The Innkeeper

Lex thought that he would barely nap for half an hour, or that if he entered deep sleep he'd be out for a couple of hours at most. He couldn't be blamed for thinking as such because lately he would sleep very less unless he was injured and using his recovery techniques.

Even though, right now, he was technically injured, he did not plan on using any recovery techniques, so he planned on only passing a few hours at most. Unfortunately, due to the fact that none of his pain receptors were working, and his incredible physique allowed him to function normally, he underestimated how injured he really was. 

That was not to mention that any time he was injured, his spirit was injured as well, which really affected his decision making skills. It was the most significant flaw of his cultivation technique. Though to be fair, Regal Embrace was on the path to ensure that he never got hurt in the first place. Now though, the end result would be up to his own efforts.

He fell asleep the moment he hit the bed, and entered a deep dreamless sleep. He did not move or flinch, or even let out a single sound besides his soft breathing, until he was roused from sleep by the sound of a system notification.

Lex woke up a little disoriented, wondering who he was and what was going on. A couple of moments later he remembered everything, and realized that he may have overslept.

"Mary, how long was I sleeping?" he asked as he stifled a yawn, and pushed himself up. The bones in his back gave out a satisfying crack as he stretched.

"A little over thirty hours," she said, sounding distracted.

"Thirty hours?" he repeated, startled.

He checked to see what notification he had received and saw that the planet had already been connected to the Inn, and he could head back at any time that he wanted.

But, fortunately, not too much time had passed and the notification had come very timely. If he missed the wedding ceremony, he would not suffer any harm but he would lose an opportunity that was not easy to come by. So far, only Celestial immortals had been able to sense the inscriptions in his body, and it was not easy to meet them, let alone get their help.

Speaking of which, he had guessed earlier that Jotun was also a Celestial Immortal, and that fact had more or less been confirmed by the heir's father. Jotun having such a cultivation was something Lex could understand and accept, since he was the Emperor of a massive empire and worked for the Henali directly.

But this small neutral organization, Darmin, which barely had a few star systems, was also led by a Celestial immortal? Did that mean that, in essence, Darmin was just as powerful as the empire? At least in terms of the power of their upper echelon. But one spanned galaxies, and the other did not even cover 1% of a single galaxy. How was that possible?

Ultimately he could not come up with an answer, and chalked it up to the personal preference of the Celestial immortals. But whatever opportunity that Kenta had been talking about that required his special talent must be extraordinary if it was enough to keep a Celestial satisfied.

The outline of a plan formed in Lex's mind as he checked the card that the Hix assassin had left him. A small, gray circle had formed on it, indicating that the task had been accepted by Hix. Fortunately he did not oversleep, or he would miss the deadline to pay the assassin organization.

He channeled his spirit energy inside and received the details of the required payment. Since Barley's cultivation level was low, the task was originally not expensive. However, since his location was unknown, to the extent that not even the star system could be determined, the price shot up drastically.

It was sufficient to say that the price of this commission was completely not worth it for an ordinary person. However Lex was not ordinary, and the price meant nothing to him. Not only was his museum of wealth filled with countless treasures, and spirit stones, but soon he would receive the first payment from those refugees from Earth who had leased out a Minor realm. Their payments would be in terms of resources mined and collected from that realm instead of MP, so at this point it could even be said that the cost to hunt down someone through an entire galaxy… cost but a paltry sum for him.

He channeled more spirit energy into the card, causing it to turn to ash once again and form the 'Reality Filter' once again painting a portion of his room black and white. He placed a small spatial ring filled with 1 billion spirit stones, 130 vials of spirit liquid and 10 tons of a version of gold called Red vein Gold.

All of these came from his loot from the dragon hoard, and didn't even cover 1% of what he looted, let alone what was in the hoard itself.

At that thought, Lex could not help but lick his lips. Robbing dragons was a very lucrative business.

"Hey Pel, you don't happen to remember any old or dying dragons, do you?" he asked.

"I know many old dragons, but none who are dying," the wooden ring answered dutifully.

Lex shook his head. He hadn't asked the question seriously. He was not crazy enough to go face a living dragon right now. Maybe when he reached the peak of the Nascent realm he could consider it.

The filter vanished, alongside the payment, and the card reformed. Satisfied, Lex put the card in his spatial bangle and disappeared back to the Inn.

He spent a couple of hours handling various tasks at the Inn. Recently, the population of the aquatic beasts inside the Inn was booming and he needed to expand his rivers and lakes to ensure there was enough space for them. In fact, he decided to make a super massive lake far away from the main attractions where they could live for now.

Once all urgent tasks were taken care of, Lex grabbed a device connected to the Henali portal, and teleported back to his restroom. By now, unfortunately, Lex had learned to tolerate the unique cultivation conditions absorbing items with laws required. He planned on using his next 'cultivation session' to do some research on Kenta's wedding and come up with a proper plan.

Even though all it would take was to hand him a key to the Inn and crush it, Lex did not know how easy or hard the Celestial was going to make it for him. He planned on treating it like an infiltration mission, allowing him to once again act like a spy.

Not delaying the matter further, Lex bit the blade of grass given to him by Zuri, and began his cultivation session. A couple of hours later, once Lex had gotten used to it, he began perusing the Henali portal.

He looked up royal weddings in Tilaiya, and what customs they usually entailed. He looked into what Kenta's wedding would entail, and discovered something unusual. No one knew who the bride was yet! There was endless speculation on why the identity of the bride was hidden, but the most popular conspiracy seemed to be that she had a troublesome identity, which matched the habits of the similarly frivolous heir.

Lex did not believe it, nor did he care so much about it. What truly caught his attention was that there was no real mention or detailed explanation of the inner workings of Darmin, just a brief mention that each star system was controlled by a different family. At the same time, it was mentioned that Kenta was only the heir to Tilaiya, not Darmin. Moreover, his adopted father was only in charge of the star system with Tilaiya in it.

How was it possible that a Celestial was not in charge of the entire organization, but just a single star system? The only way that made sense was if there were more Celestials in other star systems. But, how was that even possible? Celestials did not grow on trees, they were not so easy to come across.

Lex raised his guard somewhat as the ambiguity of the situation concerned him somewhat. It also strengthened his motivation to build a connection with Kenta, and be in Darmins good books. He did not expect any significant help from a neutral organization, but sometimes having a relationship was help enough.

Twelve hours later, a weak Lex crawled out of the bathroom. He began to seriously doubt the prophecy he had received. Maybe what Leslie had foreseen was not regret that could only be avoided using a blade. Maybe what she saw was him regretting the decision to use it.

When he remembered that he had 90% more of the blade still left, Lex lost the strength in his arms to hold himself up and collapsed.