100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? Chapter 716 - Last Day

Something else began happening.

At first, the signs were scattered.

A mountain range in the northern continent trembled without any earthquake.

Deep beneath it, an enormous pair of eyes opened for the first time in thousands of years.

Across another continent, an ancient lake that had remained perfectly still for generations suddenly began producing waves despite the absence of wind.

Something vast moved beneath it.

Within an old forest untouched by any kingdom, creatures that had slept beneath roots older than recorded history began stirring.

In deserts, frozen valleys, volcanic caverns, buried ruins, and places ordinary people had long forgotten, ancient presences slowly awakened.

The dragons had not been the only creatures that survived the Millennia War.

They had merely been among the most famous.

Long ago, powerful beasts had fought beside humanity and the other races when the Black Mass first threatened the world.

After the war, many withdrew.

Some were wounded. Some grew tired of civilization. Others simply chose to sleep until the world needed them again.

Now they were waking.

Not because anyone had summoned them.

Not because Lootwell had issued an invitation.

They had felt something.

The ancient dragons were moving.

Old powers were gathering.

The world itself seemed restless.

Across the continents, descendants and lesser kin felt the changes first.

Bloodlines stirred.

Old instincts awakened.

Some began traveling toward ancestral territories without understanding why.

Others looked toward the Middle Continent.

Toward the preserved region where more and more of the Thousand Races were gathering every day.

The first reports reached Lucien late at night.

He read one, then several more.

Ancient beasts awakening across multiple continents.

Creatures whose last confirmed appearances dated back to the Millennia War.

Lucien slowly lowered the communication device.

The competition had not even begun.

Yet somehow, it was already drawing the attention of things that had ignored the world for thousands of years.

He looked out across the preserved region.

Lights stretched between mountains as arriving factions filled the safe districts.

Far above them, the night remained calm.

But Lucien no longer thought the world itself was calm.

The Thousand Races could feel it now, even if most of them could not explain why.

Something was changing.

Old enemies were reconsidering their choices.

Old kin were finding one another again.

And across the five continents, powers that had slept through entire eras were beginning to open their eyes.

The world had not yet gone to war.

But more of its ancient defenders were starting to remember that they once had.

•••

The awakening of the ancient beasts did not slow the gathering.

If anything, it made the preserved region even busier.

The remaining days before the competition were officially treated as an arrival and settlement period, and Lootwell used every one of them.

Teleportation hubs remained active from morning until night.

Long-distance formations opened in carefully managed intervals, sending out waves of participants, faction delegations, scholars, craftsmen, merchants, healers, escorts, and spectators.

Some arrived in organized groups carrying banners large enough to be seen from several districts away.

Others came alone with little more than a weapon, a registration token, and the hope that they would somehow distinguish themselves.

The safe districts began filling faster than the administrators had originally projected.

Fortunately, the preparations held.

Faction compounds accepted their assigned occupants.

Shared residences opened in sequence.

Medical stations remained staffed.

Merchant districts expanded into temporary streets of stalls and workshops.

Information boards changed constantly as new arrivals were assigned routes, quarters, training access, and competition schedules.

Lucien had worried that the gathering itself might become the first trial.

It nearly did.

The Thousand Races had never been particularly good at appearing in enormous numbers without eventually finding something to argue about.

This time, however, something unusual happened.

The Nephralis and Varkhaal Sects volunteered to help.

That announcement produced a reaction almost as strange as their apology had.

Formerly feared experts began standing beside Lootwell administrators and directing arriving groups toward the correct districts.

Nephralis assisted with crowd control around the busiest teleportation hubs.

Varkhaal experts helped move supplies and reinforce temporary holding areas whenever traffic became heavier than expected.

Some even helped settle disputes before the Lootwell guards needed to intervene.

The sight was difficult to process.

Several visitors stared openly.

Others whispered.

One group of younger participants nearly walked into the wrong district because they were too busy watching a Varkhaal Eternal calmly explain lodging rules to a merchant delegation.

Nobody said anything aloud.

They had all learned the same lesson after spending enough time inside Lootwell territory.

Whatever happened elsewhere, people behaved properly here.

Even ancient grudges were expected to wait their turn.

The Nephralis and Varkhaals seemed to understand that better than most.

Their expressions did not always suggest enthusiasm.

A few of them looked as though every polite sentence cost them something precious.

Still, they worked.

The Red Dragon monitored them closely enough that nobody wanted to discover what would happen if they did not.

Lucien noticed the Thousand Races slowly stop staring.

That was probably progress.

Not trust.

But perhaps the first stage of becoming ordinary enough that people no longer needed to watch every movement.

•••

Then the beasts began arriving.

That caused a very different kind of disturbance.

The first few were not particularly shocking.

Powerful beast clans had always existed across the continents, and several had already registered for the competition.

Then larger presences began appearing.

A massive avian beast descended outside one of the western arrival hubs with wings wide enough to cast an entire plaza into shadow.

A horned creature covered in ancient stone-like scales arrived from the north accompanied by dozens of smaller descendants.

Later, an enormous serpentine beast emerged from a teleportation formation that had been widened specifically to accommodate its body.

That was when people started paying attention.

These were not ordinary clans arriving for entertainment.

Some of the newcomers carried bloodlines old enough that even the dragons acknowledged them.

Others belonged to lineages that had appeared in records from the Millennia War and almost nowhere else afterward.

The atmosphere of the preserved region changed again.

