100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? Chapter 707 - Progress

A month passed.

Lucien had expected the preserved region to change quickly.

He had not expected more than half of the entire construction to be finished.

Even he paused when Lilith sent him the latest consolidated progress report.

The original estimate had been three months.

With Lucien personally joining the formation work, Lilith had believed they could shorten that to two months.

Now, after only a month, the numbers were beginning to suggest that even her revised estimate had been conservative.

Lucien was pleased.

The outsiders were considerably more disturbed.

•••

Solar Concordium had spent countless years organizing intercontinental competitions.

The scholars of the Obsidian Collegium had participated in projects that took generations to perfect.

The Silent Monastery had structures older than many kingdoms.

They understood large-scale construction.

At least, they thought they did.

Then they worked beside Lootwell.

After the first month, several of them finally understood how Lootwell had spread across the five continents so quickly.

It had not even taken a year for Lootwell’s presence to become difficult to avoid.

Now they were seeing the reason firsthand.

The preserved region was enormous, but it was still only one region.

Lootwell had brought some of its best people together and allowed them to work without restraint.

The result was frighteningly efficient.

Work that would normally take years was measured in months.

Things that should have required weeks sometimes disappeared from the schedule in a day.

It was not simply because Lootwell had more workers.

The people themselves were unusual.

Their Laws were even stranger.

And among all the things the outsiders needed time to accept, one particular creature became everyone’s favorite source of disbelief.

Morphy.

•••

The Mimic Slime was everywhere.

Sometimes literally.

Solar Concordium first became interested when Morphy copied him.

Appearance was one thing.

Then the slime reproduced his Law of Combat.

Solar Concordium stopped what he was doing.

Morphy cheerfully tested one of the restriction fields using the copied Law.

The result was annoyingly useful.

Solar Concordium had spent years developing an instinct for how restrictions changed actual combat.

Morphy could temporarily reproduce that perspective and test the opposite side of a formation at the same time.

That already made him an excellent partner for refining combat restrictions.

Then Morphy used Split Bodies.

The outsiders watched as several Morphys scattered across the construction site.

One copied Solar Concordium.

Another assisted Anvil-Horn.

Another became a scholar formation specialist.

Several more took the appearances and abilities of craftsmen they had been working beside.

For a while, the preserved region contained what appeared to be an entire workforce composed of familiar experts.

The Obsidian Collegium scholars took longer than most to recover.

They understood what they were seeing.

Understanding did not make it less ridiculous.

Slimes had disappeared from the Big World long ago.

Watching Morphy casually become half a construction team was a very direct reminder of just how much the world had forgotten about what slimes were capable of.

Eventually, everyone adjusted.

Then they learned Lucien could split himself too.

Their adjustment period started again.

Lucien chose not to comment.

•••

Morphy was hardly the only reason the construction moved so quickly.

Marie, Kaia, Sylra, and Marina saved them an enormous amount of wasted work.

The four elemental women and the spirits had become the eyes of the entire construction site.

They could feel disturbances long before ordinary workers noticed them.

If excavation approached a buried battlefield impression, the earth spirits knew.

If an old waterway shifted because a preserved memory had begun reacting, Marina’s spirits found it.

Changes in atmospheric pressure, strange winds, sudden heat, dormant elemental traces, and subtle movements beneath the ground were reported almost immediately.

Several potentially expensive mistakes were prevented before the first tool touched the wrong place.

More importantly, injuries were rare.

Anyone drifting toward an unsafe route usually found a spirit blocking the way.

Some were polite about it.

Others were not.

One worker ignored a warning from an earth spirit and tried to continue through a restricted section.

The ground simply rose in front of him until a wall blocked the path.

He turned around.

The spirit looked pleased.

Lucien considered the matter resolved.

•••

Lilith and Seren’s side of the construction attracted a different kind of attention.

Mostly because people struggled to understand how they were working so quickly.

Seren’s evolved Law was absurdly convenient for construction.

Her skill: Essence Shift also solved problems that would normally require removing entire sections and rebuilding them.

If a foundation lacked a necessary property, Seren could transfer that property from a more suitable material.

A brittle component could gain greater flexibility.

A section lacking sufficient resistance could inherit the needed quality from something stronger.

Even certain mistakes could be corrected without tearing everything apart, provided the underlying structure had not been completely ruined.

Then there was her Concordant Forging.

Material. Heat. Pressure. Structure. Purpose.

The Law brought them into agreement.

Instead of forcing craftsmen to spend hours correcting tiny incompatibilities between components, Seren could help the materials settle into the state the design actually required.

The first time several Obsidian Collegium scholars watched her repair a troublesome foundation in minutes, they went silent.

