100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? Chapter 498 - Tease

At this moment, Lucien stood inside the main branch of the East Liberators.

A black robe draped over him, shielding against probes, traces, and standard spiritual identifications. Shadow and his puppets wore the exact same variety.

Lucien discovered it surprisingly cozy. The embedded concealment turned it from mere garb into a shield allowing unseen existence.

He had already logged it within his Craft feature.

With proper materials collected in the future, he could craft copies for his allies.

Ultimately, Lucien chose to arrive alongside Seraphine.

Curiosity played a key role.

He yearned to witness the site the system revealed to her. He sought answers on the Primordial Slime's legacy for the Liberators and the reason that message bypassed him entirely.

Directly querying the system yielded a curt, frustrating reply.

[Not applicable.]

Lucien remained clueless about what set him apart in this scenario.

This mystery only heightened his intrigue.

Seran’s pre-visit revelation intensified it further.

Seran and Aurelia had already explored their designated spots.

Both portrayed the ordeal identically.

Life-altering.

Crucially, those sites unveiled the essence of what Liberators truly were.

Lucien couldn’t yet fathom the depth that made even Seran speak so gravely.

Yet he vowed to uncover it.

Imminently.

Currently, Cassian hosted him.

Cassian welcomed him with genuine warmth, like one honoring a leader’s prized visitor right away. Lucien nearly chuckled at the irony.

Cassian had forgotten him as well.

Lucien grasped this immediately upon their exchange.

Evidently, in this branch, solely Seraphine retained his memory.

This was intentional. Seran had instructed her to withhold that recollection from others for now. Lucien’s growth demanded secrecy. Spreading awareness prematurely risked detection amid Oblivion’s lingering twist and watchful foes.

Seraphine consented. She continued refining a defense against the amnesia.

Thus, Cassian regarded him as a fresh VIP, cherished by the leader and thus deserving reverence.

Lucien welcomed this.

Through the inner corridors of the eastern branch, they strolled and conversed.

Cassian began with the eastern campaign’s status.

Stability had returned there too.

Voidwalkers vanished utterly. Even the extinction-level threat poised for regional catastrophe reappeared no more.

This qualified as positive tidings.

Technically, yes.

Yet neither relished its nature.

"It concluded far too neatly," Cassian remarked while navigating a hallway aglow with soft lanterns. "We braced for one last battle here. Some breakdown. A frantic assault. Anything."

Lucien nodded.

"Yet they simply... retreated."

Cassian shot him a look. "Precisely."

Lucien fell silent briefly afterward.

His mind churned.

As he constructed his strength, so might they forge theirs.

Should the Evershade Exchange, Voidwalkers, and their ilk serve a grander scheme—one fracturing the world into chaos to erode the seals on fellow Primordial Incarnations—a dire chance loomed undeniable.

They may have already triumphed in the vital phase.

This idea weighed upon him like chilled steel.

Cassian noted his darkening face but held his tongue.

At last, they arrived at the perimeter of Seraphine’s lab.

There, Cassian halted and fixed Lucien with an odd gaze.

"Watch yourself."

Lucien arched an eyebrow.

Cassian whispered as if the walls eavesdropped.

"Sister Seraphine’s mood has soured badly of late. She grumbles about vivisections, memory wipes, neural resets, and the agony of sensing vital knowledge slipped away just beyond clear reach."

Lucien chuckled.

"That fits her perfectly."

Cassian folded his arms. "I mean it."

"So do I."

This deepened Cassian’s wariness.

Lucien dipped his head faintly. "I’ll endure."

Cassian eyed him a beat longer before retreating.

"Fortune favor you."

Then he departed.

Lucien lingered solo before the lab door.

In reality, Seraphine remained unaware of his arrival.

Seran had merely informed Cassian of his impending visit.

Now poised at her territory’s threshold, Lucien pondered his opening words uncertainly.

Such hesitation was rare.

Irksome as well.

Lucien shoved the door aside and stepped in.

The lab proved far quieter than anticipated.

Evidently, she had cleared out everyone else.

Deeper along the walls, specimen tubes stood in rows. Each contained preserved curiosities, incomplete organisms, and various items Lucien deemed best left unnamed without a true scientific justification.

Through the profound silence, he advanced further, bypassing racks of tagged extracts, hovering organs, skeletal frameworks, diagrams inscribed with laws, and scattered half-formed notes arranged in methodical disarray.

Next came the office door into view.

The door stood slightly ajar.

