Lootwell accelerated.

Branches expanded. New locations were approved across the West Continent.

Everyone became busy again.

This time, however, the busyness carried a different flavor.

It was not survival pressure.

It was momentum.

People moved with purpose. Division representatives coordinated without needing Lucien’s constant presence. Eirene, Vivian, Elias, Kael, Cecil, Clara, Lilith, Rurik, and the others no longer waited for every answer to descend.

They had learned how Lucien thought.

More importantly, Lucien had allowed them to trust their own judgment.

That changed everything.

A ruler who answered every question eventually became the narrowest gate in his own kingdom. Lucien had no intention of becoming Lootwell’s greatest bottleneck simply because people loved him too much to decide without permission.

So he gave authority.

Lucien still reviewed major shifts.

But the territory no longer froze without his hand.

That was growth.

And because of that, the branches multiplied.

The world saw it and called Lootwell ambitious.

Lucien heard the reports and smiled faintly.

They were not wrong.

They simply did not know what the ambition was for.

He told no one what he had seen.

The truth was too large and too cruel.

Lucien had no intention of turning every meal, every laugh, every child’s training session, every worker’s rest, every celebration, and every ordinary morning into a shadow beneath cosmic judgment.

Let his people live.

Let them grow.

Let them enjoy the world they were helping build.

If one person had to keep the worst truth in his chest for now, then fine.

Lucien had carried worse things.

Or at least, he told himself that until the lie became useful.

•••

Seran noticed anyway.

The communication artifact stirred one evening while Lucien was reviewing branch approvals in his office.

[You are moving faster.]

Lucien stared at the words.

Then laughed softly.

"Sharp bastard."

He replied.

[Am I?]

Seran’s answer came almost immediately.

[The rhythm changed. Now you seem like in a rush.]

Lucien’s smile faded slightly.

He remained silent for several breaths. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

He could tell Seran some of it.

Not all.

Perhaps not even the important part.

But enough to direct him.

Finally, he sent back:

[The world is too weak.]

Seran did not answer immediately.

Lucien continued.

[The Liberators need to grow too. Use the connection to Lootwell. Bring your people through the array. I’ll give you access to the Law Books.]

This time, Seran’s reply came slower.

[Full access?]

[Controlled full access.]

Then:

[Something happened.]

Lucien looked at the message and said nothing.

Seran sent one more.

[You do not have to tell me now.]

Lucien closed his eyes briefly.

Then he answered:

[When it becomes necessary, I will tell you.]

[Good enough.]

The Liberator Headquarters was already connected to Lootwell through the instant teleportation array.

That made the next step simple.

The world needed more than Lootwell.

It needed capable people everywhere.

And the Liberators had always been suited to dangerous work.

They simply needed better weapons, better knowledge, and fewer excuses to remain below the coming scale of trouble.

•••

Lucien also turned the recorders toward a new focus.

Origin Core fragments.

Within weeks, the reports became frightening.

The recorders gathered everything.

Which factions reacted too strongly when Scarlet Sect was mentioned.

Which elders avoided discussions of Origin Core fragments.

Which sects sent sudden envoys to sealed vaults after hearing of Lootwell’s deep alliance offer.

Which merchant houses had old records of fragment transport.

Which hidden factions spoke in careful circles around "ancestral light," "first inheritance," "core seal," or "world-origin token."

Lucien sat with Elias and several recorder captains one night as they watched name after name appear on a projected list.

Known holders. Probable holders. Hidden holders.

Lucien smiled slowly.

"Good."

Elias glanced at him.

"Shall we move?"

"No."

Lucien folded his hands.

"If we pressure them too soon, they will hide deeper. If we threaten them, they will make coalitions. If we steal them, we become the villain they warned each other about."

Elias nodded once, already understanding.

"So we entice."

"Yes."

Lucien looked at the list again.

"Let them watch the Scarlet Sect. Let them watch every faction that gave up a fragment and became stronger afterward. Let them compare their symbolic treasure with living advantage until pride starts looking expensive."

He tapped one name.

"Then they will come."

A recorder captain asked carefully, "And those who still refuse?"

Lucien smiled.

"Then we learn what they want more than status."

That was the quieter war.

Lucien did not need to rip every Origin Core fragment from the world by force. He only needed to make Lootwell the place where old treasures became greater futures.

With nearly fifty merged fragments, the signal had already begun reaching nearby continents.

But he refused to rush public expansion beyond the West.

The West Continent had to stabilize completely first. The devices had to reach every corner.

Only once the West had no meaningful gaps would Lootwell push into neighboring continents in earnest.

A weak expansion spread thin.

A strong expansion rooted first.

Lucien intended to root.

•••

He did not neglect practice either.

In fact, his personal training became more consistent than before.

The young Tree of Creation continued feeding him comprehension passively, and that influence had become increasingly beneficial to those close to him. When Lucien meditated with his friends, the effect was obvious.

Comprehension became smoother.

...

The working shifts were also adjusted throughout Lootwell.

Lucien ordered the structure changed so citizens had protected meditation time.

Work mattered.

Growth mattered too.

That policy changed morale more than expected.

