1% Lifesteal

All told, added with what he earned earlier that day, he only had another twenty-seven thousand dollars. With the exorbitant rent and belief that it would be wise to have some savings, he had decided against paying for a membership when he first moved in.

After all, the monthly membership here was over ten thousand dollars a month. There were many cheaper ones around, but they were severely under-equipped compared to this establishment, at least according to the ads for this place.

As he stepped before the mega-gym, he blinked. The outside of this place had the gaudiest, most ostentatious facade he had ever witnessed. The entire surface was plated in gems, gold, and art, mostly of powerful-looking warriors and stuff.

It was such a childish exterior that he was utterly bemused. The ads had been wack enough, but this… Still, from what little conversation he had overheard, people only had good things to say about this place. Well, mostly.

Sighing, he walked inside.

The first thing that caught his attention was the noise. It was loud; groaning, yelling, smashing, and cracking echoed throughout the building. In contrast, there was no smell at all. It was as if the air was totally pure, leaving a dizzying sensory void in contrast to the smelly city outside.

The interior caught him by surprise. First, there was none of the opulence here, replaced by the clinical, cold white of the walls and gray of the ceiling and floor, with only the wooden reception desk and, further down the hallway to the left, the red, synthetic cushions on the workout machines, as well as the people using them, standing out.

The inside wasn\'t as open as he expected; it was segmented into distinct areas, with numerous pointers and area markers noting which paths down the hallways went where.

The male receptionist didn\'t even look at him as he walked inside; he seemed busy writing something.

So he approached him. "Hi," he greeted.

The man looked up briefly. "Hello, welcome to the Santorio Training Center," the man said dryly. "Is this your first time here?" he asked, briefly glancing at the gloves he was wearing to conceal his rings.

"Yeah, I\'d like to get a membership," he answered.

The man handed him a paper. It seemed to be a short contract.

It took all the will he could muster not to curse at the absurd pricing. Apparently, that whole "prices start at ten thousand dollars a month" thing was a cheap marketing trick. Because while prices did indeed begin there… that wasn\'t where they ended.

Ten thousand dollars a month, and I get to come here only once a week!? he screamed internally, unable to wrap his head around what he saw.

He had no idea what the hell kind of equipment these people had, but there was no way that it was worth this much.

"Uhm…" he started, frowning and glancing at the man while preparing to ask what warranted such a price.

Rather than let him speak, the man simply rolled his eyes and sassily handed him a small catalog. It was a detailed guide on what each tier provided and all the services one could get at the training center.

"Uh… thanks." He grabbed the catalog and walked away, sitting on a small bench beside the gym\'s entrance.

As soon as he started analyzing the pricing, he cringed. For several reasons. First, what the hell was up with this naming convention? The tiers were Knight, Baron, Viscount, Earl, Marquess, and Duke. Talk about pretentious. And the prices were absurd! Knight was ten thousand, Baron was twenty thousand, Viscount was thirty, Earl was fifty, Marquess was a hundred thousand dollars, and the Duke tier cost two hundred thousand dollars a month.

Massive discounts were provided for those who purchased yearly memberships, which was probably precisely what this pricing aimed at. Still, even then, Duke cost a staggering million dollars a year.

Taking a deep breath, he sighed and looked at the benefits.

All that the Knight membership provided was access to the facility once a week. More specifically, it offered three hours of access to the workout equipment area, a measly ten minutes in the gathering chambers, fifteen minutes in the ability testing area, and twenty minutes in the combat simulation room.

As for what the areas other than the workout equipment area even were, he had no idea. There were extra benefits further down the list, given to higher ranks, with Duke simply saying "unlimited access to all facilities."

Rather than dwell on it much, he got up, awkwardly returned the catalog, and walked out. While he was hella curious about what the testing area and combat simulation chambers were, he wasn\'t ten-thousand-dollars-a-month curious. Not yet. The cost-effectiveness of paying for a membership here wasn\'t worth it. Instead, he made his way down to another gym, one that was about five minutes away from his apartment, and entered.

Ten minutes later, he angrily stomped out. As for why he was furious, it was simple—they had rejected his application! Apparently, this gym wasn\'t accepting two-star archhumans; they legally weren\'t allowed to because their equipment wasn\'t up to the standards two-stars required.

