100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? Chapter 700 - The World’s Greatest Training Ground

Another month passed.

Lilith finally sent Lucien good news through the Grace System.

The Lifeline Routes were nearly complete.

Lucien read the report twice, and a smile slowly appeared on his face.

At last.

The most complicated portion of the World Fortification Plan was approaching completion.

Routes connecting major evacuation shelters, fortified cities, emergency supply points, medical stations, and retreat corridors had already been tested repeatedly.

If disaster struck, entire regions would no longer need to improvise while everything was collapsing around them.

The paths already existed. The contingencies already existed.

People only needed to follow them.

Lucien was still enjoying that thought when another message appeared.

Lilith wanted her reward.

His smile disappeared. Lucien stared at the message.

He had known this moment would come.

Knowing had not prepared him.

He considered pretending not to see it, but hat would probably make things worse.

After several moments, Lucien finally replied.

He repeated what he said before.

Once everything settled down, she could ask him for whatever reward she wanted.

The response came almost immediately.

Lilith accepted.

That frightened Lucien.

He closed the Grace System before she could add anything else.

Whatever happened later would be a problem for his future self.

His current self still had work to do.

...

Not long afterward, Anvil-Horn sent another progress report.

The Tidewatch Network was also nearing completion.

The coastal warning arrays, deep-water observation points, emergency response stations, and interconnected detection structures were functioning across most of the five continents.

Anvil-Horn credited much of the accelerated progress to Eirene.

Lucien was not surprised.

He leaned back.

The World Fortification Plan was finally approaching its end.

The five continents were not invulnerable.

Nothing could make them that.

But they were considerably harder to surprise, isolate, or collapse.

That was enough.

And more importantly, Lilith and the others would finally become available.

Lucien already had another enormous project waiting for them.

He silently apologized to Lilith again.

This time, with considerably more sincerity.

•••

Lucien allowed them to finish their remaining work.

Then he called another closed meeting.

Vivian came first. Seraphine followed. Elias, Seran, Deadman, Aurelia, and the other administrators arrived soon afterward.

Virel and Aniel attended. Several Lunarian elders joined them.

The Grandmaster came from the Obsidian Collegium. The Abbess represented the Silent Monastery again.

By now, everyone in the room had become unpleasantly familiar with Lucien calling meetings that eventually became world-scale projects.

No one complained.

That was either trust or resignation.

Lucien decided not to ask which.

A projection appeared over the center of the chamber.

The preserved region emerged. The enormous dead land stretched across the map.

Several people immediately recognized it.

Others looked more carefully.

Lucien began with the important part.

"As all of you might know, the dead region in the Middle Continent has been avoided for generations. What we recently discovered is that it is not truly dead."

That caught everyone’s attention.

He explained what he, Marie, Kaia, Sylra, and Marina had discovered.

He told them the practical details, but left out everything concerning the Primordial Slime and the Human Ancestor.

The Grandmaster leaned forward as the information accumulated.

The Lunarian elders became visibly more interested.

The Abbess remained quiet for a long time.

Virel finally smiled.

"So we found more than empty land."

Lucien nodded.

The preserved impressions meant they did not need to manufacture every training condition from nothing.

The battlefield already possessed them.

They only needed to control them, partition them, stabilize them, and turn an ancient scar into something useful.

Lucien enlarged the projection.

"This will be the foundation."

The worldwide authority training could finally begin taking shape.

•••

They would not call it worldwide authority training.

That would defeat the purpose.

The Thousand Races already suspected Lootwell was preparing for something.

There was no reason to confirm their worst theories by inviting everyone to a secret survival program.

Instead, the preserved region would become the site of an intercontinental competition.

A massive one.

Anyone qualified enough to participate could come.

The public reason was simple.

Competition. Recognition. Rewards. Exploration. Cooperation between the Thousand Races.

The real purpose would sit beneath all of it.

Training.

Lucien looked around the room.

"We need them to improve even if they never enter a single competitive event."

That changed the discussion immediately.

A competition alone would only benefit competitors.

Lucien wanted the entire region to function as training.

Someone who came only to watch should still leave better prepared than when they arrived.

Someone eliminated early should still gain something.

A merchant accompanying a faction should still become more accustomed to authority pressure.

Even ordinary support personnel should learn how to react when Laws became unstable.

The preserved region itself needed to teach them.

That was much harder.

It was also much more interesting.

Ideas began appearing.

Every suggestion was recorded.

Even the stupid ones.

Lootwell had a long history of turning ridiculous ideas into infrastructure.

