The Innkeeper



An awkward silence filled the air once Lex spoke. The soldiers further off didn't understand why everyone around Lex had frozen still, while the soldiers around Lex knew that they had screwed up.

A majority of the soldiers working here were just mortals who had been at the facility during their routine deployment. When the power went out and the darkness fell, they acted according to the security protocols and locked the facility down. Yet it had been nearly an entire day where the power to the facility had not returned, and then they had come under attack by unknown enemy forces. Nervousness was at an all-time high, and when they had seen Lex, they had simply reacted out of instinct. It was actually fortunate no one had actually shot at him, which was a real concern considering how intimidating he looked.

Lex looked around and asked, "is there any superior officer around? A captain or someone in charge?"

Some of the soldiers who were out of the range of Lex's spirit sense looked towards a young yet mature looking man who had also been locked down by his spirit sense. This was a nifty technique he learned while practicing with his spirit sense, following the online he had been following. As amazing as it seemed, he could only use it on mortals for now, as even a Qi Training expert could disrupt his spirit sense using his Qi. But once he became even more familiar with his spirit sense, he could start using techniques focused on his spirit sense to do much more than lock down mortals.

Lex released the soldier in command, unafraid of any retaliation and said, "no need to be nervous. I'm here on council business. Please send word to the major of my arrival. I'll wait here, so that everyone feels more comfortable."

To the soldiers credit, he did not stutter or act afraid despite his previous situation. He looked at Lex with a grim determination that spoke of his resolve to fight if needed, before turning around and jogging away. He made a few signs with his hands while he was jogging away, no doubt passing along some secret orders to the remaining soldiers to watch him.

"I don't mean any harm, so I'll let the rest of you go as well, alright? Don't over react now."

After giving considerable warning, he slowly loosened his hold on the remaining soldiers.

Most of the soldiers managed to display the same level of control as the young captain, though clearly they were very disturbed. A few stumbled upon being released and showed considerable panic. Two shot at Lex's face as soon as they were released.

The bullets traveled through the mask and hit his face, ricocheting off.

Lex only sighed and once again trapped the two soldiers with his spirit sense. Afterwards, he stopped paying attention to them.

Honestly, he could have avoided the bullets, for although they were quite fast, and the soldiers were near, he had long since transcended the abilities and limits of normal humans. He decided not to dodge because honestly he felt too lazy to, and at the same time he wanted to recreate a scene he saw in a movie once where a bullet crumpled after hitting a superhero. Unfortunately, instead of crumpling, the bullets just bounced off of him. He had wasted a precious opportunity to look cool.

"How long do you think you can hold off those robots?" Lex asked while waiting, but none of the soldiers were willing to respond. Though they were not aiming their guns at him, as they had been earlier, they were still clearly quite wary of him.

Lex shrugged and decided to just wait in silence. A short while later, the door to the gray building opened and a few men came running out in a hurry.

"Stand down! Stand down!" an older man yelled as he arrived. Much like the soldiers, he was wearing combat gear, but his was clearly different. Lex could tell the man was a Foundation realm cultivator, though he was still near the very beginning of the realm. As such, his gear reflected his status as a cultivator, and while it looked identical to the normal ones, bore some hidden enhancements.

"I've already received news of your arrival through the spirit channel, sir! Are you Leo?" the man asked, as he neared Lex.

"My identity is irrelevant," Lex said, and summoned the letter from his spatial bangle.

"Please confirm the contents of this letter and take me to your servers."

Lex had naturally already read the content of the letter using his spirit sense. He could naturally not detect if any orders were passed using any secret ciphers. Simply read, however, the letter used a few lines of some code to confirm their authenticity, before passing along the order to allow the bearer of the letter to have access to the servers.

"Everything is in order Mr. Le… eh, if you'll follow me, I'll take you to where you want to go."

Lex nodded, but before leaving turned his attention to the two detained soldiers. He pulled the guns out of their hands using spirit sense before letting them go.

With the highest commanding officer before them they behaved much better, but the two had gone incredibly pale. Either they were scared senseless or they knew they were likely to get in trouble. Possibly both.

Without passing any comments, Lex followed the major into the boring looking building. Matching the outside, the appearance of the building once inside also looked very plain. Old tiles and yellowing paint made it seem like an old office building suffering from neglect - not at all what one would expect based on the walls surrounding it.

"The elevator isn't working so we'll have to take the stairs," the major said awkwardly as he led Lex to the emergency stairwell, descending deep underground.

"How long do you think you guys can hold out against the invaders?"Lex asked once again, sounding mostly uninterested. Now that the two were alone, it was time to see what he could dig up about this facility. Not that Lex was interested in stealing whatever they were holding, naturally. He would never.

But, say, if the facility fell to the robots, then it wouldn't count as stealing from the council, right?