1% Lifesteal

Chapter 31 - The Lake

Underground cave systems after Earth's integration into the interspace had become a rather terrifying area to venture into, and if Faralethal was any indication, this seemed to be the case for any planet scattered with passages.

Numerous portals leading to different realms frequently resulted in unwanted pests, invasions, diseases, and other problems that created a volatile environment.

Camp Violet had their hands full trying to manage this volatility, and a particular area they had encountered was an excellent example of a problem that simply couldn't be resolved—a place that had predominantly remained a red zone, frequently referred to as the Wastes.

There were no notable ore deposits, plant life, or value to be extracted. Something, likely an invasive species or some other form of natural phenomenon, had combed through this underground section and stripped it of pretty much everything worth taking.

During the relatively recent early days of the camp, when this area was first discovered, it became a rather popular hiding place for numerous wannabe rebels and other troublemakers. And the administration obviously hadn't allowed that to continue.

In a relatively open cave, a match between two men, a short, scrawny old man and a tall, muscular youth, was nearing its end. The burly youth was winning, but honestly, the old man had every advantage from the start. His talent, which allowed him to temporarily extend the reach of his weapons, and his air affinity made him a good counter against the taller fire-affinity arch.

Unfortunately, just like most who fought in this shitty ring, the old man was nothing but a cowardly fool, and his bout ended with a predictable, shameful loss.

Among the crowds, seated in one of the higher rows of stone roughly formed into seating, a silver-haired man gazed down on the fight with his light blue eyes, scoffing at the display. His unusually healthy skin glistened under the torchlight as he lifted the canteen to his mouth and took a sip of mystery moonshine some random idiot had sold him earlier that day.

It tasted pretty good, even if it was lightly poisonous and likely to cause cataracts if consumed frequently. He noted the face of the drink's seller and put it aside for now, leaving the judgment of what to do with the man for later.

As far as any of the people sitting beside him and cheering like rabid animals knew, Peter was just another indentured servant sent to the mines, even if his status as a two-star arch, of which there were very few on this expedition, set him apart from most others.

In reality, Peter, as well as over half the two-star archs disguised as ordinary workers, was one of the employees of the expedition, even if his presence here was something of a punishment, too.

His task was simple—be wherever most trouble was brewing, and most importantly, carefully observe. This entire arena was orchestrated by the camp administration itself because the devil you knew and all that stuff.

Given how large the caves were, there was no chance they could stop all the rule-breakers. Allowing them to gather in a place with "loose" surveillance made the administration's job far easier. It also worked to keep these animals entertained and served to boost the morale of—

The arena suddenly erupted in cheers as the fight Peter had been paying no attention to came to another embarrassing conclusion, and the man sitting beside him jumped up, swinging his arms. The man's wild flailing caught Peter's forearm, and the moonshine was promptly ejected from his hold. He shot the man a death stare, but the cheering spectator was too busy wailing like an ape to notice it.

With a resolved sigh, he lifted the half-spilled drink off the ground and took a hearty swing.

Sure, his performance at work could have been better, but had his work really been bad enough to deserve being sent to this place? Sighing, he slumped in his seat. How far he'd fallen.

He was no legendary figure of his generation, but he did reach the third year of the Isilon Academy. Only a third of all students made it that far, and that was only among those who actually made it into the academy to begin with.

Watching these thugs fight it out felt like the highest form of torture imaginable. Although… he was treated to an… interesting match every so often.

Earlier that day, he witnessed the fight between one of the "promising rookies" as they called him and a man named Freddy Stern. The scarred figure was still being discussed among the spectators, and even he had to admit he was somewhat curious. He had been at least interested enough to hop back to the camp and check the man's documentation.

What he found, however, was not what he expected to see.

Name: Freddy Stern.

Age: 22 years old (Archhuman for 8 months.)

Repayment period estimate: 15 to 20 years of labor.

Sentenced for: [CLASSIFIED INFORMATION]

This was the only person in this entire expedition who had the reason for their sentencing classified. If that wasn't enough, there was practically nothing even remotely notable about this individual.

Formal education: None.

Faction: None.

Achievement history: None.

Nothing.

Even his water affinity and 1% Lifesteal talent seemed bland, even if they were somewhat surprising. Peter had been confident that this man had the earth affinity and perhaps a talent that specialized in defense. Even his extensive education in abilities left him utterly bewildered about what the man did in the fight against his opponent.

Was he a practitioner of the Abyssal Depths tempering technique? But given that he was a one-star, he couldn't have become heavy enough to absorb all the momentum of such a strike. Besides, he was sure the man had used a Flowing Strike on his opponent. Using Flowing Strike with the added density of Abyssal Depths would be the act of an absolute lunatic.

Not only would such a combination result in absurd backlash, but the cost of using Flowing Strike would skyrocket at higher ranks, making it both wildly expensive and severely self-destructive.

But the most surprising thing was something he only noticed on his second scan through the document. This person had been an archhuman for only eight months. Not only that, but nearly six of those eight months were marked as being spent in captivity.

