Half a year passed.

In that half year, Lootwell’s progress became rhythmic.

Growth no longer came as one shocking leap after another. It came in organized waves.

Branch after branch opened across the West Continent.

Each branch had its own character, but all of them carried the same unmistakable mark.

Lootwell’s order.

Representatives were chosen carefully.

Lucien approved the final choices when necessary, but more and more often, he simply looked over the recommendations and signed them.

Lootwell had learned how to choose.

That mattered.

Meanwhile, the Crafting Division became more terrifying with each passing month.

More mass-production machines appeared.

Rurik’s automaton lines became one of the greatest surprises.

At first, outsiders had treated automatons as curiosities.

Then they saw them work.

They did not tire. They did not complain. They did not lose concentration. They did not drink, gossip, gamble away delivery schedules, or decide that "good enough" was a philosophy.

That alone made them revolutionary.

Rurik managed the production with frightening enthusiasm. The versions sold outside Lootwell remained limited, of course. Useful, durable, obedient, efficient, and impressive, but never equal to the internal models used by the territory itself.

Still, even the weaker versions became famous almost immediately.

One merchant house bought a batch for warehouse logistics and cut its loading time by more than half within a week.

A mining clan purchased several for ore hauling and immediately returned to order more.

A sect bought a set for menial formation maintenance, then tried to pretend the purchase had not changed their internal budget calculations forever.

It was too late.

Everyone knew.

Automatons were no longer strange.

They were desirable.

And the communication devices had gone even further.

By now, the culture shock had faded.

The West Continent no longer treated communication devices like miraculous toys that needed to be stared at every few breaths. They had entered daily life.

The world had not fully realized it yet, but an invisible habit had taken root.

People no longer asked whether they needed communication devices.

They asked why they did not have better ones.

That was when Lucien knew the first phase had succeeded.

•••

The Scarlet Sect became the first great proof of another strategy.

Somehow, Raven convinced the Scarlet Sect to hand over its Origin Core fragment.

When the fragment finally arrived in Lootwell, Lucien stared at it for a moment, then smiled.

That single decision changed the Scarlet Sect’s future.

Lootwell did not take without paying.

The Scarlet Sect became an official deep ally.

The difference became visible within months.

The Scarlet Sect gained access to products never sold in the open market. Better communication devices. Higher-grade medicines. Superior automaton support. Specialized training schedules. Priority repair.

And most importantly—

limited permission to enter deeper into Lootwell’s territory.

The Grand Archives.

The Scarlet Sect was allowed to study selected Law Books under supervision.

That alone made their elders nearly lose composure.

The effect was immediate.

People who had been stuck for years suddenly found their next direction. Practitioners who lacked conceptual clarity finally understood where their laws were supposed to bend. Several elders who had once believed they would die before reaching higher realms found their bottlenecks cracking in less than a month.

By the end of the first quarter, the Scarlet Sect had produced a visible wave of new Ascendants.

By the end of half a year, its strength had leapt so far beyond its previous standard that Maereth Region could no longer pretend to evaluate it using the old hierarchy.

The Scarlet Sect became the strongest sect in Maereth.

Raven sent a message after that.

[I think the patriarch is pretending not to smile in public.]

Lucien replied:

[Let him enjoy it. He made a good trade.]

And he had.

The Origin Core fragment had been symbolic power.

Lootwell had given them living power.

Naturally, Lucien let rumors spread.

The Scarlet Sect had given Lootwell an Origin Core fragment and received deep alliance in return.

That was all.

The effect was better than any advertisement.

Other sects began asking questions.

Could similar arrangements be discussed? Would Lootwell consider other fragments? What level of access would be granted? Would alliance include protection? Would strategic products be offered? Would branch priority be included?

Lucien smiled when the first formal request arrived.

Then came another.

Then another.

Within half a year, Lootwell gathered more than a dozen additional Origin Core fragments through negotiated exchange.

