100% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? - Chapter 289

Chapter 289: Chapter 289 – Progress
The bodies did not awaken yet.

Everything functioned well.

And yet… Nothing stirred.

But Lucien did not mistake this for failure.

This was expected.

A soul and spirit placed into a vessel did not immediately become a person again. Identity was not a switch that could be flipped. It was an agreement between self and world, memory and consequence.

Luke and Cienna had been absent from the chain of cause and effect for too long.

They had ended once.

That fact had been acknowledged.

Their return had been permitted.

But permission was not the same as acceptance.

Causality had room for them now, but it had not yet closed around them.

Their bodies breathed because biology allowed it. Their souls held because structure supported it. Their spirits rested because continuity preserved them.

But awareness required something else.

It required re-entry.

Lucien understood it as he observed their stillness.

For a being to awaken, it must occupy a position in the present that the universe could reference. A point where actions could lead to consequences again.

Right now, Luke and Cienna existed in suspension. They are fully formed, yet not anchored to the ongoing flow of events.

They were like travelers who had arrived at a shore but had not yet stepped onto land.

Until causality registered them as participants once more, awakening would not occur.

And that step could not be forced.

It had to be taken.

Lucien exhaled slowly.

“This part is yours,” he murmured.

He did not rush them. Instead, he prepared the space that would carry them forward.

With precise movements, Lucien expanded the ritual chamber and etched a new formation beneath the suspended bodies.

This array was not designed to act upon them, but to support alignment.

It was one of the formation arrays recorded by the Eternal of Stillness.

The Confluence Mandala.

Its structure was simple but exacting. The array allowed energy to pass through the bodies, encouraging synchronization instead of accumulation.

At the mandala’s outer ring, Lucien placed millions more Spirit Crystals, arranged in balanced arcs. Their purpose was to maintain a stable energetic gradient, enough to sustain meditation without provoking premature awakening.

The crystals lit softly, feeding the formation at a steady pace.

Within the mandala, Lucien inscribed a final script. It was an instruction written into the flow of the inner realm itself.

Remain. Observe. Align.

The formation activated.

The bodies responded subtly.

Breathing slowed. Mana circulation refined itself further, shedding inefficiencies. Neural activity settle into rhythms associated with internal processing.

They had begun integrating.

Lucien watched for a long time.

He knew this phase could take days, or far longer. The time required was not measured by clocks, but by readiness.

Until Luke and Cienna’s existence threaded itself fully into the present or until the universe could answer the question “What happens if they act?”… awareness would remain dormant.

And when they did awaken—

They would not return as they once were.They would return as beings who had crossed absence and come back whole.

Lucien stepped back.

He did not touch them again.

Before leaving, he adjusted the formation one final time. He gave them every advantage.

Then he turned away.

“Mother… Father… When you open your eyes,” he said though he knew they could not hear him, “take your time.”

Lucien left the place.

The bodies remained suspended. The souls rested within. The spirits aligned themselves with the flow of existence.

And somewhere beyond structure…

Causality began to make space.

When Luke and Cienna awakened, it would be because the universe had finally remembered how to let them live again.

•••

Lucien blinked.

The ritual chamber vanished, replaced by the expanse of the monster cultivation blood pools.

He paused.

Then his eyes narrowed in surprise.

The change was unmistakable.

The monster leaders suspended within the pools had grown denser in presence. Their forms were half-resolved between old shapes and what they were becoming.

Several of the leaders had reached the final threshold of Metamorphosis. Their bodies were no longer shedding excess mass or violently reconstructing. Instead, they were refining,

The others were not far behind.

Progress across the pools was synchronized and most importantly, stable.

Lucien let out a slow breath.

“Good,” he murmured.

Everything was moving as it should.

•••

Monsters did not walk the same path as humans or the thousand races.

Where humans chased spiritual saturation, monsters pursued something far older.

At the core of every monster lay a mana core.

In the small world, those cores were crude things. Ranked from lowest to highest grade, they functioned as reservoirs and regulators.

That system worked only within the mortal boundary.

Beyond it, the rules changed.

When a monster crossed out of the mortal realm, its mana core did not simply grow stronger.

It transformed.

