100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full?-Chapter 357 - Starlit Codex

The ship’s hum became the only steady thing in the chamber.

Inside, Lilith sat with one leg crossed over the other, fingers tapping the rim of her cup. Her eyes stayed on Lucien a little too long like a smith appraising an unfamiliar blade.

Then she spoke, almost casually.

"Before I forget," she said, "Wolf Brother... do you remember the gifts I gave you after the Trial of Ascendancy?"

Lucien’s gaze shifted inward.

He remembered.

Abyssal Core Shard. Folding Null-Field. Starforge Medal.

And Starlit Codex Fragment. A single page.

(Chapter 230 for reference)

Lucien did not smile. His mind had already latched onto the last item.

The Starlit Codex.

He reread its description through Inspect.

Starlit Codex (Fragment) — a spiritual foundation technique once used by void-walkers.

Lucien sighed.

The codex itself sounded formidable. But he possessed only a single page, and it contained a technique meant to clear spiritual clogs. He had never needed it. His spirit had always been pure.

He reached into his inventory and pulled out the page.

The thin sheet looked ordinary until the light hit it. Then faint star-lines surfaced across the ink, a pattern that shifted if he stared too hard, as if the page refused to be read by anyone who lacked patience.

Lucien’s fingers tightened slightly around the page.

The Bark of the Tree of Creation had narrowed his spirit’s threads, keeping his fractured self from unraveling further.

It stabilized him. But... it did not mend his spirit.

This codex... felt different.

This was not a binding. This was a foundation.

Basing on its description, it’s a technique that did not merely keep the spirit from falling apart, but rebuilt the ground the spirit stood on. Strengthened it. Made it harder to fracture, even by choice.

Lucien’s voice came out softer than intended.

"You mean this page."

Lilith’s eyes glinted with satisfaction, as if she had been waiting for that exact realization.

"As expected of you," she said. "Yes. The Starlit Codex."

Lucien kept his expression neutral. "What about it?"

Lilith leaned forward just a little, enough to make the air feel like a secret had entered the room.

"We found more pages," she said.

Lilith reached into her storage ring. A thin stack of star-sheened sheets appeared in her hand.

She slid them across the table to Lucien.

Lucien took them carefully.

The moment he placed them beside his own fragment, the star-lines on the ink reacted. Like constellations aligning. Like scattered pieces of a map admitting they belonged to the same sky.

He began to read.

His pupils narrowed. His breathing slowed.

The technique he held was not a technique.

It was an entry point.

A single tooth of a much larger gear.

The pages described a layered discipline. Strengthening the spirit’s lattice, reinforcing the "seat" of consciousness, and teaching the spirit to retain structure even when the body failed.

Not immortality.

Something worse.

Persistence.

A practitioner who mastered this did not dissolve easily upon the body’s death. Their spirit could remain coherent long enough to act, to move, to flee, to anchor, to be recovered.

Lucien’s thumb hovered over one line, then another.

This could indeed mend him.

And yet, as he scanned further, his excitement cooled into frustration.

It still was not complete.

These pages were not even the beginning. They lacked the framing sections, the core axioms, and the parts that taught the practitioner how to safely build the foundation without turning the spirit into a rigid, brittle cage.

Lucien looked up slowly.

Lilith was smiling like she had expected that too.

"Unfortunately," she said, "I do not have the rest."

Lucien’s eyes narrowed. "From the way you speak... Sister, it sounds like you know where to find more."

Lilith lifted her cup, sipped, and then set it down with a soft click.

"Yes."

Lilith stared at Lucien.

"A merchant group surfaced recently," she said. "A large one. New banners, old stink."

Lucien waited.

Lilith continued.

"The specialty of Starforge has always been the Abyssal Core Shard," she said. "It is why our Cartel grew. It accelerates Law comprehension and energy refinement so efficiently it scares honest practitioners."

Lilith paused.

"But these newcomers..."

She paused, letting the silence stretch just long enough for suspense to take root.

