More months passed.
Lucien turned twenty-seven.
By then, the Middle Continent no longer spoke of Lootwell as a foreign power, a mystery, or a passing disturbance.
It spoke of Lootwell as a fact.
Rumors had beco reports. Reports had beco travel plans. Travel plans had beco business routes. Business routes had beco dependency. And dependency, if handled properly, beca influence.
The Middle Branch had also gained a na from the people.
At first, it appeared in casual conversations between travelers.
Then on communication channels.
Then in reports.
Then even allied faction notices began using it.
Grand Confluence.
The place where all paths t.
A place where opportunity gathered and community spread.
When Lucien first read the report, he stared at the na for a long mont.
"Grand Confluence," he repeated.
Then he marked the report.
"From now on, use it officially."
And just like that, the Middle Branch ceased being only the Middle Branch.
It beca Grand Confluence.
The na spread even faster after Lootwell accepted it.
People liked that.
The Middle Continent had given the branch a na, and Lootwell had not rejected it.
That mattered more than Lucien first expected.
It made people feel involved.
It made the branch feel less like an occupation of opportunity and more like a shared point of pride.
Grand Confluence.
The na belonged to Lootwell.
But now, in a small way, the Middle Continent felt it had helped na its own future.
•••
Communication between the West and Middle continued to grow.
What had begun as scoreboard rivalry beca sothing stranger and better.
Pride leads to competition.
Competition leads to communication.
Communication leads to connection.
Connection leads to unity.
Unity prepares the world for calamity.
The West and Middle coming together was good.
But not enough.
There were five continents.
It the Black Mass returned in greater force, if Primordial Incarnations found more vessels, then two continents becoming connected would not be enough.
Lucien needed more.
He needed the world closer before the next world-shaking event arrived.
That ant accelerating again.
•••
During those months, the Shadow Information Network began its campaign in the Middle Continent.
Reaper and Eldran had grown. Both had reached the peak stages of the Ascendant Realm.
Their people had grown as well.
Within that massive structure, true Shadows were rising.
These were not ordinary spies.
They were trained. Taught not rely how to steal information, but how to understand context, verify truth, avoid manipulation, and recognize patterns before disaster ford.
The Shadow Information Network continued expanding.
Quietly.
The public saw branches, devices, markets, and facilities.
They did not see the hidden roads beneath them.
That was fine.
A good network was not supposed to be admired.
It was supposed to be there before anyone realized they needed it.
•••
Lucien also asked Grand Confluence’s allied factions for help.
With locations.
He wanted more regional branches across the Middle Continent
When the request went out to the allies, they took it seriously.
Starveil Observatory sent divined route recomndations.
Mirror-Sun Hall sent terrain analyses and political risk maps.
Ninefold Ledger House sent trade-flow projections so detailed that Kael stared at them with professional affection.
Clearwater ridian Sect proposed river-adjacent locations suitable for healing halls and water-route logistics.
Jade Horizon Pavilion suggested locations near contested training regions, clearly hoping Lootwell’s presence would force rivals to behave.
Lucien read the proposals and smiled.
"They are helping themselves too."
Eirene nodded.
"Of course. That is why the suggestions are useful."
Every proposed location revealed what the ally valued.
Trade. Defense. Prestige. Safety. Access. Influence.
Lucien approved the best ones.
•••
And so, during those months, expansion began.
Branches rose across the Middle Continent.
The continent was reminded again how bizarre Lootwell was.
A branch that should have taken years rose in weeks.
A regional hub that should have required a decade of negotiations opened after a few contracts, several surveys, and Lilith deciding the local stone was "cooperative enough."
At first, Middle Continent factions stared.
Then they sighed.
Then they began saying, "It is Lootwell," as though that explained everything.
In a way, it did.
The Grand Confluence had already shattered their sense of normal construction.
Now, when smaller branches rose quickly, people no longer denied it.
They simply adjusted their expectations upward.
...
Once the regional branches began operating, people kept coming.
Communication devices spread again.
The Middle Continent’s ssage network thickened.
The world beca louder, more connected, and harder to hide inside.
That was exactly what Lucien wanted.
•••
Then ca the matter of Origin Core fragnts.
Lucien did not rush.
Rushing would make holders defensive.
Instead, he offered the sa terms he had offered in the West.
Surrender an Origin Core fragnt willingly.
In exchange, receive deep benefits.
And now, with one more benefit added.
Passage.
That changed everything.
Since the intercontinental teleportation array had been destroyed, travel between continents had beco almost impossible.
Then Grand Confluence announced that it had proper channels to the West.
The Middle Continent listened.
Then leaned closer.
Lucien did not even have to exaggerate.
The offer was simple.
Those who surrendered Origin Core fragnts and entered deep alliance could earn passage to the West through Grand Confluence’s channels.
Not for armies. Not for smuggling. Not for hostile operations.
