1% Lifesteal

Freddy gently knocked on the door. A voice reached from within the room. "Please, enter."

He took a deep breath and pushed the door open. He walked into the room and closed the door behind him, arriving at his first-ever therapy session with a mental health professional.

The office was a clean, tidy place. Seated on a wooden chair right beside a couch was an orderly, older gentleman. The man's face was surprisingly rugged given his early- to mid-two-star gathering, and his hair was full of gray hairs. "I suppose you are Freddy Cliff?"

Something about the man's voice was clearly strange. Supernaturally, even. His voice was a melodic timbre with a powerful soothing quality. Just a few words by the man, and Freddy already felt his nerves loosening and the tension in his shoulders vanishing. "Yes. That's me."

"I'm Noah. Please, sit down and make yourself comfortable."

Freddy nodded and awkwardly shuffled to the couch. He clearly didn't look comfortable, sitting like a ramrod as he was, but the man did not say anything.

"Alright, I would like to start today's session by allowing you to introduce yourself. Whatever you believe is important for others to know about you, tell me. I won't interrupt you until you decide you're done."

"Oh… alright."

Freddy proceeded to give a vague introduction of himself. He dropped a few tidbits about his upbringing but refused to go into details. All in all, his introduction was brief and to the point. Noah kept his promise, remaining quiet and nodding at everything Freddy said.

After the introductions, the man started asking a few questions. The questions the man asked were personal yet inconsequential. He asked Freddy's opinion on movies, what kinds of outdoor activities he enjoyed, and what kinds of books, if any, he loved reading. It was as if the man was merely chit-chatting.

And yet, despite this fact, Freddy felt himself relaxing more and more as the session continued. But the comfort sparked a sense of vigilance, too. "Excuse me," he finally broke.

"What is it?"

"I've noticed that your voice is a bit…"

The man nodded with a gentle smile. "Indeed. My talent gives my voice anxiolytic properties."

"Oh… I see. Quite remarkable. I imagine it makes your job much easier."

The man's smile widened slightly. "It helps. Particularly so with a certain type of person. Anyway"—he checked his wristwatch—"would you look at that? We have reached the end of our first session."

Freddy scowled as he glanced at the clock on the wall. "Uh… Unless that clock is broken, I don't think we have."

The man laughed, his voice making Freddy's chest tingle. "I allocate a maximum time for my sessions, but often I end them before that time is up. If I've achieved what I had to, I feel that dragging things on can sometimes be counterproductive."

"No offense, man, but we haven't achieved… uhm"—he chuckled—"anything."

Noah's smile weakened slightly as he shook his head. "Mr. Cliff," he called seriously. "You were partly coerced into coming here, no?"

"I… Well, not exactly, but—"

"You can be honest with me," he said persuasively.

Freddy paused for a moment, closing his mouth and nodding slightly. "I mean pretty much, yeah. But it's still important for me to get actual therapy. I don't exactly have a choice here."

The man shook his head. "No. That is not how this works." He sighed. "What we tend to call 'mental health' is a balance of body, mind, and soul. It's much more physical than most are aware. Just as the body can be treated by force, so too can the mind be mended by outside influence." The man raised his fist, conjuring a tiny, shimmering ball of rainbow light. "I have a special affinity called the dream affinity. If you allow me to use my abilities, I can help you heal your mind."

"Oh, wow, uh… Sure!" Freddy said enthusiastically. "If I knew it was this easy, I'd have come a long time ago."

The man chuckled awkwardly. "I'm afraid it is not so easy, my dear friend. In fact, I can already tell you that I am powerless here."

Freddy scowled. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you see… you are already perfectly healthy," the man said, leaning back in his chair. "I have a special method to sense turbulence within people's minds. If you had such a thing as a mental illness, I'd know. But you do not. All I can sense within you is that you lack some sleep. But add another hour or two to your nightly rest, and that problem will vanish."

"I'm sorry," Freddy said, chuckling awkwardly. "But this… Yeah, this doesn't really make sense. Did Thor tell you why he sent me here?"

The man chuckled back. "That's exactly why I told you this isn't how it works. You say you have no choice, but you very much so do. And for your specific problem to go away, you must make a personal choice nobody can force you to make."

"And what choice is that?"

"You have to change as a person, Mr. Cliff," the man said. "Your problem is one of personality and conviction. You see the world a certain way and act upon your perception of it. Sure, to others, some choices you make might appear 'sick,' but there is no illness to speak of. Your brain works perfectly fine. It does everything it's intended to do exactly as it's intended to do it. The only thing I can do for you is help you take the necessary steps to change as a person. And the only way I can do that is if you choose to change of your own volition."

