100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? Chapter 746 - Grace

While Lootwell searched beyond the world, the five continents changed within it.

Lucien noticed the difference gradually.

At first, there were fewer reports of factional disputes.

Then fewer territorial confrontations.

Then several longstanding rivalries suddenly began producing joint training agreements instead of casualty lists.

It was not because everyone had become kinder.

Lucien was not that optimistic.

People had simply begun calculating differently.

A neighboring faction might have been irritating.

The Black Mass was worse.

A rival family might have stolen business twenty years ago.

A Primordial Incarnation could erase both families together.

Old grudges had not vanished.

They had become less urgent.

•••

The result was something that looked peaceful from a distance.

Lucien knew better.

This peace was loud.

Training grounds remained active from morning until night.

Forging districts never truly cooled.

Alchemy facilities increased production.

Formation masters traveled between cities reinforcing defensive nodes.

Mercenary groups practiced evacuation drills beside military units they would previously have mocked.

Young fighters exchanged techniques.

Veterans demonstrated methods that their factions once would have guarded jealously.

Rivals sparred.

Healers compared treatment protocols.

Support specialists trained beside front line combatants.

Transport organizations began mapping secondary routes in case primary teleportation hubs failed.

Warehouses expanded.

Shelters filled.

Communication networks became denser.

Everyone was moving.

Everyone was preparing.

Everyone was trying to become slightly harder to kill before the world demanded proof.

Lucien found the atmosphere strangely pleasant.

The five continents had not united because someone delivered an inspiring speech.

They had simply begun acting as though survival was a shared problem.

That was better.

•••

By now, the rumor of another great war had almost stopped being treated as a rumor.

People watched the seas.

They remembered the secret final stage of the competition.

They remembered the strange emphasis Lootwell had placed on retreating, extracting allies, preserving energy, fighting under suppression, and maintaining communication during chaos.

Eventually, enough pieces lined up that people stopped asking whether Lootwell knew something.

They started asking what they should do before whatever Lootwell knew finally arrived.

Lucien preferred that question.

He continued preparing the world from his side too.

Training facilities were strengthened.

Emergency teleportation systems were expanded.

Supply reserves were duplicated across different regions so destroying one storage site would not cripple an entire continent.

The Grace System received another major expansion.

That project eventually became much larger than Lucien originally intended.

At first, Grace Systems had been given selectively.

People with strong faith. People whose actions matched Lootwell’s principles. People who had completed certain requirements or earned recognition through Grace Quests.

That structure remained.

Lucien had no intention of flattening everything into identical access.

But the coming war created another need.

He wanted Grace coverage across as much of the five continents as possible.

Ideally, everyone.

•••

The initial method remained unchanged.

A person could receive the prompt.

But receiving the prompt was not enough.

They still needed to visit an authorized Lootwell Chapel or approved Grace location and willingly accept the connection.

If they ignored it, nothing happened.

Lucien deliberately preserved that choice.

He wanted wide adoption.

He did not want forced integration.

However, the system people received would no longer be identical.

The hierarchy became clearer.

Those with genuine faith, proven goodwill, consistent contribution, and long term alignment with the Grace System continued receiving deeper versions.

Better quests. Broader functions. More refined guidance. Higher quality rewards. Access to advanced features when appropriate.

New users who joined primarily because the world was becoming dangerous received a more limited version.

Still useful and still capable of issuing warnings, basic quests, emergency instructions, and simple rewards.

But not equivalent to the systems held by people who had spent years building trust and contribution.

Lucien considered that fair.

Grace was not supposed to mean everyone received everything equally regardless of choice or history.

It was supposed to mean people were given opportunities appropriate to what they had shown they could carry.

•••

There was also another reason Lucien wanted Grace coverage expanded so aggressively.

Communication.

The previous wars had taught him something painfully obvious.

Communication devices were useful until fighting became too intense to use them properly.

A soldier could not always stop, pull out a device, open a message, identify the sender, and read three paragraphs of instructions while something attempted to remove their head.

Even projected communication could become visible.

They could watch who received commands.

They could identify commanders by observing communication patterns.

A personalized Grace interface had none of those problems.

