100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full?-Chapter 367 - Anvil-Horn

Hours later, Lucien’s inner realm had grown busy in a way no city ever could.

He sat cross-legged in the quiet and created Split Body again... and again... and again, until several tiny Luciens hovered around him like motes that had learned arrogance.

Each one carried a precise instruction. Learn. Bind. Do not offend.

His split bodies blinked out one by one, reappearing near the mentors he had gathered.

He had already spoken with them, and they agreed without hesitation or ceremony.

Condoriano received the first with a bark of laughter that shook the clouds above his roost.

"So the little friend wants to steal the sky from my throat," the Sky Condor boomed. "Fine. If you can keep up, I’ll teach you how distance becomes authority."

Saber’s answer was a grunt and a stare that made the air feel sharp.

Kira watched the tiny Lucien approach. Her antennae twitched once, then she clicked her mandibles in approval.

"Efficient," she said. "A swarm strategy."

Morveth was the gentlest. He lowered his shell and regarded the pea-sized Lucien like a candle deciding whether to accept flame.

"You will not drown yourself in my silence?" Morveth asked.

"I will set a boundary," the split body replied.

Morveth’s eyes softened.

"Then come, little shelf-walker. Learn how to endure without hardening."

And so the Symbiotic Fusions began.

Lucien watched the threads connect and felt the feedback ripple through his main consciousness.

He exhaled slowly.

Time was the only payment now. Time, and patience.

He liked that kind of price.

•••

Soon, Lucien drifted his awareness over his inner world again.

And then he noticed the thing he had not looked at in too long.

The dungeons.

They sat like sleeping organs in the world’s flesh.

He had avoided them deliberately.

Unlike the Gargoyle Dungeon, which was sustained by the Essence of the Gargoyle Ancestor and could keep birthing monsters like a wound that refused to close, these dungeons were simpler.

They were shells. Their Dungeon Cores had finite reserves.

Burn them down too hard, and the cores would starve. The spawns would thin. Then stop.

Lucien rested his chin on his hand.

"That is a bottleneck," he murmured.

Then his mouth curved.

"But not for long."

Because he had Kharzun.

He would be the engine. A source of pressure so vast it could be converted into fuel if he wrote the right network.

Lucien’s mind slipped into engineering mode.

He pulled parchment to his lap and began sketching a blueprint in layered runes.

A dungeon network with Kharzun as the furnace, Dungeon Cores as the chambers, and monster spawns as the exhaust.

If he could stabilize the conversion, he could turn resource into industry.

His eyes sharpened.

Then he paused and set the parchment down.

It was possible.

But it was complicated.

Complicated enough to steal days.

"For now," he said quietly, "I’ll let the plan mature."

He stood and returned to his room.

•••

Lucien felt them before he opened the door.

Three presences gathered outside.

He stepped out.

Kaia and Lilith were there, and between them stood an older Solhorn.

The man looked like war had used him and failed to finish the job.

The Solhorn’s fierce eyes met Lucien’s.

Then the fierceness softened.

Lilith’s face also held a strange gentleness.

Kaia too, as if she had rehearsed sympathy in advance.

Lucien blinked once.

"What is this expression?" he asked.

The older Solhorn spoke first.

"Benefactor," he said. "By waking me, you have saved Starforge itself. I never expected someone to help me without asking a price... especially not when you are already wounded."

Lucien paused.

"Wounded?"

Kaia stepped forward, suddenly solemn.

"No need to deny it, Brother. I saw the damage in your spirit after our battle in the void. When you healed him, you must have reopened it."

Lucien stared at her.

Lilith cleared her throat in the way someone did when words were inconvenient.

"Take this," she said.

She held out a storage ring.

Lucien looked between the three of them.

Three nods.

Lucien felt a laugh try to escape and choke him at the same time.

"What in the world..."

He took the ring and peeked inside.

It was stuffed with recovery items.

Lucien stared.

Then he sighed.

The misunderstanding had grown roots.

"I will use them." He simply said.

Lilith looked relieved, like she had completed her language of care.

The Solhorn’s shoulders loosened.

"Good," the old man said quietly. "Good."

They moved into the sitting area, and only then did the Solhorn formally introduce himself.

"I am called the Anvil-Horn Eternal," he said.

His gaze held Lucien’s with steady respect.

"You are our benefactor. If you ask for something we can provide, we will provide it."

Lucien smiled politely.

"Perfect timing," he said. "I want to buy Abyssal Core Shards. The more you have, the more I want."

For the first time, the Anvil-Horn Eternal laughed.

"Buy them?" he said. "No. We will not insult you with price. We have orders to fulfill for our usual clients, and the remainder goes to you."

Lucien actually blinked.

Lilith’s eyes narrowed, mildly offended.

"My father is generous when he is awake," she said.

"I noticed," Lucien replied.

Abyssal Core Shards were not just valuable. They were strategic.

His Craft Feature had already registered them the moment he had held one.

But the ingredient list was a problem.

There was a core component he had never encountered, a "cosmic binder" that smelled like distance and salt and old darkness. If he had never heard of it, it meant it was rare or maybe somehting like Astrafer.

