100% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? - Chapter 232

Chapter 232: Chapter 232 – Hollow Pity
A half-dead mortal crawled forward. His fingers clawed at the sand until he reached Lucien, clutching at his boot with what little strength remained.

The man stared hollowly at Lucien as though unburdening his sins before a silent deity. No one asked him to speak, no one pressed him… yet the words spilled out like a confession he could no longer hold inside.

“T-The desert… the desert swallowed them…” he rasped.

His voice cracked like dry parchment.

“We fought… we fought the neighboring kingdom… but… b-but…”

His whole body trembled.

“When the war began… the sand shook…” His eyes stared past Lucien as if seeing it again. “The sky fell quiet… and then—”

His eyes rolled.

“—the desert got angry.”

A deep shudder passed through the gathered practitioners.

Lucien knelt, supporting the man.

“What do you mean, ‘angry’?”

The man’s tears mingled with the sand.

“No wind… no sound… no escape…” he whispered. “Our armies vanished into the dunes… swallowed… gone…”

His strength gave out.

He slumped into Lucien’s arms, breath faint but present.

Marie exhaled shakily.

“This place punishes war…”

Lucien murmured, “Or maybe it punishes anything that insists on tearing its stillness apart.”

Eirene’s gaze swept the broken city.

“Stillness isn’t peaceful,” she said quietly with a sigh. “It’s absolute.”

A Celestial proxy spoke.

“The Eternal of Stillness… despised pointless conflict. To her, war for pride alone was noise.”

Lucien exhaled slowly.

“This place… chooses what it calls an enemy.”

Marie tightened her grip on his sleeve.

“It better not decide we’re one.”

Further ahead, the Silent Monastery monks were moving among the survivors. Their once-arrogant bells hung quietly now. They offered food, water, and medicine kits. Their expressions were solemn.

Lucien’s gaze caught on a scene to the side.

A woman, far too thin, sat in the shadow of a half-buried column. She held a younger boy in her arms. His skin was gray beneath the dust and his breaths were so shallow they barely stirred his chest.

A young monk, the same one who had faced Lucien in the third trial, approached with a ration bundle.

“This will ease your hunger,” he said gently, placing it in her hands.

She stared at the food.

Then she let out a low, bitter laugh.

“Useless,” she whispered.

The monk blinked. “Pardon?”

“This will… sate our stomachs,” she said, voice trembling but steady enough to cut. “And tomorrow we will wake up in the same graveyard… with the same broken brother. This doesn’t change anything. It just… prolongs the fall.”

Lucien’s interest sharpened.

The monk’s brows drew together.

“I understand you’re suffering,” he replied. “But in your situation, being pitied is still a blessing.”

The woman’s control snapped.

“Pity? Did I ask for your pity? What use is your hollow pity?”

She glared up at him as her eyes turned bright with tears and fury.

“And blessing?” Her voice cracked. “If your pity doesn’t change the ending, what is it worth? You hand us food so your conscience feels lighter, but my brother’s body is still breaking. That’s what I mean by hollow pity. Pretty words and easy charity… where the cost to you is nothing.”

Her words struck harder than any physical blow.

Nearby practitioners turned, ears sharpening.

The monk’s face tightened. He sank down frowning and took the boy’s limp wrist, sending his senses through the boy’s body.

Silence.

Then he shook his head.

“His mana vessels are broken,” he said slowly. “There is no cure…”

“I don’t believe you,” she sobbed. “I know there is. Don’t patronize me just because we are desert castoffs. You simply decided we’re not worth the cure, didn’t you? That’s what I mean by hollow pity. Full of compassion on the tongue… but stingy where it matters.”

The monk’s expression turned bleak.

Because she was… not entirely wrong.

There was a cure. A very rare one.

And right now, such things were hoarded for elites, not strangers found in a ruin’s shadow.

The surrounding crowd murmured, uncomfortable.

Lucien stepped closer, gaze locking on the boy.

He opened his Inspect.

Information unfurled before him.

He froze.

They’re not ordinary mortals.

The boy and the woman… were the prince and princess of this fallen desert nation. Titles meant nothing in this ruin, but what caught Lucien’s eye was something else entirely.

A locked skill, buried deep in the woman’s soul.

As for the boy’s broken mana vessels…

Lucien’s mind flicked to an item in his possession.

