100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? Chapter 764 - Training

Lucien eventually left the training grounds and moved toward another region of the small world.

His pets had gathered there.

They remained younger than most of the ancient beasts, but age had become an increasingly useless measure around Lootwell.

Especially when slimes were involved.

Skittles occupied the center of the group with the natural confidence of a creature that had somehow accumulated six Laws and still behaved as though this were perfectly normal.

Oreo and Nyxis remained nearby, their respective authorities of Eclipse and Cosmic having become increasingly refined.

The other pets who had eaten Fruits of Creation had also changed significantly.

Their bodies, Laws, and potential had all improved, though not in identical ways.

Lucien had deliberately allowed those differences to develop rather than forcing them toward one model.

Then there were the Nihility Slimes.

Lucien watched several of them train and felt that the phrase "young beasts" had become misleading.

They were ridiculous.

Even among powerful monsters, the way Nihility interacted with attacks, formations, and energy made them difficult to deal with directly.

Their existence created problems that ordinary defensive logic did not solve cleanly.

Combined with Lucien’s original slimes, however, their value increased even further.

The hierarchy among the slime groups had developed naturally.

Skittles stood at the top without needing to assert it constantly.

Oreo and Nyxis commanded their own lines effectively.

The newer slime populations followed them instinctively, and because the older pets understood Lucien’s intentions, the younger slimes rarely needed complicated orders.

What might have become chaos instead became an unusually flexible combat structure.

Lucien watched the training for some time.

Then he smiled.

If the ancient beasts were one hidden army, the slimes were becoming another kind of problem entirely.

He suspected their enemies would not appreciate the distinction.

•••

The satisfaction lasted until Lucien returned to Lootwell and checked the newest expedition reports.

There was still nothing from the teams searching the deeper void for traces of the Tree of Creation.

The Creation-trace locators had found strange ruins, unusual worlds, and several regions that deserved future exploration, but none had produced what Lucien wanted most.

He leaned back and stared at the reports.

More bark meant more opportunities to accelerate the growth of those who had not yet received the same advantages.

The Fruits of Creation had already proven what they could do.

Lucien wanted more.

Unfortunately, the universe had no obligation to provide what he wanted simply because he was impatient.

Seran had searched for months before this.

The dedicated void exploration division had expanded the search considerably.

Still, the universe remained absurdly large.

The Tree of Creation had existed across an age whose remnants were scattered through distances that made continental travel look insignificant.

Lucien could not force the bark to appear.

That irritated him.

Mostly because he increasingly felt that time was becoming more valuable.

•••

Aurelia’s warning remained in his mind.

At least three years.

That had been the window connected to the Black Mass’s transformation.

When she first gave the warning, three years had sounded like enough time to prepare.

It no longer did.

Too much had happened.

The Grand Intercontinental Competition.

The awakening and strengthening of ancient beasts.

The expansion of the Grace System.

The recovery of small worlds.

The rise of the Liberators.

Voidwatch.

The purging of hidden slave networks.

The endless improvements that followed Vorren’s unease.

Lucien had used the time well.

Yet the three-year point was drawing closer.

He could feel it even without counting the days.

Something about the Black Mass had changed gradually over those months.

Its monsters were more active.

Its movements were broader.

The void attacks had become sustained enough that nobody could dismiss them as isolated incidents.

Monster Emperors were being spent with disturbing ease.

And somewhere behind all of it, the Black Mass itself remained confined within the Big World.

For now.

Lucien’s expression tightened.

Aurelia had not told him what the transformation would produce.

Perhaps she had not been able to see it clearly.

That uncertainty bothered him more than a known enemy would have.

If the Black Mass transformed into something capable of moving freely beyond its current confinement, every preparation surrounding the five continents would have to be reconsidered.

If it gained intelligence, authority, or another method of producing stronger monsters, the problem would be different again.

There were too many possibilities.

Lucien refused to choose one and pretend it was certainty.

All he knew was that the deadline was approaching.

And he did not want to meet it with unfinished preparations.

•••

The Black Mass was not the only unresolved threat.

The Abyss remained quiet.

Lucien had learned not to mistake quiet for safety.

Alanthuriel continued watching Space and Time closely, especially the structures connected to the sealed Parallel Timelines.

The Key of the Prime Continuum remained part of that danger.

If they opened while the Black Mass was already changing, Lucien would have preferred not to imagine the result.

Unfortunately, imagination did not require permission.

Lucien disliked situations where the correct strategic response depended on information that did not exist yet.

The coming months seemed determined to provide several of those situations at once.

He rubbed his forehead.

The universe had developed an unpleasant habit of preparing multiple disasters simultaneously.

He would have appreciated some scheduling discipline.

•••

Still, complaining did nothing.

Lucien returned to the Monster Small World once more before making his decision.

The Red Dragon was training a group of younger beasts in the distance.

Astraea had already resumed another exercise.

The slimes occupied a separate region, where the terrain appeared significantly less fortunate than it had several hours earlier.

The ancient beasts were growing.

The Liberators were growing.

The Thousand Races were becoming harder to divide.

Lootwell’s systems had become more resilient.

All of that mattered.

Yet none of it changed one uncomfortable fact.

Lucien himself remained one of the most important pieces on the board.

Living Creation had continued deepening since his breakthrough.

His Omnigenesis Vessel had become more stable.

His understanding of what he could create, adapt, and sustain had expanded with every large system Lootwell built.

But standing before genuine Primordial authority is different.

Extinction Grade monsters could be fought.

Eternals could be overwhelmed.

Primordial Incarnations could be resisted under the right conditions.

A true Primordial was different.

Lucien did not want that difference to remain absolute.

Not anymore.

He had spent months preparing everyone else.

Now he needed to return some of that attention to himself.

•••

Lucien withdrew from the Monster Small World and returned to the deepest training region available to him.

He did not expect a miracle.

There was no convenient resource waiting to push him across an impossible threshold.

What he had instead was time, experience, Living Creation, the Origin Core, the Divine Energy Core, and a body that had already become something no previous framework described cleanly.

That was enough to begin.

He wanted to understand Living Creation more deeply.

He wanted to push his authority until the difference between himself and a source-holder became smaller.

Most of all, he wanted to discover whether there was a way for an Eternal who had created a branched Law to threaten someone who possessed a complete Primordial source.

Lucien closed his eyes.

For months, everyone around him had been preparing for enemies whose full strength they did not know.

He was finished accepting that ignorance as an excuse to remain weaker than necessary.

If the Black Mass transformed, he would face whatever emerged.

If the Parallel Worlds opened, he would deal with what crossed over.

And if a true Primordial finally stood in front of him as an enemy, Lucien wanted the outcome to depend on more than whether he could survive long enough to escape.

This time, he wanted the Primordial to be the one wondering whether survival was still guaranteed.