A few more months passed.
Lucien turned twenty-six.
During those months, Lucien and Seran entered the void again.
Seran had studied the second hidden goblin-held world he found.
It had taken longer this ti.
The goblins had learned.
Unfortunately for them, Seran was not ordinary.
And unfortunately for everyone involved, Lucien was very interested.
The mont Seran had finished mapping the world, they moved.
The world was harder to enter than the last one.
And once they broke through the sealed periter, Lucien understood why.
The goblins had prepared.
Three Covenant-Breaker clones waited inside.
The goblins had not rely guarded the place.
They had fortified their theft.
The mont Lucien and Seran appeared, the whole world reacted.
The three Covenant-Breakers attacked as if they had been waiting with knives pressed against the throat of fate itself.
Then the world erupted.
The battle was not like the first.
There was no ti to play. No room to preserve enemies for future dungeon batteries.
The three Covenant-Breakers coordinated with terrifying precision, each one covering the openings of the others.
For once, even Seran stopped joking for more than three breaths.
Lucien noticed and almost comnted.
Then a Covenant-Breaker tried to collapse the space behind his heart through a delayed curse-anchor, and he decided conversation could wait.
The fight beca brutal.
Lucien and Seran won because together they were worse.
The three Covenant-Breakers were strong.
But they had a flaw.
They were still clones.
And Lucien already knew how they preferred to die.
By the ti the battle finished, the world was ruined.
Thousands of monsters had fallen. Every Covenant-Breaker clone had been destroyed. Towers leaned in broken angles.
There were no dungeon batteries.
That was the unfortunate part.
The fight had been too intense. rcy required margin, and they had not been given enough of it.
Everything died.
Worse, none of the Covenant-Breaker clones had carried an Origin Core fragnt.
Lucien stood among the ruins and clicked his tongue.
"Careful bastard."
Seran stepped beside him, wiping blackened blood from one sleeve.
"It learned."
"Enough to hide the fragnts away from its clones."
"That ans the next one will be worse."
Lucien looked toward the heart of the world, where the bark of the Tree of Creation waited beneath layers of broken occupation.
"Yes."
Then he smiled.
"But this one is ours."
Seran laughed.
"That is the spirit."
•••
The fight had still been profitable.
Afterward, they divided the monster organ storages equally.
The drops were also mostly similar to the previous battle.
The bark ca next.
Lucien approached it alone while Seran waited behind him.
Neither of them joked then.
So things deserved silence.
Lucien touched the bark.
It unfolded.
Dense strings and clauses erupted from it in a torrent of living light. They shot toward him, pierced through his conceptual space, and plunged directly into the young Tree of Creation rooted above his Divine Energy Core.
The tree drank.
Its roots widened.
Its trunk thickened.
Branches stretched farther.
For one impossible mont, Lucien felt as though the tree was not rely inside him.
It was rembering itself through him.
Then the knowledge ca.
The Tree showed him worlds before they had nas. Stars before they burned. The first separation between nothing and sothing. The first refusal of existence to remain silent.
Lucien fell into ditation.
...
Days passed.
His body sat still, but within him, the young Tree of Creation continued feeding him truth in fragnts he could survive.
When Lucien finally opened his eyes, his aura had changed.
Ninth Stage of the Celestial Realm.
A little more, and he could begin preparing for Eternal.
Seran looked at him and shook his head.
"You are truly disgusting."
Lucien blinked.
"I just woke up."
"Yes. And reached the Ninth Stage while doing it."
Lucien considered that.
Then smiled.
"The bark is useful."
"That is an offensive understatent."
Lucien stood slowly.
He could feel the difference.
The bark was a shortcut to level up, yes.
But not a hollow one.
It did not simply give him power. It expanded the fra that allowed him to hold more power without cracking.
That was far more valuable.
He wondered what would happen if he gathered enough of the barks.
Would the young tree beco mature?
Would it beco a true Tree of Creation again?
Would his Evolving Constitution adapt to that completeness?
Could he reach a height that even the current him could not properly imagine?
Lucien looked into the dead world behind them.
Then sighed.
"Another reason for the goblins to hate ."
Seran smiled.
"I think they already had enough reasons."
"That is fair."
After that, they still took a detour to a nearby Echo Zone.
Because apparently, after conquering a fortified goblin-held world and stealing another bark of creation, both of them agreed the reasonable thing to do was go fishing for void monsters.
They returned with more dungeon batteries.
Not as many as Lucien wanted.
More than any sane person would consider casual.
That was good enough.
•••
When Lucien finally returned to Lootwell, another good news appeared.
Seraphine reached the Eternal Realm.
This ti, Lucien refused to repeat past mistakes.
He prepared properly.
So Lucien crafted a ring.
Then, because one ring was not enough, he made a pair.
One for Seraphine.
One for himself.
He called the pair Redy Twinlink.
It looked simple at first glance. But beneath that quiet appearance were layered arrays more complex than many sect treasures.
The rings functioned as communication devices, but better.
They did not rely transmit voice. They could project a clear image of the wearer to the paired ring, allowing them to speak face-to-face even across continents as long as the network connection remained stable.
Seraphine could call him directly.
Lucien could answer directly.
That alone would have pleased her.
But it was not enough.
Lucien layered several other effects inside.
First, Mind-Cleansing Pulse.
The ring would gently clear intrusive strain, accumulated ntal fog, and foreign influence that might interfere with her judgnt during long work.
Second, mory Lattice.
It would improve recall, organize dical observations, and help preserve complex diagnostic impressions without exhausting her mind.
Third, Redy Resonance.
