The Innkeeper

"Ten days?" Lex repeated, as he thought about the deadline. That was a lot longer than Lex was hoping to keep the Inn open. What if by then a Henali wanted to visit his new realm?

"It can't be helped," Powell said, feeling embarrassed. "The other items you've listed, while numerous, will take only a few days. But the Fire tribulation embers need to be collected freshly and stored in a special container. They will not last long once removed from the source, which is why we have none in store."

Besides the Fire tribulation embers, Lex had also asked for books and resources comprehensively explaining various cultivation concepts. This was not actually expensive, because Lex had a perpetual deal ongoing with the emporium, who were still providing him with Golden core techniques.

Frankly, there probably weren't enough Golden core techniques in existence to compensate Lex for the amount he was owed, so he just switched them from Golden core techniques to a much larger list of subjects.

Since he planned on shutting down the Inn for a long time, he wanted all possible knowledge he could need so that he wouldn't be left in need but without means. Personally, he could rely on Pel, but he didn't want to place all his eggs in one basket. Moreover, this would help the rest of his workers, not to mention that the Midnight Library still seemed incredibly bare, so it would help to fill that.

"Well, do what you can. I'll pay more if you can hurry up the delivery. I'll check in regularly."

Powell looked like he was struggling, but Lex didn't mind him. He had too many other things to do. Since there were, give or take, ten days that the Inn would be open, he immediately sent as many of his workers as he could to the Temple of Fasting to make best use of this time.

Meanwhile, Lex returned to the Inn and went over the document Powell had handed him regarding the spiritual energy purity. It seemed like this was common knowledge.

Spiritual energy purity was a double edged sword. As it turned out, it was functionally impossible to maintain an extremely high energy purity.

That did not mean that it could not be done, but that the costs outweigh the benefits of such a task. Moreover, having a high spiritual energy came with drawbacks as well. For example, all the beings born in the Midnight realm, at the moment, were naturally stronger than their peers from a more mature realm, such as the Origin realm. But consequently, it was that much harder for them to grow to a higher level.

This was exactly why, though Mythical beings were usually identified as the strongest beings in a realm, very few of them survived till the realm matured. This was because there would come a time they would lose the natural advantage they'd have as Mythical beings because their progress would slow down considerably when they reach the Heavenly immortal realm.

It was actually quite common that the first to reach the Celestial realm in a maturing realm was not a Mythical being, but a much more recently born being.

At that point, even though a Mythical being maintained superiority within their realm, they would become disadvantaged against a superior enemy.

Moreover, heading towards some degree of impurity was the natural direction followed by the entire universe itself. Even the spiritual energy that Lex identified as exceptionally pure, was actually just a result of chaos energy becoming so impure it degraded in quality.

Acclimating to a slightly impure energy might be beneficial for cultivators, or else they would have a similar, or even stronger reaction than Lex did upon returning to the Origin realm.

Lex frowned as he continued to read the document. This document just discussed the commonly known knowledge that the emporium shared with Lex.

He intended to do some more research on it, as he felt like it might be worth looking into this. For example… if chaos energy was the superior form of spiritual energy, then considering his cultivation technique, Lex could adapt to even absorbing that! Would that make him stronger than cultivators who trained with spiritual energy?

He wanted to gather more information on this topic from the emporium, as well as consult Pel and possibly even Cassandra, and anyone else he could ask. He felt like there might be more to this matter than it appeared. Moreover, with a system available to him, he did not think it would be difficult to maintain the energy purity levels at all.

He could even ask Mary. Now that his authority was much higher, there was a good chance she could answer many of his questions.

Just as he was about to call on his ever helpful holographic assistant, Mary appeared in front of him on her own, this time wearing a Nascar driver costume.

"There are some guests here who want to talk to you," she said, as she summoned a projection of an F1 car for her to lean against.

"The Innkeeper hasn't officially returned yet. I'm not seeing anyone," Lex said.

"They're not here to see the Innkeeper. They're here to see you, Lex Williams. Hmm, maybe I shouldn't start with that. Your ancestors are here to see you. Considering that your ancestor looks just like you, and a lot of people have started to recognise you, they've more or less confirmed that you're here somewhere. Of course, it's up to you whether you want to meet with them or not."

On instinct Lex was about to dismiss them. He did not care much for the William family. But then he paused. His family issue was not one that was going to disappear overnight, and ignoring it wouldn't do anything either. Not to mention that he was much stronger now, and had more self confidence.

Of course, it was not to the level of facing his ancestor, who was apparently a Heavenly Immortal. But at the risk of decreasing his satisfaction rating a little more, he could always just eject the guy from the Inn and ban him.

It seemed like there wasn't any danger in facing him anymore, so he might as well just do it.

"Alright, tell them I'll meet with them. Who else is here besides William?"

It was a redundant question. He already knew the answer, since the moment he paid attention to them, he found out everything.

"It's just William and Jotun."