The Innkeeper



Lex had previously already given out a strict set of instructions to Mary and the various workers of the Inn to go by, not to mention the fact that every so often he would use his remote presence to drop in and monitor things.

Many important things were happening at the same time during this period. First, the festival at the Inn had entered the winter phase. The weather of the entire Inn had changed for the first time, blanketing it all in snow. The architecture of various buildings had changed to suit the new weather, and the kinds of services being offered had changed as well.

The golf carts had turned into snowmobiles, and hot springs had cropped up all around the Inn. Some specific regions even had extreme weather, dropping well below -100 celsius, though of course they were far away from the densely populated areas.

One Minor realm had been selected to be sold to the refugees, and the council had, under the supervision of Luthor, come up with a payment plan for it. Since a one time payment was incredibly difficult, the refugees would continue to pay installments for 50 years. Moreover, since this wasn't a transaction through official system channels, Lex had set up a few conditions.

The overall price of the Minor realm was set at 30 trillion MP. This was not a lot, considering the fact that the Minor realm not only had better spiritual energy than earth itself, but was full of various natural resources that would belong to the refugees to harvest.

A portion of that price would be paid in MP, but the larger portion would be directly transferred over to the Inn in physical form. That meant Lex would collect the payment in the form of valuable resources such as gold, spirit stones, metal ores, valuable medical herbs, secret treasures, unique spirit tech and more.

The first deposit of 300 million MP had come from the accumulated personal wealth of all the millions of refugees, as well as some of the council's reserves. Although the situation on earth had developed so that fewer and fewer refugees were coming through, the council still treated the Minor realm as their failsafe in case the war went poorly. In fact, some council members had already completely given up on earth and decided to focus on developing the Minor realm into their own personal kingdoms.

Other than these, the Inns workers had also selected a Minor realm which would solely belong to them.

The Jotun empire had also by now begun to promote their private Minor realm to humans, attracting many to go and train at the pagoda. In fact, many were already in there, including a few prominent people such as Z, Gerard, Will Bentham and Noman Butt the human lie detector.

Oddly enough though, despite the many people entering, very few were able to make it as far as Lex and Alexander. It was only now that so many that were entering that the soldiers in charge of recording the pagoda information realized how remarkable their achievement was.

All in all, the scene at the Inn seemed peaceful and prosperous. In contrast, the seeds of war were beginning to bloom across the entire Origin realm. The change brought about by the energy released into the Origin realm by the Innkeeper was finally becoming noticeable. More and more powerful cultivators and unique beasts and creatures were beginning to appear, their strength increased by the sudden surplus of cultivation materials.

Previously, such growth would be slow and natural, meaning that the status quo would be undisturbed as everyone would naturally find their place within it. But with such a sudden surge in powerful beings, everyone believed themselves special, and wanted to resist the greater powers to have their own organizations and influence. Normally, such actions would have brought them a swift death, but the sheer scale of the event was actually bringing about great pressure on the pre-established powers.

Even the Jotun empire was showing signs of trouble, but it was fortunate that the three great noble families had suddenly become very active, and began suppressing dissidents. All of this was not even considering the sudden upsurge in Fuegan attacks.

This could no longer even be called the calm before the storm. The storm was already arriving, and chaos was brewing. Conspiracies thousands of years in the making were coming to fruition, empires seemingly indestructible were crumbling from within and races that had long been suppressed, and were waiting for an opportunity to revolt, were beginning to make their move.

Amidst all of this, numerous students of the acclaimed Ventura academy were once again returning to their respective powers - at least in the Origin realm. If they were coming to help their powers tide over difficult times, or if they had some secret agenda was still to be seen.

None of this should have had anything to do with Lex, but the Innkeeper and the Midnight Inn could not escape its influence. The Henali had given their response to the Innkeeper.

The Inn's battlefield was decided, and it was in a galaxy that had almost no human presence at all. Instead, it was a galaxy controlled by Elves called Suera. Coincidentally, or perhaps not so, that was the same galaxy the mysterious man had told Lex to visit to find an unknown valuable item.

But while the Henali had decided on the Inns battlefield, the order had not yet reached the Inn and thus Lex. Which was fortunate, because Lex was thoroughly preoccupied at the moment.

He stared at the shining liquid, which was anything but the Holy water Lex had originally decided to call it, an ominous look in his eyes.

His cultivation technique had given him a detailed description of the liquid which was known as Cosmic Erosion Elixir. This extremely rare liquid was produced in only two known circumstances: it could either be produced by a Daolord by using their power to slowly and carefully grind space out of existence, or during a relatively very brief period of time when a seemingly stable realm begins to destabilize, on the course for self-destruction!