But for approved envoys, scholars, rchants, healers, selected disciples, and allied representatives.
That alone was enough to make many old powers reconsider the value of a crystal they had long treated as a symbol they barely understood.
...
The recorders had already identified possible holders.
So were friendly. So neutral. So hidden. So troubleso. So were evil sects.
Lucien sigh.
He could not simply destroy the evil factions.
He could not openly seize their fragnts without turning the campaign into fear.
And fear would make every hidden holder bury their treasures deeper.
So spies were sent again.
To understand who held what, who valued what, who could be persuaded, and who needed to be isolated before any future action.
In the anti, the public example would do most of the work.
As always.
•••
The first to yield were the early allies.
That was expected.
They already trusted Grand Confluence.
They had already tasted benefits.
They had already seen what happened to those who arrived early.
So when the offer beca formal, several of them moved quickly.
Starveil Observatory surrendered one fragnt after a full council reading confird that holding it brought less future benefit than alliance deepening.
The Ninefold Ledger House surrendered another after calculating projected trade access, exclusive product rights, and intercontinental passage value over thirty years.
Their conclusion was apparently so decisive that their patriarch signed the agreent before the more sentintal elders finished complaining.
Clearwater ridian Sect hesitated longer.
Then requested additional healer exchange privileges with the Celestial complex and Grand Archives dical law access.
Lucien granted a controlled version.
They surrendered their fragnt within the week.
Two other holders followed after private negotiations.
Five fragnts.
In only a few months.
Lucien did not call that small.
Because each one mattered.
Each fragnt strengthened the Origin Core network.
Each fragnt reduced the chance of the wrong hands using it poorly.
Each fragnt made future continental connection easier.
And each exchange strengthened the idea that surrendering a fragnt to Lootwell was not loss.
It was transformation.
•••
Lucien kept his promises.
The factions that surrendered fragnts were not given empty praise.
Their barriers were strengthened with Lunarian designs and Celestial sanctified reinforcent.
Eirene personally approved several of the barrier structures, and that alone made the allied factions nervous in a good way.
Celestial lightworkers helped cleanse old weaknesses.
The Lunarians refined command clauses.
Lilith, the Genesis Forger, visited their core facilities and corrected structural flaws with the calm expression of soone judging both architecture and life choices.
At one sect, she examined a thousand-year-old training hall, tapped one pillar, and said, "This was always wrong."
The sect elders nearly fainted.
Then she rebuilt the support logic, and the hall’s energy circulation improved by nearly forty percent.
After that, no one argued.
Lootwell also delivered exclusive products.
And access rights.
The Grand Archives opened limited Law Book sections to them.
Enough to make elders weep quietly after finding answers to bottlenecks that had haunted them for centuries.
Enough to make talented disciples feel as if the world had widened.
Enough to make the factions understand that the Origin Core fragnt they had surrendered had been sleeping potential, while Lootwell gave them living montum.
Then ca the intercontinental passage.
Approved groups were allowed to visit the main territory.
For many, that was the true turning point.
Grand Confluence had amazed them.
The main territory humbled them.
The original districts.
The deeper chapel network.
The Ascension Spire.
The older markets.
The slis.
Especially the slis.
Several Middle Continent elders returned from the main territory with complicated expressions, as if they had seen both paradise and sothing they were not sure etiquette allowed them to describe.
One Starveil elder sent a private report to his faction:
[Grand Confluence is a gate. The main territory is the heart.]
Another wrote:
[The Ascension Spire alone explains why the West changed.]
The factions that had surrendered fragnts relaxed after that.
Not because they had lost nothing.
Because they had gained too much to regret.
One Ninefold Ledger elder summarized it best.
[We gave away a crystal we could not properly use and received access to a future we could not build alone.]
Cecil who saw that line imdiately wrote it down.
Lucien saw him do it and sighed.
"You are going to use that?"
Cecil smiled.
"My Lord, It would be irresponsible not to."
•••
The Origin Core Shrine changed again when the new fragnts were rged.
Sixty-five fragnts.
Still incomplete.
Very incomplete.
The shape remained unfinished, like a broken moon trying to rember whether it had once been a sun.
But the authority had deepened.
Lucien placed one hand lightly near the shrine’s edge.
He did not touch the core directly.
He only felt the pulse.
"Sixty-five," Vivian said softly.
"Yes."
"How many more?"
Lucien’s gaze deepened.
"I do not know."
The truth was uncomfortable.
"There are more in the Middle Continent," Vivian said.
"Yes."
"And more in the other continents."
"Yes."
"And so in dangerous hands."
Lucien’s eyes cooled.
"Yes."
Vivian looked at him.
"Will you gather all of them?"
Lucien smiled faintly.
"One by one."
The shrine pulsed.
Lucien exhaled slowly.
Five fragnts gained.
The work was slow when compared to the scale of the universe.
But compared to ordinary history?
It was terrifyingly fast.
And it was only the beginning.
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