The Innkeeper

Lex sat comfortably in his private room, with his legs stretched out on an ottoman in front of him. A plate of small, wrapped sweets had been waiting for him when he entered the room, some of which he had picked through and they were phenomenal. More and more, Lex was beginning to like this planet for its food, but that may simply be a result of excellent ingredients. After all, this was an agricultural planet so their ingredients must be extremely fresh.

Lex munched on another sweet as he read through the description of his reward for completing the quest to sell something to the Emporium. His quest ranking had ended up being an A, which influenced his reward naturally. But that's where the peculiarity of the Special quest came in, as the system asked him if he had a reward in mind. Lex went through his quests that remained incomplete, and was reminded of one to find someone to help him run a new service.

With that in mind, he asked to find the perfect employee that fit this role. The system could not reward an employee directly, but the reward was still influenced by the request. It directly scanned all the planets connected to the Inn, and provided him with a list of beings most suitable for the job.

The list was very lengthy, with over 100 candidates, and Lex intended to go through the list thoroughly before he made a decision. It was while he was doing this that he got another quest complete notification.

Quest complete: Help Tetsuya avoid calamity by having him retreat to the Inn.

Quest reward: Support token!

Remarks: completed the quest on a technicality, now you're thinking like an entrepreneur!

Lex was confused by the remark, as he could not tell if the system was insulting him or complimenting him.

"Hey Mary, have we received a new guest? His name should be Tetsuya, he might be hurt."

"Yeah, we did," she replied hesitantly. "But he's not just wounded, he's on the verge of death! His cultivation has been scrapped, and he has a massive hole in his chest and a missing arm! Since he had a lot of treasures on his body, and his cultivation level fell below yours, I used those as payments and sent him directly to the ORR (Organic Reconstruction Room). However, since you never set a price for the ORR, it was charged at cost, which is 1000MP per hour."

Lex bolted upright when he heard the news. Tetsuya was pretty strong, as Lex had witnessed himself, as he managed to incapacitate Foundation realm experts with ease. Lex could not imagine how he ended up in such a wounded state. Despite all he had been through, this was the first time someone had used his ORR, which could reconstruct missing or crippled body parts. The only limitation to the ORR was that it was limited by his own cultivation, and could only work on those at his level or below it.

"Alright, keep me updated on his condition."

With that taken care of, Lex leaned back in his chair and wondered if Tetsuya had been implicated because of him. It seemed unlikely, as he had received a quest long before he even decided to enter the arena.

As for being concerned whether he would get dragged into this mess? Lex wasn't worried at all. One of the items Lex had purchased from the Emporium was called the Insincere medallion. Its effect was not perfect, but it was good enough to hide his tracks in a situation where he wasn't being directly followed. The medallion basically hid everything about him as long as he was wearing it. If he left a fingerprint on an item, it would not be his. If he dropped hair, it would not match his DNA. If he was photographed by a surveillance camera, the image that would show up would not be his. Dogs would not be able to track his scent and his footprints would be wrong. Basically, any tracks he left behind would be wrong in some way. Of course, if someone had their eyes on him, and followed him directly, the medallion could do nothing about that. But he felt safe, for now at least.

He looked at his latest quest reward, the Support token, and smiled. It was very useful.

Support token

Select an Inn employee. Once selected, you can summon that employee from the Inn to your location, regardless of where you are in the universe. You can also unsummon the employee.

This token was actually perfect. It was not like he was getting attached or anything... but he had been concerned about leaving Fenrir alone for long periods. Although he left the pup in the care of the turtle, and he had Little Blue to accompany him, Fenrir was still extremely attached to Lex.

As he was a member of the Inn in an official capacity as Protector, this token worked perfectly on him. Lex used the token to bind it to Fenrir, and directly summoned him into the private room.

That was a mistake, as Lex had momentarily forgotten how big the wolf was, not to mention it had been slowly growing bigger as time went by.

The private room was immediately filled by the giant dog that looked confused for a moment, then immediately recognized Lex, and sat down as it tried to rub its massive head against Lex's body. Lex had spent time in front of Fenrir without the Host Attire on when they were staying in the apartment, which is why the pup suffered from no confusion in recognizing him.

Lex scratched the massive pup, unaware of the warm smile that had appeared on his face. Finally, after spending some time consoling the pet, he started preparing to use the binding technique on Fenrir. Technically, Lex himself was too weak to use the technique, so what he got was a primed talisman that would automatically implement the technique when he activated it.

Not wasting any time, Lex activated the talisman, and felt a warmth starting to fill him, and a bright light covered both him and Fenrir.