100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? Chapter 786 - Field Trip

The experimentation eventually became even stranger.

New formations appeared almost every incursion.

Some worked beautifully.

Others lasted less than a minute before their creators quietly pretended they had never existed.

Several techniques developed inside the temporal zones were tested against corrupted monsters for the first time.

A few exceeded expectations.

Others discovered that simulated resistance and actual Black Mass authority were not quite the same thing.

Those failures were recorded too.

Nobody tried to hide them anymore.

That pleased Lucien more than the successes.

Embarrassment cost less than repeating a bad idea during the real war.

The Thousand Races were slowly treating each incursion like a lesson.

Then someone resurrected the field-trip joke.

Lucien regretted allowing that phrase to survive.

At some point, people began referring to upcoming battles as opportunities to "visit the field."

Someone else called one of the northern defense sectors a particularly educational destination.

By the time Lucien heard a young fighter complain that his assigned continent had not received an incursion in nearly a month, he finally understood how strange the situation had become.

The Black Mass was sending corrupted monsters to wear them down.

The Thousand Races were complaining that the schedule was uneven.

Lucien did not know whether to laugh or worry.

So he settled on both.

•••

The forces training inside his inner universe were not immune.

Lucien periodically brought groups outside whenever an incursion appeared.

That had been part of the plan from the beginning.

Simulations could sharpen people only so far.

Eventually, they needed to face real corruption, real Monster Emperor pressure, and real opponents whose behavior had not been designed by a training facility.

The first groups returned from battle transformed in ways the accelerated regions could not reproduce.

They spoke differently about formations.

They treated miasma with more respect.

They discovered that techniques they had considered polished still contained flaws that only appeared when an enemy reacted unpredictably.

Then those groups went back inside and trained again.

When the next incursion came, Lucien brought out another rotation.

Before long, the people inside his universe became just as competitive as those outside.

Arguments broke out over whose turn it was to lead.

Liberators wanted chances to test abilities they had spent internal years developing.

Contracted spirit users wanted real battlefield data.

Commanders wanted to see whether their simulated strategies survived contact with actual Monster Emperors.

Researchers occasionally tried to accompany them for "direct observation."

Lucien stopped that one immediately unless the researcher in question was genuinely qualified for battlefield deployment.

He had enough problems without scholars wandering toward Black Mass creatures because they wanted a closer look.

Still, he understood the enthusiasm.

They had spent years training for a war that had not arrived.

Now the enemy was offering them smaller versions of it.

Every incursion validated some part of their preparation.

Every failure exposed something they could repair before the stakes became larger.

Even Lucien found it difficult to call that unfortunate.

•••

More importantly, he was intervening less.

During the first battles, his Split Bodies had covered every front.

He had watched every critical exchange and stepped in whenever someone came too close to death.

That gradually became unnecessary.

The commanders were faster now.

Healers positioned themselves better.

Formation teams anticipated collapse before it happened.

Contracted spirits pulled their partners away from threats without waiting for shouted instructions.

Tidewatch identified concentrations of corruption early enough that purification teams could reposition before the monsters arrived.

The Thousand Races had also learned how Black Mass creatures fought.

They knew which signs usually preceded an attempt to spread miasma.

They recognized the changes in pressure when a Monster Emperor prepared to break through a formation.

They understood which corrupted bodies could continue fighting after injuries that would have killed ordinary creatures.

The enemy still changed tactics.

So did they.

Eventually, Lucien reached an incursion where he did not intervene even once.

He remained present.

His senses covered the battlefield.

He was ready.

Still, nobody needed him.

The final Monster Emperor fell beneath a coordinated attack while Lucien watched from the sky.

For several seconds, he said nothing.

Then he smiled.

That victory meant more to him than the first one.

Nobody had survived because Lucien caught them at the last moment.

They had survived because they knew what they were doing.

•••

The constant fighting created another problem, however.

Miasma.

The purification systems worked well.

Tidewatch could erase weaker traces before they reached populated waters, and the people capable of wielding Divine Energy remained exceptionally effective against corruption.

But Lucien refused to build the entire defensive structure around the assumption that enough Divine Energy users would always be nearby.

They would not.

Not when the real war began.

Clara had already baptized people she trusted enough to receive access to Divine Energy, while Lootwell’s citizens, his pets, many of the beasts, and other carefully selected individuals had gained ways to wield it.

That group had become one of the most reliable counters to Black Mass corruption.

Still, it was only a fraction of the Thousand Races.

Lucien could not simply baptize everyone.

Even setting aside the sheer scale involved, changing someone’s energy was not something that should be distributed carelessly. People needed time to adjust, retrain techniques, and understand what they were carrying.

The researchers therefore focused on another solution.

If they could not give everyone Divine Energy, they would give everyone better ways to survive without it.

The temporal research districts redirected several projects toward miasma resistance.

The goal was not to make ordinary fighters immune.

Lucien dismissed that idea immediately.

Anything capable of making everyone casually immune to Black Mass corruption would have solved far too many problems already.

What he wanted was time.

Enough resistance that exposure did not become corruption before someone could be treated.

Enough protection that a defensive line could operate in contaminated territory without collapsing simply because purification teams were delayed.

Enough warning that a person knew something was wrong before the miasma had already reached too deeply into their body.

Researchers began combining everything they had learned from Voidwatch, purification formations, Celestial techniques, Divine Energy interactions, and samples recovered from the incursions.

The work moved quickly inside the temporal zones.

Not quickly enough for Lucien’s liking.

Still, for once, the enemy kept supplying test material.

He decided not to mention how helpful that was.

•••

Months after the first incursion, Lucien stood above Lootwell and looked over the latest reports.

Another attack had ended that morning.

The defenders had won without requesting his intervention.

A formation tested during the battle had failed spectacularly and already had three proposed replacements.

Two young commanders were arguing over whose rotation came next.

Someone from the South was once again requesting permission to visit a northern battlefront for "educational purposes."

Lucien rejected the request.

Aurelia had reported nothing new.

The greater danger remained distant.

Inside the Black Mass, its powers were still reorganizing.

Outside it, the Thousand Races were doing something Lucien doubted the enemy had anticipated.

They were getting used to fighting them.

That should have been grim.

Somehow, it had become almost comical.

The other side was trying to keep the five continents exhausted and afraid.

Instead, every incursion gave them another lesson.

Every lesson exposed another weakness.

Every weakness became another problem to solve before the greater war arrived.

Lucien looked toward the distant darkness.

The Black Mass was preparing its forces.

So was he.

The difference was that his side had started arguing over whose turn it was to fight next.

Lucien sighed.

He really did not know whether that was reassuring or deeply concerning.

For now, he decided it was reassuring.

There would be plenty of time to worry when they stopped coming home smiling.