The kind where both sides left thinking they had won, though Lucien was quite confident he had won more.

Still, he had reasons beyond greed.

The Origin Core fragments could not be left scattered forever.

Lucien did not know how many fragments existed among the Thousand Races’ side.

But he understood one thing.

If the Black Mass monsters gathered too many, the balance would turn uglier.

And now that the Black Mass had awakened consciousness, it would favor its own monsters more directly than before. Fragments in foolish hands could become bait. Fragments in evil hands could become gates. Fragments in desperate hands could become disasters.

Lucien wanted them gathered before the wrong powers gathered them first.

So the plan was simple.

Offer something better than hoarding.

Make surrendering fragments profitable.

Make alliance desirable.

Make the old symbol feel small compared to the future Lootwell could provide.

It worked.

And with each new fragment merged into the Origin Core Shrine, the network deepened.

The signal widened.

The authority sharpened.

By the time the merged body neared fifty fragments, even Lucien felt the difference whenever he stood before it.

The Origin Core was no longer merely infrastructure.

It was becoming a continental nervous system.

•••

During those same months, Lucien and Seran continued their ugly little hobby.

Dungeon battery hunting.

They did not make grand announcements about it.

They simply vanished into the void at intervals, returned with sealed horrors that would have made lesser civilizations declare a national week of prayer, and fed them into the Ascension Spire with the casual efficiency of two men who had long ago misplaced the normal boundary between danger and resource acquisition.

After several such expeditions, the Spire changed again.

Its upper levels expanded.

At last, the Ascension Spire could support training environments and mimicked monsters up to the Ninth Stage of the Celestial Realm.

When the announcement spread internally, the battle maniacs of Lootwell behaved exactly as expected.

They celebrated as though someone had gifted them a holiday built entirely from violence.

Creating Eternal-level environments, however, remained another matter entirely.

That was still difficult.

It required an absurd amount of essence, stronger dungeon batteries, and a level of stability Lucien was unwilling to fake.

He could force something crude if he wanted. But a sloppy Eternal-level dungeon environment was not training.

It was either a joke or a mass funeral.

Neither interested him.

Still, the Spire was nearing the upper completion of its Celestial phase.

And thanks to the Origin Core’s growing authority, Lucien discovered another function.

Suppression consent.

Those stronger than a dungeon level could now enter while voluntarily suppressing their strength to match the permitted range.

It was not the same as ordinary restriction arrays. It was cleaner and more precise.

The Origin Core did not simply crush power downward. It created a temporary agreement between entrant, seal, dungeon, and floor authority.

The user consented.

The dungeon accepted.

The Origin Core stabilized the boundary.

That meant even Eternals could enter the Ascension Spire now if they agreed to suppress themselves.

The first time Solar Concordium tried it, he almost refused to leave.

•••

Solar Concordium arrived a few months after memory returned to the world.

He came, of course, for combat.

Lucien had expected that.

The man entered Lootwell with an expression that suggested he had come to challenge.

Then he saw the territory.

By the end of the first day, his expression had changed.

By the end of the second, he had entered the Ascension Spire.

By the end of the third, he was in love.

The suppression mechanism fascinated him most.

For someone with the Law of Combat, being able to suppress himself cleanly and experience battle as though he were once more climbing from the ground upward was not merely entertainment.

It was worship.

He fought like a mortal. Then like a Metamorphosis practitioner. Then like a Transcendent. Then like an Ascendant. Then again. Then again. Then again.

Every level, every limitation, every forced reduction of advantage gave him something he had almost forgotten.

Honest struggle within a defined boundary.

Solar Concordium stayed in the Spire for a month.

At some point, one of his attendants sent a message from his territory asking when he intended to return.

He replied:

[When I am finished.]

The attendant then asked when that would be.

Solar Concordium did not answer.

Lucien found this deeply funny.

When Solar Concordium finally emerged, his clothes were damaged, his aura was sharper, his eyes were brighter, and his grin looked like someone had restored several centuries of enthusiasm to his bones.

