100% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? - Chapter 175

Chapter 175: Chapter 175 – Path
Everything had been peaceful since the celebration.

Still, Lucien’s mind drifted toward one lingering question. Where was the Path? The door that led to the Big World.

He didn’t even know where to begin searching. Even in his hundredth life within the Mural World, when the Primordial Slime created the hundreds of small worlds… no clue had ever been revealed.

To search for the path, Lucien left Lootwell in Vivian’s care for the meantime. She was more than capable of leading in his absence.

“Sis, I’ll leave everything to you for now,” he told her before leaving. “Protect everyone while I’m gone.”

Vivian smiled. “Just come back safely, Brother.”

…

Lucien left his territory aboard the modified airship, fine-tuned by Seren for unparalleled speed. His first destination is the place where the Four Nations converged.

It was there that the fallen heroes of the war were buried. Their resting place was being watched over by the Tree of New Beginning that Lucien planted.

Lucien believed that the Path might be tied to the laws that governed this world. And this land was where those laws pulsed the strongest.

Then… he activated the effect of his Title: Transcendent One again.

The world changed.

Before his sight, reality peeled open. The invisible threads of law revealed themselves. They shimmered like golden rivers flowing across the horizon, intersecting, bending and pulsing with the rhythm of creation.

“I can never get used to this sight. This is like… the skeleton of the world,” he murmured.

And then…

Lucien followed the flow.

He first went west.

There, the lands were wild. It was an expanse of canyons and forests ruled by the Beastmen.

But of course, before exploring the place, Lucien knew he had to ask permission from the Supreme Chief first. He didn’t want his arrival to cause misunderstandings among the Beastmen.

Yet when he descended from the airship, Supreme Chief Leo himself was already waiting. The moment he saw Lucien, he grinned. It’s a deep grin that showed sharp canines but carried no hostility.

“My friend,” Leo said. “You’re always welcome among the tribes.”

Lucien returned the smile and explained his purpose. Leo listened in silence. His beastly eyes narrowed in contemplation. When Lucien finished, the chieftain exhaled through his nose, thoughtful.

“If it exists,” Leo finally said, “then it must be older than our kind.” He paused then smiled again. “We’ll help you search. Helping you is helping ourselves too. The call beyond this world… even our instincts have begun to feel it.”

For days… they scoured the ruins. Lucien even descended into the deepest dungeon beneath the western plains where the laws of the world were dense.

But there was nothing. Not even a trace.

Lucien gave Leo the drops he got as thanks. He soon departed, continuing southward.

In the South, the lands were gentler. The multiple races in the Federation welcomed him warmly.

The Elf Supreme Leader spoke to him…

“The Path we seek…” he said, “it might not belong to this world’s soil”

Lucien fell silent. There was a sense in what he said. And for a moment, he simply stood there, lost in thought.

‘If not the soil… could it be the sky?’ he wondered.

Lucien began his search guided by the world’s laws. He scoured the dungeons, traversed ruins and even reached into the skies aboard his airship hoping to feel a response.

But still… nothing.

Frustration began to gnaw at him. He had tried everything. Every method, every tool, every fragment of knowledge he possessed. Even his Spatial Compass failed to detect a single fluctuation.

“Crap!” Lucien groaned. “This is exactly like the time I was playing Final Fantasy… it’s so frustrating looking for something I missed in a massive map.”

For the nth time, Lucein sighed.

The good thing is that the East and North had already been searched by Pope Augustus and Midas.

Lucien had even tried copying their skills via Cram Session. But it didn’t work.

“Of course it didn’t. If it had,” he muttered bitterly, “they wouldn’t have asked for my help in the first place.”

He exhaled. For the first time in a long while, Lucien wanted to give up. He had traversed the corners of the world yet the Path remained silent.

Helplessly, Lucien piloted his airship home.

It didn’t take long for him to arrive. The laws in Lootwell were dense. The threads of divine energy in the air wove with a rhythm unlike anywhere else. The atmosphere pulsed with a different code of existence.

But then… just as he was about to descend, something caught his eye. Something was… different.

A detail so glaring he nearly cursed himself…

“Wait… could it be…”

He turned his gaze toward the mountain in the distance… the entrance to Lootwell Dungeon.

There, the laws of the world did not move. They circled around the dungeon like water flowing around a stone, never touching it.

