The sitting room eventually emptied.
The Anvil-Horn Eternal rose first.
"You offered us the Codex," he said. "Then allow to ask for a second rcy."
Lucien lifted a brow.
The Solhorn’s gaze held steady. "May we teach it to others?"
Lucien did not answer imdiately.
"You can," Lucien said at last. "But not freely."
The Solhorn waited without protest.
Lucien’s voice stayed calm.
"Only to people you trust. And they must pass my standards."
Lilith tilted her head. "Standards?"
Lucien nodded.
The Anvil-Horn Eternal’s mouth curved faintly. "Then we can conduct the inspections on another day."
"Great." Lucien’s gaze turned hard for a breath. "But I must be clear. If soone fails my inspection, you must not teach it to them."
The Solhorn nodded at once.
"Understood."
They separated soon after.
The Anvil-Horn Eternal left with Lilith at his side. Kaia lingered.
Lucien paused and pulled the other version of the Starlit Codex.
He held it out to Kaia.
Her eyes widened. "Brother...?"
"This version uses an Origin Core fragnt as its stabilizer," Lucien said. "It is easier for you."
Kaia accepted it with both hands like it might fly away.
Her grin was imdiate and shaless. "A shortcut!"
Lucien’s mouth twitched. "A scaffold. Do not mistake the scaffold for the building."
Kaia hugged the Codex to her chest anyway. "Yes, yes. I will build a palace. Thank you."
Lucien waved her away before she could start bargaining for more.
"Go," he said. "And do not tell anyone you have that one."
Kaia saluted with exaggerated seriousness and hurried off, laughing under her breath like a child running away with a stolen candy.
Lucien watched her go.
Then he returned to his room.
•••
His divine energy core opened like a door that rembered him.
Lucien moved through his world and began distributing the Starlit Codex.
To the Lithrens first.
Then to the Ancient Beasts.
Then to Luke and Cienna.
It was preparation.
A major conflict was drawing near.
He could not afford to let his people be unard.
After settling the matter of the Starlit Codex, he turned his attention to another preparation.
Crafting cosmic-attributed talismans.
His goal was simple. Disrupt Alloykins’ Astrafer resonance.
Thanks to CRAFT, it was almost obscene how quickly he could replicate the pattern.
One finished talisman beca a template.
The template beca a hundred. The hundred beca thousands.
Lucien only stopped when his materials ran dry.
•••
The next day, Starforge’s delivery arrived.
Crates. Twenty of them.
Each one was wrapped in layered formations.
Lilith stood beside the pile as if she had personally bullied reality into stacking them neatly.
"As promised," she said.
Lucien stared. "That is... more than I thought."
Lilith’s mouth curved in a near-smile. "My father insists on being dramatic."
She tapped the side of one crate.
"Do not store those in storage rings," she added. "They will degrade."
Lilith continued.
"Abyssal Core Shards have a stable structure only when their ’conceptual volu’ remains uncrushed. Rings fold space. Fold it too tightly and the shard begins to ’forget’ its own shape. The formation on these crates keeps their internal boundary honest."
Lucien blinked once and nodded.
Lucien crouched and cracked one crate open.
Inside, Abyssal Core Shards glead like frozen midnight.
This was enough. Enough to move everyone forward.
Lucien stood and nodded. "This will help."
Lilith’s gaze softened for a mont, then sharpened again. "I have been studying spirits," she said. "The Codex forces to stop pretending I understand and actually learn."
Lucien humd. "Good."
Lilith exhaled, then turned to leave.
"I will train," she said. "I will not waste your book."
Lucien watched her go.
Then he looked back at the crates.
Then, for the first ti in a while, he looked at himself.
•••
The sapling atop his divine energy core still swayed without wind.
Its leaves continued to shed motes of light, and those motes continued to beco knowledge.
Lucien sat down and pulled his awareness inward.
Thanks to the sapling, his understanding of his job skills deepened significantly.
Cram Session had always been crude. He could copy soone’s skill by imprinting the "shape" of their technique into his spirit long enough to use it.
Now, the sapling had taught him sothing fundantal.
Skills were habits etched into the spirit.
That ant a habit could be loaned... if the spirit was given a temporary scaffold to hold it.
Cram Session evolved.
It beca a grant.
Lucien could lend one of his own skills to another person for a day.
The recipient’s spirit would carry the pattern like a borrowed limb.
Next, Scam the System.
It had always been the most dangerous of his nonsense.
He was not "invincible" in the true sense.
He was lying to causality.
For a brief instant, he forced the world to accept a false statent: "Lucien was never here."
And reality, confused for the smallest fraction of ti, would allow him to step sideways into that gap.
Before, he could maintain that deception for only a heartbeat.
Now, the sapling’s influence made the lie cleaner.
He could extend it.
Still... The longer he lied, the more the world noticed the inconsistency.
Causality was not a mind you could fool forever.
It was a ledger. Lie too long and the ledger demanded reconciliation.
So Lucien still followed a rule.
Once per day. No longer than five seconds.
