The next day, Eirene came looking for him.

Lucien noticed her expression before she even spoke.

She was smiling.

Eirene tilted her head.

"I have good news."

That made Lucien smile.

Without another word, she lifted a hand and placed three crystal fragments onto the table between them.

Lucien froze.

Origin Core fragments.

For a heartbeat, he simply stared at them.

Then he looked up at her again.

Eirene remained composed.

"The Lunarians preserved them from the Millennia War," she said. "They decided to give them to you."

Lucien looked back at the fragments.

Three more.

He did not ask what exactly she had said to the Lunarians to make them hand over such things. He knew Eirene well enough by now to understand that if she wanted to explain, she would.

So instead he smiled and said, "Thank you, sister Eirene. Please also thank the Lunarian friends for me."

She gave a small nod.

Lucien picked up one of the fragments and felt the pulse in it.

"With more of these," he murmured, "the signal might extend beyond the West and reach the nearby continent properly."

Eirene’s smile deepened just slightly.

•••

Soon after, Lucien entered the Origin Core Shrine.

Then he added the three fragments from the Lunarians plus the origin core fragment he found hidden in Covenant-Breaker’s artifact.

Four new fragments in total.

The effect was immediate.

The old merged body of the Origin Core opened to them, drew them inward, and the lawful pulse inside the shrine deepened.

Across the greater network, distant devices and nodes almost seemed to breathe in response.

Lucien closed his eyes.

His connection intensified at once.

It became cleaner, broader, more articulate.

Then another feeling emerged beneath it.

Something subtler.

He opened his eyes slowly.

There was indeed a connection now between the Origin Core and the young Tree of Creation rooted above his Divine Energy Core.

The Origin Core was tied to beginnings. And the Tree of Creation... was the first living permission.

Lucien did not yet know what would happen if he ever gathered the complete Origin Core and all the barks of the tree of creation.

But he knew with absolute certainty that whatever happened would not be small.

It would be the kind of event that redefined lives from the inside.

He smiled faintly.

Then he left the shrine.

•••

For the rest of the day, Lucien chose not to work first.

He wanted to see his old friends.

It did not take long to find them.

He heard them before he saw them.

The ring of weapon against weapon. Laughter. The unmistakable sound of friendly dishonesty wrapped in public confidence.

Lucien turned the corner and found Aldren, Roneth, Caelum, and Lioren sparring in one of the open practice courts.

Or rather, sparring with outsiders.

And extorting them politely.

He stopped and watched.

They had become older, stronger, more composed in body and bearing.

And yet somehow, not one of them had changed in the important ways.

Aldren fought like a man who believed force and momentum were the highest forms of persuasion. Roneth moved with irritating smoothness. Caelum looked far too calm while parrying attacks. And Lioren—

Lucien smiled.

Lioren had grown into a beautiful young woman, and the old trouble once caused by her Euphoric Vein no longer haunted her every movement.

She held herself cleanly now, in full command of her own body. She can’t get drunk from normal water anymore. Her constitution had matured and her path had sharpened around it.

Now, through the Law of Absorption, she could draw memory and essence more easily now from what she consumed and turn it into strength.

The four of them saw him almost at the same time.

And, to Lucien’s relief, not one of them shouted "young lord" like a doomed idiot in front of outsiders.

Lioren simply waved.

"Brother!"

Lucien walked closer and greeted them back.

Only then did he notice what was happening more clearly.

They were gambling.

Professionally.

If an outsider beat one of them in a proper bout, they earned privileges. Discounted shop access. A reduced market tariff. A free lower-floor dungeon entry. A chance at a discounted skill-door selection.

Lucien almost laughed.

They were turning public training into profit.

That was exactly the sort of Lootwell behavior he wanted to see spreading naturally.

"Don’t bully the visitors too much," he said.

Aldren grinned.

"We only exploit ambition fairly."

That made Lucien laughed.

Then he looked at the four of them and added, "Why don’t you show me your progress instead?"

The effect was immediate.

All four visibly paled.

Lioren pointed at herself.

"You mean us?"

Lucien folded his arms.

"No. I meant the decorative sand near your feet."

Caelum shut his eyes once and muttered, "We should have run the moment he arrived."

Roneth nodded.

"That was our tactical error."

The outsiders looked confused.

The four of them wanted to decline. But they also knew that getting trained directly by him was the kind of opportunity one had no right to refuse merely because survival instincts were functioning correctly.

So the session began.

And very quickly, it became absurd.

Lucien corrected stances. Broke bad timing. Crushed assumptions. Stopped one attack mid-sequence and asked, with painful calm, "Why are you trusting your opponent to respect your rhythm?" Then made them repeat the exchange until none of them had any pride left in the answer.

