The Innkeeper

Repairing the monument ended up taking an entire day. Lex had to make preparations first, and when he was ready to work on it, he just entered everyones thoughts and gave them the idea that they should come back tomorrow, finally emptying the place.

No one realized that their collective idea to leave was artificial, or at least if they did they didn't let it on. That gave Lex plenty of time to fix certain things, such as the loophole that allowed people to make progress by constantly falling forward.

But after that, unfortunately, the fun time was over. It was time to get back to work, no matter how much he wanted to continue his shenanigans.

Lex used the Wyrm's Glyph and began to search the sealed domain. Moving at a fast speed, he encountered dozens of cities such as Torrinwood, but was intrigued to learn that there were no road networks connecting the cities. It was as if the entire territory was divided into countless small city states, each ruled by one or two families.

Over all, though, they seemed to be doing fine, not that he was focusing too much on them. The domain had strict boundaries, so it was only a matter of time that Lex found the resin. More than once he encountered zones that could even restrict him from entering, but revealing his crown projection would open them up for him.

He had to say, each restricted zone was quite interesting, as they each contained unique biomes. Once he encountered a biome made completely of mushrooms. As interesting as it was, Lex's instincts actually told him that the place was incredibly dangerous, even for him, should he lower his guard.

As much as he wanted to explore the dangers of shrooms, the Glyph revealed that the resin wasn't there, so he moved on. Another time, he encountered a biome where bright blue, earthen spikes jutted from the ground every few feet, creating narrow paths for one to walk. It was interesting to see, and he was curious about what mystery lay in the center of the biome, where the Glyph picked up something valuable. But it was not valuable enough to be the resin, so he moved on.

Then he encountered the naturally occurring cities. It was weird to call them that, but as far as he could tell, they were entire cities that just formed naturally. From the walls to the parks to the roads and even sewage systems, it was as if they were a part of the domain themselves.

Entering them required having a sufficient projection level, which is probably where the strange caste system probably developed from.

Lex continued to search and his patience paid off, because in the eleventh hour he encountered a massive natural city, the largest he had seen so far, and somewhere underneath it, he sensed something that gave off a powerful radiance when using the Glyph, greater than anything he had seen before.

Feeling a bit of anticipation, Lex entered. Although the entry requirements of this place were the highest he had seen so far, at Shiny-Silver, it posed no barrier to Lex. That is when he encountered true elitism for the first time, and it put his mood off.

If the situation in Torrinwood seemed extreme, where people were ready to fight at the drop of a hat, then things here were much worse.

The signs of slavery were abundant, as it seemed like a person with a Shiny-Silver crown projection gained the ability to enslave a number of other humans whose projection aura was lower.

Above that were Rusted-Platinum, who somehow had even more power. The ruler of the particular city was a man who had reached Shiny-Platinum, and was in the late Golden core realm. His power in this city was absolute, which meant that he had absolutely no qualms about doing whatever he wanted.

Lex felt a deep revulsion, especially since what was the largest and grandest city he had come across was actually a den of corruption and hedonism. Although the city did a good job of putting up appearances of being peaceful and just, it could hide no secrets from Lex.

Just as he had left a great monument in Torrinwood, Lex felt a strong urge to cleanse this place of its filth.

But before doing anything else, Lex decided to keep his focus on the resin. He was too close, and didn't want to risk any accident happening.

He made his way to the center of the city, which was actually a palace surrounded by a massive lake. One would think that it would be used by the ruler, but it was more or less abandoned because moving to and fro from it was too tedious - as far as Lex could tell.

Lex entered his soul state, and directly descended through the palace, and moved underground towards the source of what he could detect from the resin.

Lex was not surprised to learn that there was more to this place than met the eye, as vast torrents of spiritual energy were flowing underground, like a raging river. Even Lex had to be careful to avoid those currents, and they could absolutely sweep him away and overwhelm him.

Fortunately, while the actual current of energy was chaotic, they stayed strictly within channels that had been created for them. When the distance between Lex and what was presumably the resin was only half a mile, he encountered a barrier that prevented him from descending in his soul state any further.

He could probably go through it the way he entered the domain, but considering the extremely high volumes of energy flowing through that region, he decided on a more cautious approach. There was a network of tunnels that seemed to be descending, so Lex entered one of those and decided to see where it led.

Despite seeming abandoned, Lex could not help but notice how fresh air flowed through the tunnels, and thin strips of glowing marble illuminated the path.

This was definitely a creepy yet ancient secret temple of some kind as far as Lex was concerned. Maybe it contained the secrets of why this domain was different from how it should be, because so far, Lex had not encountered anything out of the ordinary, or the fairies that Pel told him about.

Maybe now he would have the chance.