Lucien left Shadow with Rurik.
The two n began speaking with the alarming intensity of craftsn who had accidentally discovered a kindred obsession.
The Bio-tal Automaton project had already entered its final phase. The skeletal frawork was complete, the adaptive channels had been tested, and the first successful responses from the embedded alloy tissues had exceeded even Rurik’s original projections.
Lucien had thought that letting Shadow see it might inspire one final leap in refinent.
He had underestimated the result.
Shadow stood before the suspended construct in silence for several breaths. His usual composure thinned.
Then he stepped closer.
Then closer still.
Then he asked the first question.
And after that, the two of them did not stop.
Rurik explained the living tal lattice, the layered growth logic, and the way the special materials had been forced into a structure that could adapt rather than rely endure.
Shadow responded with questions on articulation, external authority channels, delayed-command relays, and whether the living shell could be made to accept so authoritative Laws without losing internal growth freedom.
Rurik’s eyes lit up.
He imdiately began asking about Shadow’s puppets in return.
Their material mory. Their response lag. Their structural weaknesses.
Whether their control channels could be widened. Whether sensation could be imitated. Whether the bodies could learn.
Soon the two of them were leaning over diagrams and half-finished fras as if they had been collaborators for years.
Lucien watched the scene once, decided it no longer needed him, and quietly left.
There was no reason to interrupt two n who had so clearly found their people.
•••
After that, Lucien went to et Eirene again.
It was ti to begin the cure production in earnest.
He brought her out of his divine energy core and left Aerolith behind to continue overseeing the cultivation fields.
Eirene moved without delay.
She called for her forr subordinates, the ones who had once served under Verdant Ark with enough discipline and botanical expertise to handle delicate dicinal work.
They gathered quickly, and Lucien handed Eirene the full cure process:
Ingredient ratios, stabilization points, refinent order, incompatibility warnings, and the hidden risks that could ruin an entire batch if ignored.
He did not rely hand over the papers.
He explained the dangerous parts himself.
Which infusions must never be allowed to overbalance. Which transformations were supposed to look unstable at first but were actually correct. Which ones were truly unstable and had to be discarded at once.
Eirene listened with complete focus.
When he finished, she nodded once and said, "That is enough. We can begin."
And she did.
There was no dramatic announcent and no public display.
Only the quiet beginning of real work.
Soon the production halls assigned to the cure were alive with asured movent.
Verdant Ark’s people sorted ingredients, prepared vessels, stabilized heat, and organized the output flow with the precision of those who had done dicinal work long before crisis had made it urgent.
Lucien watched for a ti.
Then he stepped back.
There were other pieces to move.
The cure would not spread itself.
That was the next problem.
Production mattered.
Distribution mattered more.
Lucien stood overlooking a projection map of the western regions and began thinking through who could help.
This region was not empty of possible allies.
Eirene had long maintained good terms with the Lunareth Sect.
Dawnbinder was another.
Both had enough internal discipline to help circulate sothing this sensitive without turning it imdiately into public chaos.
In this region there were also the Nephralis and the Varkhaals.
Lucien considered them briefly.
Then crossed them out.
Unexpectedly, neither power had ever allied with the Evershade Exchange. Under the Red Dragon and Dark Shade, they had never adopted the miracle drugs. That alone said sothing.
Either they had noticed the flaw early and refused to touch it—
Or they had been too proud to accept strength purchased through another’s formula.
Lucien suspected both.
It made him realize that ancient beasts were, indeed, wise. But without the Red Dragon and Dark Shade, Lucien thought the Nephralis and Varkhaals might eventually side with the Exchange.
Still—
They might not have joined the greater enemy.
But that did not make them friends.
And, more importantly, it did not erase what remained.
The Nephralis and Varkhaals still needed to be rooted out eventually.
Lucien even felt a brief flicker of regret that they had not joined the Exchange. It would have made future cleanup simpler.
Instead, he would need to do the harder work.
’So be it.’
For now, he decided to face the greater enemy first.
There was no reason to split focus before the Exchange itself had begun to crack properly.
He turned his attention inward and began sorting through his inventory
Then his fingers paused.
Scarlet Sect.
The token remained exactly where he had stored it.
Lucien looked at it for a mont and smiled faintly.
The Scarlet Sect still owed him.
Or perhaps "owed" was too crude.
During the ruin expedition, after all that had happened there, they had effectively acknowledged him as a friend of the sect. In practice, friendship between powers was usually just debt wearing better clothes.
The Maereth Region.
That was where they were.
And the Evershade Exchange was strongest there as well.
It made sense. Maereth stood too near the center of the continent. Too many routes crossed it. Too much trade moved through it.
The old Verdant Veil headquarters had once been there too, which made the region doubly important for anything involving dicine, prestige, or control.
If the Exchange had dug in anywhere deeply, it would be there.
Lucien rolled the sect token once between his fingers.
The Scarlet Sect might prove useful.
Assuming they had not already fallen too far.
That question remained open.
But it was worth finding out.
...
There was still another matter.
One closer to ho.
Or rather, too many hos inside him.
Billions of people now lived within Lucien’s divine energy core.
That number was no longer theoretical.
It had weight.
Even though most of them were far weaker than him, their existence still mattered. When too many practiced at once, ditated at once, absorbed ambient force at once, the pressure on his internal energy beca noticeable.
And if he continued pulling in more people and more worlds without changing the structure around them, that burden would only increase.
Lucien sat with the problem in silence.
It did not take him long to find a solution.
And the mont he did, he smiled.
It was, in his opinion, an excellent plan.
He thought of Sylra’s split-open small world, now contested by warring sects.
His thoughts turned to the layered structure of planes and the interplanar gray space between them.
The answer was obvious once he looked at it from the right angle.
He did not need to keep every world fully housed inside his own inner world.
He only needed them connected.
That was enough.
Lucien’s plan was simple in principle and outrageous in execution.
He would return the small worlds to the interplanar gray space.
He would anchor them in a layer that directly overlapped with his territory.
Then he would tear controlled rifts through the separations between those planes and his own domain, creating stable doorways between them.
The result would be elegant.
They would not occupy space within Lootwell itself. Only the doors would exist there, while the worlds remained in separate planes, connected through controlled rifts.
Doors to worlds.
Worlds behind walls of controlled reality.
His people could live there.
Travel there.
Practice there.
And because those worlds would remain in adjacent planes rather than exposed in open interplanar space, they could be linked without being abandoned.
Lucien’s eyes sharpened as the structure of the plan unfolded in his head.
Of course, he would need to recreate the semi-perable protective layer as well.
That was essential.
He had no intention of placing those worlds naked into the interplanar gray and letting every wandering abnormality or Black Mass monsters sniff them out.
The mbrane would have to hide, filter, distort, and partially isolate them.
It would be difficult.
But possible.
That was all he needed to know.
The mont the conclusion settled, Lucien felt a hidden weight ease in his chest.
One more burden had found structure.
One more future problem had beco a design.
He smiled.
Then he began building the plan in earnest.
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