The Innkeeper

At first, Lex did not teleport too far away, he just doubled the distance. But there was no strain on his control over either body. Then he was a little more courageous and tried to teleport farther away. But no matter how he teleported, it made no difference.

It seemed that each body contained his soul, and as such, could be controlled by that bit of soul, no matter how far one body was from another.

Lex tested out his strength to see if gaining another body had somehow weakened him or his soul, but that did not seem to be the case.

Yet after a while, he could not help but find himself feeling confused. This was similar to the final moves of Inferno Blade, to a small extent. Over there, at least there was an explanation, though it did not make sense to Lex at all. But when he wondered how he could control both bodies, and maintain awareness of each body and its surroundings despite each being so far away from the other, he could not wrap his head around it.

They had to be connected somehow, right? The pieces of his soul had to be communicating with each other somehow, but even when he entered his soul state, he could not feel any connection.

He entered the soul plane, and as disorienting as that was, there was still nothing. For some reason, Lex just found it hard to wrap his head around the idea. It was like being connected to the internet without Wi-Fi or ethernet or mobile data.

Perhaps his inability to completely grasp such concepts was why Cassandra had suggested he hold off on becoming an immortal. Now that he felt much better about his chances of restoring his system, Lex didn't mind spending a little time to figure out how his abilities worked.

As it happened, Lex teleported over a city, so he decided to take a small break there. Besides, he wasn't about to return to the Inn until the fairies woke up, anyway. He planned to offer them an opportunity to come back to the Inn with him.

The sealed domain was also still undergoing changes, and though the energy storm had faded, mostly, it might not be the best idea to pass through its barrier at the moment.

Lex teleported to the city, and found that the situation wasn't the best. It wasn't like one of those projection requirement cities that had been filled with slaves who retaliated once the projections failed, but it wasn't exactly great.

Discrimination based on one's projection had become a part of their society. To these people, who had projections from the moment they were born, and had them for generations prior, the sudden failure of it felt like they had become crippled somehow. It was as if an integral organ had just stopped working.

Tensions were high, and even though the city guards were out in full force, it didn't help much when even the guards were concerned.

Lex ignored them and found himself a relatively nice tavern. Last time, he went to a really shady place and ended up encountering a completely random plot. But it was fine because he wanted to learn to act mysteriously back then. Right now, he just wanted a cool, nice drink to accompany him and his thoughts.

The building was nice, none of the furniture was torn or stained, and the owner looked well dressed, if a little stressed.

Lex put a gold coin on the counter and just sat down on the bar stool.

"Give me your best drink - uh, your best tasting drink."

The owner showed a restrained excitement at the sight of the coin, but only nodded. His years of experience let him know which customers were in a chatty mood and which ones weren't.

Lex began to think more about his clone, who was currently testing out the flexibility of his wings. There had to be something connecting them. Otherwise, he imagined that his fairy clone would still operate as him, but the two bodies would not have shared memories and awareness. So in a way, it would still be Lex, and act as Lex depending on the situation, but just could not share the information with his other body.

But, at least for now, that wasn't the case. He would continue to test if distance made a difference, and eventually he would even test being in different realms. If both the bodies continued to share information, that would be amazing.

Then he began to think about how exactly he got a clone. He had looked far and wide for a decent cloning technique, but none satisfied him. It was still to be seen if this clone, or this second body, could continue to grow stronger as well, and how useful it would be. But considering it could use the same cultivation technique as him, Lex wasn't worried at all.

The only thing he could think of was that he left a drop of his blood in the soul state in the corpse, and then touched the resin. That somehow must have fused his blood with the…

Lex froze. Did he just… did he just miss the opportunity to turn the massive dragon into his clone because it was already occupied now?

Loss!

Lex felt an immense and incalculable feeling of loss! He could have been a dragon! He could have…

No, that didn't make sense. What exactly happened when he touched the resin? Although it was tough to look back and recall anything other than the waves of pleasure that were crashing into him, it was not impossible.

He felt like maybe he had used his physique. So that was the key somehow.

"Brandon, empty out the place, I don't feel like sharing," said a very angry and aggressive looking man as he entered the tavern. His entire body was covered in blood, and he was reeking of a dangerous aura.

Lex sighed. A part of him knew he was destined to never actually get any peace. He looked at the man, then turned back to his drink.

The man clearly noticed Lex's dismissive mood and became triggered. He opened his mouth to yell, and that's when he felt a hand slapping his face. The next thing anybody knew, the man had disappeared, and there was a hole in the wall.

Lex dropped another gold coin on the counter.

"Sorry about that. This is for the damages."

Lex was beginning to understand why the main characters in novels couldn't be bothered to argue with every random person who bothered them. It was much easier to directly slap their faces, then to get into a verbal face slapping competition.