When Seraphine used her Law of Redy, the ring would stabilize the flow of her law and help align treatnt sequences, making delicate healing processes smoother.
Fourth, Failure Archive.
This was one Lucien knew she would appreciate.
When an experint failed while the ring was active, it could record the lawful pattern of the failure, allowing Seraphine to review what went wrong later without relying only on mory.
Fifth, Paired Anchor.
If either ring sensed mortal danger and the other wearer permitted it, it could send an ergency pulse through the link.
Lucien stared at the effects for a long ti.
Then nodded.
"Good."
But the ring itself was not the true gift.
The true gift was inside.
The ring also contained a high-grade storage space.
Lucien built it to imitate part of his system Inventory’s preservation logic. Ti inside the storage would be stilled enough that dicines, herbs, unstable extracts, organs, experintal samples, and rare ingredients would remain fresh.
For a doctor like Seraphine, it was priceless.
Even that was not the highlight.
Inside the storage space, at the center of a small sealed case, lay a skill card.
When Lucien gave the ring to Seraphine, she looked amused at first.
"You learned."
Lucien stood very straight.
"I value my common sense."
She smiled and accepted the ring.
Then she sensed what was inside.
Her expression changed.
She opened the storage space, drew out the sealed case, and froze when she saw the card.
For the first ti in a long while, Seraphine’s hand trembled.
Lucien watched quietly.
She read the na.
Structural Insight.
Seraphine did not speak imdiately.
Her eyes widened, then softened. Sothing vulnerable passed through her face before she could hide it.
Lucien’s chest tightened.
"I finally managed to create one after a long ti," he said. "Borrowing mine helped, but it’s an incomplete version."
Seraphine looked up at him.
For once, there was no teasing in her eyes.
Only deep, genuine joy.
And sothing dangerously close to tears.
"Luc," she said softly.
He smiled.
"Congratulations on reaching Eternal, Sera."
That was enough.
She learned the card imdiately.
The mont Structural Insight entered her, her gaze changed.
Her perception sharpened. Her understanding of bodies, vessels, pathways, law-damage, dicine, and internal structure expanded so quickly that even Lucien felt the air around her adjust.
Seraphine closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, she looked at him with an expression he had learned to fear and appreciate in equal asure.
Then she stepped closer.
Lucien blinked.
"Sera?"
She took his hand.
Her fingers tightened.
"Co with ."
The night that followed taught Lucien an important lesson.
Eternal Realm stamina was not theoretical.
It was a battlefield.
Seraphine was very grateful.
And...
Very passionate.
Lucien survived.
The next morning, he lay still for a while, staring at the ceiling with the solemn expression of a man who had won and lost at the sa ti.
Seraphine, resting beside him, looked deeply satisfied.
Lucien turned his head slowly.
"This is happy exhaustion," he said.
Then, he closed his eyes.
Win-win.
•••
Outside of personal matters, Lootwell continued preparing for expansion beyond the West Continent.
The mass production of communication devices increased again.
Automaton production rose with it.
Lucien wanted everything ready before the next great expansion.
...
One day, the elental won ca to him.
Lucien looked at the four of them.
"What happened?"
Marie answered first.
"We are stuck."
Lucien’s expression shifted.
The four of them had remained at the Ninth Stage of the Celestial Realm for so ti now. That would have been considered a miracle by any ordinary power. By Lootwell’s current standards, however, it had begun to feel like a wall.
Kaia spoke next.
"Sister Lilith reached Eternal. Sister Seraphine reached Eternal. Others are catching up. We have trained, ditated, and refined our foundations."
Sylra added quietly, "But the final threshold does not open."
Marina puffed her cheeks.
"I hate it."
Lucien almost smiled, but stopped himself.
This was not a joke to them.
They were not jealous in an ugly way.
But they were frustrated.
They wanted to stand beside him, not behind him. They wanted their own breakthroughs, their own paths, and their own answers.
Lucien leaned forward slightly.
"So?"
Marie looked at the others once.
Then back at him.
"We want to go to the special location the system told us."
Lucien stilled.
The system’s special locations.
He had not forgotten about those.
For the Liberators, each special location was usually personal.
Lucien’s gaze sharpened.
"You each received a location?"
Kaia nodded then shook her head.
Sylra looked at him and said, "It is the sa place."
Lucien went silent.
Seran had told him before that special locations usually differed from person to person.
The four elental won having the sa special location ant sothing.
Connection.
Lucien looked at them more carefully.
Marie, Kaia, Sylra, and Marina.
Earth. Fire. Wind. Water.
Sothing tied them together.
Perhaps sothing older than even they knew.
Lucien felt curiosity rise.
Then caution.
"Did the system say anything else?"
Marina shook her head.
"Just the location."
Kaia added, "And a feeling. That if we want to go further, we have to go there."
Marie’s expression hardened.
"I don’t like being stuck, Luc."
Lucien understood.
A bottleneck at the edge of Eternal was no small thing. If they forced the wrong thod, they could damage their foundations. If they waited forever, frustration could rot into doubt.
A special location shared by all four might be dangerous.
It might also be the exact thing they needed.
Lucien leaned back.
Then smiled.
"I want to co too."
The four of them looked at him at once.
Marina grinned.
"With you there, we can cause more trouble safely."
Lucien gave her a flat look.
"That is not the reason I am coming."
Marina nodded seriously.
"My prince, I will be good."
Lucien smiled.
The others laughed.
The tension broke enough for everyone to breathe.
Then Lucien’s expression turned serious again.
"Prepare properly. If all four of you are being called to the sa place, then it is not ordinary."
The won nodded.
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