100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full?-Chapter 412 - Doors

Days did not drift by. They were spent.

Lucien moved through the Liberators’ branch like a man paying debts to the future.

He joined their training courts, corrected foundations, and sparred just enough to sharpen instincts without humiliating anyone.

The Liberators would matter in the Big World.

Lucien did not intend to become one of them, but partnership was considered by him. If they were to stand beside him later, then they needed to stand tall.

And Lucien, as always, preferred allies who could survive.

•••

The cure work, however, moved faster than Lucien expected.

Not because the Liberators "thought of an alternative."

They created one.

Cassian sought him out one afternoon with Seraphine at his side. Their eyes were bright.

"We received word from headquarters," Cassian said.

Lucien raised a brow. "Middle Continent?"

Cassian nodded. "One of our Liberators has a cultivation cheat. He specializes in crops and herbs."

Seraphine’s mouth twitched. "Specializes is a polite word. He treats agriculture like warfare."

Lucien waited.

Cassian continued. "The original ingredients are too rare. Even with his acceleration cheats, cultivating Calmweft Root and Mistmilk Leaf at scale would take too long. So he did what he always does when nature refuses him."

Seraphine leaned forward as if she was sharing a secret.

"He bullied it."

Cassian gave her a look.

Seraphine shrugged. "He crossbred until the traits behaved."

Lucien’s eyes sharpened with interest.

Cassian nodded once. "He produced substitute crops. Similar effects, easier growth cycles, and cultivable by ordinary methods once the base traits are established."

Lucien’s mouth curved. "So the branch can mimic the method."

"Exactly," Cassian replied. "He left protocols. The crossbreeding pattern is repeatable. We can start cultivation here immediately."

Seraphine’s tone turned brisk, almost eager. "The substitute stabilizer has weaker peaks, but it is consistent. The severing reagent substitute is gentler, but it scales. The replacement clause catalyst can be brewed from a common vine once it is conditioned."

Lucien exhaled a quiet breath he did not realize he had been holding.

"There really are all kinds of cheats," he said.

Cassian’s eyes softened. "That is the point of us."

Lucien nodded. It eased one of his largest worries.

Mass production was still difficult, but no longer impossible.

And that meant the cure was not a miracle sealed in a room.

It was a weapon that could be shared.

•••

In the same span of days, the Mirrorhorn Duants finished their recovery.

"Recovery" was still a bitter word for them.

Their realms had dropped into Celestial.

But considering how long they had lived on flawed drugs, a realm drop was generous mercy.

Lucien met them during rehabilitation, when their bodies were finally theirs again.

The twins no longer moved like cornered animals. Their shoulders had relaxed. Their breathing was theirs again.

One of them stared at the sky beyond the branch as if it was the first time he had seen it after so many years.

"We feel alive," he admitted quietly.

His twin nodded, throat bobbing. "Not powerful. Just... alive."

Lucien’s voice stayed even. "That is the correct foundation."

They exchanged a glance.

Then they bowed.

"We want to go with you," they said together.

Lucien did not hesitate. "Good. I welcome you."

The twins’ eyes flickered with something fragile.

"Our kin," one of them said. "They are still bound."

Lucien met their gaze. "When the Liberators reveal themselves, the world will shift. Your kin will be part of that shift. They will not be forgotten."

The twins breathed out slowly as if their ribs finally trusted the air.

They believed him.

•••

Lucien did not hide his timetable.

He told Cassian and Seraphine that he would depart soon.

Cassian accepted it with the calm of a man used to watching capable people walk away because the world demanded it.

Seraphine did not accept it at all.

She tried to.

Then she failed.

"Don’t leave..." She said as if saying it with enough authority would become a binding clause.

Lucien looked at her.

"I have important people waiting for me." He said simply.

Seraphine narrowed her eyes. "I have a laboratory that refuses to behave without you."

Lucien shook his head.

"You have already succeeded in the cure. You do not need me anymore," Lucien replied gently.

Seraphine opened her mouth.

Then closed it.

Then, with the dignity of someone losing a battle she hated losing, she turned away and locked herself in her laboratory.

Cassian watched her march off and sighed.

•••

Sylra, meanwhile, remained cautious.

