Robert Vlaho
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[1% LIFESTEAL] Chapter 57 - Motion
🕑 Added 2024-01-01 21:33:27 +0000 UTC[AUTHOR'S NOTES]
Apologies for the late chapter! I will deliver another one to bring things back on schedule. Holidays had me way more occupied than I expected to be. Hopefully, this won't happen again. Enjoy the chapter, another one will follow, most likely tomorrow, to bring things back up to speed.
Also, Happy New Year! Here's to a damn good 2024!
Cheers, everyone, and enjoy the chapter!
[END OF AUTHOR'S NOTES]
Ethereal mercy. It was a phenomenon that single-handedly made abilities possible. The supernatural recovery from ether backlash was the only reason tempering techniques even existed, and some affinities, like fire or death, would be utterly unusable without it.
Freddy carefully observed how his arm recovered from the Flowing Strike he used against the dummy. The cracked bone, burst veins, torn muscle—it all slowly reverted over a few hours, almost as if time itself was being rewound.
But once it was healed, he felt it. Consequences still remained. He had grown used to having a practically perfect body, and now, even the tiniest of imperfections stood out.
For a while at least, he would have to live with them.
During the time he had been recovering from the injury, he had made a quick trip to a nearby library. The clerk had eyed him and his clearly severe arm injury with a curious expression on their face, but it wasn’t like evident injuries were uncommon in the world of archhumans.
As for what he went to get, it was a book, of course. It cost him only a few hundred dollars. As for what it was, it was much like the guide for water abilities he purchased back in the private neighborhood, just way less fancy.
The Blood Affinity: A Comprehensive Guide for Beginners.
There were no ether imprints, essence flow guides, moving pictures, or anything other than plain, boring text. And for a good reason. Freddy was done using crutches like that for his development. The more an archhuman developed their power, the greater the need for a unique understanding of their affinities and the synergy with their talent.
One day, he might stumble upon an interesting, promising idea for a tempering technique. But it would hold no value if he could not develop it himself.
As he paid the bill, he walked into a quiet corner of the library, sat between two dusty bookshelves covering old history, and started reading.
The book was enlightening in many ways. He didn’t get too far into it, but he quickly learned what he needed to get started.
First was the Pool of Blood tempering technique. This was the ability that was effectively the foundation of the entire affinity. Without it, in all but the most peculiar cases, using the affinity was virtually impossible.
Ethereal Mercy did apply to blood loss due to using the affinity, but it couldn’t stop that blood loss from killing the user first.
In came the Pool of Blood tempering technique. It was an ability quite similar to Abyssal Depths, with one key difference. While Abyssal Depths worked to compress liquid into the body, Pool of Blood aimed to increase the volume.
At stage zero, it was called Puddle of Blood; it dilated the veins and could increase the overall volume of blood by around 25%. That was very little. So little, in fact, that blood archs were considered virtually useless before upgrading the ability to stage one—when it officially turned into Pool of Blood.
The key difference at stage one was that the ability conjured something akin to dimensional storage inside a blood arch’s heart through concepts like internal storage or increased capacity.
While Abyssal Depths worked in increments of 30%, the blood capacity of the Pool of Blood grew exponentially. First, it was 25% at Puddle of Blood, then doubled at Pool of Blood, quintupled at Lake of Blood, and, finally, at Sea of Blood, it could increase up to twenty times in capacity. The book only speculated on what the fourth stage looked like since the only people who could even get stage four abilities had to be at least elite four-star archhumans, and few among them readily shared the secrets of their abilities.
As for using both Abyssal Depths and Puddle of Blood, there should be no issues with that. Interestingly enough, the abilities wouldn’t interact at all. It wasn’t as if there were no cases of tempering techniques from two different affinities clashing, but it wasn’t as common as within a single affinity.
Reading further, he discovered that the blood affinity had what could be roughly defined as three main paths, barring peculiar exceptions. All three paths were determined by a single tempering technique, and since they all aimed to change the properties of the blood within the arch’s body, only one could be picked at a time.
Rich Blood, Red Venom, and Crimson Mercury were the three primary tempering techniques of the blood affinity.
Rich Blood made one’s blood, well, rich. It enabled incredible physical performance through Blood Rush, an ability that consumed one’s blood for a power boost. It was a rather one-note path, but it wasn’t a bad one. Its potency couldn’t be reasonably compared to water and earth affinity when it came to overall utility for martial arts, but when it came to raw strength and endurance, it was the best there was as far as basic affinities were concerned.
Red Venom turned one’s blood incredibly toxic, starting with just making it poisonous, then acidic, then necrotic, and, ultimately… explosive. Which seemed out of place, but it fit the path perfectly. This was the most popular path for most blood archs, as it focused on casting and long-ranged abilities. Such routes were generally more popular, as few people wanted to get close and personal with the things they were fighting.