Heartflame Residue – The essence of a dragon’s inner flame that can reignite ruined mana vessels. (Only works for those with fire-attributed mana vessels.)

He checked the boy’s affinity.

Fire.

‘Of course.’

Lucien’s voice cut through the murmurs.

“I can cure him,” he said.

Heads snapped toward him.

The woman froze while her tears still streaked her dusty cheeks.

“But,” Lucien added, “I have a condition.”

The desert fell quiet.

Even the wind… what little of it there was… seemed to wait.

Just then…

The monk’s face tightened. His voice was gravel-edged with disapproval.

“How could you state a condition in their state?” he demanded, glaring at Lucien as if Lucien had just kicked a dying child.

Lucien slowly turned his gaze toward him.

“…A condition?” Lucien repeated quietly. “Then tell me. Would you cure him? Surely the Silent Monastery hides treasures for restoring mana vessels.”

“I—It’s not that I don’t want to!” the monk sputtered. “It’s that I don’t have control over our treasures—”

Lucien cut him off. His expression was flat.

“Then why are you still talking?”

The monk stiffened.

Lucien’s voice sharpened into steel.

“Do you know what we call people like you? Hypocrites. Full of comforting words… and utterly incapable of action.”

“You—!!” Veins bulged across the monk’s temple.

Before he could erupt further, a presence glided in like a cool wind.

A figure in white stood beside them. The nun leader of the Silent Monastery. Her eyes were covered with a soft blindfold. She carried herself with the calm of a moonlit lake.

“I apologize,” she said with graceful sincerity. “My junior brother is young, and still learning our philosophy. Please forgive him if his words caused any offense.”

Lucien exhaled slowly. His pulse cooled. He reined in the rising fury clawing through his chest.

Only then did he feel himself again.

Just as he regained his calm—

The mortal woman knelt. The sister who held her dying brother… collapsed to her knees before him.

Lucien’s breath caught.

For a heartbeat, he saw Vivian kneeling in a burned village, holding him…

His hand trembled.

“Benefactor,” the woman whispered. Her forehead touched the sand. “I will accept any condition. Just… please cure my brother. He is the only one left in my family.”

Her voice nearly broke on that final word.

Family.

The monk scoffed sharply.

“You actually believe him? A cure like that isn’t something one simply claims to have. Such treasures are—”

His arrogance died mid-sentence.

Lucien’s aura snapped into place.

He used his skill: Petrifying Gaze.

A cold force crushed downward and the monk froze. His breath hitched. His knees buckled under a pressure no Ascendant should ever feel from someone below their realm.

Gasps erupted across the groups.

“A Transcendent… suppressing an Ascendant?”

“Impossible—!”

“No… look at his eyes…!”

Lucien’s gaze held no warmth. Only the sharp, merciless ferocity of a predator who had been patient for long enough.

The mortal woman lifted her chin and spoke again. Her voice trembled yet resolute.

“I don’t believe in pity. I don’t believe in charity,” she said. “Everything in this world… has its equivalence. Nothing is free. Nothing is kind without reason.”

Her eyes glistened, but her spine stayed straight.

“Benefactor… I will do anything. Please help me.”

Lucien looked at her for a long moment.

Then very softly, almost gently…

“Good,” he said. “I like you.”

The desert seemed to hold its breath.

“From now on, you two will be with us.”

Hope flickered in the woman’s deadened eyes.

Lucien leaned toward Eirene and murmured,

“Can I bring them along with our group? I’ll take them after the expedition… and of course they’ll stay outside the ruins.”

Eirene smiled.

“Of course,” she whispered. “I can assure you, Stillness will not be offended by this. And I kind of want to make her my disciple.”

Her hand brushed the pendant at her neck, its glow faintly responding.

Lucien nodded, then knelt beside the limp boy.

He took out a tiny ember-like crystal.

Heartflame Residue.

The hope for a broken mana vessel.

“Open his mouth,” Lucien said.

The woman obeyed with shaking hands.

Lucien pressed the flicker of red-gold essence to the boy’s lips.

The moment the Heartflame touched his tongue—

A soft heat rippled outward.

Light pulsed beneath the boy’s skin.

The faint glow traced the dead pathways of his broken mana vessels…

And then…

—one by one—

…they began to spark.