100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? Chapter 743 - Parents

Luke and Cienna had changed more than Lucien expected.

Both had recently entered the Eternal Realm.

That alone would have been enough to make the visit memorable.

What they told him afterward made Lucien go still.

The sensation had returned during their breakthroughs.

That distant pull.

The same inexplicable connection they had felt before had become clearer the moment they crossed into Eternal.

This time, it had not stopped with a vague sense of direction.

Knowledge had entered their minds.

It was neither a memory nor a voice.

It felt closer to an instruction imprinted directly into their understanding.

Their Laws were still incomplete. To become whole, they needed to be anchored to something beyond the Big World.

Luke and Cienna could still feel it even now.

A distant place.

Something vast enough that neither could properly describe it, yet familiar enough that their Laws seemed to recognize it instinctively.

They could feel that a path existed between themselves and that place.

They simply could not reach through it.

Their authority was not enough.

Lucien listened without interrupting.

He already knew what they were describing.

The Primordial Space.

That was where the Primordials existed.

Beings whose Laws were not merely powerful expressions of universal principles, but the original authorities embodying them.

And Luke and Cienna occupied an unusual position among them.

Luke was the first bearer of the Law of Skills.

Cienna was the first bearer of the Law of Magic.

Their Laws had not descended from some older source.

They were the beginning.

By that definition, the two of them were already Primordials of their respective Laws.

Apparently, that was not enough.

The universe itself seemed to require another step.

Their Laws had to be anchored to the Primordial Space before that status became complete.

Lucien found the implication fascinating.

It also made him uneasy.

He knew far too little about that place.

The Primordial Space might be the natural destination of beings like Luke and Cienna.

That did not make it safe.

Several Primordials were already enemies.

Others remained unknown.

Sending two newly advanced Eternals into a place occupied by entities with incomparably greater authority sounded like a poor experiment.

The more troubling part was that Luke and Cienna were apparently being invited there by the universe itself.

They simply lacked enough authority to answer.

For now.

•••

Lucien’s curiosity immediately created several more questions.

If Luke and Cienna eventually managed to enter the Primordial Space, he wanted to see it himself.

Preferably without being noticed by anything unpleasant.

But the opportunity was too important to ignore.

There was still too much about Primordial authority that Lucien did not understand.

The Space itself might answer questions that no surviving records could.

Then there were the branched Laws.

Lucien thought about his own evolved authorities and those carried by others.

None of them had ever felt this pull.

That difference probably mattered.

Luke and Cienna’s Laws were originals.

The branched Laws were deviations that had separated from an existing authority and become independent.

Perhaps the Primordial Space did not recognize them in the same way.

Or perhaps recognition required something else.

Lucien considered another possibility.

A branched Law might need to grow until its authority could genuinely contend with the original Law from which it diverged.

That could mean matching the original comprehension.

It might even require surpassing it.

Only then would the universe treat the deviation as something worthy of being anchored separately.

Lucien frowned.

That was only a theory.

The problem was that almost everything surrounding the Primordial Space was still theory.

He sighed.

There was far too much he still did not know.

That was becoming an annoyingly familiar problem.

Lucien eventually gave Luke and Cienna the only instruction that made sense.

They were not to follow the pull recklessly.

If the sensation strengthened, changed, or began drawing them away physically, they needed to tell him immediately.

Lucien had no interest in discovering afterward that his parents had suddenly vanished into the Primordial Space.

Especially if some ancient Primordial decided that two newly recognized Laws looked easy to intimidate.

If necessary, Lucien could bring them into his Divine Energy Core and see whether separating them from the Big World weakened or severed the connection.

He did not know whether that would work.

He hoped he would not need to test it.

For now, the path remained distant enough that neither Luke nor Cienna could actually reach it.

There was no immediate danger.

Lucien allowed himself to relax.

The rest of the visit became considerably more ordinary.

He stayed with them for a while, ate with them, listened to the familiar arguments that somehow survived every increase in realm and authority, and deliberately avoided turning the entire evening into another discussion about the universe.

For a few hours, Luke and Cienna were simply his parents again.

Lucien appreciated that more than he said.

•••

Not long afterward, he visited another pair of parents.

Vivian came with him.

Their destination was the South.

Virel and Aniel had been spending much of their time there, working alongside the Silent Monastery.

The arrangement had become surprisingly productive.

The Celestials possessed extensive knowledge of healing, enhancement, purification, and support techniques developed through their own traditions.

The Silent Monastery possessed records stretching back into eras most modern factions knew only through fragments.

They had begun exchanging what each side lacked.

Old medical principles were being compared with modern Celestial techniques.

Forgotten methods were being tested again.

Buffing, recovery, stabilization, and battlefield support had all benefited from the cooperation.

Lucien approved of the partnership.

He also suspected Virel and Aniel were enjoying having work that did not involve carrying the entire Celestial Race on their shoulders every waking moment.

Vivian needed something similar.

Lucien glanced at her as they traveled.

She had been busy almost continuously since the competition.

Lootwell had expanded too much for the organization to ever truly become quiet, and Vivian had somehow developed the habit of appearing wherever the most annoying administrative problem happened to be.

Lucien had begun suspecting that she knew more about Lootwell’s daily operations than he did.

That was probably because she did.

So he had insisted she come with him.

As far as Lucien was concerned, this visit counted as rest.

Vivian had disagreed until Lucien reminded her that arguing about whether she deserved a break was consuming time that could have been spent taking one.

She stopped arguing after that.

Mostly.

•••

Virel and Aniel noticed them before they arrived properly.

Both Celestials smiled.

That expression alone changed the atmosphere around them.

They had existed for millennia.

They had led their people.

They had endured losses, responsibilities, and stretches of history long enough to make ordinary lifetimes seem brief.

Yet whenever Lucien and Vivian came to visit together, something about them softened.

Perhaps it reminded them of the small world.

Back then, everything had been simpler.

Their lives had been smaller.

They had not carried the Celestial Race.

They had simply lived together.

Lucien had often thought there was something strange about how easily those memories could survive everything that came afterward.

Now that Virel and Aniel had returned fully to the Big World, their old responsibilities had returned with them.

The Celestial Race looked to them again.

Decisions involving thousands of years of history could end up resting on their shoulders.

Even peaceful days came with obligations.

Lucien had done what he could to lighten that burden.

Lootwell handled problems the Celestials once would have faced alone.

Resources arrived more easily.

Information moved faster.

Threats could be shared.

Virel and Aniel no longer had to carry everything simply because they were the strongest people available.

Lucien considered that part of being filial.

He suspected they considered it unnecessary.

He did it anyway.

•••

For the rest of the visit, none of them discussed anything particularly important.

Vivian relaxed enough to stop checking messages every few minutes.

Aniel prepared food despite having access to people who could have done it for her.

Virel asked Lucien questions that had nothing to do with Laws, Primordials, Tidewatch, or the coming war.

Lucien answered them.

At some point, Vivian began laughing at something Aniel said, and Virel’s expression softened further.

For a while, the four of them sat together without anyone needing anything from them.

There were only two parents and the two children they had once known in another world.

Lucien looked at Virel and Aniel and realized how rare moments like this had become.

He did not know how long the peace would last.

That only made it more valuable.

So for once, Lucien did not hurry toward the next problem.

He stayed.