It made sense. If a barbell snapped under the sort of weight a powerful two-star could handle, it could lead to severe injury. Hell, even death. But that was the second time he was barred from accessing something just because he was a two-star. There was something to be said about that.

Soon enough, he reached the gym that was fifteen minutes away from his place, but whatever, he just needed a damn place to lift and punch something.

Although it was much cheaper than Santorio, Tackman\'s gym was still a pricey thousand dollars monthly for full access. As for its interior, it heavily reminded him of that place he and Mark had trained at.

There were slight differences, however. While that place had catered more to non-combat archhumans, this was made for warriors.

The first floor was nearly identical, but the second floor, other than the section with dummies, had an entire area added for practicing parkour, with many monkey bars, ropes, and obstacle courses several people trained at with impressive skill.

As for the third floor, it was similarly oriented toward cardio and endurance exercises, but other than treadmills, there was also a rock-climbing course and a pool that could simulate raging waters.

He signed up and headed to the crowded locker room, ignoring the several half-naked men. Unfortunately, this place wasn\'t quite as fancy as Kargon. There were no free gym clothes. He cursed under his breath but resigned to his fate. Not a big deal. He was already wearing casual clothing anyway, and it wasn\'t the end of the world if he got a bit sweaty.

Once he stepped out into the gym, his mood instantly changed. It made him… nostalgic. In that brief instant, he returned to a simpler time, a place where an innocent, young kid trained to look good for a show.

That person was long dead.

In his stead, a bitter soul walked out.

He had just realized he had no way to use his talent. There were no convenient flesh blobs in his gym bag, nor was there a forest he could eco-terrorize. He\'d have to do something about that.

For the time being, however, that wasn\'t a priority.

Walking up to the second floor, he faced the dummies. A few people were already using them, and as far as he could see, none of them could hit quite as hard as he could. The dummies themselves were roughly man-shaped constructs of solid material, but he wasn\'t sure exactly how tough they were.

Then he walked back down and looked for a staff member. He asked the man how much those dummies could handle, and the man simply said that he was only forbidden from using external abilities. No throwing fireballs or stabbing them, and even at two-star power, he should be fine.

Good.

He walked back up to the second floor. The sounds of the people around him were an unwelcome distraction. Several men and women were using the dummies beside him, throwing punches and kicks enhanced by all sorts of internal abilities.

A fire-affinity woman was using the Ignited Muscle technique. It was an ability that boosted one\'s physical prowess by artificially speeding up the metabolism. It could be compared to Hydraulic Flex because it triggered in the muscles that were being used. The key difference was that this version was easier to use than Hydraulic Flex and more powerful, but also consumed far more essence. It also exhausted the user far faster.

How it looked externally, however, was entirely different. Sweat evaporated off her red skin, and he could feel the heat from where he was. Her punches and kicks landed with a solid thump, and their speed was impressive.

Right beside her was an earth-affinity man using Tectonic Strike. This ability was similar to Flowing Strike but had one key difference. There was no need to time it. It simply added momentum to the attacks. Conversely, it was far inferior to a perfectly timed Flowing Strike, but it was so much more consistent that it compensated more than enough for that discrepancy.

On Freddy\'s other side was another man, this time an air-affinity arch. He raised an eyebrow at the fact that all four elements were arranged side by side. A fun coincidence.

As for this man, he was using Wind Strike—a simple ability that used the air around one\'s limbs to boost their speed. As for its power, it was by far the weakest of the four elements, but it was unrivaled in agility. More often than not, it was used paired with a weapon.

Well then. It was time for him to fill in the missing link.

He got into a stance. It was nothing special. Frankly, if someone who had trained in actual martial arts saw him, they\'d probably ridicule him. With his current body, he estimated his base weight to be around seventy-five kilograms—with Abyssal Depths, he was at almost a hundred.

He took a look at his two stars. They were fully topped off.

Pulling his fist back, he used Flowing Strike.

After much practice, as long as his target was stationary, he could time Flowing Strike without much difficulty. His arm stretched out, carrying the compound momentum of the wave moving through his body.

Just as all the force gathered at the end, his knuckles met the dummy\'s torso.

The impact made a thud, causing the people around him to jump in surprise at the sudden noise. He pulled his fist back and swung it again. The dummy\'s torso deformed under his strikes, but it was designed to do that. It would go back after he was done.

One strike after another depleted his reserves, and by the end, he had used all of his essence.