He would not beco the kind of fool who survived ten tis and died on the eleventh because he treated reality like a gullible friend.
Lucien exhaled slowly and opened his eyes.
"That is... convenient," he muttered. "And terrifying."
Both were true.
So he did what he always did with terrifying convenience.
He put it to work.
•••
By afternoon, Lucien was back at his parchnts.
Law Books.
This ti, not just doorways but the foundations.
He wrote slower now. The more he advanced, the more careful he beca.
Because an introductory Law Book could uplift soone into Transcendence.
A deeper one could also ruin them if it carried a wrong "weight."
Lucien rubbed his temple and stared at the list of Laws he could write.
Too few. He still knew too few.
He had Laws. He had fragnts. He had a growing library. But true comprehension was... incomplete.
He had a way of asuring it now, thanks to Creation’s lens.
Understanding was not binary. It was coverage.
A Law was an ocean.
A practitioner learned it by mapping coastline, depth, current, and the rules that held the water in place.
If his current comprehension of a Law was twenty percent, that did not an he was weak.
It ant he had mapped only one-fifth of that ocean’s governing truth.
If he reached one hundred percent, he would know everything that could be learned from the "written book" of that Law.
But Lucien suspected sothing else.
A Law did not end at its recorded truth.
Reality expanded. New applications erged. New agreents ford.
Exceeding one hundred percent might be possible but only for those who did not learn Laws like students.
Only for those who are Laws themselves.
Primordials.
Lucien shook his head.
"That is not my lane yet."
He continued writing anyway.
•••
When the last Law Books were finished, he brought them to the Lithrens.
He gave each of them an Abyssal Core Shard too.
"Consu slowly," he instructed. "If you drown yourself in insight, your spirit will choke."
They nodded with the gravity of people who had already learned what choking felt like.
Lucien watched for a ti.
The effect was imdiate.
Clarity ca like water.
Their auras steadied. Their comprehension rose. Their eyes sharpened in the way of people finally seeing the difference between "power" and "control."
Soon...
He moved to the monsters.
Most had reached Transcendence now.
The change was unsettling in a good way.
They could finally speak, clearly enough that their thoughts were no longer trapped inside hunger.
Instinct had not vanished. It had been refined.
The Ancient Beasts had done well.
The strongest monster leaders had beco the disciples of the ntors, and their presence had shifted.
They were still loyal to Lucien.
But now, their loyalty was no longer rooted in instinct alone.
It had grown into sothing else entirely. The idea of becoming more than beasts, and of standing beside Lucien when the future finally demanded it.
Lucien exhaled.
That was the point.
•••
That night, Lucien finished the Starlit Codex. Fully.
He laid the final page down and let his shoulders drop.
Then he reached out through his network.
Astraea and Vaelcar.
They answered with the faint delay of distance and danger.
Astraea’s voice ca first.
[The little Liberators live. I moved them under the monsters’ shadow.]
Lucien nodded slowly. [Great.]
Astraea’s voice lowered. [The world is turning hungry. Hungry enough to eat its own children.]
[I know. That is why I’m sending you sothing.]
He sent the Starlit Codex through their link, pressing its teachings directly into the flowing stream of contact.
Astraea went quiet.
Then she spoke again, careful now.
"This rhythm..." she whispered.
[Sister, study it. It will help you.]
Astraea’s reply ca like a vow. [Then I will carve it into my marrow.]
Then Vaelcar’s presence pressed closer.
[Little brother. Your gift reached . The Codex... it steadies the mind against the void’s hooks.]
Lucien’s gaze sharpened. [How are you, brother?]
Vaelcar exhaled. [North Continent is a blade market now. Even kindness has a price tag. We move through villages where people smile with their mouths and calculate with their eyes.]
A pause.
[Every day is profit. If you cannot pay, you bleed. If you cannot bleed, you vanish.]
He continue.
[Still, we advance. But we are slowed. There are factions hunting anything that slls like resource.]
Lucien’s voice stayed calm. [Stay alive. When you can, take the Codex deeper into your people. But only to those who will not sell it.]
Vaelcar’s answer was quiet and absolute. [I will not allow it to beco a commodity.]
Lucien nodded. [Good.]
The link faded.
Lucien sat in silence for a long ti.
Then he stood.
Enough preparation.
Now it was his turn again.
•••
The next days beca discipline.
Lucien trained for comprehension.
His goal was simple. Raise his Law understanding from twenty percent to thirty.
Thirty percent was not "small." Thirty percent was enough to push a practitioner to the peak of Transcendence.
Enough to stand one step from Ascendance without falling apart.
Lucien took an Abyssal Core Shard and sat.
The shard’s cold seeped into him. Space stretched, perspective widened, and the mind was forced to stop clinging to comfort.
Lucien closed his eyes.
Creation’s strings rose in his perception like a sea of threads.
His other thoughts continued learning in the background as if the sapling had turned his mind into an engine that refused to stop.
Lucien exhaled slowly.
User Comments
0 comments from readers