100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full?-Chapter 362 - Transcend

Aerolith’s hide rippled.

Light gathered along the glossy lines that crossed her skin like drifting constellations.

Then the Skywhale began to shrink.

Vastness drew inward, and the air itself seemed to exhale as her silhouette narrowed and narrowed until the glow became a single standing figure.

The light faded.

A small girl stood where the Skywhale had hovered.

She was slight, barefoot, and her hair fell in soft waves that shimmered like deep water under moonlight. Her features were mostly human, but not entirely. Glossy starlines still wandered across her skin, and when she blinked, there was something too old in the depth of her eyes.

Lucien stared.

The girl looked up at him, and the Concord Pact tightened into clarity.

A meaning, translated into words.

[Brother. Thank you for saving me earlier.]

Lucien’s mouth curved.

The voice felt like a tide learning how to speak.

[Good. You can call me Big Brother from now on.] Lucien paused, then added, amused. [And you are welcome.]

The girl’s head tilted, curious. The starlines along her cheek shifted with the movement.

Lucien’s eyes softened.

He had expected a companion.

He had not expected... a child.

He kept his tone steady anyway.

[One question.] Lucien asked. [Do you want to stay with me, or do you want to return to the void?]

Her answer came instantly, with the blunt honesty of instinct.

[Stay. I do not want the void. There is nothing there.]

Lucien felt something in his chest loosen.

He nodded.

[Then you will have to learn this world.] Lucien said. [Language. Customs. And the important rule of survival.]

Her brows rose.

[Rule?]

Lucien lifted a hand and tapped his own temple.

[If you do not understand people, you become a problem. If you become a problem, people gather to solve you.]

Aerolith stared at him for a long second, then nodded like she had just accepted a natural law.

[Learn.]

Lucien hid a laugh.

[Good.]

He created another Photographic Memory Skill Card just for her.

He stepped forward and pressed the card gently to Aerolith’s forehead.

Aerolith stiffened, eyes widening.

Her pupils dilated as a thousand new shelves appeared inside her mind, ready to hold everything she saw.

[Oh.] Aerolith said.

Lucien blinked.

Aerolith touched her forehead cautiously.

[My head became bigger.]

Lucien stared for half a breath, then laughed.

[It only feels bigger because you finally have somewhere to put things.] Lucien replied. [Come. Start with this.]

He handed her a bundle of simple materials. Runes. Basic words. Common phrases.

Aerolith accepted it with both hands.

Lucien crouched to meet her height.

[If you do not understand something, ask me.]

Aerolith’s eyes were very serious.

[Ask. Understood.]

Lucien straightened.

[Good girl.]

Aerolith’s starlines brightened faintly at the praise, as if approval itself was nourishment.

•••

A little later, Aerolith sat cross-legged on the floor with the materials spread out around her like fallen leaves.

She stared at the first page.

Then stared harder.

Then stared until her face tightened with effort.

Photographic Memory was working. Images were being stored cleanly in her mind.

But focus was another matter.

Aerolith’s eyes kept drifting.

To the sky. To the corner. To a dust mote floating like an enemy. To Lucien’s hair.

Lucien watched her struggle with a complicated expression.

He realized.

He had just asked a storm to do homework.

Aerolith suddenly flopped backward, arms spread wide.

[Brother.] Her voice carried misery. [The words are not moving.]

Lucien rubbed his temple.

[Words do not move.] Lucien said. [You do.]

Aerolith’s gaze turned accusing.

Lucien tried not to smile.

Then an idea slipped in from an older life.

A softer kind of leash.

Lucien opened his inventory and pulled out something he had not touched in a long time.

Food. A wrapped sandwich.

Aerolith sat up instantly.

Her nose twitched once.

Her eyes narrowed like a predator’s.

[Brother.] Aerolith asked slowly. [What is that.]

Lucien held it up.

[Food.]

Aerolith blinked.

[Food?]

Lucien nodded.

[You eat it.]

Aerolith leaned closer, sniffed again, then tilted her head.

[It does not smell like space rocks.]

Lucien paused.

[You have been eating space rocks?]

Aerolith shrugged with perfect innocence.

[Space rocks. And moons. Sometimes small planets if they are soft.]

Lucien stared at her.

He did not know whether to laugh or start worrying about his inner realm’s geography.

He handed her the sandwich.

Aerolith bit.

Her eyes went wide.

The starlines across her skin flared like a constellation being lit one star at a time.

She chewed slowly, as if afraid that swallowing too quickly might offend the experience.

Then her voice arrived through the pact with raw awe.

