100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? Chapter 492 - Stable

Several months slipped by.

Lucien hit twenty-four years old.

The world had shifted nearly as dramatically as he himself had.

The Liberator Organization was no longer just whispers. It had planted deep roots throughout the world.

Campaigns across other continents wrapped up one by one.

Now the name rang out everywhere.

Liberators.

To those in despair, it sparked hope. To the rotten elites, it bred terror. To the shrewd, it signaled a reshuffling of global power.

Countless folks yearned to enlist.

That posed the challenge.

Liberator bases stayed shrouded in mystery.

Folks hunted for them nonstop yet rarely uncovered them, since the bases hid in the most obvious spots imaginable.

One could be a city clinic run by exceptionally orderly staff. Another might masquerade as an academy with a standard curriculum—until shady types disappeared after attempting to buy sway there. Others appeared as caravan hubs, serene monasteries, or overlooked hamlets along forgotten paths.

Shadow adapted seamlessly to expanding operations.

He'd been charged with setting up additional bases in the West, picking ideal leaders for them, and making sure each could thrive independently without drawing enemy eyes that might unravel everything.

Seran had messaged repeatedly, inquiring if the Liberators could leverage the Covenant of Pathless Sovereignty.

Lucien consented.

Extra bases accelerated progress. Faster action curbed brewing catastrophes. And with the world churning out chaos quicker than sane minds could handle, the response demanded a touch of madness.

Lucien had embraced that truth long before.

He'd also pressed Seran repeatedly about the Celestial Race.

Their dominion stayed locked tight.

That came back every time.

Even worse, Seran couldn't reach anyone inside.

Lucien had vowed to Vivian that he'd bring her there someday. He'd sworn she'd see their parents firsthand, freeing her from relying solely on his assurances.

He hated seeing vows stalled by dead air.

And the hush enveloping the Celestial Race Dominion had grown absolute.

That gnawed at him.

Yet reckless action remained off-limits.

Not yet.

The broader world still swirled with unknowns around him. Oblivion’s warp lingered unresolved. His foes lacked solid proof that Lucien Lootwell lived once more, and that uncertainty shielded him best for now.

Showing up boldly at the Celestial Race Dominion could shatter more than just a promise.

It might ignite a flare atop one of the realm's most scrutinized forces.

Thus, patience held firm.

Though he kept inquiring.

And Seran grasped precisely why it weighed so heavy.

He vowed to Lucien that any big stir inside the sealed dominion would get reported at once. He also pledged to keep probing for contact whenever chances arose.

Lucien took that in stride.

It stood as the strongest option on the table.

•••

Meanwhile, Lootwell kept constructing.

Midas had departed ages ago to etch his legacy into the Big World through raw power, and Lucien hadn't blocked him. Augustus aimed to trail soon. Leo shared that itch. More were kindling similar ambitions. Yet Lucien's decree stood unbroken.

Fifth Stage of the Transcendent Realm prior to leaving.

No waivers.

Reaper and Eldran had advanced too.

The veteran killer and ex-tower lord had already picked their initial recruits. The training sites, bolstered by fresh portals, had sped things up beyond their wildest hopes.

Those tapped for the Shadow Information Network mastered skills and spells with horrifying speed once proper frameworks clicked into place.

Lucien supplied them attributes tailored to their duties, fortifying their budding networks before full growth.

Even more crucially, he bestowed a tool that shattered their grasp of magnitude.

Dawnbinder’s Luminarch Routes.

When Reaper and Eldran first pored over the chart, a heavy quiet gripped them both. The hush of strategists beholding a solution so pristine that awe blurred into envy.

Reaper let out a single breath.

"This is filth," he said.

Lucien arched a brow.

Eldran nodded deliberately.

"He means it is beautiful."

Reaper offered no rebuttal.

Lucien stated outright he sought no mindless copies.

"I want something that belongs to us," he said.

Reaper’s gaze honed razor-sharp in an instant.

Eldran’s lips curved in a subtle grin.

They swore they'd craft precisely that.

Lucien had equipped them fully for the task as well.

He provided the transports. Swift enough to count. Silent enough to evade notice. Cloaked in stealth layers.

Vehicles that appeared as if they suited skilled merchants, vigilant patrol guards, humble explorers, or local couriers—rather than the secret lifelines of an emerging spy network.

Reaper took more pleasure in that than he revealed.

Eldran proved even more enthusiastic. He right away started jotting down ideas for masking magical traces within the vehicle structures.

Lucien let them handle it.

•••

Meanwhile, the comms network had already launched into testing.

That initiative turned into one of the territory's most amusing triumphs.

Eirene, Elk, Rurik, and Seren crafted something utterly ridiculous.