For now, Starforge was still his best source.

He let the matter settle.

Just then, the Anvil-Horn Eternal’s expression darkened.

"I heard what you discussed with my daughter," he said. "About the merchants selling miracles."

Lilith’s jaw tightened.

Kaia leaned forward slightly.

The Solhorn’s voice lowered.

"They are not merely a merchant group. They are a front."

He paused, then spoke the name like it tasted wrong.

"The Evershade Exchange."

His eyes sharpened.

"This won’t be simple," he said. "They call their wares ’mercies.’ They call their buyers ’chosen.’ And when the damage surfaces, they will call it ’necessary adaptation.’"

He leaned back.

"Even if we know the flaws, telling the world is not as simple as shouting truth."

Lucien said nothing. He let the man lay the reasoning down.

"First," the Solhorn continued, "the damage is slow. Years, maybe a decade. The early results look like success. People will defend success with their teeth. You cannot convince someone they are being poisoned when the poison tastes like victory."

Lucien frowned.

"Second," he said, "they partnered with big factions. Like those damned Alloykins. If we denounce the Exchange, we are not just accusing sellers. We are accusing everyone who profited, everyone who recommended the products, and everyone who built their reputation on those ’miracles.’"

His gaze turned colder.

"People do not thank you for threatening their status. They call you a liar to protect their face."

Lucien nodded slowly.

"And third," the Solhorn’s voice dropping even lower, "the Evershade Exchange itself has powerful figures."

Silence thickened.

"The voidwalkers who put me under are not weak," he continued. "Their attacks bypass walls and strike the spirit. One of them is rumored to be near Extinction-Grade. If we confront them openly, we do not get a clean war."

He tapped a finger against the table.

"Someone has tried before. The result was bleak. Assassinations followed, people vanished, sect leaders were found alive but hollow, and entire factions turned on one another. Panic spread faster than truth."

He looked at Lucien directly.

"In a new era full of lies, truth is not a shield. Truth is a match in a room filled with gas."

Kaia’s hands curled.

Lilith’s lips pressed thin.

Lucien’s expression went quiet.

"And if you shout too early, they will not stop buying," the Solhor said. "They will only learn to hide their usage. They will cling harder. Because admitting the truth would mean admitting they traded their future for convenience."

Lucien exhaled.

He understood.

Truth revealed at the wrong time did not save people.

It only made you the enemy of everyone who had made a mistake.

•••

Lucien went silent for a long moment.

Then he reached into his inventory and pulled out a book bound in dark parchment.

The Starlit Codex. The version anyone could walk.

He placed it on the table and slid it forward.

"Study this," Lucien said. "If you do, voidwalker spirit attacks will lose their advantage."

The Anvil-Horn Eternal’s hand hovered over the book as if he feared it might burn.

Then he grabbed it and opened the first page.

His composure cracked.

He turned another page. Then another. Faster.

"This... this cadence," he muttered. "This structure. The Starlit Codex?! It’s the original discipline, but corrected. How..."

Lilith leaned in. Her eyes widened as she read.

"I remembered I only gave you a few pages...."

Kaia leaned in too, squinting like she was trying to catch the trick.

Then she looked up at Lucien.

"Did you rebuild it," she asked, "using those pages as reference?"

Lucien smiled at her.

"Guess."

Kaia stared.

Lilith’s mouth actually opened.

The Solhorn Eternal’s eyes sharpened like he had just seen a miracle that did not come with poison.

"That should take years to recreate," he said hoarsely.

Lucien shrugged.

"It is not fully complete. I stopped when I got tired."

Silence.

That sentence did not reassure them.

It terrified them.

Because it implied the only thing preventing completion was fatigue.

And more shocking than the Codex itself was Lucien’s casualness in giving it away.

He did not hoard it.

He did not leverage it.

He slid it across the table like a tool meant to be used.

The Solhorn Eternal looked at Lucien again, and something respectful became something curious.

Then he noticed a detail and his gaze flicked up sharply.

"Little friend," he said, "you used this discipline to cure me."

Lucien nodded.

The Solhorn’s eyes narrowed.

"If you can execute it perfectly, then are you truly injured?"

Lucien blinked.

"Injured?"

He tilted his head slightly.

"I never said I was injured?"

Kaia froze.

Lilith slowly turned.

The Anvil-Horn Eternal looked between them.

Kaia’s face began to shrink into the expression of someone realizing she had authored an entire tragedy out of assumption.

Lucien’s mouth twitched.

The room went very quiet.

Then Kaia muttered, small and defensive, "I was being considerate."

Lilith covered her mouth with one hand, eyes bright with laughter she refused to release.

The Solhorn Eternal stared for a heartbeat longer, then let out a rough chuckle.

"So you were not wounded," he said.

Lucien smiled, perfectly innocent.

"I did not say that either."

Kaia’s eyes flared. "Brother."

Lucien raised both hands, still smiling.

"Relax," he said. "I accepted the gifts. That means the misunderstanding was profitable."

Lilith finally let a laugh slip.

Her father shook his head like he had woken up into a world that made no sense, and for once... he did not hate that.