The Innkeeper

Regal Embrace was a cultivation technique with the sole purpose of building the strongest defense possible. Every aspect, every facet of it was geared towards that one goal. As such, it was fundamentally impossible to cultivate it and have an 'unstable foundation' due to rapid growth. This was because the cultivation level would simply not grow if it was forced in such a manner.

But, in the situation where the cultivation level did grow, time had little to do with it. For the cultivation technique to progress, the relevant aspect of it that each specific cultivation realm required had to be fulfilled. For the Foundation realm, cultivation would not progress by pumping the body full of endless energy, but by slowly and steadily building the foundation for cultivation within the body.

In Lex's case, a steady foundation had to be built not only for his spirit, but his body and soul as well. It had to be exactly perfect according to the requirements of the cultivation technique, and the built foundation, while taking only a single form, was actually elevating all three. This was because Lex's body, soul and spirit had all merged into one entity.

So then, the fact that the energy released by the blue crystal was able to flawlessly raise Lex's cultivation level to the peak of the Foundation realm was already an unbelievable testament to the absolute purity, vitality and gentleness of the energy itself.

This was because Lex never actually used his cultivation technique, or rather he did not get a chance to, before the energy automatically started merging with his body so flawlessly it raised his cultivation level.

In fact, the moment Lex reached the peak of the Foundation realm, he felt the information to enter the Golden core realm reveal itself to him, but he purposefully chose not to enter the realm at that moment. This was because, while his physical cultivation had built up its foundation, his professor heavily emphasized the need for some kind of achievement to create a mental foundation for him.

The achievement was completely up to him to decide, so he could have gone with his fight with the murderer, or his upgrade on the system. But he had already decided that he would use arrays as the base for his achievement. So while the use of many small arrays joining to form large arrays quickly was ingenious, he was not satisfied with his application of it. He felt like he could do better.

As a result, this energy found other channels to divert itself. It was a shame that Lex's pride got the better of him, or else he may have potentially entered the Nascent realm today, or even higher.

With his foundation built, the energy sought to heal his body. But how could he have the perfect defense if his body was full of flaws? A hidden aspect of Regal Embrace came into play here, which was that while he could heal, he would eventually heal perfectly! Only inherent flaws already existing in his body would escape the healing powers of Regal Embrace.

So then where should it go, for it could not physically strengthen Lex's body any further? It found a sieve within Lex's soul, and poured itself in, bombarding the system with endless energy.

One may wonder, why would so much energy travel towards the system, and not the Lotus which had requested the energy to begin with? The answer was simple.

The energy that was flooding Lex's body was simply the small leftovers that managed to escape the Lotus' control.

The Lotus itself was going mad from excitement with the energy it was absorbing, but that was hidden for now.

Aegis and Joseph were struck dumb because while the energy released from the crystal was being described as 'gentle and nourishing' in Lex's situation, it was mostly because it was less than 1% of the energy the crystal contained. Were the Lotus not absorbing the rest of it, Lex's body would literally have exploded before the system even got a chance to absorb the excess energy.

Blue light was escaping from Lex's body, at first only from his fingernails, ears and nose. But eventually the brightness increased, and even his skin began to glow. His body started levitating until it was three feet in the air and a violent, oppressive force began to form around his body that gave both the immortals chills.

The force was not generated because of Lex, but the tattoo on his back. Immortal though they may be, how could they compare to a seed that would give birth to a 5 Star world? More importantly, its status as a 5 star world was only the lowest guaranteed achievement, and did not account for its upper limit. Most importantly, whatever world it would form would already have an already awakened consciousness.

Lex was completely unaware of all of this, as he had entered some kind of trance as the energy transferred from his body to the system. In a few seconds, it reached 500%, and then while it began to slow down, when his body returned to the ground a few minutes later, he had 1200% energy!

That was to say, the less than 1% energy that the Lotus was unable to control actually provided Lex with enough energy to travel from one realm to another 11 times! This was a level of energy even Earth immortals could not wield. No wonder the two immortals who were watching this were thoroughly startled.

When Lex woke up from the trance, he heard a few system notifications but he didn't want to delve into them in public.

He smiled as he enjoyed the warm, fuzzy feeling enveloping his body and looked towards Joseph and said, "Thanks, that was actually quite fun. Shall we head back now, or do you have more?"

"Let's head back," he said, barely able to keep his voice steady.

The worst part of all of this, for him at least, was that Lex was only showing his cultivation as peak Foundation realm after that. How stupid did he think they were?