Lootwell became busy in two directions at once.

Building outward.

Strengthening inward.

...

Lucien also spent long hours updating the Law Books.

He did it with others.

The Grand Archives grew.

Many Law Books now guided comprehension up to the Celestial Realm.

•••

His job skills evolved too.

That part took experimentation and patience.

Cram Session came first.

Originally, it allowed Lucien to lend skills in limited ways. Useful, but narrow.

He changed that.

He modified Cram Session until it could lend selected skills to many people at once.

Hundreds, if necessary.

...

Next came Scam the System.

He had previously extended its duration to five seconds per day. If he exceeded that limit, causality would notice.

Now, he had pushed it further.

Ten seconds.

Of course, those ten seconds did not need to be used all at once. He could divide them across multiple moments in a day, activating the skill whenever necessary until the total duration was exhausted.

But if he crossed that limit...

Then causality would correct him.

...

Then came Procrastinate.

Now, he was able to make a targeted string of existence procrastinate for a second.

In battle, a second was not small.

...

Extra Credit remained the most quietly frightening.

Through Symbiotic Fusion, those connected to Lucien continued feeding him comprehension. Distance mattered less than it should. If the host grew, understood, refined, or practiced, Lucien benefited too.

Thanks to Extra Credit, several of his other laws had grown so quickly that some were now ahead of his integrated Law of Creation in raw comprehension.

...

Auto-collect’s range had also expanded by a ridiculous margin.

Lucien felt that as long as his spiritual senses could detect something, Auto-collect could reach it.

Only he understood how absurd that truly was.

•••

Lucien had also accumulated too many skill cards to learn all of them personally. Many were redundant. Some overlapped with skills he already possessed.

So he stopped hoarding them pointlessly.

He cataloged them and distributed them carefully.

The right skill for the right person changed lives.

Spell cards entered circulation too.

The market versions were limited.

The internal versions were better.

That remained Lootwell policy.

Always give the world enough to love you.

Never give it enough to replace you.

•••

Then Seran finally found another possible goblin-held world.

The message arrived late at night.

[Coordinates found.]

Lucien’s eyes sharpened immediately.

[When can we go?]

[Within the month. I am still mapping the world. The goblins are more careful now.]

Lucien’s expression grew more serious.

Still, the timing was acceptable.

He needed to stabilize Lootwell’s accelerated growth before leaping into the void again. A territory growing too quickly could crack if its ruler mistook motion for strength.

So he waited.

But the thought of another bark remained in him like a bright thorn.

The Tree of Creation stirred whenever he considered it.

As if hungry.

As if aware.

•••

And then there was Alanthuriel.

That became its own category of impossible normality.

Alanthuriel spent a surprising amount of time in open fields.

Sleeping.

Or at least, he looked like he was sleeping.

Lucien had no idea whether an Abyssal Arch-Lord truly needed rest. He suspected not. But Alanthuriel seemed perfectly content to lie beneath the sky in places where grass moved quietly around him and clouds continued their work without knowing they were being observed by something older than most horrors.

The slimes always found him .

Skittles approached the first day Alanthuriel settled near one of the broad fields.

Lucien watched from a distance through the Jade Tablet.

Skittles bounced closer.

Alanthuriel opened one eye.

The two stared at each other.

Or rather, Alanthuriel stared, and Skittles performed the eyeless equivalent with impressive authority.

Then Skittles bounced once.

Alanthuriel closed his eye again.

Apparently, that counted as approval.

By the third day, a small cluster of slimes had gathered around him again.

By the seventh, several Nihility Slimes had begun sitting near him in unsettling silence, absorbing something from his presence.

By the second week, Alanthuriel was teaching them.

The Nihility Slimes began moving differently. Their aura became cleaner. Less like accidental absence. More like deliberate denial.

Skittles watched everything with the solemn pride of a general whose troops had found a terrifying guest instructor.

Lucien stood beside Vivian one afternoon, watching Alanthuriel lie in the field while tens of thousands of slimes arranged themselves around him like a soft, colorful army attending sacred laziness.

...

The slimes’ reputation has surged too.

At first, many had treated the slimes as cute.

Dangerous, perhaps.

But still cute.

That changed over time.

Stories of the past resurfaced.

Old scholars began digging through ancient texts. Rumors spread that slimes had once been one of the great terrors and wonders of the Millennia War.

Now they marched through Lootwell in disciplined waves.

They guarded children. They patrolled fields. They assisted in odd tasks. They trained. They advanced. They occasionally bullied visitors who failed to understand proper slime etiquette.

One outsider laughed at a small slime near the market.

The slime turned.

The outsider stopped laughing.

No one knew exactly what happened in those three silent breaths, but afterward the man bowed politely to every slime he passed for the rest of his stay.

Lucien heard the report and decided it was best not to investigate.

Some mysteries were good for public discipline.

...

Lucien stood once again at the edge of the Stillness Palace and looked over the impossible civilization spreading beneath him.

A faint smile touched his lips.

He was still afraid.

He would have been a fool not to be.

But fear no longer slowed him.

It gave shape to urgency.

And urgency, when disciplined properly, became progress.