100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full?-Chapter 373 - Discovery

A day passed in Starforge as if nothing had changed.

Hammers still rang. Apprentices still complained about sore wrists and stubborn runes.

But every sound now sat inside a larger, deliberate silence.

People moved along "ordinary" routes that were not ordinary at all. They stood where Anvil-Horn had told them to stand. They rotated on schedules that looked like work shifts and were, in truth, guard cycles.

Formation keepers leaned against pillars as if resting. Their fingers were always within reach of anchor runes. Healers carried kits that looked like habit, but their eyes kept measuring exits.

Even laughter had a position.

Starforge continued living.

Starforge also held its breath.

By dusk, the unease thinned into something closer to doubt.

A few whispered that maybe the vision had been wrong. Starforge was hard to locate. Their barrier misled the world. Their territory did not even sit cleanly on most maps.

Still, no one dared to step out of the geometry Anvil-Horn had drawn.

Better to look foolish than to be dead.

That was the only argument that mattered.

Then the discovery happened.

It began in the alchemy wing, where the dissected "miracles" from the Evershade Exchange were still being studied.

The senior dissector, a woman with three rings of magnification around her eye, froze mid-cut.

"Stop," she said sharply.

Her apprentices halted instantly.

"What is it?" someone asked.

The dissector did not answer. She held the product fragment up to a basin of stillwater ink, the kind used to reveal spiritual contaminants. The fragment should have been inert.

Instead, a hairline pattern bloomed across it.

A bruise made of intent.

The ink rippled as if something on the fragment had recognized scrutiny.

The dissector’s throat tightened.

"This is... It was sleeping," she whispered. "It was made to sleep until we got curious enough to peel it past its skin."

One apprentice frowned. "A trap?"

"A beacon," the dissector corrected. "But not the crude kind."

She placed the fragment down and traced the faint pattern with a tool of cold jade. The pattern sat between layers, embedded in the "story" the product told the world.

It was built so that the buyer could not detect it.

It did nothing while the product was whole. It did nothing while it was consumed.

It only awakened when someone tried to prove it was false.

A proof-trigger.

The moment the internal structure was exposed past a certain threshold, the clause activated and wrote a single message into the ambient flow of the world:

Someone has dissected me.

The owner does not need a map after that.

They only need to follow the echo.

...

Lucien’s warning had forced them to become paranoid enough to dig deeper.

Their early dissections stopped at the chemical and energetic components. They had not stripped the product down to the narrative skeleton, because no sane merchant product needed that level of autopsy.

And there was indeed something wrong with it.

Anvil-Horn received the report within the hour.

He read it once.

Then again.

Then he looked up.

"So they found us," he said quietly, "because we uncovered the flaw in their product."

Lilith’s lips tightened. "They built their wares to punish truth."

"Worse," the dissector said. "They built it to erase truth before it spreads."

Silence held the room.

It explained too much. Why Starforge, of all places, would be targeted. Why the Evershade Exchange did not fear exposure. Why people who "noticed cracks" in other cities seemed to vanish before their warnings could travel.

Anvil-Horn dismissed the alchemists with a single nod and walked straight into the main yard.

He spoke loud enough that the people closest to him straightened, then those farther away turned, then the entire yard became a listening machine.

"New information," Anvil-Horn announced. "Evershade wares carry a concealed clause. It awakens when the product is dissected beyond its mask."

A ripple moved through the crowd.

"Meaning," Anvil-Horn said, "we are no longer guessing why they may come. We know."

The yard went very still.

"And because our benefactor warned us early," Anvil-Horn continued, "we did not die before we understood why we were being hunted."

Eyes turned. Respect shifted.

Lucien did not stand on any platform, but he might as well have.

From that day, Starforge did not treat him like a guest.

They treated him like a vital component of their survival.

•••

Inside Lucien’s divine energy core, his attention lay split between worlds.

One part of him watched Starforge’s tightening defense.

Another part rode inside Morveth’s shell, listening to the outside world breathe.

Morveth, Kira, and Aerolith had not found the escaped humans yet.

They moved through trade roads and half-ruined stations and temporary markets erected like parasites around the rumor of a small world opening. Factions camped in circles, around the idea of profit.

And humans were the newest currency.

They learned quickly that "rescued" meant many things in this era.

Some humans were taken by force, shackled in spiritual chains disguised as "contracts."

Some went willingly, seduced by sect promises of protection, food, and "a future in the Big World."

