The next day, Lucien received two visitors whose request surprised him less than it should have.

Reaper, the former Assassin Chief, still moved like a shadow that had only recently remembered how to exist in daylight.

Beside him walked Eldran, the former Magic Tower Master, carrying his age with the dignity of a man who had long ago learned that intelligence could become either wisdom or poison depending on where regret was allowed to settle.

For a time after Lucien had left the small world, both of them had abandoned their old positions.

They had become ordinary farmers in Lootwell.

At first glance, it had looked absurd.

At second glance, it had looked sad.

And at the deepest glance, Lucien understood it for what it really was.

Penance.

Not because the past had truly been their fault, but because men who had spent too long living close to blood and manipulation did not easily accept peace unless they had first buried themselves in labor simple enough to feel honest.

Luke and Cienna had already spoken to them. They had told them plainly that what happened before, back when mind control had twisted hands into murder, was not a stain they needed to die carrying.

The two old men had listened.

Perhaps not all at once.

But enough that whatever knot had sat in their chests for years had finally begun loosening.

Now, standing before Lucien in the larger territory of the Big World, they had come not with grief, but with purpose.

Lucien let them speak.

Reaper was the first to step forward.

"Young Lord, we’ve been thinking," he said.

Eldran continued.

"We want to build something useful."

Lucien leaned back in his chair.

Then they laid it out.

They wanted to create a Shadow Information Network.

They wanted to train selected people from the old assassin ranks and former magic tower circles into specialists who could move information quickly across and beyond the territory.

Spies. Informants. Couriers. Scrying interpreters. Silent observers. Magical listening-point handlers.

They wanted hidden lines. Fallback routes. Dead-drop zones. Escape paths. Safe houses. Map grids that extended beyond official roads. Regional familiarity deeper than simple charting.

Reaper spoke of movement.

"How many people here truly know how to disappear if they need to?" he asked. "How many know which valleys hide sound well, which roads are watched by bandits, which cities talk too much, which inns sell news faster than drink, which forest edges are good for evasion, and which are traps?"

Eldran spoke of magical structure.

"And how many know how to catch whispers without being seen catching them?" he added. "How many can set a harmless observation spell that looks like weather, or bind a report into an object simple enough that no one would think to inspect it?"

Lucien listened without interrupting.

The two were smarter than many people had ever given them credit for.

This was not only possible.

It was necessary.

He had already begun feeling the weakness himself. Lootwell had become too large. Information still moved too much like a body running messages with its lungs on fire. Too many things depended on delay. Too many answers arrived after the best time to use them.

And then Eldran said the next thing.

"We also need communication."

That made Lucien pause.

Eldran noticed immediately and continued.

"The territory is too wide now. Even if reports are fast, they are still physical. A fast horse is still a horse. A quick airship is still distance. A relay of competent people is still delay."

Reaper nodded.

Lucien’s fingers tapped once against the armrest.

That had been bothering him too.

He already knew he could not reproduce the Liberators’ communication system the way Seran used it. Seran’s Law of Reflection was too specialized, too deep, and too ridiculous in its principles. Lucien had the Law of Reflection too, yes, but what Seran had built from it belonged to a different order of refinement entirely.

But Lucien had something he can use too.

The Origin Core fragment.

He looked at the two old men and smiled faintly.

"You both chose a good moment."

Reaper’s expression remained solemn.

Eldran, however, looked pleased.

Lucien folded his hands.

"The intelligence network is a good idea," he said. "We’ll do it."

The two men visibly straightened.

Lucien continued.

"You’ll need the right people. Not only the competent ones. The right ones. Discipline matters more than talent here. Silence matters more than excitement. Trainable instincts matter more than raw cleverness."

Reaper nodded once.

"We’ve already made a shortlist."

"Good."

Lucien’s gaze shifted to Eldran.

"As for skills, I’ll help there. Some doors need to be built before your candidates walk through them."

Eldran understood at once.

That meant Lucien was not only approving the plan. He was already thinking in systems.

Which meant the thing had begun existing in his mind.