The second time, they started taking notes.

By the tenth, they had stopped pretending this was normal.

Lilith was worse. Or better.

No one could decide.

The simplest description anyone managed was that she was fast.

Work that should have required prolonged forging sometimes ended after only a few breaths.

Components moved through her hands with almost unreasonable efficiency.

Metal changed shape.

Structures locked together.

Internal patterns aligned.

Before observers finished understanding what she had started doing, Lilith was already checking the finished result.

Yet nothing looked rushed.

Every surface was clean.

Every connection was deliberate.

Every finished structure carried the unmistakable pride of someone who considered poor craftsmanship personally offensive.

Solar Concordium watched her work once.

He said nothing afterward.

Lucien understood.

Some things were easier to accept without discussion.

•••

Construction continued.

So did the reports arriving from outside.

Registration for the Grand Intercontinental Competition had officially opened.

The response was immediate.

Then it grew.

And kept growing.

Lootwell branches across the five continents began receiving applications from factions, independent practitioners, academies, kingdoms, clans, guilds, and organizations Lucien had never even heard of.

The first announcement had already created interest.

The next one made things worse.

At Lucien’s instruction, Lootwell released the attendance benefits.

People did not even need to win.

Registered attendees would gain access to temporary event privileges.

People who completed basic training requirements would also receive commemorative rewards.

That was enough to tempt people who had never seriously considered competing.

Then Lootwell revealed part of the winner’s reward pool.

Not everything.

Lucien was not foolish enough to announce every treasure in advance.

But several names were enough.

[Life Link Talisman]

[Everlasting Meridian Pearl]

[Adaptive Bastion Mantle]

And the announcement confirmed that better rewards would also be available for exceptional performances.

The five continents stirred.

•••

The response became much larger after that.

Major factions began registering official teams.

Smaller organizations hurried to assemble their best members.

Independent experts who normally ignored public competitions suddenly became interested.

Several reclusive practitioners sent representatives to the nearest Lootwell branches simply to confirm that the rewards were real.

They were.

That caused another wave of registrations.

Even people without communication devices eventually heard.

Rumors moved along merchant roads, through cities, across ports, and into isolated settlements.

The details became increasingly exaggerated the farther they traveled, but the important parts survived.

Lootwell was hosting a competition.

Anyone could try.

Simply attending had benefits.

Winning could earn treasures most people would never encounter in their lifetime.

That was enough.

The actual structure of the competition had not even been fully released yet.

People were already training for it.

•••

Something else changed as the excitement spread.

The theories surrounding Lootwell began to weaken.

For weeks, some people had wondered whether the Law Interweaver, Law Anchor, Lawroot Stabilizing Draught, Echo Crucible, and other recent developments meant Lootwell was preparing the world for some approaching catastrophe.

The Grand Intercontinental Competition offered a much more comfortable explanation.

Perhaps Lootwell had simply been preparing for this.

To many people, the pieces suddenly seemed to fit.

If Lootwell truly expected another world-shaking war, would it really spend this much effort organizing a competition?

That argument spread quickly.

The more nervous theories began fading.

Not completely.

Some people still thought Lootwell knew something.

The competition itself looked far too practical to dismiss every suspicion.

But those voices were drowned beneath a much louder concern.

Registration. Rewards. Rankings.

For now, people preferred something exciting to something frightening.

Lucien read the reports and smiled.

That was not the result he had originally planned for.

But it was useful.

The world was preparing itself while becoming less afraid of why.

He could accept that.

•••

More time passed.

The preserved region changed every day.

Half-finished structures became complete facilities.

Formation lines spread beneath mountains and valleys.

Observation towers rose above ancient ruins.

Clear Mind Halls settled quietly between restored waterways.

Authority Resistance Fields formed enormous controlled districts.

The Interweaving Grounds filled with monitoring structures.

Battlefield sectors were divided, connected, and reinforced.

Teleportation hubs linked the safe districts together.

The spirits continued watching.

The craftsmen continued building.

The scholars continued recording.

And gradually, there was less left to do.

Until one day, Lucien heard the report they had been waiting for.

The last ordinary formation layer had been completed.

The physical structures were finished.

Every major facility had passed its structural inspection.

The safety networks were connected.

The preserved battlefield impressions remained stable.

Lucien stood high above the region and looked down.

For the first time, there were no unfinished foundations below him.

The construction was complete.

Lucien’s gaze moved across the enormous network beneath the land.

Everything necessary was finally in place. Which meant the last part could begin.

The part that no craftsman, monk, scholar, or formation master could do for him.

The final authority layering.

Lucien slowly descended toward the central formation core.

This time, the work belonged to him.