•••

The first concept came from the Lunarians.

Authority pressure fields.

Eirene’s Stillness Palace already contained restrictions capable of suppressing Laws and lowering effective Realm expression.

The principle could be adapted.

Not to fully suppress people.

That would only teach them helplessness.

Instead, the fields could apply controlled resistance.

Mild at first.

Then stronger.

A practitioner would enter a district and feel their Law become heavier.Techniques would respond slightly slower. Domain expansion would require more effort.

Their body would gradually adapt to functioning under pressure.

Repeated exposure would make the sensation familiar.

The Grandmaster immediately saw the value.

If properly calibrated, people would stop interpreting the first signs of authority pressure as panic.

They would know what it felt like.

That alone could save lives.

The idea became the first major facility.

The Authority Resistance Fields.

Different districts would provide different intensities.

No one needed to compete.

They simply needed to spend time inside.

•••

The second concept came from Seraphine.

Mental stability.

Authority takeover was not the only danger in a war involving beings beyond ordinary comprehension.

Fear. Mental pressure. Illusions. Foreign intent. Corruption. Compulsion.

Those could destroy formations and armies before physical combat even began.

So they proposed quiet zones built around mental clarity.

The environment would introduce controlled distractions, emotional pressure, false sensory information, and weak intrusive impulses.

The participant would learn to distinguish their own intent from something entering from outside.

Seraphine wanted restorative stations nearby to prevent accumulated mental strain.

The Abbess offered Silent Monastery methods for clearing lingering foreign intent.

That became another facility.

The Clear Mind Halls.

They sounded pleasant.

They would not be pleasant.

Lucien considered that acceptable.

•••

The third idea came from Deadman.

People relied too heavily on their strongest abilities.

That needed to stop.

So another region would periodically remove something from them..

A particular sense could be obstructed.

Participants would never know beforehand what they would lose.

They would have to continue.

Fight. Navigate. Rescue someone. Complete an objective. Survive.

Deadman called it practical.

Several people called it cruel.

Lucien wrote it down immediately.

The Loss Condition Zones were approved.

•••

Aurelia suggested another problem.

Most people trained to win.

Very few trained to retreat correctly.

That mattered.

Some battles could not be won.

Some positions were no longer worth holding.

Some allies needed to be recovered before an army withdrew.

A retreat performed badly became a massacre.

So they added extraction exercises.

Participants would enter unstable areas, locate targets, preserve supplies, retrieve injured allies, and withdraw before the environment collapsed around them.

Victory would not be determined by how many enemies they killed.

It would be determined by how many people they brought home.

Lucien liked that immediately.

The Extraction Trials joined the list.

•••

Virel and Aniel suggested pressure endurance.

Some creatures could kill morale simply by arriving.

The preserved battlefield still contained impressions capable of producing that sensation.

Those impressions could be carefully exposed.

Participants would walk through regions carrying progressively stronger echoes of ancient battlefields.

Their task would be simple.

Keep moving. Maintain formation. Do not scatter. Do not panic. Do not attack hallucinations. Do not abandon the person beside you.

The concept was almost boring when described aloud.

Lucien suspected it would become one of the hardest facilities in the entire region.

They named it the Pressure March.

•••

The Grandmaster added compatibility laboratories.

The Law Interweaver had already changed how people used Laws.

But battlefield pressure would make poor combinations far more dangerous.

So the preserved region needed controlled areas where teams could test Law combinations under actual resistance.

A combination that worked beautifully in an ordinary arena might collapse when one Law was suppressed.

Another might become stronger.

Support Laws could suddenly become more important than offensive ones.

The Obsidian Collegium would record everything.

That became the Interweaving Grounds.

Researchers became excited.

Lucien suspected the competitors would eventually become even more excited.

•••

By the end of the first half of the meeting, the preserved region no longer looked like empty land on the projection.

It had begun turning into a system.

Authority Resistance Fields.

Clear Mind Halls.

Loss Condition Zones.

Extraction Trials.

Pressure Marches.

Interweaving Grounds.

Medical districts.

Rest zones.

Teleportation hubs.

The safe districts would form a massive network between the dangerous ones.

Anyone visiting the competition could move between them.

Lucien stared at the projection.

It was already better than what he had originally imagined.

And they had not even discussed the competition itself.

•••

That part became considerably louder.

The Thousand Races were competitive.

Lucien had learned that repeatedly.

There was no reason to fight that instinct.

He could use it.

The tournament would not consist of a single arena bracket.

That would waste the preserved region.