Only the user could see it.

Instructions could appear directly within their vision.

Short warnings could register immediately.

With deeper integration, certain commands could eventually be transmitted as simple mental prompts.

Lucien did not intend to turn the Grace System into unrestricted telepathy.

That would create an entirely different category of problems.

But battlefield communication?

That was useful.

Extremely useful.

•••

Lucien began integrating the feature gradually.

At first, only emergency notices.

Retreat. Hold position. Move toward extraction point. Barrier failure. Enemy authority detected. Medical support requested.

Simple commands that needed to be understood instantly.

Then came squad level communication.

A commander could send authorized instructions to people registered under the same battlefield group.

Support specialists could report resource shortages.

Scouts could mark danger zones.

Healers could request evacuation assistance without shouting across a battlefield.

The messages remained private unless deliberately shared.

An enemy standing one step away might never realize that an entire formation had just received the same order.

Lucien liked that very much.

The Black Mass had spent long enough exploiting confusion.

Lootwell could exploit coordination.

•••

The wider Grace expansion created another unexpected consequence.

Clara became terrifying again.

Lucien should have expected it.

For some time, Clara had been forced to balance faith expansion with politics, regional sensitivities, ancient traditions, and Lucien’s repeated reminders that converting an entire continent before breakfast was socially questionable.

Now Lucien had effectively told her that Grace coverage should expand as widely as possible.

He had only added one condition.

"Convert anyone suitable."

Clara had stared at him.

Lucien realized the mistake approximately two seconds later.

•••

The woman who emerged from that conversation reminded Lucien strongly of Clara during Lootwell’s earliest days in his origin small world.

Her schedule expanded.

Her chapel visits multiplied.

Her sermons became frighteningly efficient.

Her Grace recruitment teams started appearing in towns, cities, shelters, training centers, trade districts, military camps, medical facilities, and places Lucien was fairly certain had not been marked on any official expansion map the previous evening.

More people accepted Grace Systems.

Then more.

Then entire communities began visiting chapels together.

Clara did not need to force them.

The approaching war had already prepared the ground.

She simply gave fear a structure.

Help others. Train. Prepare. Contribute. Receive guidance. Receive protection. Become useful before the crisis arrives.

It was an extremely effective message.

Lucien could not even complain about the logic.

•••

The increased faith reached him steadily.

Divine energy flowed into his Divine Energy Core.

The inner realm expanded.

The Tree of Creation absorbed part of that nourishment.

The worlds inside him benefited from the richer environment.

The newly recovered small worlds, in particular, continued flourishing under conditions far beyond the limits they had once known.

Energy thickened.

World ceilings loosened.

Life grew more vigorously.

The effects accumulated slowly enough that ordinary inhabitants still did not understand the true reason their worlds were changing.

Lucien was comfortable leaving it that way for now.

He had enough people discovering impossible truths already.

•••

Clara’s success continued.

Lucien eventually stopped restricting her expansion directly.

That may have been another mistake.

She looked happier.

That worried him.

Not because Clara being happy was bad.

Because Clara being happy while holding unrestricted permission to spread Grace across five continents historically produced paperwork, temples, unexpected doctrines, and at least one theological development Lucien would discover only after it had already become tradition.

Still, the results were undeniable.

Grace coverage increased. Faith increased. Coordination improved. People became easier to warn.

Lootwell’s ability to organize the five continents deepened without requiring direct political control over every faction.

Lucien watched the reports accumulate and finally sighed.

A little suffering now for a better future was acceptable.

Probably.

He only hoped Clara remembered that conversion and brainwashing were supposed to remain different professions.

Somewhere far away, another chapel bell rang.

Lucien looked toward the sound through the connection of faith.

Then another rang.

Then another.

Across the five continents, training grounds remained full.

Forge fires burned.

Formation lights spread over cities.

Voidcraft crossed the darkness beyond the world searching for traces of Creation.

Small worlds rested within Lucien’s Divine Energy Core.

His pets refined new power.

The Grace network continued expanding.

For the first time in a very long while, the world looked almost peaceful.

Lucien knew better.

This was not peace.

It was a world sharpening itself before the blade arrived.