"Okay… Uh…" Freddy frowned as he chewed on his words. "I might have been pushed a little to come here, but I am still ready to at least talk."

"You have glanced at the clock on the wall 78 times since the beginning of our session."

Freddy winced. He hadn't even realized he'd been doing that.

"Look, Mr. Cliff," the man said as he got up. "As long as you come here regularly and intend to cooperate, I will tell Thor that our sessions are going fine. But if you truly intend to recover from what ails you, I can't make that change for you." The man offered Freddy a handshake.

Freddy reluctantly got up and shook the man's hand. He felt like he wanted to say something, anything, but his words failed him, and the man, noticing his reluctance, smiled gently and tapped him on the shoulder. "Have a good day, Freddy. I will see you again on Thursday morning."

Hearing that Freddy had attended his therapy session, Thor agreed to continue with their training. And thus, the work to bring Freddy to where he was supposed to be began in earnest.

Thor lined out an incredibly strict schedule. 16 hours of training a day, 7 days a week, with no vacations or breaks in sight. Besides eating, sleeping, showering, and attending therapy, Freddy was stuck in the private training chamber.

Other than the time dedicated to growing his abilities, he spared a reasonable amount of time for physical training, too. While Freddy had already fulfilled a good amount of his natural potential, Thor wanted to see if there was any more juice to squeeze out of him.

Freddy was administered a complex set of different substances and hormones, ranging from pharmaceutical concoctions to natural remedies. With anyone else, doing something like this required vigilance and moderation. With Freddy, Thor piled on everything he could get his hands on.

There was no small number of experimental substances with unknown effects thrown in there as well.

The goal was to modify his body to the absolute limits of human potential. From improving his sweat glands to making his toenails tougher, as long as it did something, they included it in the regular rotation of literally hundreds of drugs he was given on a daily basis.

And it seemed to actually be working. While he couldn't see any changes in his physical performance, he could feel the improvements during exercise. Coupled with Thor forcing him to focus on some muscles he had neglected slightly, he surprisingly managed to achieve a rather notable improvement where he used to think he reached a hard limit.

That being said, there was no shortage of things he was absolutely shit at.

The first time Freddy fought the puppets, Thor nearly lost his mind.

The puppet arena was designed in a way that marked any damage taken as an instant loss. Obviously, this wasn't how it went in real life. Even if someone was stabbed in the back, as long as that didn't kill them, they'd keep fighting. But in the puppet arena, things were different. The goal was not to get hit even once. And Freddy sucked a moon-sized ball of ass at not getting hit.

"You really just take damage all the time in fights, don't you?" Thor asked. "You just accept that as something natural because your healing talent lets you get away with it."

Freddy blushed. "Dodging is… not my highest priority, no."

"Dear god."

And so their training continued.

A good chunk of Freddy's day was set aside to run all sorts of obstacle courses and practice dodging things. He was ridiculously clumsy, tripping and falling way too often. After failing to swing from one metal bar to another and falling into a pool of dirty water, he swam back out, growling in frustration. "Is this really necessary?" he asked. "I've never had a fight where I needed to do shit like this!"

"Are you trying to be smart with me again?"

"Uh… sorry."

"Look," Thor barked, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You are slow. Uncoordinated. I won't force you to drop Abyssal Depths, but you need to get faster. You gotta be mobile. Agile. Dextrous. You can't let your weaknesses get you killed. No matter how big, heavy, or muscular, I'm not letting you stop until you can move with the grace of a cat! Now get up and get your lazy ass back on the course!"

Days passed, soon turning into weeks. At first, Freddy was constantly frustrated, feeling like Thor was pushing him to do something he simply couldn't do. But under proper guidance, his doubts and frustrations were slowly washed away.

He could do it.

He could move faster.

He could dodge better.

He could fight with grace and skill.

Thor knew what he was doing. And Freddy finally shut up and truly listened.

Another section of Freddy's schedule was spent meditating on ether imprint tablets for the blood and water affinities. At first, this genuinely felt like a total waste of time. There was nothing… concrete to find in the tablets. It was all vague impressions and complex concepts that Freddy couldn't even begin to imagine how he would convert into actual combat efficiency.

But the more time he spent meditating, the more he started to understand. It wasn't something as concrete and specific as a concept. It was more profound, more fundamental than that.

Before he became an archhuman, Freddy had only ever tasted shitty, cheap instant coffee. But when it was all he knew, it tasted just fine. Only after tasting fancier stuff did he realize what kind of trash he was drinking before that.

And again, it was nothing concrete.