Instead, the competition would have multiple stages.

The first stage would be individual qualification.

Simple enough.

Participants would enter suppression zones.

Their Laws would be restricted gradually.

They would need to complete combat, movement, and survival objectives while maintaining control.

Speed mattered.

Accuracy mattered.

Adaptation mattered.

Raw strength mattered less than people expected.

That alone would cause arguments.

Lucien looked forward to them.

•••

The second stage would involve Law Interweaver proficiency.

Participants could use stored authorities.

But the available Laws would change.

Some rounds would allow personal preparations.

Others would assign random reservoirs.

A sword expert might suddenly receive a support Law.

A healer might receive Motion.

A defensive practitioner might be forced to work with Fragrance.

The goal was not humiliation.

Although humiliation would probably happen.

The goal was adaptability.

People needed to stop believing that only familiar power could save them.

•••

The third stage would involve teams.

Not necessarily teams from the same faction.

That part generated immediate debate.

Lucien liked it.

Mixed teams would be far more useful.

Different races. Different Laws. Different combat styles. Different personalities.

They would receive battlefield objectives.

Some missions would reward combat.

Others would punish people who fought unnecessarily.

The battlefield would decide.

That would force participants to think.

•••

The fourth stage became the most ambitious.

Large-scale battlefield simulation.

The preserved region would be divided into enormous sectors.

Hundreds or thousands of participants could enter simultaneously.

They would form armies.

Command structures would emerge.

Supply lines would matter.

Medical support would matter.

Scouts would matter.

Formation specialists would matter.

Someone with an unimpressive combat Law might become indispensable because they could maintain communication across a battlefield.

The environment itself would change.

Old battlefield impressions could emerge.

Authority pressure could rise.

Certain sectors could lose Law access.

Other sectors could become dangerous to remain inside.

Teams would need to reposition constantly.

The winning side would not necessarily be the one with the strongest fighters.

It would be the one that adapted best.

For the first time, several people around the table stopped treating the project as a tournament.

They saw what Lucien was building.

A rehearsal.

For war.

•••

They still needed to keep it entertaining.

That became another problem.

Elias solved part of it.

Scoreboards.

Public rankings.

Faction rankings.

Continental rankings.

Individual achievements.

Team achievements.

Strange accomplishments.

...

Even ridiculous achievements could exist.

That would keep people competing in areas that had nothing to do with raw combat strength.

Lucien approved immediately.

A person who could not enter the highest combat rankings might still become famous for completing an impossible rescue trial.

A healer might dominate an endurance category.

A scout might become the most valuable person in a battlefield event.

That was exactly what Lucien wanted.

Strength needed more than one definition.

•••

Then came attendance.

Lucien did not want only elite factions appearing.

That would defeat half the purpose.

So everyone began discussing incentives.

Physical rewards were easy.

Lootwell had treasures,

But those could be reserved for actual competition winners.

Attendance needed something broader.

Lucien considered giving every attendee a ninety percent discount on Lootwell products.

Kael was not present. That was fortunate.

Several administrators stared at Lucien anyway.

Vivian finally rubbed her forehead.

They adjusted the idea.

Instead of a universal discount on everything, attendees could receive temporary privileges.

Discounted entry to certain Lootwell facilities.

Reduced-price Lawroot Stabilizing Draughts.

Free basic Law Anchor inspections.

Limited Interweaver reservoir refills.

Access to public compatibility records normally requiring registration.

Transportation assistance through connected teleportation routes.

Nothing individually outrageous.

Together, they made attendance worthwhile.

And someone who wanted the truly valuable prizes could compete for them.

That solved the problem without bankrupting Kael from several continents away.

Lucien considered that another victory.

•••

The meeting continued for an entire day.

Ideas were added, removed, merged, and simplified.

By evening, the first complete outline floated above the table.

It did not look like a tournament anymore.

It looked like a temporary civilization built for training.

Lucien looked at the projection.

People would arrive thinking they were attending the greatest competition the five continents had seen in generations.

And while they were enjoying themselves, Lootwell would quietly teach them how to survive suppression, resist control, function without their strongest abilities, retreat properly, cooperate across racial lines, and fight under conditions resembling the war Lucien feared was coming.

The Grandmaster studied the projection for a long time.

"This is excessive."

Lucien looked at him.

The old man smiled.

"That is why I approve."

Several people laughed.

Lucien did too.

The preserved region had spent thousands of years holding onto the memory of one war.

Soon, the Thousand Races would fill it again.

Not to repeat that war.

To make sure they survived the next one.