Lucien paused and peered through the narrow opening.

And there she sat.

Behind her desk, Seraphine lounged in a casual lab coat. Her hair looked wildly tousled, as if she had either neglected to comb it or quit the effort midway.

Exhaustion marked her features, alongside a vacant stare fully absorbed by whatever gripped her focus.

A pen rapped softly on the desk.

Scratch. Tap. Scratch.

She scribbled intently.

Before he could halt it, Lucien swallowed hard.

His feelings toward her remained unclear even now.

Still, her presence appealed to him.

Her bluntness struck him as invigorating. She carried a perilous maturity, yet her fierce devotion to her fixations often lent her an almost innocent intensity.

Such opposition rendered her profoundly human. Strangely, Lucien savored that trait immensely.

He knocked at last.

That noise yanked her from her trance.

Her head snapped upward.

Irritation instantly clouded her expression.

"Didn’t I say I wanted to be alone for now?"

Amusement bubbled up in Lucien right away.

He responded then.

"I heard you were looking for me."

Her reaction hit like lightning.

Frozen in place, Seraphine registered the voice she knew so well.

In a flash, she bolted from her seat and appeared at the door, her speed slamming it fully open.

Face to face, they now stood.

For a peculiar, suspended instant, the surroundings appeared to halt.

Lucien raised a hand to lower his robe's hood.

A smile bloomed on his face.

"Hi."

Seraphine fixed him with a gaze bearing emotions too intricate to label simply.

Shock. Relief. Disbelief. Anger at feeling relief. Joy. An urgent compulsion to test reality.

Without another word, her hands grasped his arms, squeezing as though to affirm his physicality.

Next, she shook him vigorously.

Surprise made Lucien blink.

"You’re real," she said. "Luc, why are you here?"

The grumpy researcher of moments ago had disappeared utterly.

Standing there was a woman brimming with open, defenseless delight.

For whatever reason, Lucien masked it with blandness.

"What else? I came to see you."

That remark proved either utterly wrong.

Or perfectly right.

Abruptly releasing him, Seraphine spun away, as if abruptly mindful that displays could draw scrutiny.

Struggling to curb his grin, Lucien stepped after her into the office.

His gaze landed on the notebook.

Yet before he could examine it closely, Seraphine lunged forward once more.

Swiftly.

Excessively swift.

She positioned herself before the desk, shielding it from his eyes.

Regrettably for her, Lucien had glimpsed sufficient detail.

Notes.

Drawings.

Theories.

Sketches portrayed the soul, mind, body. Diagrams illustrated overlapping structures. Theories explored memory bindings. Pathways preserved identity. Models analyzed contamination. Paths led to recovery.

Across countless frameworks, she posed a single burning question:

How do you make people remember what the world has forgotten?

Lucien required no guide to comprehend the sight before him.

Her thoughts had centered on him.

Beyond mere rumination, she sought to decipher his enigma.

Warmth surged back at once, fiercer now and far tougher to suppress inwardly.

Seraphine, in contrast, bore the uncommon visage of a genius unmasked in raw sincerity.

Lucien chuckled softly.

Not boisterously.

Sufficiently to draw her glare.

"What is there to hide?" he asked. "Tell me, Sister Sera. Have you really been thinking about me this much?"

She stiffened immediately.

"Who is thinking about you?" she said. "Do not flatter yourself. You are not important enough for that."

Lucien nodded sagely. "Then I suppose the notes wrote themselves."

Seraphine’s eyes narrowed sharply.

With calculated composure, Lucien pressed on, "And perhaps the ring on your hand is also a separate scientific phenomenon."

That landed squarely.

Prior to his journey West, Lucien had bestowed that ring upon her, packed with valuable drops.

Seraphine once loathed donning rings in the lab. They irritated her, diverted attention, and snagged on gloves or instruments, she always complained.

Nevertheless, Lucien's ring now adorned her ring finger unobtrusively.

Seraphine coughed abruptly and whisked the hand behind her back.

She then regarded him as though he embodied the era's greatest flaw, rather than just a man grinning far too insightfully in her office.

Lucien nearly pressed the teasing further, yet he restrained himself upon spotting the deepening scowl on her face.

Both hands shot up from him in a gesture of surrender.

"All right," he said. "I’ll stop."

Seraphine cast him a prolonged, wary glance, evidently doubting he truly meant to cease.

Lucien figured that suspicion was justified.

With the banter dropped at last, he revealed the real purpose of his visit.