The Innkeeper

The timing of things was just too coincidental. Although Lex was expecting the system to come back online soon, for it to come back as soon as he grabbed the crown, clearly indicated that there was more at play.

Rather than spending his time in speculation, Lex instead just read the notifications.

New Notification: System repair achieved 23% completion!

New Notification: No new features unlocked due to insufficient energy!

New Notification: Energy surge absorbed! Repair process accelerated.

New Notification: Newborn system detected! Absorb newborn system?

It took a moment for everything to click, but when it did, Lex felt a surge of excitement! His talk with the Rhinocentaurs gave him hope that he might find other systems within his realm, but he never expected to actually encounter one. After all, his personal experiences had always been one filled with extreme inconveniences and unnecessary troubles.

Well, technically speaking, even this time there were many obstacles in his path, but he had just overcome them by being much stronger than them.

Although he could not make a guess for how many other systems there were in his realm, just the possibility of them gave him much more hope. He would have put searching for more domains on his agenda as a way of looking for more systems, but according to Pel they were extremely rare, and finding even one was already a big deal.

The thing he found the most exciting, however, was that his Domination aura was reacting to this newborn system! It hadn't had much of a reaction to the system he got from John, but the newborn system was making it act strangely. While in its current state it would prove to be an unreliable method for searching for more systems, if he strengthened it, then it might actually prove to be viable!

Lex put the crown in his spatial bangle, and it easily entered. It was not that he wanted to hold off on absorbing more systems, but that he was more interested in seeing if the resin was absorbable first.

"I think that was most likely the secret we were looking for," Lex said, turning to Leroy. "Shall we head back?"

Although he was asking the question, he understood that Leroy was probably still in shock, so he grabbed the fairy and teleported directly back to the underground chamber where the fairies lived! Since he had already been there once, it was easy for him to teleport to it.

"Oh fairies, I, your savior, return with my quest successfully completed!" Lex declared in a loud voice. He was feeling particularly chipper at the moment, and so didn't mind putting on a show.

Perhaps if the entire sealed domain had not just suffered a massive earthquake, and the flow of energy around the final chamber wasn't noticeably reduced, the fairies would have thought that he was messing with them. But as things stood, they had to believe him - which was the most unbelievable part!

That hadn't even been enough time to bake the cakes they put in their ovens to celebrate the arrival of the savior! Now, they were supposed to believe that those cakes would be used to celebrate their freedom instead?

Perhaps the unusual obsession with a loss of an extra opportunity to eat cake was the strange coping mechanism of the fairies.

Leroy finally snapped out of his stupor and then looked at Lex with eyes filled with both horror and worship!

"Your chance for freedom is finally at hand," Lex declared magnanimously. "I have already ventured through the treacherous lands at the heart of this domain, and claimed its secret for myself. What happens next is up to you."

As if to confirm the truth, many looked towards Leroy, who flew out of Lex's hands and flew down to share his story. Lex did not immediately badger them to open up the final chamber. He waited for them to finish questioning Leroy, and actually come to terms with the truth.

It was also partially because he could feel that as time went by, the massive stream of flowing energy was diminishing, and hoped that it would completely stop before he went into the last chamber.

After all, it was literally the only thing here that threatened him, and he felt like with his luck, the resin would be in the dead center of the stream if he went right now.

Ironically, it took longer for everyone to accept that the quest was already complete than it did for Lex to go and retrieve the floating golden crown. He was also keeping an eye on the city above him, and interestingly enough, he discovered that as the stream of energy slowly came to a halt, the effects of the crown projections also began to fade.

Many humans who had previously been enslaved were breaking free of their restraints, and what ensued was chaos. Some of the more desperate and enraged ones were fighting against the enslavers, while most of them were just trying to run away.

It was likely that similar scenes were happening all over the sealed domain. He wondered how everything was going over at Torrinwood, and his dragon monument.

Eventually, the fairies finally accepted the truth. That is when things became more interesting. They all changed into suits of armor that seemed to have been prepared for a long time, and started to gather in the city square, lining up to form a star with 18 different triangular edges while holding hands.

Lex could feel that they were activating some kind of spell or technique, and their layout seemed particularly well suited for the function of the technique. His left eye began to detect different laws appearing around them as chains. Some chains looked like they were indestructible and made of the hardest materials. But others were incredibly frail, as if a blow of the wind could cause them to break.

Lex raised an eyebrow. Did the enchantment that was holding them prisoner, and the one that affected this entire domain, create an artificial law? How had these weak little fairies, and that one human, achieved such a thing?