naturally, not every vestige could be forced into every ether shell, and, interestingly enough, the vestige’s actual affinity didn’t matter that much.

For example, flow was something intrinsic to water, but not every water ability wanted or needed the water to flow. On the other hand, something like compression could be connected to myriad affinities, including water, so even if the vestige was of the air affinity, it could still slot into many water abilities without a problem.

Preparing an ability for evolution was a long process requiring extensive practice, so body tempering techniques usually took a while to become useful. Luckily for Freddy, he had one of the most favorable affinities for his current circumstances. Water comprised over sixty percent of a human’s body and was essential for many functions.

And now, that water was circulating through his body, performing its function flawlessly.

His cells reestablished a balance between the extracellular and intracellular liquid. His blood circulated to every corner of his body, carrying water to organs that needed it and dehydrated muscles, and his cerebrospinal fluid supplied the necessary nutrients and oxygen to his nerve cells while washing away the waste.

He hadn’t counted how long it lasted this time, merely focusing on the process within. Once he opened his eyes, he felt goddamn amazing. This feeling didn’t last too long, but at that moment, his body, at least regarding water-related functions, was in an excellent state.

It wouldn’t take long for that balance to go to shit again, but the more he used the technique, the more easily he would attain that state and the longer it would last.

Theoretically, eventually, his body would attain that balance permanently. But way before that happened, he would evolve the ability and add more to its function.

His muscles felt considerably less sore afterward, and he felt wide awake as if he’d had a nice cup of coffee.

Speaking of coffee…

He went to the kitchen, ordering a long shot of espresso. Before it arrived, he showered and brushed his teeth.

The warm cup of delicious coffee was just the perfect thing to go with some reading, and before long, he finally flipped the last page of the water arts guide. It left him with a lot to think about.

He could either choose to go with being a supporter or a martial artist. There was also the water mage option, but that was only viable if he were either half a supporter or half a martial artist; otherwise he’d be utterly useless until he became a three-star arch, which wouldn’t happen for a long time.

Water could do many cool things if one upgraded the abilities enough times and patched enough flaws—but why the hell would anyone waste their time doing that when they could simply do what water is best at?

However, there were many things to consider when making the decision.

According to the book, one must consider the ‘predisposition trifecta.’

Their affinities, natural talent, and prime talent.

Freddy’s affinity and prime talent were ideally suited for martial arts, but that didn’t mean that was the best choice for him. He still had to consider his natural talent. For one, his coordination was trash, and that was likely the number one requirement for learning martial arts—

Ringing interrupted his thoughts, and he got up to open the door.

“Hello, Mr. Stern,” said Matt, the assistant. “I hope you had your rest.”

“I’m fresh as could be, hahaha. So, where are we heading first?” Freddy asked, but he already knew that the gym was most likely their first location.

“Follow me,” was all the man said as they left—but rather than head toward the gym, they walked into a different building altogether. Freddy remained silent throughout the ordeal, and they walked to an elevator.

It took them to the seventh floor, and Freddy found himself in what appeared to be some sort of clinic.