100% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? - Chapter 308

Chapter 308: Chapter 308 – Ascent
A week had passed within Lucien’s inner realm.

He exhaled slowly and opened his eyes.

Frustration lingered beneath his calm.

He had not reached the Ascendant Realm.

No matter how carefully he tried, no matter how precisely he aligned his intent, the result remained the same. His Law responded flawlessly to command, yet refused to condense. The moment he attempted to solidify it, the structure dissolved before it could stabilize.

Lucien rose from his seated position and looked toward the distant sky of his inner world.

“I am still stuck,” he said quietly.

He reviewed the conditions once more.

The first requirement was Law Saturation.

The Law must no longer resist its wielder. There could be no delay between intent and manifestation, no distortion, and no friction between will and principle.

Lucien had already crossed this threshold.

The Law of Creation answered him immediately. It shaped matter, structure, and rule with precision. There was no instability in its response.

That part was complete.

The second requirement was Domain Seed Formation.

A Domain could not appear fully formed. Before Ascendance, a practitioner had to condense a Domain Seed. It’s a stable conceptual nucleus of the Law, capable of projecting rules outward without contradiction.

It was conceptual mass.

The seed had to integrate with the spirit itself. Only then could it anchor a Domain without collapse.

This was where Lucien had failed.

For seven days, he had attempted condensation. He had refined intent, isolated concepts, narrowed scope, widened perspective, and tested balance.

Nothing responded.

The Law of Creation remained silent to the attempt.

Lucien let out a breath.

If the second condition could not be fulfilled, the third was unreachable.

The final requirement was known as the Trial of Coherence.

Ascendance did not summon lightning. It did not invite punishment or karmic judgment.

Instead, the universe posed a single question.

<Can your Law exist without breaking reality?>

When a Domain Seed formed, reality itself tested it.

If the Law was too broad, it contradicted itself.

If it was too narrow, it stagnated.

If it was selfish, the universe rejected it.

If it was absolute, it collapsed under its own weight.

That was why countless Transcendent beings remained trapped at the threshold forever. Harmony with the universe was not power. It was restraint.

Lucien sighed.

He stepped out of meditation first and allowed his awareness to expand.

He observed his inner world.

The new planet was recovering steadily. The Lithrens moved across their lands freely now. Their mineral-plated bodies continued to shed, revealing forms shaped by adaptation rather than exploitation.

They were alive. They were choosing.

And the world responded.

Lucien’s attention shifted to the ruins near the mine.

The Alloykin corpses remained scattered where they had fallen.

Except they were disappearing.

Slowly.

The Astrafer-infused bodies were being absorbed by the planet itself. Their unnatural structures were breaking down, dissolving into raw material. Minerals returned to soil. Energies dispersed into atmosphere and stone.

The world was reclaiming what had been taken from it.

Lucien watched carefully.

“This always belonged to the world,” he murmured.

And then he noticed something else.

The planet did not resist the process.

It did not struggle.

It did not require command.

The reclamation followed an internal rule.

Lucien’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“This world…” he said softly. “It acts like a domain.”

The realization struck him without warning.

His breath caught.

His inner realm was not simply a space. It enforced rules. It governed interaction.

It rejected intrusion and integrated change without contradiction.

Lucien’s thoughts aligned rapidly.

“Could it be…”

He straightened.

“This entire inner realm is already my domain.”

The implication rippled through him.

His gaze sharpened.

“Then why can’t I form a Domain Seed?”

Silence followed.

Then his eyes widened.

“The Divine Energy Core,” he said.

His heart began to pound.

A Domain Seed was a condensed conceptual nucleus.

His Divine Energy Core had always been treated as a container. A physical construct that held energy, worlds, and beings.

But that assumption had never been questioned.

Lucien recalled the slimes. Their cores were not vessels. They were definitions.

Slimes did not separate concept from body. Their existence was structure. Their form was function.

His core was similar. It was not empty space. It was a governing construct.

Lucien laughed quietly. His eyes gleamed.

“If that is true… then I have not failed to form a Domain Seed.”