Lucien slapped his own forehead.

“Damn. Was the answer this close all along?”

Without hesitation, he leapt off the airship midair and stored it in his INVENTORY. Then… he skywalked down toward the dungeon.

He landed at the entrance and wasted no time descending the dungeon.

No slimes hindered him. He moved swiftly, descending level after level until he reached the fourth floor.

He walked through the familiar chamber. His boots echoed softly on the floor… until he arrived before the portal where the 100th shard of mural should have been.

He paused… then stepped in.

The scene shifted instantly.

The world around him folded into a vast, unfamiliar chamber. It was beautiful. The crystalline walls reflect the ambient light. The floor patterns were carved with runes that pulsed faintly.

But then he saw it.

The Boss of the floor.

A slime.

Not just any slime. Its presence made Lucien’s breath still. He knew that form all too well. It was the same kind of slime he had once been in his third life within the Mural World.

A Mimic Slime.

When it noticed Lucien, the creature trembled. Its body rippled like liquid glass before expanding and reshaping itself with eerie grace. Slowly, its mass shifted and stretched until it stood upright… taking on a humanoid form.

Its posture was eerily human. It turned its faceless head toward him… and it began to shift.

Lucien’s eyes narrowed.

Its form rippled. Bones of mana took shape within its fluid body. Then, before his eyes, it transformed… into him.

An exact copy. From the head down to the feet. Even the way it breathed mirrored his rhythm.

“Sigh. If it’s before, this would be troublesome.” Lucien muttered.

Just then… the Lucien-simulacrum attacked.

Blades of light tore through the air. The mimic moved flawlessly. Its movements were refined and it’s like watching himself through a mirror.

Lucien smiled in amazement.

“Ha! Of course,” he muttered with a glint of excitement in his eyes. “It can copy divine energy.”

He paused as curiosity sparked deeper. “Wait a minute… that’s a useful skill. Can it also copy miasma?”

Lucien parried its attack instinctively. Every spell it launched towards him was countered.

What truly shocked Lucien was when the Mimic Slime split a part of its body… only for that fragment to reshape itself into a familiar form.

Morphis.

For a heartbeat, Lucien felt a strange thrill.

“So it can copy that much detail, huh? Interesting…”

He steadied his breathing.

“Alright then,” he said. “Show me what I look like in battle. Let’s see if I’ve still got any flaws left.”

Then they clashed. Every feint he made, it mirrored. It can even used Morphis perfectly.

“Wow. So this is how I look in battle. So cool!”

But then… He remembered that he didn’t come for this.

Lucein then moved faster, changing rhythm and switching from swordsmanship to magic to confuse it… but the mimic adapted instantly.

“You’re good. You’re me at my best… but not my ‘now’.”

And then Lucien tested something else. He focused inward, drawing on the energy from the Origin Core Fragment.

When he unleashed it, a pulse shook the chamber.

The mimic hesitated. Its form flickered… unstable.

Lucien’s smile deepened.

“So you can’t copy that after all.”

With one smooth motion, he darted forward, cutting through his reflection with a radiant arc of energy. The mimic dissolved in a burst of light. It collapsed into a thick liquid before vanishing.

Silence returned.

The drops were auto-collected. He didn’t glance at them. His eyes were already drawn toward what lay ahead.

A door.

It was… strangely plain. Unadorned, as though it had been plucked from a humble cottage rather than a divine ruin.

Lucien hesitated. His hand hovered over the handle.

Then he pushed it open.

What he saw made his heart stop.

A translucent slime lay within.

Small. Ordinary. The kind one could find in a beginner’s dungeon in games.

But it wasn’t.

Because the moment their eyes met or whatever it used to see, Lucien recognized it.

That same shape. That same translucent hue. The faint golden ripple beneath its surface. It was identical to what he had seen once before… on the Mural World.

The air seemed to hold its breath.

Then a gentle voice resonated in his mind.

[Hello.]

Lucien froze. His pupils shrank. Slowly… very slowly… he shut the door.

Click.

He stood there for a long second… then exhaled shakily and wiped the sweat off his brow.

“Nope. No fucking way.”

He turned his gaze back at the door. Beyond it, he could still feel that presence. Calm, immense, ancient.

The Primordial Slime.