100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full?-Chapter 364 - Breakthrough

Lucien’s focus sharpened.

The longer he stared into the Bark’s strings, the less they behaved like information.

What he first thought were patterns revealed themselves as intersections. What he believed were intersections unfolded into frameworks. And every framework hinted at something older.

Lucien frowned.

This was depth.

He extended his fingers to within inches of the bark, then hesitated.

He remembered the fragment Eierne had given him and how he had nearly exploded when he touched it.

Lucien exhaled slowly.

"My spirit’s foundation is different now," he murmured. "I can take more strain."

He did not sound fully convinced.

But he moved anyway.

Lucien reached out.

His fingertips brushed the Bark’s strings.

And it occurred—

The world rejected him.

The inner realm vanished, and with it the sense of space. Lucien felt himself pulled inward.

He was drawn toward the conceptual space where his spirit resided.

His fractured spirit was still there, just as it had always been. It was still hugging his divine energy core.

But something else was there now.

The Bark’s strings.

They poured out of his divine energy core as if they had always been waiting there. Pale threads unraveled into the space, moving without rhythm or hierarchy.

Lucien’s breath caught.

The strings shifted, crossed, separated, then began to reassemble themselves.

They wrapped around the divine energy core, not binding it, but integrating with it. The core did not resist.

It accepted them.

And from that union, something grew.

A sapling.

A tiny tree took shape atop his divine energy core. Its roots sank directly into the core’s structure as if the two had never been separate to begin with.

Lucien stared, speechless.

A chill ran through him.

He observed the interaction carefully, forcing his mind into analysis even as instinct screamed at him to stop.

Lucien swallowed.

"No," he muttered. "That’s absurd."

The thought came anyway, fully formed and impossible to unsee.

"What if my divine energy core was never just a container?"

The realization struck him like a silent collapse.

"What if... it’s part of the Tree of Creation itself?"

Lucien expected rejection.

None came.

Instead, his entire being responded.

His mind reorganized first.

His thoughts that once moved in linear chains began branching. Parallel thoughts coexisted without friction. Perfect Calculation simplified.

Then his body reacted.

Lucien felt the tension he had carried since his return to the Big World loosen. Muscles reformed subtly. Every movement felt... cheaper and less wasteful as if his body finally understood why it existed.

Then his soul stirred.

Lucien froze.

The golden glow within his fractured spirit flared softly.

Lucien froze.

"That was my soul?" he murmured. "Why is it like this?"

Lucien stared at it in disbelief.

His soul was not singular. It carried multiple signatures.

They did not conflict. They resonated.

Lucien’s hands trembled.

"This..." he whispered. "What am I, really?"

The sapling answered without words.

Motes of light drifted from its leaves, falling through his spirit like slow snowfall.

The threads that held his spirit together tightened.

Lucien’s vision dilated.

He felt something give way, in the way he perceived cause and effect.

Enlightenment arrived without ceremony.

Creation reorganized him.

Lucien realized it then.

The Tree of Creation was not the first creator.

It was the first agreement.

Lucien’s consciousness expanded, folding deeper into coherence.

The sapling’s roots deepened.

Lucien breathed.

Creation continued forging itself in his mind.

The Bark of the Tree of Creation remained silent as if satisfied.

•••

Time passed.

The sapling rooted in Lucien’s divine energy core swayed without wind. Its leaves glimmered briefly before dissolving into motes of light that drifted outward and sank into Lucien’s spirit.

It was feeding him.

The sapling did not push knowledge into his mind. It offered it, and his spirit accepted naturally like dry soil taking in rain.

The fractured lines of his spirit tightened and aligned. The Starlit Codex responded without command.

Lucien felt it happen with quiet certainty.

His spirit finished mending itself.

It settled, whole again. And stronger.

But the real change was not strength.

It was clarity.

...

Time continued to pass.

The sapling’s leaves shed more motes. Each carried a fragment of Creation.

He learned why form preceded matter. Why existence resisted sudden change but welcomed gradual agreement. Why Creation never imposed itself, and why Collapse was not destruction but disagreement taken to its extreme.

He learned how reality stored instructions. How worlds remembered what they were supposed to be. How errors propagated, and how they could be corrected without force.

Lucien’s mind absorbed it in waves.

From this understanding, something new took shape.

A faculty.

Lucien gained a Creation-derived skill that did not announce itself with grandeur, but with inevitability.

Structural Insight.

The ability to perceive anything as an arrangement of agreements. He could see which parts were essential, which were redundant, and which could be altered without collapse.

It was not omniscience. It was comprehension.

Lucien smiled faintly within his own consciousness.

This was Creation’s temperament. Firm, patient, and absolute.

As the sapling continued to work, Lucien’s inner realm expanded steadily. Boundaries stretched. Stability deepened. His divine energy core pulsed with a rhythm closer to breath than power.

•••

A week passed.

And Lucien opened his eyes.

He rose smoothly from meditation as awareness snapped into place.

His realm had advanced.

He had reached the sixth stage of the Ascendant Realm. And he could feel the seventh waiting as a door left ajar.

It was not over. Not even close.

The sapling still stood, leaves still drifting. Knowledge still flowing.

Lucien activated Parallel Thoughts.

And paused.

Something was different. His skills had evolved too.

His mind did not split. It expanded.

One layer of his consciousness continued absorbing Creation’s truths, refining understanding in the background. Another handled the present without distraction or strain.

This was not multitasking. This was integration.

Lucien was learning passively now.

Enlightenment no longer required effort. It occurred as a consequence of existence.

He exhaled slowly and looked down at his hands.

Even his eyes felt different.

Sharper, but not aggressive.

Calmer, but not dull.

Creation had left fingerprints on him.

"That’s... a lot to take in," Lucien murmured.

Just then, there was a knock.

"Brother?" Kaia’s voice came through the door. "Are you awake?"

Silence followed.

Lucien had not answered yet, and Kaia did not knock again.

"She’s probably deep in meditation," Lilith said quietly from the other side. "Let’s go."

Lucien stood and opened the door.

Kaia froze mid-turn.

Lilith stopped short.

They both stared at him.

Lucien blinked. "Good timing."

Kaia squinted at him. Her eyes flared faintly as she instinctively scanned.

"Brother," she said slowly, "you... broke through."

Lucien nodded once.

"Yes."

That should have been the end of it.

Then he stepped forward.

Just when his foot touched the floor...

The space around him shuddered.

A pressure rolled outward like a deep breath released by the room itself. The air thickened, then settled, as if acknowledging a new constant.

Kaia’s eyes went wide.

Lilith forgot to speak.

Lucien paused mid-step.

"...Oh."

Kaia pointed at him. "That was a breakthrough."

Lucien frowned slightly. "Was it?"

Lilith stared at the floor, then at Lucien, then back at the floor.

"You advanced," she said carefully. "Just now. While walking."

Kaia’s mouth fell open. "That’s... cheating."

Lucien rubbed the back of his head. "Would you believe me if I said it was an accident?"

Neither of them answered.

The truth was, Lucien hadn’t felt it coming.

His mind had continued refining Creation’s principles in the background. Like breathing. Like gravity doing what gravity did.

Kaia finally spoke again. "People spend years preparing for that."

Lilith exhaled slowly. "Wolf brother... what did you touch?"

Lucien just smiled and shook his head without answering.

Kaia stared at him, then laughed once.

"I’m never racing you again."

Lucien smiled.

Inside him, unseen, the sapling’s leaves continued to drift.

And Creation kept teaching.