Ancient races had arrived.

Eternals had arrived.

Now old beast lineages were joining them.

The competition was becoming less like an event and more like a gathering of the world itself.

Lucien knew the beasts had not simply heard about the rewards.

At least, not all of them.

Ancient beasts possessed their own networks.

Some used bloodline resonance.

Others communicated through ancestral territories, instinctive calls, inherited marks, or methods ordinary races had never fully understood.

The Red Dragon had spoken with several of them before.

Lucien did not need to ask what subject had spread.

Extinction Grade. That single phrase was enough.

Ancient beings who had spent thousands of years sitting near the limits of their existence did not ignore news that someone might have found a path beyond them.

The fact that Astraea and the others were already preparing made the rumor even harder to dismiss.

Lucien had expected curiosity.

He had not expected quite so many ancient eyes to turn toward Lootwell at once.

Still, he did not rush to meet them.

There was no need.

Ancient beasts understood other ancient beasts better than he did.

So Lucien allowed Astraea, and the others to receive them first.

Some reunions were warm.

Others began with long silences.

Several looked like they might become fights before both sides remembered where they were.

Lootwell guards quietly increased their distance whenever that happened.

Lucien considered it sensible.

A gathering of ancient beasts was probably one of the few situations where professional courage and unnecessary stupidity could look very similar.

The important thing was that they stayed. They spoke. They compared what they had sensed across the world.

And inevitably, they asked about Extinction Grade.

Lucien still refused to turn it into a grand announcement.

He could have explained the theories.

But words would always leave room for doubt.

Ancient beings had survived too long to believe promises simply because someone spoke confidently.

Lucien preferred something better.

Proof.

Astraea was already approaching the point where that proof would become impossible to deny.

When the moment came, Lucien intended to let the ancient beasts watch.

No exaggerated explanation would be needed.

They would see an existence they recognized step beyond the boundary they had spent ages staring at.

After that, the conversation would become much easier.

Until then, Lucien let them wonder.

•••

The remaining days passed beneath an increasingly strange atmosphere.

The preserved region filled until nearly every major district carried the colors, banners, insignias, or cultural markings of different factions.

The teleportation hubs rarely rested.

From the observation towers, the crowds sometimes looked like flowing rivers moving between mountains.

One stream might contain armored warriors from a northern kingdom.

Another carried robed researchers from the Obsidian Collegium.

Beast clans crossed paths with Alloykins.

Lunarians passed merchants bargaining loudly over temporary stalls.

Slimes moved through the crowds without anyone treating them as harmless decorations anymore.

The world had learned better.

Even the spirits occasionally appeared along the boundaries, silently watching the enormous gathering occupying land that had once been avoided by nearly everyone.

The preserved region no longer felt dead.

That transformation became clearer with every passing day.

Where generations had once seen only an abandoned scar of the Millennia War, there were now lights between mountains, voices in old valleys, formations stretching across ruined terrain, and countless races preparing beside one another.

The past had not been erased.

It had simply stopped being the only thing the region represented.

Lootwell had turned it into something else.

A place where the world could practice surviving its future.

•••

Lucien spent most of the gathering period moving between the central authority network and the different districts.

The preparations remained surprisingly stable.

There were disputes, of course.

There were always disputes.

A disagreement over training access nearly became a duel until both participants discovered that the nearest Lootwell guard had already been watching them for several minutes.

A beast clan complained that its assigned residence was too small.

The administrators moved them to a larger one after confirming that several members genuinely could not fit through the original entrances.

One merchant attempted to triple prices during peak arrival hours.

The surrounding merchants became angry enough that Lootwell never needed to intervene.

Apparently, market competition was capable of enforcing morality when sufficiently irritated.

Despite everything, the system held.

That mattered more than perfection.

By the final week, the great movement across the continents began slowing.

Most registered participants had arrived.

Late delegations were still appearing, but the largest waves were finished.

The safe districts were full.

The training grounds were active.

The observation towers continuously recorded activity.

Medical teams remained ready.

Judges and officials began moving into their assigned positions.

The Interweaver reservoirs were sealed according to event categories.

The ranking network passed its final integrity test.

The preserved battlefield impressions remained stable inside their sectors.

Lucien felt all of it through the authority network.

And beneath everything, he could sense the gathering itself.

•••

On the final evening before the opening ceremony, the preserved region became strangely calm.

Most participants had already settled into their districts.

Training facilities entered temporary restriction while final checks were completed.

Merchants closed earlier than usual.

Judges received their last assignments.

Even the teleportation hubs slowed.

Lucien stood above the central plateau again.

This time, the sight below him was completely different.

The empty lights he had watched weeks earlier now surrounded countless living presences.

For the first time, Lucien truly understood the scale of what was about to happen.

The Grand Intercontinental Competition had begun as a disguise.

Now it had become something larger than the disguise itself.

The Thousand Races had gathered willingly.

Ancient enemies stood within the same territory.

Old defenders had awakened.

Formerly isolated powers were speaking again.

Everyone had arrived for different reasons, yet for once they were facing the same direction.

Lucien looked toward the ancient battlefield beyond the illuminated districts.

Thousands of years ago, this land had preserved the memory of a world nearly destroyed by war.

Tomorrow, it would begin preparing that world to fight differently.

The thought made him smile.

The competition was finally ready to begin.

And before it ended, the Thousand Races would learn just how much stronger they could become together.