And, finally, Crimson Mercury, which was also the path that Janhalar had been following. As for this tempering technique, one’s blood became metallic, making it incredibly easy to coagulate into weapons or projectiles. It could be used pretty well at both short and long range.
As for which ability he would take… he was partial to Rich Blood. It synergized the best with his style. It even stated in the book that the choice was a trendy one when coupled with another affinity since it greatly simplified the path of blood, reducing it to a single tempering technique and one core ability.
Of course, most who only went down that one path had other abilities, too, but when one had several affinities to work with, it was best to keep one as their primary and the others as secondary, lest they overburden themselves with too many undeveloped skills.
But… he wondered. Red Venom was definitely too beside the point for his current path unless he wanted to fully respec himself as a caster, but there was a solid argument for him to go with Crimson Mercury—it was the most essence-efficient.
True, Rich Blood sounded great. But Blood Rush—the core ability of the path—while really powerful, guzzled the fuck out of essence. Crimson Mercury, on the other hand, mainly relied on weapon-conjuring abilities. The blood itself became like metal; thus, shaping it into the form of a weapon didn’t require all that much essence.
But that had a whole different problem—which weapon would he use? Weapons weren’t really his thing since he never quite had a teacher, formal education, or some other opportunity to learn how to use one.
The choice wasn’t easy.
But for the time being, there was no need to rush.
Once his arm healed, he started walking back to the gym. On his way there, he suddenly remembered something. Taking a quick moment to dive into his soul, he consulted his good friend Bloodshed on what he should do.
“You should temper your blood into a metal,” it said immediately.
He raised an eyebrow at that. “Why?” Naturally, he appreciated the spirit’s advice but was curious about its reasoning.
“The dagger you possess,” it started, “its power will transfer into any weapon you conjure as long as you’re holding the dagger.
That made him pause. “Seriously!?” If that was the case, then the choice was a no-brainer. “But wait, will it still work if I turn those weapons into projectiles?”
“No, it will not,” the spirit clarified.
That did suck a bit. He still vividly recalled the spear that Janhalar had thrown at him during their fight. That was a damn powerful ranged attack, and it depended on one’s physical strength, which was a massive advantage of Freddy’s. It wasn’t like he still couldn’t do something like that, but it was a bummer that the boost only applied to weapons he was still holding.
Despite that minor demerit, for the time being, his choice was set. There was a possibility that he could change his mind by the time he finished getting Puddle of Blood, but that depended on what else he could discover.
With his injury in check, he walked back to the gym. Then he started his workout.
He eased himself into it, sticking to a bit below his previous best. As always, he first thoroughly warmed up, then prepared to do bench, squat, and deadlift. It wasn’t a wise schedule for anyone who couldn’t swiftly recover from such exercise, and the risk of getting injured was relatively high, but training full body every day was something he was comfortable with.
He first started with the bench, setting the weight to 120kgs, around 20kgs below his previous maximum. He had lost much muscle mass and wouldn’t risk it by overestimating himself.
As soon as he placed his hands on the barbell, he could tell—this was going to be light. And once he pushed, he confirmed it. In fact, it was so easy that he dropped the set halfway through it and added another 10kgs.
Again, it was too easy.
So he added another ten.
And another.
And once again, another.
By the time he was benching 180kgs, he was just starting to feel the burden.
In the end, he did ten reps at 200kgs, and he didn’t push himself further because the previous test sets had exhausted him.
Feeling quite confident, he started the squat at 200kg. In the end, he did 250kgs. As for the deadlift, he did 300kgs. Neither of those felt quite there yet for the most he could do.
“This is insane,” he muttered under his breath. How the hell did he possess such monstrous strength? By all means, he should definitely be weaker than he had been at his peak, but it didn’t feel like that was the case.
And the fact that he was a two-star wasn’t a valid explanation, either. He was still at the beginning, far from realizing the full potential of his improved physique.
With every subsequent exercise, he tested himself as he inched closer to what he felt was his limit. While he wasn’t the strongest person in that gym, far from it, he was definitely among the elite. And this was just the beginning.
He ended his workout in a pretty solid mood. Once he returned home, he showered, ate two dozen very-hard-boiled eggs and a massive pot of overcooked potatoes, and went to bed.
When he woke up the following day, he started his new daily routine.
First, he got into his gear, then he went out to the hub. There, he joined Theodore’s party and worked as their helper. After that was finished, he went to the gym. He first trained his abilities there, working on growing Flowing Strike and Hydraulic Flex. As soon as he exhausted his essence, he worked his muscles and used the breaks between sets to dive into the netherecho and recover his essence.
