The Innkeeper

A week went by since Lex's conversation with Velma. It was oddly peaceful and the least hectic week Lex had in a while, which allowed him to spend the time very productively. He finalized the employees' pay at 100 MP a week. Counting employees that worked at the Avalon and manor, as well as the various miscellaneous jobs across the Inn, he had roughly 150 workers.

He was momentarily mind blown when he realized how many people he had working for them. He deducted 360,000 MP from his total and set the system to pay the employees on a weekly basis.

He took this time to meet more of his employees and learn about them as well. Learning that Gerard, the employee with the appearance and personality of an old man, had developed a craze for driving and racing, Lex was extremely surprised. He was surprised even more when he learnt how much game the old man had. Out of all his employees, Gerard worked the most, because there was always a line of older ladies wanting to be driven around by him. And sometimes, some young ladies as well. Of course, all he ever did was to drive them around and chat with them.

Lex offered to buy him an actual car, but he insisted on keeping his golf cart, and just requested a few upgrades, only some of which Lex was able to facilitate him with. Despite the system's seeming ability to make absolutely anything, it actually had very strict limitations. For the rest of his requested upgrades, Lex would need to find a mechanic. He put that on the Mystery trial list as well.

Lex also finally installed the lazy river close to the lake. He scrapped his original plan to have it extend across the Inn as a way of transport, and kept it to a corner of the Inn. Still, it was widely appreciated by his guests.

He also built a few glasshouses underwater. His primary target for those were beasts or guests that could only exist in water, but a few special functions would allow humans to live there as well. The water could be added or removed from the houses as needed, and the glass could go from clear to opaque, as per the guest requirements. That was also a huge hit among his guests.

He added a few tree houses in the forest as well, and inspired by the Hobbits, built a few houses that seemed to meld into the landscaped hills. Overall, he increased his guest capacity by now having a total of 400 rooms overall, many of which were empty.

He needed empty rooms, otherwise the random golden door would not spawn on the planets.

Speaking of planets, Lex spent 250,000MP, 300,000MP and 500,000MP to extend the reach of the Inn from just Earth, Vegus Minima and Nibiru to their entire star systems respectively. This meant the Inn was connected to not only all the planets in their systems, but moons, satellites and spaceships in that area as well.

Not only did this spread the range for where the golden door would appear to accept new guests, Lex could directly teleport to any planet in those systems that he wanted. The Vegus system only had 2 other habitable planets, as Lex remembered, but apparently Nibiru had 7 other planets and hundreds of moons in its system that were inhabited, which is why it was the most expensive of the 3 systems.

Of course, Lex did not plan on visiting those planets, not yet anyway, but it was good to spread the reach of the Inn.

During this time, the Delinquent Viper Vine (DVV) had already started to grow. Though planted in the greenhouse, it could extend its vine up to 1 acres away from its location right now. Its strength was still very low, at only the Qi training stage equivalent, but the turtle assured him that within a month it could get it to the base of the golden core realm.

When speaking of the Vine, it was natural to also think of the pup that caused Lex to purchase it in the first place. As promised by the system, Fenrir had woken up a day later. Yet it did not have the energy Lex was expecting from a massive newborn pup. It seemed to be extremely depressed.

The good news was that it acknowledged Lex easily, and grew extremely attached to him. The bad news was, Fenrir was a cuddler. Lex had been sleeping with the pup for the past week. Today, Lex finally managed to get the depressed pup and the shy baby whale to spend some time together. After acknowledging each other, the respective babies quickly returned to their 'fathers' after having drained their social batteries.

As for what Lex fed the pup, a lot of thought had gone into it. Lex fed him a lot of spiritual food, along with 1 Tier 1 zombie core, as well as a lot of meat every day. The pup ate till it was full, and already its strength had shown rapid growth. In fact, Lex felt no shame whatsoever, so he rode the pup around his Inn like a horse.

Like Little Blue, Fenrir was an immediate hit with all the Earthlings, but since he was always with Lex, they could only admire him from afar.

Yes, as far as Lex was concerned, this past one week was extremely enjoyable. But today, finally, he welcomed a few guests that could spell potential trouble if not handled correctly, which is why he already had the Fruit knife hidden within his sleeve.

A small group of pirates had returned to the Inn, this time sober. They were led by an almost frail looking man, but one that wore the look of authority on his face. None of them were subtle as they looked around the place, as one group searched for the guards that 'took care' of them the last time they were here, while another admired the scenery they saw for the first time.

"Welcome guests, to the Midnight Inn," Lex said, his usual smile on his face. The pirates had already been informed about the Inn and its rules by their personal holographic assistants, but Lex liked to welcome them nonetheless.

The leader, maintaining his stern expression, looked at Lex dead in the eyes as he said, "I was told you have Booty."