100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? Chapter 785 - Unexpected Development

Months passed.

The Black Mass continued to recede.

Aurelia still saw no sign that the greater war was about to begin, but the quiet she had warned Lucien not to trust never truly returned.

The incursions kept coming.

Sometimes they appeared several days apart. Sometimes weeks passed before Tidewatch detected another movement.

There was no reliable pattern to the timing, the direction, or the composition of the forces sent toward the five continents.

One attack might emerge from the eastern seas with several Monster Emperors leading a dense mass of corrupted beasts. The next might appear far to the north with fewer creatures but heavier concentrations of miasma.

Then nothing would happen for long enough that people began wondering whether the attacks had stopped.

That was usually when another one appeared.

At first, Lucien assumed the randomness was intentional.

The enemy did not need to win every engagement to make the strategy useful. If the Thousand Races were forced to maintain maximum alert every hour of every day, exhaustion would eventually accomplish what the monsters could not.

Someone on the other side clearly understood that.

What they had apparently failed to understand was the Thousand Races themselves.

Lucien discovered that through the reports.

He sat in his office one afternoon with several recorders spread across the table and read the latest summaries from the Shadow Spies.

Then he sighed.

A few pages later, he sighed again.

By the time he finished the third report, he leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling.

’The Thousand Races had become ridiculous.’

•••

It had started innocently enough.

After the first incursion ended without casualties, people returned to training with more enthusiasm than before.

Then another attack came.

The response was faster.

The evacuation routes activated smoothly, Tidewatch stripped away most of the miasma before it reached inhabited waters, and the defending forces destroyed the approaching monsters with noticeably less difficulty than during the first battle.

The third attack went better still.

By the fourth, people had stopped looking frightened when the alerts arrived.

That should have pleased Lucien.

It did.

For a while.

Then the factions began organizing rotations.

The idea itself was sensible.

One force would take primary command during an incursion while another supported them.

The next time, those roles changed. Formation specialists who had spent one battle protecting the rear moved closer to the front during the next. Commanders stepped down occasionally so someone less experienced could practice leading real forces under controlled conditions.

Healers rotated between emergency centers.

Scouts changed sectors.

Contracted spirits worked with different formations to learn how their abilities interacted with unfamiliar allies.

Lucien approved of all of it.

Real battle taught things simulations never could.

The smell of corrupted seawater could not be recreated perfectly.

Neither could the pressure of knowing that a formation collapsing at the wrong moment might actually hurt someone.

The incursions gave the Thousand Races something their training grounds could only imitate.

Experience with consequences.

So Lucien let them learn.

The problem was that they enjoyed learning far more than he expected.

•••

Several months earlier, people had watched Tidewatch alerts with dread.

Now some of them watched the network with anticipation.

A new incursion meant another chance to test what they had improved.

It meant formations that had existed only inside training grounds could finally be exposed to real miasmic authority.

It meant commanders could test revised battlefield structures.

It meant young fighters who had spent internal months practicing could finally discover whether their techniques worked against something that actually wanted to kill them.

Every victory made the next group more eager.

The mood became competitive.

One faction would return from a battle boasting that they had cleared their sector faster than the previous group.

Another would point out that speed meant nothing when their formation consumed twice as much energy.

A third would announce that neither mattered because their own unit had finished with fewer injuries.

Lucien read those arguments.

Then he read the reports showing that the competition was actually improving performance.

That was irritatingly difficult to criticize.

The factions were not merely chasing glory.

They were comparing mistakes, studying recordings, changing formations, and testing different responses to miasma.

Commanders who had once protected their favorite strategies out of pride were now abandoning them because another faction had demonstrated something better in real combat.

The enemy had intended to deny the Thousand Races rest.

Instead, they had accidentally given them regular practical examinations.

Lucien almost felt grateful.

Almost.

•••

That’s when someone from the South Continent traveled north solely because an incursion had appeared there.

That was where Lucien drew the line.

The first case might have been dismissed as enthusiasm.

The second could not.

By the third, Lucien discovered that several groups had begun arranging teleportation transfers whenever another continent received an attack they considered interesting.

Apparently, an ordinary local incursion was no longer enough.

Some people wanted variety.

Lucien stared at the latest report in disbelief.

Then Lootwell’s public channel activated.

His message was brief.

"Stay on your assigned continent."

Across the five continents, quite a few people suddenly developed guilty expressions.

Lucien continued.

"The attacks are unpredictable. If half the South decides to visit the North because they want battlefield experience, the enemy only needs to attack the South while you’re gone."

That ended most arguments before they started.

He did not forbid cross-continental deployments entirely. Forces could still reinforce another region when requested.

What he forbade was abandoning defensive responsibility because someone was afraid of missing an exciting fight.

People were disappointed.

Lucien knew because the communication channels became filled with complaints phrased carefully enough that nobody could be accused of directly disobeying him.

He ignored them.

The next northern incursion occurred without half the South Continent arriving to watch.

Lucien considered that progress.

•••

The role rotations continued.

That part he encouraged.

One battle might place a veteran commander in charge of a relatively inexperienced force. During the next, that same commander could deliberately step back and allow someone else to lead while remaining nearby in case the situation deteriorated.

Formation masters changed positions.

Healers practiced operating closer to unstable zones.

Scouts learned command.

Frontline fighters experienced what happened when they were responsible for protecting evacuation routes instead of simply charging toward the largest monster they could find.

The result was messy at first.

Then it became useful.

People who had spent their entire lives specializing began understanding what everyone around them actually needed.

A swordsman who once complained that healers were too slow stopped saying that after spending one incursion protecting a medical zone.

A formation master who had always demanded perfect positioning became considerably more forgiving after being forced to command troops while three Monster Emperors tried to destroy his anchors.

Even some healers volunteered for controlled frontline assignments so they could understand how injuries occurred instead of only seeing the aftermath.

Lucien watched the changes with increasing interest.

They were becoming flexible.

Not universally skilled.

That would have been impossible and unnecessary.

But fewer people were helpless when circumstances pushed them outside their preferred role.

That mattered.

Battles rarely respected job descriptions.