Once done with that, he returned home. Back home, he worked on Puddle of Blood.
Surprisingly, it only took him a single day to perfect the shell. It was pretty easy to do, actually. All he had to do was synchronize an essence pulse with his heartbeat, temporarily spiking his blood pressure and stretching his cardiovascular system.
Compared to making Hydraulic Flex, this was child’s play.
Given that it had been so easy, he slotted the tempering technique into a schedule. First, he briefly used Adaptive Water Body. Then, he worked on Abyssal Depths and Puddle of Blood, replenishing his essence reserves between every tempering technique.
Eventually, he felt that he had done enough, so he ended the day by doing some plain old gathering. The ether density, more or less anywhere in that city, was abysmal. There were no vestiges in his apartment, likely as there wasn’t enough ether for them to appear. It made sense. Countless archhumans lived in this part of Nova York, and everybody had to gather.
In the end, all he could settle for were loose wisps of miscellaneous advanced affinities that didn’t have enough archhumans around to suck them up. As expected of a city, glass, metal, rust, fabric, mold, and wood were the most common.
Although he hadn’t thought much about it until then, he realized that he was growing incredibly slowly. That was highly concerning. Given his relatively recent achievements, shouldn’t he have been blazing through the early stages of his second star?
It was a problem that bothered him enough to walk out of his apartment and go to the library to find an explanation. There, he paid for a membership, allowing him to borrow one book at a time that he could take anywhere. The tier he subscribed to, which gave full access to all basic and intermediate texts, cost $8000 a month, and he spent that much without hesitation. If he came here daily, as he intended to, the membership would pay for itself soon enough.
After a bit of browsing, he relatively quickly discovered the explanation for his current problem. This was another one of those things he had heard of but never quite knew what it was—aura.
Aura was most easily seen by observing cursed objects in the netherecho. It was ether taking form by attaching itself to an object. In this case, an archhuman’s soul could also be the object in question. And this could be seen most easily by observing the inside of the ethercosm.
Stars were, in essence, aura constructs. But they weren’t all the aura there was in the soul.
There was also latent aura. It could be seen as a counterweight to the star, existing invisibly beneath the ethercosm. It was this form of aura that permitted the growth of a star by acting as a foundation for it.
Latent aura grew whenever an archhuman performed a notable feat. Be it creating a powerful object, defeating a mighty enemy, overcoming their limits, or any other demanding, improbable event. The more latent aura there was, the bigger the star could be.
This was why fighting, or at least some form of profession, was crucial for developing one’s power. Without the latent aura, growth stagnated and slowed until it stopped altogether. This was also the most significant cause of bottlenecks in an arch’s development.
So what happened? Couldn’t his actions so far be counted as pretty incredible? Frankly, given what he had accomplished, he simply couldn’t believe that he was missing latent aura. But as he read on, he realized that, unfortunately, that was precisely the case.
With every ascension, all of the latent aura in the soul was consumed, wiping the slate clean. This wasn’t to say that it was wasted; it actually went into improving one’s talent, which was why many people postponed their ascensions until they could gather enough latent aura to significantly impact the quality and power of their talent.
This begged another question—
“What the fuck!?” he scream-whispered into his chin as he angrily scratched his head.
If that was the case, shouldn’t his talent have changed far more than this!?
So he read on. Eventually, he stumbled across a paragraph that made him raise an eyebrow.
‘Talents are not created equal. Some hold considerably more power than others, and as such, the amount of latent aura necessary to trigger a significant evolution increases proportionally. If this latent aura isn’t supplied, the talent will either change minimally—or not at all.’
After he read this part, he slowly closed the book. A frown hung on his face. He walked all the way back home in silence.
As he got ready to go to bed, he couldn’t help but finally ask himself—just how powerful was his talent?
***
The next morning and the rest of the day played out much the same as the last. Wake up, delve, train, temper, gather, read, and sleep.
Theodore kept making absurd offers to him, and at that point, he was already starting to think the man was just taking the piss. As for the money, he made some. Most days fluctuated between $200 on the low and $600 on the high end, with few exceptions. Still, he was slightly outearning his spending, and for the time being, that was enough.
Not a single time did he encounter a crisis like the one with the deviant. In fact, he was never attacked by anything at all. But a few times, he spotted people suspiciously loitering not too far from where he was guarding the bags. If he hadn’t been there, it was likely that they would try to steal them. And judging by the rumors he heard, this sort of thing was relatively common.