Be it cheap garbage or luxury beans, both gave a buzz and delivered a dose of caffeine.

Both were coffee.

But they weren't the same thing.

It was something that could only be experienced, not described.

It was just… quality.

Now, instead of coffee, this was how he was starting to feel about his abilities. Most of them had an embarrassing lack of complexity and finesse. Frustratingly enough, he could only remedy these problems once he brought the abilities up to stage 3—50%. That was a very distant goal.

The only ability he had that truly held a glimpse of that same nuance he experienced within the tablets was his Absorb Blood. Granted, this was just because he forcefully absorbed many different types of blood, a feat even the most excellent blood-affinity experts would struggle to accomplish when making the ability, but he would take the wins where he could get them.

While he could do nothing to change his existing abilities, at least in the near future, he had all the power in the world to make his new abilities the best they could be.

Starting with Hydraulic Throw, he shored up a few missing elements and finally, with Thor's help, developed the precision subrune for the Blood Javelin. It still wasn't unerringly precise, but it was accurate enough.

Next up was the Dissipate Wave ability. While its primary purpose was to halt Flowing Strike, it could also be used to counter abilities that relied on causing turbulence in his body.

There were several such abilities in the water affinity, and some could be scary effective to those who couldn't counter them. Granted, in the vast, overwhelming majority of cases, Thousand Wet Hells would be enough to protect him, but there was no harm in giving the ability some extra utility.

Next were his new weapons.

For the executioner's sword, the ability needed a name. So he gave it one—Sanguine Beheader. Edgy, yes, but it was thematically fitting. It took him a long time to finish the shell for this ability. Other than referencing the blood tablets and some textbooks, Freddy got help from the local weaponsmith, mainly in adjusting the weapon's dimensions and giving it an appealing design.

As for the dimensions, the man suggested making the handle a little bit shorter and the blade a bit longer, keeping the same length but giving the blade-handle ratio a more functional balance. Also, the man suggested making the sword thicker. It was already too thick to effectively cut through things, so might as well go all in. As it was, it was more like an axe than a sword. It chopped rather than cut. But this was by no means a weakness.

Especially when wielded by Freddy.

Another surprising suggestion the weaponsmith made was to keep small globules of blood unhardened inside the blade. This allowed Freddy to keep some water in the weapon, adding a good deal of extra weight that it would otherwise lose. It also allowed Freddy to take the weapon down a path he couldn't take it down otherwise.

At stage 1, he would upgrade the sword with the concept of "moisture" of all things. The reason why was to unlock a different upgrade at stage 2. The thing with Sanguine Beheader was that it didn't have a particularly notable connection to the concept of weight. Because it wasn't really all that heavy. This made it so that concepts like "mass" and "weight" couldn't fit into the ether shell.

However, "moisture" acted as something that was known as a "bridge concept." Because moisture affected the weapon's mass, it would allow the concept of "mass" at stage 2 and, later, the concept of "weight" at stage 3. This would be extremely useful.

The weaponsmith was passionate about his work and believed that a weapon's looks were crucial in their function. Even seasoned warriors were subconsciously affected by intimidating weapons. The man helped Freddy settle on a cool-looking criss-cross pattern for the blade, a noble cross guard, and a beautiful handle with a snakeskin pattern and a serpent head as the pommel.

Once he finally finished the shell, he was delighted with it.

Next up was the katar. Well, it wasn't really a katar. It was just a blade that protruded from the knuckle on his middle finger. It was just a bit over half a foot long, and it was built with piercing in mind over everything else. After some testing, he had to admit he was pretty satisfied with the weapon. And yes, Thor was right. This was far more practical than Gore Knuckles. He kept the name simple—Knuckle Blade.

Following that were his forearm shields. Once again, he asked the weaponsmith for help and settled on an elegant winged design. To Freddy's surprise, a quick test showed that the Warrior King's Pendant worked with the forearm shields. The pendant didn't work with armor. It only worked with weapons. But shields were weapons. Even when they were strapped to the forearms. Given the design, he named the ability Crimson Wing Shield.

This only left a single Crimson Mercury weapon remaining—a small projectile. However, Freddy just didn't feel inspired by this. He didn't like any of the weapons he tried. The main problem was that smaller weapons were generally trickier to use. They were also lighter. Coupled with the fact that his Hydraulic Throw only applied to Blood Javelin, he lost all motivation to work on other throwing weapons.

That being said, he didn't completely give up on the idea, but it was moved to the bottom of the list of priorities.

Thor was a bit miffed, but he accepted it. In his own words, not everything was for everyone.