Lucien spoke with her now and then, never approaching too close.

Sylra opened up gradually. Something closer to tolerance turning into a wary respect.

Their relationship, for now, was like landlord and tenant.

Lucien found that acceptable.

He did not need her to like him. He needed her alive, growing, and unchained.

Sylra remained in Transcendent Realm, and her strength continued rising inside Lucien’s inner world. She practiced the Law of Air with a meticulous patience that reminded Lucien of her long flight.

One day, Lucien asked, "How did you split your small world?"

Sylra’s gaze drifted, distant.

"It was not because I was strong," she started.

Lucien waited.

Sylra continued. "There was a place. A corridor of wind that did not feel like weather. It felt like... a seam."

"A seam?" Lucien repeated.

She nodded. "The wind there did not circulate naturally. It flowed as if something behind the sky was breathing through a crack. When I stood there, my Law stopped feeling like a blade."

Her fingers flexed unconsciously.

"It felt like a key fitting into a lock."

Lucien’s eyes narrowed.

Sylra looked at him. "When I used my Law there, the wind carried it differently. It guided it. And I unleashed my power... it felt as if I had to."

She swallowed.

"And then reality... tore."

Lucien stayed silent for a long breath.

•••

Lucien left her with that thought burning in his mind.

That same day, he found Kaia and asked her the same question.

"How did you escape your small world?"

Kaia tilted her head.

"I did not escape," she said. "I erupted."

Lucien stared at her.

Kaia’s chin lifted.

"There was a mysterious place in my world where volcanoes crowded together like they were guarding something. I did not know why, but I kept getting pulled there."

Lucien’s eyes sharpened. "A seam."

Kaia blinked. "I do not know what you call it. I call it obvious."

She smiled and continued.

"I became so curious that I ran away from home. Then... I ignited them. All of them. I fed fire into fire until the sky could no longer hold the pressure."

Her grin turned feral.

"The eruption broke the plane. The crack became a door. I walked out."

Lucien exhaled slowly. "You’re insane."

Kaia beamed. "Thank you."

Then as if remembering something unrelated, she added, "Also, I was a princess in my small world."

Lucien looked at her for a beat.

Then said, "Okay?"

Kaia’s eyes widened. "That is your reaction?"

Lucien spread his hands. "How do you want me to react then? Oh, a Disney princess. Princess, let me bow to you. Please make me your knight. Princess, let me lick your feet. Or what?"

Kaia went completely still.

For two breaths, the air was silent.

Then she said, stunned, "That... the last part was going too far, was it not?"

Lucien coughed once, as if choking on his own words.

He pointed at her. "Back to the topic. That volcanic place. You felt drawn to it."

Kaia’s expression turned more thoughtful.

"Yes," she said slowly. "Like something was calling my Law specifically."

Lucien’s mind clicked.

And then Kaia, as if the world insisted on giving him ten topics at once, said, "Also, let me go with you to the West."

Lucien blinked. "You are?"

Kaia nodded with a smile. "Let this princess stay with you."

Lucien rubbed his brow. "Would the organization say nothing?"

Kaia snorted. "We are free. We come and go. We can return anytime. The Liberators are our belonging, not our leash."

Her grin sharpened.

"Brother Darian might cuss me out, but he is not here anyway."

Lucien smiled and accepted.

•••

That night, Lucien sat alone in the house Cassian had assigned him.

He reorganized his thoughts.

Lucien’s gaze turned distant.

"The Primordial Slime left doors," he murmured.

Pre-cut seams in reality that could be found only by someone with a Law strong enough to resonate with them.

That was why these reincarnators could tear planes "too easily."

The door did not open for anyone.

It opened for a key that matched it.

’Of course,’ Lucien thought. ’If it were truly easy, I would not need to rack my brain. The Primordial Slime prepared the path. I simply ran too early to notice the handle.’

Lucien’s eyes narrowed.

A few more days before the West.

Before he left, he needed to confirm it.

He needed to locate a door, mimic its resonance, and understand what it meant.

Because if he could learn the door’s logic...

Then the Obsidian Tower would not merely pierce reality.

It would choose where to pierce.

Lucien rose slowly.

"First," he murmured, "I find the seam."