Several times, he had also witnessed the night suddenly turn to day and the day suddenly turn to night. It was fucking terrifying. When the day turned to night in the middle of a battle, that was enough to put most parties at a massive disadvantage. Gorels didn’t need sight; they mainly relied on their other senses, so to them, it was as if nothing had changed.
Thankfully, their party had Theodore, a light-affinity arch who could instantly alleviate the problem by using his ability—Scattered Starlight—to throw out numerous floating orbs of light and illuminate the entire battlefield.
While it seemed like it should be the case, when the night suddenly turned to day, that wasn’t optimal either. It took a few crucial moments for a human’s vision to get used to the sudden change in brightness, which could be pretty disorienting in the middle of a life-or-death fight.
Not even a few days into his work with them, he started carrying the machete around and smacked random plants whenever they delved. When they asked him what he was doing, he said the reason was private, and they let him be.
This was one of many reasons why, as time passed, he grew increasingly distant from the party of six instead of getting closer to them. His weird behavior, the inexplicable treatment by Theodore, his refusal to show his face, and the gap in power between them that grew more and more obvious as he displayed greater and greater feats of strength fed into a rift that made it clear—it was only a matter of time before they parted ways.
His training at the gym progressed smoothly. While he never fully healed with how little he got to swing the machete around, it was more than enough for him to see consistent progress.
He grew bulkier. His skinny physique grew rapidly as it caught up to what it used to be. Several times, he had to get his equipment adjusted to suit his body.
After a while, his Hydraulic Flex finally grew to the peak of stage zero. Rather than rush to upgrade it, he took his time, carefully reading up on abilities and the water affinity to ensure he didn’t make a suboptimal choice.
Flowing Strike, on the other hand, didn’t grow at all. He would need to use it in combat to see it improve.
As for his tempering techniques, Abyssal Depths increased to 40% bonus weight, and Puddle of Blood neared the peak of stage zero.
He still hadn’t discovered anything about the mysterious second shell from the perished water affinity.
Surprisingly, Adaptive Water Body didn’t change at all. And he knew why after some reading at the library.
Evolution was something called a grand concept. Vestiges holding such a concept were rare but nothing too exceptional.
Grand concepts only existed as vestiges. They couldn’t grow into remnants. And, as a consequence, any ability upgraded through them… couldn’t grow, either. This wasn’t necessarily a terrible thing, it just meant that the ability did what it did and would always do only that. Abilities upgraded through grand concepts couldn’t be evaluated on a linear power scale as their utility was often miscellaneous. This was the case with Adaptive Water Body, too.
Eventually, after following this schedule for a month, he finally reached the peak of Puddle of Blood.
It was enough. He knew most of the areas in the passage by heart at that point. Although he trained daily, his growth had slowed noticeably, and he stagnated.
On that day, as he walked into the hub, he smiled at the slightly disappointed look in Theodore’s eyes as the man said, “Very well. You’ve been the best goddamn helper I’ve ever seen in my life. I’m sure we’ll see you around often enough.” Then, with a smile of his own, he cheekily added, “If you ever decide to take that damn mask off, I’d love to take you out for drinks.”
He chuckled at that. “Maybe one day,” he said non-committally.
Then, he waved at everyone else, saying his goodbyes, turned around… headed down the stairs…
And started his first-ever solo delve into a passage.
***
Three figures stood at the cavern entrance into the ruins of what had once been called Camp Violet. All of them were dressed in expensive combat uniforms, black with hints of dirt-brown camouflage.
The first was a tall, blonde, bearded man with a concerned expression. He looked into the mouth of the cave with evident fear in his eyes as a mess of feelings wrestled in his heart.
The second was a young man with striking red hair and eyes, with thin lines of crimson making their way down his face. He stood impassive, curiously staring forward.
And the third was a woman, her cerulean hair tied back into a practical ponytail. The serious uniform stood in sharp contrast to what she usually wore, but the relaxed smile still hung on her face nonetheless.
Finally, after waiting so long for the last of the scouts to abandon this place, they received their opportunity.
“Madam,” Nahar offered as he gestured with his right arm. “Let us begin.”
It was time to start their search for Freddy Stern.
Comments
Wiggles1
"I don't care if I have to cross every realm, fight a thousand armies, and defy the Empress herself. I swear this upon every speck of life I have burned: I will have my interview."
BJ
Damn, Madame is greedy. What do you think jer end goal is
kiwi
good chappie
Raganash
It makes me happy to see someone put so much time in establishing the mechanics
Octaeon
Lmao that's hilarious. Now I want to know the answer
RedeyeA
Does Freddy get healing from cooking eggs? Unfertilized eggs are giant single cells, and I think they would usually still be alive by the time you start to cook them. They have plenty of food to sustain themselves after all.
Luis
Happy New Year from Germany!