[Brother. This is delicious. It is tastier than space rocks.]

Lucien lowered his hand, amused.

[Good.] Lucien said. [Then I have more.]

Aerolith’s eyes brightened.

Lucien lifted one finger.

[But you only get more if you make progress.]

Aerolith froze.

Then she nodded like someone who had just been given the universe’s fairest bargain.

[Promise.]

Lucien reached into his inventory and produced a second sandwich, then stopped himself and put it away.

Aerolith’s gaze followed it like a starving beast.

Lucien pointed at the page.

[Read.]

Aerolith hissed softly, offended.

Then she leaned in again, glaring at the words with new seriousness.

A moment later, she looked up.

[Brother. How do you pronounce this.]

Lucien’s smile turned small and genuine.

[Like this.]

And he began teaching her properly with patience, repetition, and a strange reward system that would have horrified every academy headmaster in existence.

•••

Hours later...

A stir brushed Lucien’s senses.

His head snapped toward the training halls.

Rurik.

The air around that door felt different, like a knot untangling itself.

Lucien’s grin appeared before he meant it to.

He rose.

[Stay here.] Lucien told Aerolith. [I will check something.]

Aerolith clutched the papers tighter.

[Progress. Food.] she reminded him.

Lucien pointed at her with mock severity.

[Do not eat the grass.]

Aerolith blinked.

[Can I eat the rocks.]

Lucien sighed.

[No.]

Then he blinked away, leaving her more food behind. He had a sudden fear that she might actually start eating rocks.

•••

Lucien appeared before Rurik and immediately felt the shift.

A clean change in structure.

Rurik looked up, eyes bright. His aura settled into a new rhythm.

Lucien nodded once, satisfaction clean on his face.

"You transcended."

Rurik’s throat worked.

Then he dropped to one knee quickly.

"Savior, it worked! The moment I turned the page, it was like the world stopped hiding from me. I could see strings behind strings. Reasons behind reasons. I... I can build things I could not even imagine yesterday." Rurik said in one breath. His words stumbled over each other with joy.

Lucien listened patiently, letting the man empty the storm in his chest.

When Rurik finally slowed, Lucien handed him a list and several stacks of Law Books.

"Take these," Lucien said. "This list tells you which Law fits who. Tell the others the good news. Have them stop learning skills for a moment. Today, everyone steps higher."

Rurik held the stacks with both arms like he was carrying a future.

"Understood," Rurik said. "I will go to them immediately."

Lucien’s eyes softened slightly.

"If something resists you, ask me." Lucien said. "Later, I will write the deeper sections. These pages are only the doorway."

Rurik bowed and hurried off with an expression that looked almost childlike in its excitement.

Lucien watched him go door to door, pulling people out and speaking fast. His hands moved like he was explaining fire to people who had lived in the dark.

Lucien blinked back to Aerolith.

•••

Aerolith was sitting exactly where he left her.

The learning materials were open.

Her posture was perfect.

Lucien’s chest loosened with satisfaction.

Then he looked closer.

She was chewing.

Lucien’s eyes moved slowly to the side.

A pile of wrappers sat neatly stacked.

Aerolith had not eaten rocks.

She had simply eaten everything else he had left her.

Lucien pinched the bridge of his nose.

"So this is my life now." 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

Aerolith froze.

Then she looked up and smiled in a way that was too innocent to be real.

"Brother."

Lucien nodded.

That word had come from her mouth this time, not through the pact’s translation.

Progress.

Then Aerolith continued, calm as a queen issuing a decree.

"I want more food."

Lucien stared at her.

His mouth twitched.

His soul sighed.

He handed her another sandwich anyway.

Aerolith accepted it like it was a ceremonial offering.

Lucien sat down across from her and tapped the page with two fingers.

"Read one paragraph," he said. "Then chew."

Aerolith blinked.

"Fair."

Lucien did not know whether to be proud or frightened that she understood bargaining so quickly.

•••

When Aerolith returned to her page, Lucien extended his senses toward the remaining black cubes.

Other void monsters slept inside, their presences pressed into strange shapes.

Some felt bleak. Some felt sharp. Some felt wrong in ways his Divine Sense could not name.

A few presences made his instincts recoil on sight alone as if their forms were arguments reality had not finished rejecting.

Lucien ignored those.

He narrowed his attention to the ones that felt... readable.

Potential companions.

Just then...

His attention moved again.

Toward the ancient beings resting within his inner world.

Lucien’s eyes narrowed with intent.

Void beasts were one front.

His people were another.

And his monsters needed teachers who spoke in Law, not language.

Lucien exhaled slowly.