"They sell miracles," Lilith said. "Ridiculous ones."

Lucien’s eyes did not widen. His mind simply turned colder.

Lilith counted on her fingers like a judge listing crimes.

"A pill that grants insight into a Law and pushes you into Transcendence."

"A potion that drives an Ascendant body to its limit and forces a break into Celestial."

"A crystal that enhances your understanding of your own Law forcibly, as if comprehension were something you could purchase and swallow."

Lilith watched them both.

Kaia looked speechless.

Lucien’s expression barely moved, but his thoughts did.

’Ridiculous,’ he agreed internally.

Then, with colder honesty...

’But not impossible.’

He had seen stranger things in drops.

Lucien’s voice came out level.

"I do not believe anything that good comes without a chain."

Lilith’s smile returned, sharp and approving.

"Good," she said. "As expected of you."

Lilith continued.

"A few sects and factions reached the same conclusion you just did," Lilith said. "They do not trust miracles, so they buy from us instead."

She tapped the table lightly.

"Those people you saved earlier were delivering Abyssal Core Shards to one of those sects. A shipment that costs more than most cities."

Lucien’s gaze stayed on the pages.

"Sister," he said, "what does this merchant group have to do with the Starlit Codex?"

Lilith’s amusement faded.

Her eyes sharpened into something hard and old.

"When my father acquired these pages," she said, "those merchants attacked him."

Kaia’s posture straightened.

Lilith continued, voice controlled but angry beneath the control.

"The betrayal years ago gave them our routes," she said. "They knew where he would be. They struck fast."

Her fingers tightened around her cup until the metal creaked.

"The only reason he returned at all," Lilith said, "is because he is stubborn enough to keep breathing out of spite."

Lilith sighed.

"And before he lost consciousness," she said, "he said one thing that mattered."

Her gaze locked onto Lucien.

"He said the ones who attacked him were void-walkers."

Lucien’s grip tightened on the Codex pages.

Lilith’s voice lowered.

"They are not from the Thousand Races, nor are they a sect we have any history with," she said. "They came from the void like something that learned how to live where living was never meant to be allowed."

Lilith’s smile turned thin.

"And now... they are playing merchants."

Lucien’s eyes flicked down to the Codex.

"And this book..." Lilith continued, "...seems like something they cherish."

Lucien lifted his gaze. "Then why did you give it to me?"

Lilith’s eyes turned calculating, and her smile looked almost lazy.

"Who knows," she said. "Maybe I felt you would survive the attention. Maybe I wanted to see which predators would sniff your trail. Maybe I was bored."

Lucien stared at her.

Then he said, "Come take it back."

He had already memorized everything through his photographic memory.

But Lilith scoffed. "Brother, what I give, I do not take back."

Her eyes softened by a fraction.

"If you feel danger," she added, "stay under my roof. As long as you need."

Lucien was speechless.

"Sly," he smiled to Lilith, "So this was your plan all along."

Lilith’s smile returned.

"I did not say that," she replied. "But you are welcome to keep being right."

Before Lucien could answer, the light outside the crystal pane changed.

The ship slowed.

Ahead, the sky shimmered.

A massive barrier rose like a second horizon. It was a veil of layered formations.

The three ships paused midair.

Runes along their hulls flared, syncing in sequence.

Lucien felt the formation recognize them, taste their signatures, and then loosen like a gate opening for family.

The ships slipped through.

For a heartbeat, the world outside twisted.

Then the scene changed.

Below them sprawled a city that looked forged rather than built.

Hammerhead towers of dark metal. Bridges like interlocked blades. Courtyards lit by steady furnace-glow that did not smoke. Defensive arrays carved into streets like art, elegant enough to be mistaken for decoration until Lucien’s Law of Creation read the deeper structure and realized the entire place was a living machine.

Kaia pressed her face near the crystal pane. "This place is so cool."

Lilith leaned back in her chair, pleased with their reaction in the way a dragon was pleased when someone admired its hoard.

"We are here," she said. "Welcome to Starforge."