He went directly to Lucien.

Then placed an Origin Core fragment before him.

Lucien looked at it.

Then at him.

Solar Concordium said, "For the Spire."

Lucien stared for a moment. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

Then nodded with complete seriousness.

"Unrestricted access."

Solar Concordium smiled.

"Good."

That was the entire negotiation.

Eirene later looked at the contract and said, "That was barely diplomacy."

Lucien replied, "It was spiritual bribery between honest men."

She considered that.

Then marked the agreement properly.

•••

The ancient beasts were also settled during those months.

One by one, Lucien returned to those who remained from the cage of the Eternal of Stillness.

By then, the lesson had long since been understood.

The Titan and Behemoth had served as examples. The first contracted beasts had served as proof.

Refusal no longer carried the same dignity it once had.

So the last dozens accepted Concord Pacts.

Lucien then asked something from them.

They would serve as protectors.

They would stabilize branches, guard critical nodes, deter hostile powers, and act as living proof that Lootwell did not expand helplessly.

In return, Lucien promised them a hundred years.

After a hundred years, once the structure had stabilized and the world had adjusted to Lootwell’s reach, they could break the pacts themselves and choose their own paths.

That surprised some of them.

And strangely enough, that made them more willing to serve properly.

Forced loyalty had limits.

Recognized usefulness had pride.

By the end of half a year, every ancient beast once imprisoned under Stillness had been released from captivity and placed under purpose.

Lootwell’s branches became much harder to threaten after that.

•••

Meanwhile, Lucien’s own people continued growing.

That, more than all the wealth and branches and fragments, might have been the most terrifying development.

Because Lootwell did not merely produce goods.

It produced power.

Vivian was among the first Lucien focused on personally.

He created an empty vessel for her, just as he had done for himself, because he refused to let her foundation remain merely excellent when it could become monstrous.

Then he guided her into the Abyssal Pool.

She trusted him completely.

That did not make the process pleasant.

At one point, Vivian opened one eye through the pressure and said, with strained calm, "Brother."

Lucien looked at her.

"If I survive this, I am telling Mother you made this sound gentler than it is."

Lucien smiled.

"That is fair."

She survived.

More than survived.

Her body changed.

The Celestial aspect of her existence deepened. Her Wings of Atonement and Halo of Absolution resonated more cleanly. Her foundation became broader, heavier, and far more capable of supporting future laws without cracking beneath their weight.

Cielius went through the same advancement.

So did several others.

Skittles and the slimes did not need nearly as much help.

The slimes treated the Abyssal Pool like some kind of suspiciously pleasant bath.

The first time Lucien saw Skittles bounce into it with several others following happily behind, he stared for a while and decided, once again, that slimes were a mistake reality had somehow made adorable.

Skittles reached the Celestial Realm.

So did several of the others.

Oreo. Nyxis. Spryn. Drayn. Morphy. Even the Nihility Slimes advanced in their own eerie, quiet way.

They did not celebrate loudly.

They simply became more dangerous and continued bouncing around as though nothing had happened.

Sparkles and Lucien’s other pets required more direct assistance, but they progressed too.

Lootwell’s core circle rose.

Slowly by their standards.

Absurdly by anyone else’s.

Other powers raised a Celestial through generations of hoarded wealth, brutal selection, rare inheritances, lucky insights, and old monsters guarding secret resources for centuries.

Lootwell looked at that and treated it as an inefficient production problem.

Lucien knew how dangerous that was.

He also knew how necessary it had become.

The world was changing. The Black Mass had awakened. Abyssal entities had moved. Primordial Incarnations were no longer distant myths. The hidden structure of the universe had begun showing its teeth.

A territory full of ordinary talented people would not be enough.

He needed monsters of his own.

People who would stand with him when the scale of conflict finally stopped pretending to be regional.

And so Lootwell grew.