100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? Chapter 694 - The Draught and The Rumors

The next day, Seraphine’s final testing report arrived.

Lucien read it once.

Then he read the compatibility section again.

Every race they had tested could use the Lawroot Stabilizing Draught.

Even monsters and powerful beasts responded properly to it.

The formula itself did not need to change.

Only the dosage did.

Larger bodies generally required more.

Beasts with unusually dense foundations needed considerably more than humanoid practitioners.

Certain elemental races required the medicine to be absorbed through their cores rather than consumed normally.

But once the correct dose was established, the result remained remarkably consistent.

The Law pathways stabilized. The bearer’s connection to their integrated authority strengthened.

The effect could last for nearly an entire day.

More importantly, repeated testing had revealed no dangerous instability.

Lucien lowered the report.

Seraphine had done it again.

He had already known she was capable.

Apparently, knowing something and being reminded of it repeatedly were different experiences.

The Lawroot Stabilizing Draught was ready.

Lucien still did not release it immediately.

•••

The Law Anchor had only recently spread across the five continents.

People were still learning how withdrawal felt.

They were still becoming accustomed to allowing their Laws to retreat instead of instinctively forcing them outward.

Lucien did not want the medicine to become a crutch before that instinct had formed.

The Law Anchor worked without it.

The Interweaver worked without it.

That mattered.

If the medicine ever ran out during a real battle, the practitioner still needed to function.

So Lucien waited another week.

During that time, production continued quietly.

Seraphine finalized the dosage charts for major racial structures.

Lootwell’s medicine halls began preparing batches.

The farming world expanded several cultivation fields.

Green handled the common spiritual plants.

Aerolith adjusted the environments needed for the more delicate ingredients.

Nothing about the formula was particularly rare.

That was exactly why Lucien liked it.

By the time the first public doses appeared, Lootwell already possessed enough ingredients to continue producing them on a meaningful scale.

Then the reveal happened almost casually.

•••

The first challengers heard about it from an Echo Crucible staff.

They arrived expecting another attempt at the impossible rankings.

Instead, the registration attendants mentioned an optional preparation.

Lootwell had developed a medicine designed to complement the Law Anchor.

That was enough.

The name spread through the waiting halls almost immediately.

Lawroot Stabilizing Draught.

People began purchasing individual doses before most of them even knew exactly what it did.

Lootwell’s reputation probably contributed to that.

So did the fact that half the people waiting had already spent the previous week being humiliated by Primordial echoes.

A little additional help did not sound unreasonable.

The first batch entered the Crucible.

Then people noticed the difference.

•••

The effect was not dramatic.

There was no burst of power. Instead, everything felt steadier.

The connection to their Law became clearer.

Authority moved through the body with less resistance.

The pathways created through years of integration felt almost reinforced from within.

For challengers facing Primordial echoes carrying the same Law, that difference became obvious immediately.

When higher authority pressed down, their Laws still reacted.

They still felt the hesitation.

But the hostile influence had a harder time pushing through the established connection.

The practitioner had more time.

Not much, but against Primordial authority, even a few moments were precious.

Then the Law Anchor activated.

Previously, withdrawal had sometimes carried a faint discomfort.

The Law rushed inward.

The pathways tightened.

The dormancy seal closed.

It worked, but the body could feel the strain.

Under the Lawroot Stabilizing Draught, the process changed.

The pathways were already reinforced.

The Law returned along them smoothly.

Instead of feeling like something was being dragged backward through the body, it felt closer to allowing a breath to return naturally after holding it too long.

The dormant state settled cleanly.

That alone made people happy.

Then they discovered the more convenient part.

•••

The Law Anchor was not meant to imprison the Law forever.

Once the foreign pressure faded and the formation confirmed that the danger had passed, the dormancy seal could release.

Without the medicine, practitioners sometimes needed a short period to settle their foundation before manifesting their Law again.

Nothing serious. Just enough awkwardness to matter during combat.

With the Lawroot Stabilizing Draught, that transition almost disappeared.

The pathways remained stable while the Law rested.

When the seal released, the authority flowed outward again with little resistance.

The practitioner could return to using their original Law much sooner.

That changed the rhythm of the challenge completely.

