The Innkeeper

The sudden freedom left Lex slightly disoriented. Every second of every day for the past few months had been a tough journey for him. For it to end so suddenly and without warning was a bit disconcerting.

But he got over the feeling quickly. It was hard to complain about having it rough when physically he was in perfect condition. His mental health would recover when he relaxed in the hot tub room like Luthor had suggested.

He stepped out of his sleeping pod, possibly for the last time, and made his way to where, no doubt, a lavish feast was waiting for him. He entered the room to find a pale-looking Z, trembling at the table.

As it turned out, Lex was both right and wrong. The spread prepared for him was grand, but it was none of the delicious and mouth watering food he had so gotten used to. Instead, it was a feast of food that would temporarily boost his spatial affinity, perception, and control.

He'd had some of it before during training, so he knew what it was like. It would induce a specific kind of nausea that space-travel turbulence caused.

Fortunately, he had built up a resistance to it. Unfortunately, it was just resistance and not immunity.

"Do I have to eat all of that?" Lex asked reluctantly. Cassandra, who did not teleport but walked in with her newly created clone, said, "that's up to you now. I've trained you the best I could in the time I had. But you're the one who knows how to get to the Inn. You have to judge for yourself what you'll need to do."

That was just a polite way of saying yes. He would need every advantage he could take. He sat down, for once not in a rush, and began slowly nibbling on the revolting food. The issue with this, in particular, was that it was the uncooked body parts of a certain type of worm that tunneled through space.

Both Lex and Z trembled at the same time. Best not to think about it.

"So, is there anything you need?" Cassandra asked as she sat down at the table and summoned a cup of tea.

"A massive energy source to power my Teleportation," Lex said between bites. He used spirit energy to coat his tongue and block his nose so he could avoid the taste. It seemed like Z hadn't thought of that yet. He was still too green.

"That's going to be you, by the way," he said, pointing at Cassandra. "But only for the second time around, when I'll be taking everyone with me. First, I'm going to do a test run, alone. I'm going to need a massive energy source for that as well, but that's exactly why I had you start feeding Lotus with energy so many months ago. He's going to act as my battery."

"You know, if you take me with you, I can help you," said Z. He had also made tremendous progress in the past few months, especially in terms of his cultivation, which wasn't even something they were focusing on. He was already near the peak of the Golden core realm.

Such a quick advancement made Lex concerned, but Cassandra assured him that it was a result of his evolution and it would not make his cultivation unstable.

"Thanks, but I have not practiced external support with my Teleportation. Now would be a bad time to test these things out. Now, I just have to make sure I'm in my best condition and I'll test it out. By the way, Z, block your senses using spirit energy. Much easier to eat all this that way."

After breakfast, Cassandra led him to a meditation chamber, similar to the meditation rooms at the Inn. It helped him calm himself down, let go of any nervousness, and build up his momentum.

With his state at its peak, Lex began testing the theory he had based all his prior actions on. Some time ago, Lex had received a quest to have the Midnight Inn be recognized by the Henali assembly. Upon completion of that quest, he received the Guest Registry.

The purpose of the registry was simple. His guests could sign it, and the registry would automatically judge the achievements they had in their lives, and then rank them.

The top 1000 guests could use the registry as a spatial anchor. There were greater rewards for the top 100, 10 and 1, and all of them seemed to be anchors of some kind. Back then, Lex did not understand what the anchors represented, though he had some theories.

Lex himself had occupied the top position in the registry for a very long time. He wasn't sure if he was still the top one, as he had not bothered to check. What was more important was that he still retained the registry as a spatial anchor.

An anchor served as a set of coordinates that he could sense regardless of where he was. But, more importantly, if he tried to move through space towards his anchor, it would be exponentially easier than a normal set of spatial coordinates.

He had tested out if he could feel the spatial anchor even though the Inn had stopped accepting guests, and indeed he could. Now, all he needed to do was use Teleportation and move towards his anchor.

Although theoretically it should be fine, according to the information he had read in the temple as well as the spatial affinity book - which he eventually gave to Z after reading.

Now, he just needed to put that theory to the test.

After meditating for a few hours, there came a certain point where Lex knew he was just procrastinating. He could not be more prepared than he was at that moment. He ate food that would boost him, and was wearing the suit that augmented his spatial control. He had a planet loaded up with energy on his back. Now all that was left was to actually do it.