This mystery gnawed at him, and he knew he couldn't get his mind off it until he reached a moderately satisfying conclusion.

With that, he finally turned to the man's talent.

No… That probably didn't have much to do with anything. Even if this was the first time he saw a talent that directly converted damage to healing, many talents healed the user upon killing an enemy, and while there were some exceptional talents among the type, most were useless.

If one needed healing, they probably couldn't stand on equal ground with their opponent any longer. If they couldn't stand on equal footing with their opponent, they couldn't fight and activate their talent. And even if they managed to win the fight, their talent only worked once they no longer really needed it unless they had suffered life-threatening injuries, which could have been prevented if one had an offensive, defensive, or movement-oriented talent instead.

The only scenario where they tended to thrive was against many weaker opponents with high offensive capabilities, but in that case, physical, mental, and soul exhaustion became the bigger problem.

Even if his specific talent somehow circumvented all of these problems, it wouldn't have been much use during the six months of captivity, and judging by the state of the man's body, the healing quality couldn't be higher than natural quality.

Actually…

Peter cupped his chin as he thought about it. What if he had minimal-quality healing?

True, even with only a 1 percent conversion rate, that would provide enough healing to keep the man alive through most injuries that weren't immediately lethal.

Suddenly, everything felt like it had slid into place. For the first two months of his journey as an archhuman, this man had likely spent his time fighting in either a weaker realm or an artificial environment. That would explain his unusually potent abilities and confidence in combat. Actually, Peter had only presumed that the man's injuries were a byproduct of torture.

What if they were, at least partly, a byproduct of reckless monster hunting?

The gears were spinning, and a grin appeared on his face. If one sprinkled in a mysterious supporter to explain away the classified part of the documents and took the lack of background and the absurdly long sentence into account, one would have a pretty clear picture of what was happening.

This man was likely the disciple of a political enemy of the Kraven Clan.

And now that he thought about it, his performance in the fight could have been a complete fluke. If he had used Flowing Strike, it wasn't impossible that the momentum of the ability had canceled out his opponent's strike entirely by accident. While enduring the backlash of such an interaction was impressive, it probably wasn't much compared to all the other injuries he'd suffered.

Perhaps his deduction was wrong, but he doubted he was far from the truth. Either way, this man's existence suddenly became much less interesting.

Thoughts of the mysterious Freddy Stern were shelved away into the vast collection of minor curiosities he had spotted during his time here, and he refocused on observing yet another boring fight.

As the two combatants entered the field, numerous murmurs spread around the seats. After all, one of the two combatants was a two-star—but he hadn't been just a few days prior.

Peter supposed an example hadn't been set in far too long as he mentally jotted the man's name down on the execution list.

And at that moment, a stray thought struck him.

If Freddy Stern was the disciple of someone important, there had to be something promising about him. And if there was something promising about him…

Why the hell was he allowed to join the mining expedition?

***

The sounds of stone crumbling echoed through the moist caves as Freddy launched another Flowing Strike at the wall. Notably, he didn't bring any mining tools, so his bare hands were put to the task. His fist landed with a crack, and finally, another small rock broke off, widening the hole just enough for him to crawl into it.

He put the lantern ahead of him to light the path, and a grin appeared on his face as he spotted the shimmering reflection. As he forced his way through the tight, slippery stone and lifted the lantern, his eyes finally saw what he had been looking for.

A small lake sat in a giant, empty chamber. The trickling of water down the stalactites hanging above accumulated in the body of water, and for the most part, the growth wasn't overwhelmingly thick.

It still smelled incredibly mossy, and every surface seemed slippery, but it was nothing that would impede him for long.

After glancing at the small tunnel he had crawled through, he shifted a large stone to hide the entrance.

The place he found himself in was in a red zone—a wet and relatively poor one. Nobody besides water archs would intentionally head here, and even they would likely avoid it to not attract suspicion that they might be looking to gather or evolve abilities. This made the area relatively desolate, but even then, he wanted to be careful not to get caught in the act.

He placed the kind-of-stolen lantern on top of a rock and scouted the nearby area. There seemed to be no other paths into this cavern.

Something of a rocky shore surrounded the entire lake, even if it was too uneven and slippery in most places.

Going into the water itself was out of the question, and he would ensure that he stayed as quiet as possible until he confirmed that the water wasn't festering with monsters.

That being said, he grabbed one of the larger stones and threw it across the lake with the help of Flowing Strike's momentum. It smacked right into the water's surface, and a few anxious seconds later… nothing appeared.

Throwing stone after stone revealed that, at least, nothing was itching to jump out of the lake to devour him. That was good enough for now.

Focusing on appearing on the shoulder of his body, he entered the Netherecho.

The thickness of the water wisps surrounding his body made him feel almost as if his entire projection was submerged in water. Quickly focusing on peering through it, his vision revealed precisely what he had been looking for.

A small fountain cheerfully danced around. A tiny water snake scurried through the air, swimming in loops and coiling around other vestiges. A small angry cloud chased a three-legged fish around while something akin to a merman swung a trident at a cracked rock with water endlessly flowing out of it.

