The Innkeeper

He readied himself to be swarmed by the fish, but nothing happened. The school of fat, red fish stared at him with their wide eyes full of curiosity. One hesitantly broke free from the rest and came close to Lex, as if observing an animal at a zoo. It swam in a circle around Lex to look at him from all sides before it came closer, as if to test Lex's intentions.

Amused at the fish, Lex slowly reached out his hand and softly rubbed the fish's scales, which the fish seemed to enjoy. Its eyes rolled back slightly and gurgled a little, as if to show enjoyment.

Lex smirked. He was reminded of fat red fish he'd seen in an anime before called Magikarpet. He made special note of this fish and decided to add some whenever he got back to the Inn.

For now, though, he turned his attention back to the ice above him. If he didn't exert himself too much, he could survive underwater for a couple of hours, but that was no reason to stay underwater any longer than he needed to. Under the fish's supervision, Lex swam to the ice and after testing its sturdiness, punched it as hard as he could with his right hand.

There was a loud bang, and massive cracks spread in the ice, but besides that there was nothing else. Surprisingly the fish did not swim away, as if they were not at all intimidated by his display of strength.

Were he not underwater, he would have sighed. These Minor realms really tested his versatility. Fortunately he was not in a rush nor was he under attack, which gave him plenty of time to form an array. But first, Lex used the same technique he used back then against the Frio birds cold storm. The chill of the freezing water stopped affecting and an array character meaning ice appeared on the back of his hand.

With his hand he rubbed the cracks and tried to get a sense for how thick the ice was. It was impossible to simply see through it, and at most he could vaguely see how deep the crack traveled in the ice. He roughly estimated the ice was 3 or 4 (0.9 - 1.2 meters) feet thick.

He took a moment to recall if the book inside the ring given to him by John had any pre-established arrays he could use in his current situation. There were a few, but they were inelegant solutions that either deployed excessive brute force or fire power. This was a good opportunity for him to try creating his own array.

He broke down the task into two simple actions. He needed to cut a hole in the ice, and push the cut ice out to create an opening for him to escape. He then further broke down each action into individual steps. To create a hole, the ice needed to be cut continuously, preferably in a circular shape with a diameter of at least 3 feet (0.9 meters). The cutting force also needed to be sufficient to cut all the way through for the process to be effective.

Pushing the ice out also required sufficient force applied in the appropriate direction for an adequate amount of time. The pushing force should only activate after the cut has been complete, otherwise the upwards force, combined with the action of the ice being cut, could cause the ice to fracture, making it more difficult to remove.

He identified a few more parameters for the required array, then began to think about what characters he needed. Each character existed naturally in nature and had a unique purpose and place so he needed to pick carefully. For example, while there may not necessarily be a character for 'cut', there may be one with the same effect. Furthermore, that character then needed to be paired with other characters determining shape, but at the same time be compatible with the kind of character being used to cut. In this situation, a cylindrical shape was the best option.

Moreover, the kind of force used also had to be compatible with the task as well as the material. Minor details such as the timing and order of tasks would be determined by the format and syntax of the array, not the characters themselves.

Lex equipped the crown, which he had named as his 'thinking cap', and quickly thought about the makeup of the array. Typically, this was the kind of thing that would take him a while to figure out. But his elevated cultivation as well as state of flow allowed him to determine the entire array in a couple of minutes, even allowing him to run some mental simulations of how he expected things to play out.

So far, he had been very lucky in that all of his self created arrays so far had worked as intended. It was time to test his skill once again. Using his index finger he began to draw the characters required, his drawing speed elevated due to the state of flow.

The next moment, the array disappeared and before Lex's eyes he saw the ice started to be cut… cut… cut…

It was too slow. At this rate, it would take him an hour to escape the ice. He made a few adjustments to the array, swam slightly to the side and drew the array again. This time, it worked as he imagined. A perfect circle was cut right into the ice and, after a seconds delay, the cylindrical ice was shot up into the air with a loud bang, moving faster than Lex could track it.

'Good enough,' Lex thought, as he waved goodbye to all the fish, and began climbing out of the hole, right into a raging snowstorm. Lex literally could not see more than a few feet out in front of him, though fortunately that had no impact on the Lotus' ability to detect the direction of the accumulated energy in this realm.

The cold was hardly an obstacle for Lex, and the additional armor provided to him through the ice character helped him out a lot when he was attacked by the annoying yet familiar Kalter Flug. He had been attacked by these irritating snowflake spirits back during his assessment, but he was much more capable this time.

Relative to his previous realm, this one was a lot easier to tackle for Lex often encountered creatures he could hunt and cook, though cooking was difficult since the snowstorm never ceased.

Eight days later, Lex managed to capture this realm as well. The focal point was in the shape of, of all things, a fireplace. Due to the intensity of the storm, no other humans had been able to find it and it was not defended by any creature either, making it extremely easy for Lex to capture the realm. Once it was done, and Lex absorbed the energy, he had accumulated a total of 9% of his total required energy. He only needed to pay 5% to complete his quest and establish the Midnight tavern, though he planned on accumulating more than the minimum required.

Once he returned, Cwenhild told him the previous realm had been sold, and that only 7 unowned realms at the Foundation level remained.

Lex quickly handed over control of this realm as well and, after some rest, continued to travel to more realms. This time, his luck was not so good, as after 4 days, before he even managed to approach the focal point, someone else captured it.

But, such a thing was predictable, since he was entering late to begin with. He did not waste time and continued to enter more realms. He was so focused during this period that he did not even notice his steady improvements in using his techniques, or his skill with arrays. More than once, he managed to use arrays in the heat of battle, but he was in such a time crunch that he could not slow down to celebrate. It would not be easy to once again encounter random reserves of energy just sitting around.

Three and a half weeks later, he had managed to only capture one more realm, due to the fact that someone else would claim it before him. Still, it was pretty good as he had brought his energy accumulation up to 12%.

One final realm remained, still unowned, and apparently the difficulty in capturing this realm was incredibly high. More than one group had given up, though that was not enough to deter Lex. Not only was his situation unique, allowing him to have a higher threshold for danger, but he was incredibly skilled. Moreover, he had begun to enjoy challenging himself like this.

But, just as Cwenhild had the portal opened for him, and he was about to step through, his oh so reliable instincts acted up, and gave him a warning he had never encountered before.