Some were stolen for their knowledge.

Some were hunted for spectacle.

Morveth’s voice, calm and heavy, carried through the link.

[They are being divided like spoils.]

Kira’s reply clicked in Lucien’s mind.

[They argue over ownership in public.]

Aerolith chimed in brightly.

[They call it boring. I want to hit them.]

Lucien exhaled through his nose.

Then another report reached him and made his expression shift.

Among the chaos, one human woman had become a rumor that refused to be caught.

She moved like air. Like a thought that had never fully committed to reality.

Celestial Realm experts had tried to track her. Formation masters had tried to pin her location.

Nothing held.

The only thing consistent was this. Every time someone drew near, she was already elsewhere, and the space she had left behind felt briefly... lighter.

And every faction that sensed the Origin Core fragment in her possession began to circle the area like starving birds.

...

The trio’s journey was not subtle.

They were a strange combination. An old man with a gentle gaze, a refined lady with eyes like cold judgement, and a child who walked curiously.

People watched them. People stepped aside.

Not because they recognized Eternals. Most did not.

But because their instincts recognized the shape of danger.

The first time someone tried to test them, it was almost comical.

A bandit crew saw Aerolith trailing behind, humming and chewing on something she had found.

"Easy target," one muttered, stepping out with a grin.

Aerolith looked up, blinked, then smiled politely.

"Hello," she said.

The bandit reached for her shoulder.

Aerolith’s fist tapped his chest once.

The man... he disappeared out of the frame of normal physics and reappeared several paces away, embedded halfway into a slope like a nail driven into wood.

Aerolith turned back to Morveth, offended.

"He tried to touch me."

Morveth sighed like a patient mountain.

"That is why we keep walking," he said.

Aerolith pouted, then rummaged through the man’s storage ring.

"There is no food," she complained.

Then she tossed the storage ring aside as if it were worthless, and Morveth retrieved it with yet another patient sigh.

Just then...

Kira stopped walking.

The air sharpened.

Every nearby observer suddenly remembered they had somewhere else to be.

Kira turned to a local merchant who had been pretending not to notice them.

His eyes kept shifting nervously, and that alone was enough for Kira to grow suspicious.

"Tell me," Kira said gently, "where do the factions store their captives."

The merchant swallowed. "I do not know."

Kira’s fingers moved.

A needle of iron wove itself into existence, thin as a hair, shining with quiet malice.

She pressed it lightly against the merchant’s chest.

His pupils lost their focus at once. The tension drained from his face, and his expression flattened into something mechanical, as if a switch had been flipped inside him.

"I am asking again," she said.

"East ridge," he said in a flat tone. "Temporary camps. Three factions. They trade information at night. They keep some humans too."

Kira nodded.

Soon, Lucien withdrew his attention and returned fully to his body.

Before the link faded, he sent a final directive.

[If anything major shifts, please tell me immediately.]

Morveth’s response came immediately.

[We will.]

That was when Kaia finally stepped out of her room.

She looked tired, offended, and proud all at once, the way only Kaia could.

"I finally learned it, Brother," she announced. "It was hard hard."

Lucien’s eyes flicked over her aura.

"You could have asked for help if it’s hard for you," Lucien said.

Kaia narrowed her brows. "If you’d let me practice near you, I’d probably learn faster. But I doubt you would let me. You’re so secretive after all."

Lucien did not deny it.

He thought of the sapling. That was not a small advantage.

Kaia’s gaze drifted past him, past the corridor, past the way Starforge people moved like they were pretending to be casual.

She narrowed her eyes.

"Why does everyone look like they are trying to act normal?" she asked. "This place feels like a pot about to boil."

Lucien’s expression stayed calm.

"Be prepared," he said. "A battle is coming."

Then... Lucien gave him a brief summary of what had happened.

Kaia’s eyes flared, more excitement than fear.

"Alloykins? What unlucky fools. Of all times to attack, they chose when you’re here." She laughed lightly.

Then her mouth curved into something sharp.

"Good," she said. "My flames burn metal nicely."

Lucien exhaled slowly.

She didn’t worry too much about her.

In the vision, she had killed many. But the problem was never whether Kaia could kill.

The problem was numbers and timing.

And whether Fate would demand repayment at the worst moment.

Lucien looked toward the barrier, toward the sky that pretended it was peaceful.

Soon.

He could feel the shape of it approaching, even if no sound had arrived yet.