The Innkeeper

At the palace doors, Lex took in a deep breath as he reviewed all the information he had gathered, as well as his plan. The most ideal situation would be if the guard and staff in this castle were mostly around his level, with a few notable exceptions who would be counted as bosses. If this were a video game, that is how things would proceed.

Unfortunately, real life did not operate like a video game. As lex had personally experienced, time and time again, there were countless strong cultivators everywhere, all living their own lives. Just because you were low leveled did not mean you would not run into them. In fact, if you went to specific areas, your chances of encountering strong cultivators would increase exponentially.

As it happened, the palace where the royal family of Tilaiya resided, which included the Celestial immortal, was one such place. It was too much to expect every guard in this place to be an immortal, but surely there would be no shortage of such guards here. Moreover, no doubt there would be countless guests who were immortal as well. In fact, he would not be surprised if there were a few other Celestials here as well. After all, the adopted son of a Celestial was getting married.

So, relying on his stealth capabilities would not get him far. He could also then rely on his wit and conversational skill to get him where he needed to go, which in fact he planned on doing to a degree, but even that would not yield adequate results. No, to complete this mission, Lex would have to rely on the most powerful tool in his utility belt, so to speak: money!

"Let's see, in the third floor botanical garden…" Lex murmured as he relied on his memory to guide his steps.

From the Infinity Emporium Lex had bought a blueprint of the palace, or at least what was publicly available, as well as a tentative guest list for the wedding. Getting a layout of where the guards would be stationed would be impossible.

Once he had that list, he gave Velma access to the Henali portal and told him to get him all the information she could on the entire guest list within 24 hours. Her success… left him a little worried, actually. She was more of a Sherlock than any tv show character he had ever seen, as long as it concerned digging up dirt on someone.

With that information at hand, he thought of the simplest and most direct way to get access to Kenta using this information. The more complicated and convoluted his plan, the greater the chances of messing up, considering the lack of time to prepare.

As he walked the well lit halls, rooms and corridors, Lex tried to remain as inconspicuous as possible. When possible, he would merge into other small groups of guests who were heading in the same direction. 

A few times, he ran into certain checkpoints. If you crossed that point, and the invitation you had did not belong to the area you were entering, a guard would be notified. There were no drastic alarms and no serious actions that would be taken, at first, as the role of such points was to make sure that all the guests stayed in their respective places.

After all, as a neutral organization, it was expected that some of their guests would actually be each other's enemies. By allocating different sections of the palace, Darmin ensured that they would not encounter one another and cause a scene. They had too much experience in avoiding such things.

For Lex, this was the first hurdle that he solved with money. After all, using money, he had actually bought 108 different invitations to this event! So as to not arouse suspicion, he would keep most of them in his bangle, and only take out the one corresponding to the area he was entering to be checked. The only unfortunate thing was that all the invitations he managed to purchase were from the periphery of the palace, otherwise he would have directly bought one that allowed him to get in contact with Kenta.

Like this, in only twenty minutes, he had found his way to the botanical garden on the third floor of the palace. Standing in a corner, Lex surveyed the room and looked for his target. It was not certain that she was here now, but this was most definitely the area she had a ticket to.

He could wait up to an hour for her to arrive, but if by then she had not arrived, he would have to give up and rely on his Plan B.

After surveying the room a few times, he was unable to find her, but that much was more or less expected. After all, Lex had arrived hours early, and not everyone was inclined to wait so long. They would only arrive once the main event was about to begin.

While he waited, he took note of all the guests in the botanical garden. Not every area in the palace had a view of the main ceremony, but that was fine as not all guests wanted to see it either. Some guests were instead more interested in the unique way that Tilaiya manipulated plants.

They could seemingly create new variants on a whim, and control how each of their traits were developed according to their needs. The botanical garden was where some of their more exclusive plants were nurtured.

Those who came here were either biologists, pharmacists, alchemists or belonged to some profession that would take advantage of the traits of plants. The average cultivation level of the guests here seemed to be the Nascent realm, while others…

Lex suddenly paused. Across the room he saw a particular guest and, based on his information already gathered, identified the guest as a dwarf called Nonoman Hellson. His information had recorded that he had great achievements, but Lex had not paid attention to him since he could not use him.

But now he realized that this dwarf, who was also in the Golden core realm, seemed to give off a dangerous aura. This had never happened to him before! He had never felt danger from someone in the same realm!

His curiosity was piqued, but he did not focus on him too long lest his gaze was noticed. Meeting a formidable peer was… an unusual experience for him.

A short while later, just as Lex was getting ready to move to plan B, his target finally arrived. Aoi Haruki, a Garden Nymph, entered the room surrounded by a few elves. She adopted an elven appearance, which was quite common here, but her soft green skin and hair that looked like small vines easily marked her as a Nymph.

According to her background information, she had strong relations with various Elven organizations and was held in high regard due to her extremely formidable affinity with trees, even surpassing the standards of her own race.

More importantly, she was a close personal friend of the princess who Kenta had flirted with before.

Lex took in a deep breath, readying himself, before he walked directly to her. He stopped using Domination, so that his sense of invisibility reduced, though most would still not notice him unless they saw him directly.

"Pardon my intrusion," said Lex as he approached Aoi, his voice gentle and warm. Since he could not rely on his appearance to help him make a good impression, he focused heavily on his choice of words and tonality. "I could not help but approach once I recognized you. Are you really Aoi Haruki, the famous Botanical Breeder who saved the endangered Blood Rose from extinction?"

His voice was filled with seemingly genuine excitement, anticipation and passion as he asked that question. It seemed that he admired her greatly, not for any other reason than the fact that she had achieved something exceptional. It was, in fact, a remarkable achievement on Aoi's part, but not one that was widely recognized as that particular species had only limited pharmaceutical uses, and even those could often be replaced by other plants.

Aoi, who was originally surprised at being interrupted, was unexpectedly delighted to hear the question! 

Her achievement in altering the plant so that it could grow in a different environment, without losing any of its innate qualities and gaining any negative ones, was actually widely acclaimed - but mostly only academically. Her achievement was seen as a practical example of many theoretical rules that were difficult to implement. Yet no one actually cared about the rose itself.

Yet from the man's question, and the subtle passion she could feel from his words, she almost suspected he was different from the rest.

"Ye- yes, that's me," she said, though she did not know why she stuttered. That was unlike her.

Lex placed a hand on his heart and gave her a deep bow!

"Miss Aoi, you have my deepest admiration. Although not many care about it, I believe that what you have saved is more than just a single flower. It is an emotion - nay, an experience that can only be felt when that flower blooms, and can only be expressed through poetry. Miss Aoi, I have carried this with me for many years in hopes of finding a way to save it, but have failed. If you would, I would like to give this to you, so that you may try where I have failed."

Without giving her the chance to respond, Lex summoned a glass orb from his spatial bangle, and handed it to Aoi. Within it, frozen, was a beautiful white lotus the likes of which had never been seen before!