Within minutes, the four of them had gone from playful confidence to collective suffering. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

At one point, Lioren looked at the stunned outsiders watching from nearby and shouted, "If any of you want discounts, now is the time to earn them! Help us!"

The outsiders looked at each other.

Then, because greed and curiosity are stronger than caution in exactly the kind of people who travel to Lootwell for self-improvement, several of them joined in.

Promises of discounts helped.

What followed was one of the stranger sights of the day.

A growing cluster of people, citizens and outsiders alike, being trained, corrected, dismantled, humiliated, and improved by one man who looked far too calm for the amount of social and spiritual damage he was causing.

By the end of it, several outsiders had learned more in one hour than they expected to learn in three months.

They were also half-dead.

Lucien considered that fair.

•••

After leaving them behind in varying stages of gratitude and physical despair, Lucien continued through Lootwell.

His next stop was Aerolith’s domain.

There, the atmosphere changed completely.

Peace sat on that part of the territory like a natural law.

Wide fields stretched under warm sky and careful light.

At the center of it, Aerolith lay sprawled lazily on the ground as though agriculture itself had finally exhausted her into enlightenment. She was munching on ripe fruits and herbs.

Her Law of Continuance spread from her in silent threads, feeding growth without strain, keeping every living thing in quiet conversation with its own best state.

Green and several workers moved nearby, making sure the fields remained top-tier in quality and that nothing of value was wasted.

There were no frantic orders here. Just a deep and steady rhythm of cultivation, maintenance, harvest, and care.

Lucien stood at the edge of the field and watched for a while.

This place had become one of Lootwell’s most quietly profitable engines.

The crops here were in constant demand in the market.

Especially the "miracle" crops.

Once Lootwell began openly selling the special crops capable of granting attributes, the outsiders had nearly lost its collective dignity.

People begged for them.

Attribute-granting items had always existed. But they were rare, tightly controlled, often hidden, and usually monopolized by major powers who preferred not to let opportunity circulate too freely among those beneath them.

Lootwell, by contrast, sold them.

That single fact had changed more personal ambitions than several sect doctrines combined.

Lucien approved.

And Aerolith, true to herself, remained the chill center of the whole domain.

•••

Later, Lucien visited the desert sector.

There, the wind still knew old habits.

The sands stretched in controlled expanses. It was no longer the Karesh Desert of the past. But Lucien had made sure part of the old truth remained.

He stood at the edge of one open stretch and whistled once into the heat.

The sands parted.

From beneath them emerged immense shapes.

Soilwyrms.

They rose like shifting dunes remembering they had hunger and purpose. Larger now than before. Their realms had risen with the rest of Lootwell. The stronger they are, the larger they become.

Lucien nodded at them as they bowed their great heads.

Some had reached Ascendance and with it the right to proper speech.

One of the larger wyrms lowered itself slightly and said, "Master."

Lucien smiled.

"Continue protecting the desert zones and those living here. Learn the movement of everything beneath the sands. And when I need an area turned barren quickly..." He let the thought hang.

The Soilwyrm’s presence brightened with instinctive approval.

"It will be done."

Good.

Lucien had no intention of discarding deserts merely because greener territory was more profitable.

A desert, properly controlled, was also a weapon.

And the Soilwyrms would be its hidden fangs.

•••

The whole day passed like that.

Lucien moved through Lootwell as an ordinary citizen might.

He watched. He listened. He laughed. He paused where he wanted.

For once, nothing required him immediately.

And that eased something in him.

Work and life were not enemies unless one was foolish enough to let one devour the other. A territory built only through strain eventually inherited strain into its bones. Lucien had no intention of letting Lootwell become that kind of place.

So he breathed.

He watched his people live better than before. He watched old friends grow. He watched outsiders struggle toward understanding. He watched prosperity, law, danger, absurdity, and comfort coexist without contradiction.

And somewhere in the middle of that living ease—

something in him loosened.

Lucien stopped walking.

The world around him became clearer.

He understood it immediately.

The Tree of Creation had shown him too much too quickly. The knowledge had entered him correctly, but not yet comfortably.

Some part of him had remained inwardly taut ever since he returned, as though his own being had been trying too hard to hold revelation in rigid order.

Now it softened.

The day had done it. The living city had done it. The ordinary happiness of seeing what he built continue without asking permission from chaos had done it.

His aura rose.

And with one smooth internal ascent, Lucien stepped fully into the Seventh Stage of the Celestial Realm.

He closed his eyes for one moment and smiled.

This time, the breakthrough had not come from battle.

It had come from seeing what deserved to continue.

Which, Lucien thought, felt exactly like Creation.