As for his other abilities, he made steady progress and worked on growing them. Soon, his Flowing Strike was also ready for an upgrade, but Thor urged not to upgrade the ability yet. Both Abyssal Depths and Flowing Strike would have to wait until Freddy upgraded Thousand Wet Hells to whatever the fuck it would become after. Only then could he guarantee that he would be tough enough to handle using Flowing Strike.

He upgraded Gore Knuckles with the concept of "shredding," Crimson Mercury with the concept of "steelness," and Hydraulic Flex with the concept of "speed," as urged by Thor. He also recreated his Water Body and brought it up to stage 1, where he upgraded it with the generic concept of water. Just like that, his internal water abilities received a 5% boost to power. He would never forget how stupid it was to be missing out on this.

And finally, after much contemplation, he gave up on Pressure Jet. The ability simply didn't fit his style, and without a manipulation talent, it would never live up to its full potential. Its unfinished shell would forever remain in his soul.

Similarly, he got rid of Purify. While there was little harm in having a few utility abilities here and there, the number of abilities he had was already starting to get a bit high.

Too many abilities could cause adverse effects on latent aura accumulation, especially if some abilities were a blatant misfit. And Freddy was already getting uncomfortably close to what was conventionally considered the upper limit for the number of abilities a two-star should have. There was only space for one or two more, after which he would definitely cause harm to his future growth.

Time kept going. Weeks flowed into each other. He trained, went to therapy, and waited. Thor soon noticed that Freddy was acting strange, and he knew why.

It wasn't much longer until the arranged date for Sophia's healing arrived.

While Freddy did his best not to think about this, he was deeply nervous.

And finally, only a day remained until the arranged meeting.

The night before, just as he got into bed, he checked his progress:

GATHERING:

Second star—199% essence capacity

2-star satellite

TALENT:

1% Lifesteal: Dynamic-quality healing

SOUL CONSTRUCT:

Scythe: Essence Extraction

TEMPERING TECHNIQUES:

Blood affinity:

Lake of Blood: Stage 2—62% Progress

Crimson Mercury: Stage 2—7% Progressn/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

Purifying Crimson Spring: Stage 1—59% Progress

Water affinity:

Adaptive Water Body: Stage 1—Complete

Thousand Wet Hells: Stage 1—96% Progress

Abyssal Depths: Stage 1—99% Progress (Ready to Upgrade)

Water Body: Stage 1—29% Progress

ACTIVE ABILITIES:

Blood affinity:

Gore Knuckles: Stage 2—11% Progress

Blood Javelin: Stage 1—80% Progress

Absorb Blood: Stage 1—94% Progress

Accelerate Blood Projectile: Stage 1—86% Progress

Sanguine Beheader: Stage 0—62% Progress

Knuckle Blade: Stage 0—23% Progress

Crimson Wing Shield: Stage 0—30% Progress

Dissipate Wave: Stage 0—3% Progress

Water affinity:

Flowing Strike: Stage 1—99% Progress (Ready to Upgrade)

Hydraulic Flex: Stage 2—29% Progress

Create Water: Stage 1—53% Progress

Hydraulic Throw: Stage 0—40% Progress

Perished water affinity:

Perished Water: Stage 0—8% Progress

Ghosts of the Drowned: Stage 0—8% Progress

SPIRIT ABILITIES:

Blood Sacrifice

Leviathan's Fury

UNIQUE CURSED ITEMS:

Warrior King's Pendant: +1% damage and +1% durability to equipped weapons.

Blood Ring: -6% essence cost, +5% power for blood-affinity abilities. Can be used to release Bloodshed. Attacks inflict minor bleeding.

While his abilities were improving rapidly, he was still way behind where he should be for his level. This was the plain reality of the situation. No matter how hard he trained, he couldn't compensate for the years of training he skipped by abusing Blood Sacrifice to grow his star.

That being said, there was no need to be harsh to himself. He did good. He was proud of his progress.

If he finally found a way to properly use his perished affinity, even he was afraid of what he would be able to do.

He put his notebook away and leaned back, closing his eyes. But sleep wouldn't come. His heart was beating out of his chest. No matter how he tried, he simply couldn't fall asleep.

He finally had a proper day off the next day for the first time in forever. And it was to bring Sophia to finally get treated.

Seeing how it wouldn't happen, he skipped sleep altogether. He walked out of his apartment and up to the rooftop. There, gazing over the night lights of the city of Repentawa, he lit a cigarette and pondered. Snow and terror danced in the wind. Smoke was lost in time and space. Bitter tar coated his teeth. Hour after hour fell like the clouds above, and finally, the sun crept over the horizon.

"Time to get going."

He headed for the clinic.