The Innkeeper

The moment Lex fell into a coma, the Lotus began working on his body. Since he had managed to gain much more than the minimum amount of Entis Core required, his recovery would take slightly longer than usual, but not by much. In total, it would take 20 days.

Fortunately for Lex, this period was spent in relative calm. No major incidents took place. Or rather, no negative incidents took place.

While Lex was asleep, the one year mark from when he got the Inn passed. As it happened, the day that Lex got the Inn was just a day before Lex's birthday, so he also turned 24. Last year, it was because of his depression on his own birthday that he ended up sitting in the park late into the night, wondering what he could do to improve his life.

Harry started to recover surprisingly quickly, but it made sense when one considered that his soul wasn't very strong to begin with, so restoring it was easy.

Luthor was incredibly busy during this time, for he was either training or looking into matters related to Earth.

The other workers were also working very hard, and even the ones who weren't too focused on cultivating began to do so. After all, it was not so easy to get over the trauma of having your home invaded.

But while the days were passing very peacefully at the Inn, the Origin was much more eventful. Just because Lex's attack had ended did not mean its repercussions were over. In fact, they were only just beginning. Hundreds of new galactic empires were formed in the region closest to where the tear in the Midnight minor realm had opened up, and multiple new races gained extremely strong cultivators.

The concentration of spirit energy had boomed in these regions, which was not only resulting in faster cultivation, but the birth of treasures that would normally take hundreds of thousands of years to form.

At a glance, the birth of so many empires should have had no effect on the Origin realm, for regardless of how powerful an empire became, traveling from galaxy to galaxy was a task that took countless years. But more important than the birth of so many empires was the trend that had begun. Lex's attack had happened too short a time ago to spontaneously catalyze the birth of so many empires, unless the necessary requirements already existed, and only required something to push them over the edge.

It was evident that as more time went by, this trend would continue. As if that was not enough, while the boom in spirit energy was relatively focused in a certain region of space, like a wave, that boom seemed to be spreading across the realm. A time of prosperity was coming, but that prosperity would also nurture endless competition.

The assembly held by the Henali for all the existing empires in the realm took note of this trend, and warned all their existing members. Such prosperity, unfortunately, would also prompt fiercer attacks by the Fuegan.

But, seeing how this was an event that would likely affect the entire realm, the Henali decided to be proactive in how they handled the situation. A realm wide competition was announced to compete for most Fuegan's killed according to one's cultivation level. The winners would be appropriately rewarded.

The Emperor of the Jotun Empire felt nothing but anticipation when he heard the news. It seemed he would have to make a few preparations himself before the Henali tournament started. After all, a good performance by his empire might just get him what he needed

But none of that had anything to do with the Midnight Inn. Instead, it was an unusual event on Nibiru that was taking place that had the possibility to affect the Inn.

A battle was taking place between two groups of avian beasts, high in the sky near the tallest mountain range on the planet. Most of the beasts were in the golden core realm but a few were in the nascent realm as well.

The explosive sounds of their clashes had already caused countless avalanches, till the top of the mountain was almost bare. Gray rocks could be seen jutting from the remaining snow, while a few were painted red with the blood of the fallen beasts.

The battle had been going on for hours and seemed like it would go on for hours more. They were so focused on the fight they did not notice the changes in the environment happening around them. The gathering clouds meant nothing to them, for they could just fly above them. The clap of thunder may as well have been the rustling wind for all they cared, and the bolts of lightning that crashed into the ground could not be farther from relevant to them.

They did not notice as countless earthquakes shook the land, and caused cracks to form on the mountain. They were beasts of the sky, so why would the ground matter to them?

But even their arrogance was forced to divert their attention when they heard a boom so loud it physically hurt them! In fact, the sound spread across the entire continent.

Countless beasts temporarily lost control of their bodies due to disorientation and began falling from the sky. It was not dangerous, they were high enough that they would regain control of their bodies long before they reached the ground.

But their haphazard descent allowed them to actually see what had caused that earlier noise. Large visible cracks were spreading across the mountain range, each one causing reverberations across the lands.

Fear suddenly filled the hearts of the beasts for they knew full well what was happening. Another Mountain-man was awakening!

In the recent months, due to the evolution their world was going under, many mountains had transformed, turning into sentient mountain men. Well, the sentient part was debatable, but that was far besides the point.

What mattered was that these Mountain-men were incredibly, ridiculously strong and had spread havoc throughout the world. In fact, the sloth, Golden Hair, had been forced out of its retreat to combat these beats lest they kill everything on the planet.

Unfortunately, the sloth itself had only recently entered the Immortal realm, and could not control its strength at all. After all, it never had the time to learn. Previously the planet Nibiru was only a 1 star planet, which meant that the unrestrained might of an immortal could easily crack space and shatter the continents. It was only now that the planet's star was in the process of elevating that it had the opportunity to try and learn about its strength instead of simply slumbering.

All of this did not mean that the sloth had been unable to defeat the sentient Mountains. No, what it really meant was that their clashes had caused untold destruction, and had resulted in the death of countless beasts that were in the vicinity.

Now, if a mountain of this caliber were to birth Mountain-men, at least a dozen of them would be born. Such a force… it was impossible to guess how long it would take the sloth to settle the matter.

The moments the falling beasts regained control over their bodies, they began escaping. In the face of certain death, territorial disputes were nothing - especially when the terrain itself was coming to life.

Countless stampedes occurred, until they eventually reached a size large enough to be called a 'beast flood', all escaping the mountain range. As a result, a few hours later, not a single soul was around to see when the mountain gained life.

But, instead of giving birth to multiple mountain-men, only one, massive Mountain-man was born. Moving its rocky body, the creature broke its hand free from the depths of the continent, and slowly pushed up its humanoid body.

Strangely enough, this particular Mountain-man looked more humanlike than any of its predecessors, with distinct facial features instead of randomly spawning eyes and a mouth somewhere on the rock.

"Ugh," the creature groaned as it picked itself up to its knees, causing its head to reach some of the highest layers of the atmosphere.

"Why does my head feel so heavy?" the mountain murmured, its voice thundering across the land.

"Wait, how am I alive?" it asked, as visible confusion filled the creature's eyes.

"Last I remembered… I was fighting off Lu Bu… we were losing the war… the princess had to escape… then a sword pierced through my back… was I betrayed?"

The mountain did not get a chance to think much longer before it heard a strange 'ting' noise in its head, and letters appeared in its vision.

New Notification: 'Reincarnated as a Mountain' system is online!

"What?" the mountain asked, shock and confusion filling its mind. "Reincarnation? Mountain? What's going on?"

The mountain creature tried to get up, but it did not notice at all that a relatively tiny golden door had appeared in the air behind it. When it tried to move, a part of its body hit the golden door, and the massive creature disappeared.