A matching Primordial echo attempted takeover.

The Law Anchor withdrew the threatened authority.

The challenger switched to the Law Interweaver.

They fought using a borrowed Law while the dangerous pressure continued.

The moment the opening appeared and the dormancy seal released, their original authority returned.

Then they could switch again.

The entire process became smoother.

The three systems suddenly felt less like separate inventions.

They felt like parts of one combat method.

•••

The rankings suffered immediately.

Or improved.

That depended entirely on who was looking.

Times began dropping.

Survival periods increased.

Several challengers who had spent days stuck beneath the same ranking threshold suddenly climbed.

One practitioner defeated an echo he had lost to more than twenty times.

He celebrated for several minutes.

Then someone else beat his time before he finished celebrating.

His mood changed considerably.

The public channels filled with complaints.

Some accused Lootwell of making the impossible challenge too easy.

Others pointed out that anyone saying that was welcome to remove their Law Anchor, put away the Interweaver, refuse the medicine, and prove how much they enjoyed suffering.

Very few accepted the suggestion.

Even the original challengers who had earned victories before any of the new protections existed continued using them.

Apparently, difficult victories were valuable. Comfort was also valuable.

The competition intensified. So did proficiency.

People learned exactly when their Law began behaving incorrectly.

They became faster at allowing withdrawal.

They learned which borrowed Laws worked best while their original authority remained dormant.

They learned how long they could safely remain without their primary Law.

They learned to fight through the transition instead of panicking when their usual strength disappeared.

Lucien watched all of it.

The medicine had done exactly what he wanted.

Then the public began noticing something else.

•••

At first, it appeared as a joke.

Someone posted a question.

Why had Lootwell suddenly become so interested in teaching everyone how to prevent higher authority from controlling their Laws?

Another person replied that Lucien probably hated seeing people lose to the Echo Crucible.

That explanation lasted several minutes.

Then someone mentioned the Keeper War.

The discussion changed.

People remembered what the Keepers had done.

They remembered Laws being suppressed.

They remembered practitioners losing techniques they had relied upon for years.

They remembered battles where higher authority had turned familiar power into a liability.

Then someone connected the pieces.

The Law Interweaver.

The Law Anchor formation.

The Lawroot Stabilizing Draught.

The Echo Crucible challenges.

All of them solved different parts of the same problem.

The theory spread.

Was Lootwell preparing them for another enemy capable of controlling Laws?

No one had evidence.

That did not stop anyone.

Within hours, entire discussion channels existed solely to examine Lootwell’s recent actions.

Some theories were surprisingly accurate.

Others became increasingly ridiculous.

One claimed Lucien had discovered a hidden civilization composed entirely of Keepers.

Another insisted Lootwell was preparing to invade somewhere.

A third somehow connected everything to the slimes.

Lucien stopped reading that one.

Still, underneath the nonsense, some people understood the important part.

Lootwell rarely prepared this much without a reason.

That realization unsettled them.

Not enough to cause panic.

Just enough to make them pay attention.

•••

Lootwell never answered the theories.

That naturally made everyone more suspicious.

Lucien preferred it that way.

If he announced that Extinction Grade beings might eventually descend upon the world, fear would spread faster than preparation.

But rumors were different.

People could laugh about them, argue about them, dismiss them, then remember them later.

The possibility entered their minds without becoming certainty.

That was useful.

When the truth eventually became impossible to hide, the idea would not feel completely new.

The world would already have asked the question.

Lucien looked through another collection of public discussions.

Someone had written a lengthy argument explaining why Lootwell’s recent inventions could not possibly be unrelated to another major threat.

Beneath it, someone else had replied that they could worry about the apocalypse after beating the person currently above them on the scoreboard.

The comment received far more approval.

Lucien smiled.

That was fine too.

The Thousand Races continued challenging the echoes.

They continued competing.

They continued improving.

And beneath all the rankings, rivalries, complaints, and conspiracy theories, something far more important was happening.

The response was becoming instinctive.

When authority wavered, they recognized it.

When takeover began, they withdrew.

When their Law became unavailable, they adapted.

When it returned, they resumed fighting without hesitation.

The world still thought it was playing with a ranking board.

Lucien knew better.

They were learning how to survive.