He inhaled slowly.

“I already possess one.”

Lucien paused then shook his head lightly.

“No,” he corrected himself. “I never realized what it was.”

He turned.

The Obsidian Tower loomed around him, still hurtling through space.

Lucien retreated inside and reappeared at its core chamber.

The structure trembled faintly as cosmic forces slid past its hull.

Lucien sat down and anchored himself to the floor.

Warped Jellies flowed outward, bonding him to the surface with elastic firmness. The tower continued its passage, but Lucien remained unmoved.

He closed his eyes.

This time, he did not attempt to create anything.

He turned inward.

The breakthrough had not begun yet.

But now, he finally knew where to press.

Lucien focused.

The Law of Creation answered.

Lucien’s awareness sank toward his chest where his Divine Energy Core resided.

The moment his Law touched it, the core stirred.

It responded the way a living structure responded when finally acknowledged.

Lucien narrowed his focus and probed deeper.

Then it moved.

The Divine Energy Core loosened from its fixed position and drifted within him, no longer anchored to flesh. It slid through his internal space as if it had always possessed the right to do so.

Lucien did not feel pain. He did not feel strain.

Instead, a sense of release washed through him. Like a joint that had been locked for too long finally allowed to rotate.

His heartbeat steadied. His circulation adjusted. His body accepted the change without protest.

Lucien understood then.

The core had never been bound to his body.

He had been bound to the assumption that it should be.

The Divine Energy Core rose.

Slowly, deliberately, it traveled upward through his internal space, guided not by force but by alignment. Lucien followed it with his senses, allowing his Law to stabilize the path without interference.

It moved toward his head.

Toward his spirit.

Lucien’s awareness expanded inward.

And then he saw it.

His spirit stood there. Facing it was the Divine Energy Core.

They hovered before each other.

For a heartbeat, Lucien expected resistance.

He expected the struggle of integration.

But… It did not come.

Instead, something unexpected happened.

His spirit moved.

It reached forward and wrapped itself around the Divine Energy Core.

Not as a conqueror. But as something precious.

Lucien’s breath caught.

His spirit held the core the way one held a fragile truth. The way one guarded a vow.

The Divine Energy Core did not resist the embrace.

It settled into it.

And in that moment—

Reality responded.

Lucien’s awareness was torn outward as an immense pressure descended.

The Trial of Coherence began.

There was no thunder. No judgmental voice.

Instead, space itself pressed inward.

Lucien felt contradiction arise from every direction.

Creation stretched.

It tested itself against itself.

Could it define without overruling?

Could it permit without collapsing?

Lucien’s aura shuddered.

His Law surged and recoiled in waves as reality examined it from countless angles. Concepts brushed against each other, seeking fractures.

Lucien gritted his teeth.

Pain lanced through his consciousness. Not physical but existential.

Sweat formed along his brow.

Time blurred.

Hours passed.

Then days.

Lucien did not retreat.

When contradiction arose, he refined intent.

When collapse threatened, he narrowed scope.

When stagnation loomed, he allowed expansion.

He did not force resolution.

He listened.

The Trial pressed harder.

At times, his vision darkened. At times, his Law threatened to unravel under its own breadth. Once, his aura cracked and dispersed violently, sending backlash through his core.

Lucien endured it.

He rebuilt.

Creation adapted.

Not because Lucien commanded it to. But because it learned how to exist alongside reality instead of replacing it.

…

On the seventh day, something changed.

The pressure eased.

The contradictions aligned.

The embrace between spirit and core stabilized.

And then—

Lucien’s aura surged outward in a controlled expansion. Space around him bent. The Obsidian Tower trembled faintly, then steadied as Lucien’s presence redefined the space he occupied.

Lucien exhaled slowly.

Lucien opened his eyes.

The world felt different. Clearer.

He had crossed the threshold.

Lucien Lootwell… had entered the Ascendant Realm.

The first tribulation was complete.

And far beyond the Obsidian Tower, in layers of reality that watched for imbalance, something turned its attention.

Creation had learned a new way to exist.

And the universe would not ignore that forever.