As expected, regardless of which shell he focused on, most vestiges felt like they could slot right in without much trouble. And thankfully, no remnants were anywhere to be seen, at least not within the radius of his perception.

Now, it was only a matter of making a choice.

Four abilities were waiting for an upgrade. He only knew what he wanted for two of them.

Create Water would be, as was the best choice, coupled with a generic water concept. This would simply make it produce more water that would cost less essence and be easier to control.

The second was Abyssal Depths. He just wanted compression for it. Either generic compression, liquid compression, or water compression. He would stack all three eventually, so it didn't matter which went first.

This was where it got tricky. He didn't strictly need Water Body anymore—not the standard version, at least. Its most popular version was the one that enhanced physical recovery by utilizing the life from water concept. Needless to say, that was pretty redundant with his talent. Which begged the question—what should he do with this ability?

Simply discarding it wasn't out of the question, but that felt like too much of a waste. Given that he had no real inspiration, he decided to go with his gut and see what he could find. He had little to lose, and if it turned out to be crap, he'd remove it.

Which finally left him with Hundred Wet Hells and a massive problem. The guide to developing Hundred Wet Hells was ten times more expensive than the scroll. Needless to say, information on it wasn't readily available. Now, while he had little to lose with Water Body, Hundred Wet Hells was essential. It was his only ability with a genuinely synergistic relationship with his talent, and losing it would hurt even more than using it.

But he simply had no clue what to do.

However, he decided to put it out of his mind. Hundred Wet Hells could wait until he finished the first three abilities. By then, he would at least have a better idea of what concepts he was dealing with and at least some experience with evolving abilities.

Ensuring that no remnants lurked on the horizon, he jumped down to the relatively isolated fountain vestige.

It danced around while humming a tune, and he tried befriending it by dancing along.

The instant he stepped next to it, however, the vestige screamed bloody murder.

What the— His mind whirled while he barely jumped out of the way of a burst of water.

"Horrible creature!" the fountain yelled. "Deceitful little liar. You seek to poison my—ack!" Suddenly, the creature had to stop as it found a giant trident embedded into its side.

"You vile beast!" another vestige yelled from a bit further away. "Will you ever stop disturbing the peace of my kingdom!?" the merman vestige asked, clearly intent on fighting the fountain.

"It's you again!" the fountain screeched at the top of its lungs. "You you you you! Will you ever learn that water must flow to be—"

"Silence!" the merman yelled as it jumped forward.

The animosity between the two didn't go unnoticed by Freddy. This was his chance.

He worked his projection's throat to adjust his voice, then lifted his scythe at the fountain, speaking in a whispery, sinister tone. "You are an enemy of peace and shall be exterminated."

"Wha—" the fountain turned from the merman to him, clearly flabbergasted. "Hrrrrrnuuurggh, that's enough!"

The water that flowed through the fountain unabated suddenly stopped, and the main body of the vestige began to bulge, clearly preparing a large burst of water it was still deciding who to direct it toward.

Before it could decide, however, the merman jumped on it, pulling the trident out and preparing to bring it down. However, it was in a terrible position and found itself exactly where the blast of water was about to be sent.

A pressurized burst of liquid smashed through the merman's shoulder, blowing its entire arm off and pushing it back. However, before the fountain could do much more damage, a scythe appeared, slashing its back open.

The vestige whirled, but he was already bringing his weapon down again, this time point-first at the vestige's face.

The fountain used its small, rocky hands and grabbed the scythe by the blade before it could land. It began bulging again, preparing another burst.

That's not good! He panicked as he pulled on his scythe but found it stuck in the creature's grasp.

Losing one's soul construct was a big deal. They took nearly half a year or an ascension to recreate if lost. However, before he had to decide whether to let it go, the merman slammed into the fountain shoulder-first, sending it tumbling to the side. The blast it had charged up missed, harmlessly splashing over the ground.

He finally found the leverage to wrench the scythe back, slicing through the fountain's fingers, and with a panicked slash, he made a large gash down its body. As water flowed through the cracks, its body suddenly unraveled into a collection of earth and water-affinity wisps.

Those wisps didn't merely flutter away, however. Instead, half of them flowed to the merman, and the other half made its way into Freddy's soul. The earth-affinity wisps turned into pure ether, with most of the actual power lost in the process, while the water-affinity wisps effortlessly seeped into his soul, joining the roiling mass of ether that comprised his star, pushing it to 57% completion.

His projection's heart was beating out of its chest, and he couldn't stop himself from constantly looking around in panic. Every inch of his existence begged him to return to his body, but he knew there wasn't much reason to. Besides…

The merman's arm regrew as the wisps seeped into its body, and it grabbed its trident again. Standing proudly on its fishy tail and looking in the direction of where the lake should be, just slightly out of Freddy's limited field of view, it turned to the tiny form of a blue reaper.

Freddy stood, facing the prominent vestige as it smiled at him and said, "Thank you for your assistance, little reaper. May I have your name?"