100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? Chapter 726 - Synergy

The first teams entered cautiously.

That caution lasted.

Nobody laughed when the echoes moved.

A team from the western continent reached the first control point just as one member’s Law was suppressed.

He immediately drew upon two stored Laws and interwove them, using one to stabilize his body and the other to hold the activation formation together while his teammates intercepted the incoming echo.

There was no hesitation long enough to matter.

That pleased Lucien.

Another team reacted differently.

Two members tried to preserve their original Laws for too long.

They succeeded for several seconds.

Then their control broke at almost the same time.

The team recovered, but the delay cost them the first control point.

Nobody watching needed an explanation.

The lesson was obvious.

Knowing when to stop forcing a compromised Law mattered just as much as knowing how to use the Interweaver afterward.

•••

The trial grew more interesting at the relay stations.

In the beacon stage, relay points had been safe enough for teams to pause briefly and replenish their reservoirs.

That luxury disappeared.

The final-stage relay formations could still recharge Interweavers efficiently, but the battlefield did not stop while people used them.

Teams had to create their own opportunity.

One member might hold back an echo.

Another might stabilize a control point.

A third would refill depleted reservoirs.

The fourth had to decide whether helping with the recharge was worth leaving another position exposed.

That was where some highly ranked teams began falling apart.

They had excellent individual Interweaver control.

Their coordination under pressure was weaker.

Other groups improved.

One team deliberately rotated which member received protection while recharging, ensuring that no single Law source became unavailable for too long.

Another stopped trying to keep every reservoir full and instead maintained only the combinations they had already proven useful against their assigned echo.

The best teams rarely looked spectacular.

They simply kept having an answer when something went wrong.

Lucien found those much more interesting.

•••

Then the first genuine surprise appeared.

A team reached the second control point while three members had their original Laws suppressed.

For most groups, that would have forced a retreat toward the nearest relay station.

They continued forward.

The three participants drew from different reservoirs and began interweaving what remained available.

Their combinations were not identical.

One relied on Motion and Stone.

Another used Mist with Water.

The third combined a defensive Law with a support Law that had barely attracted attention during the beacon stage.

The important part was not the combinations themselves.

It was that the team kept functioning even though almost none of them were fighting in the way they normally would.

The audience became noticeably quieter.

That was closer to what Lucien had been preparing them for from the beginning.

Not perfect performance, but the ability to remain useful after the battlefield took away what they trusted most.

The team eventually lost one member to extraction before reaching the final core.

They still completed the stage.

Their ranking rose sharply.

•••

The Primordial echoes exposed another problem as well.

Some reservoir combinations that had performed beautifully against constructs became awkward under genuine authority interference.

The Obsidian Collegium noticed immediately.

A Stable combination used by one race remained smooth.

The same pairing inside another body structure consumed significantly more authority when the echo’s pressure intensified.

Elsewhere, a Conditional combination that had seemed inefficient during ordinary battlefield testing suddenly became extremely useful when one Law helped stabilize the other beneath suppression.

Researchers began updating records before the round had even finished.

Lucien watched the data accumulate.

This was exactly why controlled competition mattered.

Theoretical compatibility could only reveal so much.

Real bodies under real pressure revealed the rest.

•••

The spectators were learning alongside them.

The first time a Primordial Incarnation echo appeared, many ordinary observers had stiffened.

Some remembered the Echo Crucible.

Others simply reacted to the authority contained within the projection.

Lucien allowed a faint portion of that pressure to reach the observation districts.

Nothing dangerous.

Only enough to make the atmosphere heavier.

Even those who never touched an Interweaver were becoming more comfortable beneath pressure that once would have frightened them.

The ancient dragons noticed that too.

So did the Millennia War era beasts.

Several watched the competitors more seriously after that.

They understood what Lucien was doing.

Nobody needed to say it aloud.

•••

The final rounds moved quickly.

There were too many classifications for every result to receive public attention, so the projection network focused on meaningful performances rather than famous names.

Some powerful teams failed because they spent too much authority fighting the echoes instead of activating control points.

Others ignored the echoes completely and discovered that doing so could be just as foolish when the pressure became too strong.

The best teams found the balance.

They resisted when necessary.

Withdrew when appropriate.

Recharged before reaching desperation.

Merged reservoir Laws when the combination genuinely solved a problem.

And abandoned combinations that consumed more authority than they were worth.

By then, the audience understood enough to appreciate those decisions.

A clean retreat could receive as much applause as a spectacular attack.

A perfectly timed recharge sometimes earned louder cheers than defeating an echo.

The competition had changed what people were watching for.

That was another victory Lucien had never placed on any ranking board.

•••

By evening, the final Interweaving Trial ended.

The last central cores closed.

The remaining teams were extracted from their sectors.

The echoes disappeared.

Then the rankings updated across the preserved region.

Placement boards appeared within each competition classification.

Achievement boards followed.

Some of the teams that had dominated the beacon stage remained near the top.

Others fell once Primordial authority entered the battlefield.

A few teams that had seemed merely competent earlier suddenly became exceptional.

That interested Lucien most.

Pressure had revealed qualities ordinary competition never would have shown.

•••

Vivian appeared above the projection formations once the results stabilized.

"The Interweaving Trial has concluded."

The response was loud.

Not quite as chaotic as the opening ceremony.

People had become accustomed to enormous announcements by now.

Vivian continued.

"All placements and achievement results are available through the communication network. Rewards earned during this stage have been recorded and will be distributed after the Grand Intercontinental Competition concludes."

The boards shifted behind her.

"Participants who did not place may continue using the Interweaving Grounds during designated training periods."

That announcement received almost as much interest as the rankings.

Many teams already knew exactly what they wanted to practice again.

Some wanted better reservoir discipline.

Others wanted to test combinations they had discovered during the competition.

Several wanted another chance against Primordial echoes.

Lucien had expected that.

Failure had become useful again.

•••

The following days proved it.

The Interweaving Grounds remained busy even though the official trial had ended.

Teams returned voluntarily.

Some changed members and discovered that completely different Law combinations emerged from a new group of four.

Craftsmen adjusted custom Interweavers based on problems revealed during the trial.

The Obsidian Collegium published updated compatibility guidance.

Several racial variants received minor improvements.

Factions began incorporating reservoir management into ordinary training instead of treating the Interweaver as an emergency artifact.

The device had already been famous before the competition.

Now its use was becoming more disciplined.

That distinction mattered.

•••

Lucien reviewed the final records from the central platform.

The Interweaving Trial had produced far more than rankings.

The registry was better.

Public designs had been tested under conditions no workshop could reproduce safely.

Thousands of teams had practiced continuing after their original Laws were suppressed.

Observers had become more accustomed to authority pressure.

And capable people had revealed themselves in ways individual rankings never could.

Most importantly, something had changed in the participants’ reactions.

During the first stages, suppression still made some people instinctively fight to recover their original Law.

By the end, experienced teams reacted differently.

They recognized the pressure.

They judged whether forcing their Law was worth it.

If it was not, they withdrew from it and reached for the reservoirs immediately.

Sometimes one stored Law was enough.

Sometimes two or more compatible reservoir Laws were interwoven to replace what had been lost.

Then they continued.

That habit was the real reward.

Lucien looked toward the Interweaving Grounds as the final official formations began shutting down.

The Thousand Races had entered believing this stage would teach them how well they could use borrowed power.

Instead, they had learned something more useful.

Losing access to one Law no longer meant losing the battle with it.

And now that Lootwell had taught them how to keep fighting when their own strength was taken away, the next stages could begin teaching them something even harder.

How to bring everyone else home.