Fourteen Flowing Strikes. That was all he could muster. That wasn\'t much. It was far too few, actually, but he wasn\'t surprised to see that.

He stepped away, walking to the middle of the room and sat down. He dove into his ethercosm. He saw his two dim and pale stars there, with only the red ring around his first glowing brightly. Added together, his total essence capacity was at around 110%.

That meant that a single Flowing Strike consumed a bit under 8% of his total reserves.

At this moment, he couldn\'t help but ask himself—was using Abyssal Depths with Flowing Strike a mistake?

With each new star, archhumans could double their essence output. But their total capacity only increased by one more star, and that was at the peak. Freddy could double the essence expenditure, but, at the moment, he only had a bit more essence than a peak one-star.

At the start of the third star, this would get much worse. Quadruple output, but only 210%.

Once he gained four stars, it would be octuple output but 310%.

It wasn\'t like there were no ways around this. Equipment, such as the ring on his finger, could work to reduce expenditure, and there were also satellites, but he was far too poor to even dream about getting one of those.

He bit his lip.

With every bit of extra weight, Flowing Strike would become more expensive. With every star, that price would double.

He had no delusions about his talent as a martial artist. He had the power, but his mastery over it was… underwhelming, to say the least. And it wasn\'t like Flowing Strike was an easy ability to use.

At his current trajectory, that ability was becoming more and more of a trump card. While he could use it fourteen times, it was far from his only ability, and with two extra affinities, it would only get more competition. Soon enough, he could only afford to use it a few times; he had to be confident in his ability to land it. Otherwise, he would be throwing away a good chunk of his reserves for no reason.

Things only got worse with doubling his essence output.

The more his Abyssal Depths grew, the more the ability would cost. When he became a three-star, he could see the ability reaching as much as 30% essence expenditure. Quadrupling that number would make for an ultimate move, not something one would throw around willy-nilly in combat. At four stars? Shit, he could possibly go over 200% of total output. But at that point, the ability might make his entire arm explode under the stress.

He had swaggered into most of his choices regarding his path, but now that he could take his time and think things through, he was beginning to realize that his foundation was all over the place.

It was practically a miracle that he managed to develop Hydraulic Flex and upgrade his Hundred Wet Hells—and speaking of which, Thousand Wet Hells was something he had little confidence in using yet. The few times he tried, he genuinely nearly died.

There was also the still-undeveloped shell for Pressure Jet. He would have to think deeply about whether that was even worth working on.

But that was for later.

Now, he had to decide whether to continue developing Abyssal Depths and using Flowing Strike. It was a lethal combo, but it came at a cost.

Honestly, he really wanted to keep it and just see where it took him. He could technically just work on Abyssal Depths up to a point and stop when he was happy with his weight, but that wasn\'t an optimal solution. At that point, it would be better to undo Abyssal Depths and start working on Flowing River. Those two tempering techniques couldn\'t be used simultaneously because they clashed in their function. Both aimed to compress water—one into channels, and the other just in general.

The other solution would be to drop Flowing Strike and rely on Hydraulic Flex in combat. That wasn\'t an option he wanted to choose. Hydraulic Flex just wasn\'t as good for unarmed combat as Flowing Strike was.

Sighing, he closed his eyes. He tried gathering, but the air was void of water wisps, as was to be expected in a place with so many archhumans. Instead, he manually collected some of the loose wisps he could get his projection\'s scythe on and returned to reality when he had enough essence.

He approached the dummy again. Focusing on his core, both his stars lit up, and he swung his fist. The Flowing Strike landed with a deafening bang that shook the floor beneath his feet.

The people beside him once more eyed him strangely, and they made some distance this time.

He gritted his teeth as he stepped away once more. He slowly peeled the glove off.

His arm hurt like hell. The veins along his forearm had bulged, turning purple; the skin on his knuckles was slightly darker, and he was clearly suffering from internal injuries, including cracked bones.

It was already this bad at just 16% output. Just how much worse would it get later?

Taking a deep breath, he clenched his injured fist, basking in the pain. Was he really prepared to walk down this path?

Maybe not. But he lost nothing if he just gave it a try. The training he would have to undergo to make this combo usable would be utterly hellish, incomparable to anything he had done up until that point.

But he had his talent. He had both Leviathan\'s Fury and Blood Sacrifice.

And an affinity he hadn\'t touched yet.

An affinity considered unrivaled in making one\'s body into a living weapon.