That was usually the moment where impossibilities started turning practical around him.

After speaking a while longer, Reaper and Eldran withdrew.

Lucien stayed seated in silence for some time after the door closed.

Then he let out a slow breath.

Yes.

The skill doors and magic doors needed permanent placement now.

It had become increasingly inconvenient to keep handling every special training access through his own core or direct intervention.

He would embed them into the greater training grounds.

Then his attention turned toward the deeper problem.

Communication.

Lucien rose, crossed the room, and took out his merged Origin Core fragment.

It was larger than the others now.

Several fragments had already been merged into it, and every time it grew, its internal pressure became stranger, broader, and more total.

Even now, he still did not fully understand why he could merge the fragments so easily.

Seran had said that he and the other Liberators who possessed Origin Core fragments could not combine them the way Lucien did. The pieces resisted. The structure did not resolve. The authority clashed or remained parallel.

Lucien’s working theory remained simple.

He thought that his Law of Creation could reconcile what in other hands remained separate.

That had to be part of it.

He turned the fragment slowly in his hand.

It pulsed once.

Like a star thinking.

Lucien smiled.

The Origin Core needed to be the center.

He began thinking through the principle carefully.

Every communicator in the territory would not try to talk directly to every other communicator.

That would be inefficient, unstable, and stupid.

Instead, every communicator would first send its message to one central place.

The Origin Core fragment.

The fragment would act as the territory’s heart of correspondence.

A message sent from one end of Lootwell would first arrive at the Origin Core fragment. The fragment would recognize the sender. Read the intended destination. Sort the signal. Then push it back out toward the correct receiver.

Lucien’s expression sharpened.

That was exactly like modern infrastructure in principle, though much more elegant in execution.

In simple terms...

Imagine a giant city with too many people.

If every person tried to personally run to every other person every time they needed to speak, the city would become chaos.

So instead, they all send their message first to one central post hall.

That post hall reads the name, checks where it should go, and sends it onward through the fastest correct route.

The Origin Core fragment would be that post hall.

Except far better.

Because it did not merely hold energy.

It could identify patterns. Recognize signatures. Sort flows. Convert force. Relay authority. Maintain continuity.

It was not just a battery.

It was a gate.

A central gate through which structured correspondence could pass.

Lucien’s thoughts moved faster.

Every communication device in the territory would need a linked mark or paired node, something small enough to carry or install.

That node would imprint the user’s signature. Package the message into a clean pulse. Send that pulse into the greater network. The Origin Core fragment would catch it, classify it, and route it onward.

If the receiver was available, the message would arrive immediately.

If not, the fragment could hold it in a waiting layer until the receiver opened their side.

Lucien laughed softly to himself.

’This is getting fun.’

The more he thought about it, the more uses appeared.

Direct voice transmission. Emergency pulse alerts. Regional warning broadcasts. Command relays. Encrypted channels for Reaper and Eldran’s future intelligence branches. Restricted access tiers. Even map-linked distress beacons, if he wanted to be ambitious.

And all of that came from only one layer of what the Origin Core fragment could do.

That was the thing that continued unsettling and exciting him in equal measure.

The known uses of the fragments were already absurd.

It could recycle and convert energy. It could help him baptize people and transform mana vessels into divine vessels. In the Big World, where ambient mana remained abundant, it could act almost like a limitless fuel source if managed correctly.

And now—

server logic.

A central intelligence anchor that could receive, sort, hold, and redistribute structured flow.

That alone would have been enough for most civilizations to build an age around.

Lucien knew better than to stop there.

This was only surface use.

The Origin Core fragment still held far more than he could currently read cleanly. Every time he touched it with focused intent, he felt sealed chambers inside it, dormant permissions, locked authorities, and functions that remained beyond his current comprehension.

It felt like a universe compressed into lawful obedience.

Lucien turned it once more and whispered, "I really need to dissect you."

The fragment answered with another quiet pulse. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

He took that as agreement.

Soon after, Lucien called the people he needed.

If this communication network was going to exist, then he wanted the right minds in the room from the start.