The structure collapsed inward, shedding its function as a container and re-forming as something far more intimate.

A Beast Core.

Lucien watched one of the leaders closely as faint runes began to etch themselves along its core’s surface.

A Beast Core was not a battery. It was a center of identity.

Where spiritual saturation required harmonizing body, mind, soul, and spirit through gradual refinement, monsters skipped the harmony entirely. They condensed existence instead.

Power was no longer circulated. It was embodied.

To reach a state equivalent to spiritual saturation, a monster had to do something humans could not afford to attempt.

It had to merge its soul with its Beast Core.

Lucien’s expression grew serious.

The Beast Core governed power, form, and survival.

When merged, the monster gained absolute efficiency.

There was no delay between thought and action. There would be no resistance between will and power. Strength became instinct. Growth became reflex.

This was why monsters advanced so quickly once they crossed the threshold.

This was also why so many failed.

A merged soul could not retreat. If the Beast Core cracked, the soul shattered with it.

Power and self became inseparable. Strength became both weapon and fatal flaw.

Lucien observed the pools again.

The leaders were approaching the final compression phase. Their Beast Cores had begun pulling not just mana, but self-definition inward.

The blood pools responded automatically, feeding them controlled stimuli… forcing their identities to sharpen rather than diffuse.

Unlike humans, monsters did not need enlightenment.

They needed coherence.

The ones who survived would emerge with souls so tightly bound to their cores that separation would be impossible.

They would be stronger than any spiritually saturated mortal.

They would also be vulnerable in a way no mortal ever was.

Lucien did not intervene.

He had already done his part.

The pacing was right. The danger was contained.

What remained was choice.

Theirs.

He watched until the pools settled back into steady rhythm, then turned away.

Soon, they would stand beside him. Not as beasts following instinct, but as entities who had chosen power knowing exactly what it would cost.

When that day came, Lucien knew one thing for certain.

They would not betray him lightly.

Because for monsters who fused their souls to their cores—

Loyalty was not an oath.

It was survival.

…

Lucien’s focus shifted again.

Towards the slimes.

Compared to the monsters in the blood pools, their progress was slower. Their gelatinous bodies pulsed faintly through Symbiotic Fusion.

But there was no stagnation.

Their cores were denser than before.

Slimes did not chase transformation. They endured it.

Lucien watched for a while, satisfied. Slower did not mean worse. In many cases, it meant safer.

Then—

His gaze drifted below the slimes.

The Abyssal One lay where it always had.

Except—

Its eye was open.

And it was looking directly at him.

Lucien felt his throat tighten.

The Abyssal One spoke.

“You have touched a silence that was never meant to be disturbed.”

Lucien bowed slightly.

“Senior… it was nothing worth praise.”

A sound like stone grinding echoed faintly.

“Do not dress significance in humility,” the Abyssal One said. “To mend what has exited causality is no trivial labor.”

Lucien remained silent.

The Abyssal One’s gaze deepened.

“What you have done does not end with you,” it said. “It echoes outward, even when masked by safeguards older than your intent.”

Lucien swallowed.

“I am protected,” he said carefully.

“I know,” the Abyssal One replied. “Your name is unwritten. Your thread refuses ink. The usual eyes will slide past you.”

A pause.

“But not all watchers read the same way.”

Lucien’s fingers curled.

“You will not be noticed,” the Abyssal One said slowly, “by those who chart fate.”

Then its voice lowered.

“But there exist those who listen for absence, those who feel displacement, and those who hunt by echo, not sight.”

Cold crept up Lucien’s spine.

“Remain small,” the Abyssal One warned. “Remain quiet. There are heights you cannot afford to be named upon yet.”

Lucien did not ask who it meant.

Primordials. Or something older. Or something that did not belong to either.

He clasped his hands together and bowed more deeply.

“Thank you for your concern, Senior. I will be careful.”

The Abyssal One regarded him for a long moment.

Then its eye closed.

Its presence receded, folding back into stillness as if it had never stirred at all.

Lucien exhaled only when the pressure lifted.

The work was progressing.

The danger was not gone.

And somewhere beyond layers he could not yet perceive—

Something had noticed the shape of an absence shifting.

Lucien turned away.

‘Careful,’ he reminded himself.