A slim portable gadget that, to folks from a tech-advanced era, resembled a bare-bones smartphone a bit too closely.

Its features remained basic for now.

Texts. Audio clips. Urgent notifications. Simple forwarding. Crisis bypass.

That sufficed.

Performance exceeded their wildest early expectations.

Construction transformed thanks to it alone.

Anvil-Horn didn't have to march across entire sites anymore whenever teams required fixes, guidance, or warnings. He stayed put in his optimal spot, dispatched orders via the network, and relied on them reaching the right hands.

Workers adjusted with impressive speed.

Initially, they gawked at the gadgets like each one thrust the weight of society's destiny upon them.

Soon, they began employing them.

Next came gripes over slow replies.

Lucien recognized from that the system was settling into everyday use.

Special editions existed too.

Greater privacy. Heightened security. Locked to user IDs. Bound so solely the designated holder unlocked complete capabilities or probed secure levels.

Reaper and Eldran possessed them. Lucien carried one. Several key territory leaders did as well.

Far beyond mere ease.

Vital conduits for critical data.

Reaper spotting peril? It flashed to Lucien via those paths. Intel team detecting looming danger? The gadgets bore the initial warning.

Elk and crew kept enhancing the setup.

Success, predictably, spawned fresh challenges.

Coverage distance.

Lucien spotted the flaw sooner than anticipated.

Though vast compared to normal measures, the network's span had boundaries.

His current fused Origin Core shards extended signals reliably over the Sareth Region plus neighbors. Within those bounds, the devices operated flawlessly.

Outside? Dead air.

Lucien let out a sigh.

Not from the outcome itself falling short.

Impressive enough already.

Merely because his grand dream outpaced current grasp.

Continental expansion, then maybe global, demanded additional Origin Core fragments.

The thought lingered until Seran fixed it most straightforwardly.

He proffered his fragment.

Not just his alone.

Several Liberator network members voiced readiness to follow suit.

The news left Lucien mute for quite a while.

"I have no use for it equal to yours," Seran had said simply. "And I dislike tools rotting in hands too small for them."

Lucien paused.

Such fragments weren't baubles. They formed core strengths.

Seran just grinned.

"You can do more with them than I can."

Lucien held off replying at once.

Thus Seran continued, "You will have to collect them personally from the headquarters."

A trip to Liberator Headquarters awaited Lucien later.

Upon arrival, the comms web would expand further.

The team treated it with gravity, erecting a shrine-resembling edifice to cradle the Origin Core fragment as the network's core hub.

Lucien eyed the structure for thirty full seconds before questioning if every aspect of his existence mandated temple status by law.

Elk clarified it wasn't a temple.

"It is a sanctified communications authority chamber," she had said.

Lucien gazed at her.

She stared back with utmost gravity.

Nearby Rurik instantly sold her out, guffawing until he almost toppled over.

Name aside, the building fulfilled its role.

From this function, a new role started taking shape.

Recorders.

At authorized stations, recorders were tasked with overseeing message traffic—not to snoop through every routine transmission like idle onlookers, but to identify flagged patterns, threat indicators, emergency keywords, unusual coordination frameworks, and other urgent signals demanding prompt elevation.

They served as genuine civic watchers.

Part clerk. Part sentinel. Part analyst.

Lucien had no immediate need for them yet. The devices hadn't extended past Lootwell. Still, preparations were underway, and Lucien endorsed the effort.

Solid institutions got forged ahead of any crisis forcing their creation.

Regarding Lucien personally—

his advancement persisted.

Though at a reduced pace compared to earlier.

He had attained the Third Stage of the Celestial Realm.

The bottleneck he faced now matched his deepest apprehensions precisely.

The Law of Creation proved far too vast and all-encompassing to refine deeply via mere contemplation.

Passive expansion came to him courtesy of the sapling.

Yet that fell short of true expansive living.

Greater provocation was essential. More tangible existence. Intensified strain. Fresh fragments of creation to scrutinize from unexplored perspectives.

Each inward gaze at the sapling of the Tree of Creation inside him brought sharper clarity.

It resided within.

However, its pace failed to quench his impatience.

That moment drew his mind back to the goblin-conquered realms.

Those domains could yet harbor the vital elements he sought.

Seran possessed the coordinates, extracted from the monster storages Lucien had ransacked. He vowed to investigate once the moment ripened.

A smile crossed Lucien's face at the recollection.

Currently, all remained steady.

Steady enough for construction. Steady enough for scheming. Steady enough for honing.

And from that steadiness, a perilous sensation stirred once more.

Ambition.

The variety that eyed a secure realm and instantly pondered its potential transformations before outsiders detected the extent of its hidden strides.