Days passed.
The rumors finally reached their peak.
By then, nearly every major city, branch, trade route, academy, and market had heard of Lootwell’s supposed intercontinental teleportation array.
So people treated it as hope.
So treated it as nonsense.
So treated it as inevitable because Lootwell had already developed a habit of making impossible things look administrative.
The suspicious factions treated it as a knife.
At first, they endured.
They sent people to Lootwell branches to ask whether the rumor was true.
But Lootwell gave no answer.
Lootwell did not confirm it nor deny it.
That silence beca more frightening than any announcent.
If it was false, why not deny it?
If it was true, why not announce it?
The suspicious factions could no longer dismiss the matter as idle talk.
So they moved.
Carefully.
Or at least, they thought they were careful.
They sent ordinary disciples on ordinary errands.
They changed eting locations under ordinary excuses.
They moved ssengers through normal trade routes.
They visited old leyline locations while pretending to inspect ancestral lands, mines, ruins, or inconveniently sick relatives.
To anyone else, it looked normal.
To Lootwell, it looked like a net tightening around itself.
The Shadow Information Network had already spread through the five continents.
Shadows watched from alleys, forests, roofs, waterways, markets, caves, and branch roads. So blended into darkness. So hid in reflections. So slipped beneath passing carriages. So rode the edges of other people’s shadows without disturbing them.
One shadow did not need to follow a target forever.
It only needed to pass the trail to the next.
Then the next.
Then the next.
The Shadow Routes turned pursuit into relay.
No footsteps were wasted.
No watcher needed to expose themselves.
The suspicious factions believed they were moving quietly.
They were wrong.
•••
The first full report reached Lucien before dawn.
He was inside the Origin Core Shrine when it arrived.
The five-continent map hovered in front of him, covered with faint lines, pulsing nodes, and newly marked movent routes.
Lucien read the report.
Then he smirked.
The recorders had already caught the first mistake.
The suspicious factions had begun ssaging each other again.
[Act normally. Do not make unnecessary movents.]
[Contact the western allies. The anchors there have no communication devices. Let the allies wake the Sleeping Keepers first.]
Lucien’s smirk faded.
He read the line again.
Anchors.
Sleeping Keepers.
Western allies.
The report did not explain what those words ant.
It did not need to.
Lucien already understood enough.
The anchors were likely the suspicious individual bearers and hidden factions.
The allies might be the outer hands moving among the Thousand Races.
And the Sleeping Keepers...
Lucien’s gaze lowered.
They might be False Incarnates.
Or sothing close enough that the difference would not be comforting.
He had already begun forming the enemy structure in his mind.
The Great Ones stood at the top. Most likely the Primordial Incarnations, or powers connected to them.
Lucien placed the report aside.
His face beca calm again.
•••
More reports arrived.
This ti, the ssages were shorter.
More cautious.
More afraid.
[The Great Ones’ awakening will soon be complete. We cannot allow a blunder now.]
[Assign Keepers to watch important leyline locations.]
[Delay Lootwell as long as possible.]
Then the channel went silent.
Lucien read the last line twice.
Delay Lootwell.
That ant they were waiting for sothing.
Lucien leaned back slowly.
For now, he still did not move.
He already had what he needed from the first layer.
Now he needed scale.
He wanted all suspicious people to reveal themselves.
The rumor had done its job.
Now fear would do the rest.
•••
Across the five continents, two nervous systems moved at the sa ti.
One was old. Hidden beneath ley lines, fragnts, anchors, and sleeping nodes.
The other was new. Made of shadows, systems, branch routes, and communication devices.
The old nervous system believed itself hidden.
The new one had already begun tracing its nerves.
In the West, a ssenger left a minor faction estate at midnight and headed toward a dead mountain where birds refused to land.
Three shadows monitored.
In the Middle Continent, a rchant house suddenly moved sealed goods toward an old river junction that did not appear on public maps.
Two recorders marked the transaction.
In the North, a retired elder who had not left his courtyard in eleven years departed under the excuse of visiting a sick disciple.
A shadow in the snow changed direction.
In the East, a formation supplier began purchasing spatial anchors that did not match any registered project.
In the South, a faction that had loudly criticized Lootwell suddenly sent respectful gifts to Bellhaven and requested information about chapel bell resonance.
...
Lucien watched the movents appear one by one on the map.
Lines ford.
Routes opened.
Nas connected.
False identities began touching true positions.
The enemy had started moving its hands.
Lucien smiled faintly.
The first stage was working.
Bringing them out was only the start.
The final goal had never changed.
When he understood the shape, when he knew what could be cut and what must be sealed, when he knew which nodes were enemies and which might be unwilling anchors, he would act.
And when he acted, he would not rely scatter them.
He would remove them.
Completely.
The world was not as simple as it looked.
Lucien intended to make it simple.
•••
anwhile, his trusted people had not returned from the Void yet.
That ant the Fruits of Creation were still reshaping them.
Lucien was curious.
He wanted to see what they would beco.
But he did not rush them.
Transformation needed ti.
•••
While enemies moved beneath the continents and his trusted people changed beyond the world, ordinary life in Lootwell continued.
Most people did not know what was happening in the background.
To them, this was a golden era.
The five main branches were connected through scoreboards.
Grace Quests were easier to take.
Rewards could now be received directly through the Grace System.
The Rainbow Offering Shrines had begun appearing in the main branches.
And the new reward system changed the mood almost imdiately.
People worked harder.
Not because they were forced.
Because the path was clearer.
Those who completed higher contribution quests could receive offering objects.
Skill-bearing seeds crafted by Lucien himself.
With his current strength and his understanding of Living Creation, making them was no longer difficult. The principle was close to crafting Skill Cards, but the form was different.
The object carried the skill pattern.
The Grace System carried the eligibility.
The Rainbow Offering Shrine carried the ritual.
The sincere prayer carried the faith.
Only when all four matched would the offering dissolve and grant the skill.
That made the reward feel earned.
It also made it aningful.
People liked that.
Far more than Lucien expected.
So prayed quietly.
So cried after receiving simple one-star skills that would make their work easier.
So laughed because their first reward was not a sword technique or a heroic art, but sothing like Stable Grip, Clean Cut, Soil Sense, or Minor Stamina Regulation.
Then they realized how useful those skills were.
A cook with Clean Cut beca faster and safer.
A courier with Minor Stamina Regulation stopped collapsing halfway through long routes.
A carpenter with Stable Grip reduced mistakes.
A farr with Soil Sense beca strangely protective of dirt.
Lucien approved.
Ordinary skills improving ordinary lives was exactly the point.
Not everyone needed to beco a hero.
A world survived because many people beca just a little better at what they already did.
•••
The demand for Grace Systems rose sharply.
That created another useful effect.
People who had once treated service as beneath them began volunteering.
So did it for rewards.
That was fine.
Many continued after realizing contribution had weight.
A few genuinely changed.
Not all.
Lucien was not naive.
So evil people only learned how to look good more carefully.
The systems noticed patterns.
The chapels noticed sincerity.
The recorders noticed inconsistencies.
Clara noticed everything that could beco a sermon.
Still, enough people improved that the difference beca visible.
Chapel traffic increased.
Grace Quests flourished.
Faith divine energy flowed steadily into Lucien’s network.
The people were motivated because effort finally returned visible results.
That mattered.
Fear could move people quickly.
Greed could move people sharply.
But hope moved people for a long ti.
Lucien needed that.
The world needed that.
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