The Innkeeper

The next week should have been very relaxing for Lex, considering he just had to wait for the system to finish absorbing the Heavenly tree of Dragon Fire, but that was far from what actually happened.

Once he recovered from his exhaustion, Lex spent a little time relaxing and cultivating, but that had its limits, so he returned to the Inn to see if there were things that required his attention. For the most part, the Inn had completely recovered from the attack. All was well - or at least, that's how it appeared on the surface.

But the fluctuations that the realm experienced hadn't gone unnoticed by the various guests. Knowledgeable and experienced as they were, many guests immediately realized what had happened. The realm was too weak to contain the strength of an Earth immortal.

Unfortunately, that led to a lot of speculation. The various guests who wanted to leave began to secretly meet and discuss if the weakness of the realm was the real reason the Innkeeper had disappeared. If that was the case... this presented a few opportunities.

Some were beginning to consider if they could return to where they came from if they destabilized the realm enough, while others began to consider the potential gains of monopolizing an entire new realm!

The only risk was that sooner or later, the Innkeeper would find a way to get revenge even if he could not enter the realm - not to mention they had no real confirmation if that was the case to begin with.

The threat of the Innkeeper was the only thing keeping them from taking action, but that didn't change the fact that they were still whispering about it. The only reason Lex discovered this to begin with was the increased potency of his instincts.

The Midnight Inn was supposed to have a malicious intent detection system, though Lex did not think it was working properly. It hardly ever detected anyone who actually had the means to do harm to the Inn, just some low level miscreants.

But now, his instincts were displaying similar characteristics. Even though they were not specifically targeting Lex in their considerations, the Inn was closely related to Lex, and so he picked up on it. After that, well, all he had to do was spy on the thoughts of some of them to discover what was going on.

He made sure to only target those weaker than himself so he wouldn't get caught, and then kept an eye on them. Although initially he felt some sympathy for these guests who had been sort of kidnapped, that was no longer the case.

Now, Lex was just patiently waiting for the system to return to functionality so he could kick them out and ban them! That didn't change the fact that there were countless immortals teetering on the edge of turning against him.

That is why his week was spent monitoring the rebellious group and noting down their names. There was a chance that this was not everyone, and that some were even more cautious about it, but Lex could do nothing about that for now.

But, on the eighth day, Lex heard the one sound he had been waiting for, and immediately checked his notification!

A wide grin appeared on his face as he read it.

New Notification: Heavenly tree of Dragon Fire absorbed! System repaired 8%! System functionality at 40.2%!

Quest Complete: (System failure detected! Immediately restore the system to minimum 35% functionality before permanent system shutdown!)

Quest Reward: Return of normal system functions!

Remarks: Why were you taking mini-vacations while I was struggling to keep the system running?!?!?!

New Notification: Teleportation functions back online! All normal day-to-day services back online!

New Notification: Due to the system regaining 40% functionality, new features have been unlocked! New Features:

1. Guest satisfaction rating

2. Host Attire upgrade

3. Realm law replication

4. Branch management functionality (Tavern)

5. Inn level division

New Notification: Due to improvement of system functionality, various quality of life upgrades have been performed.

New Notification: Due to improvement of system functionality, various operational bugs have been addressed.

New Notification: Host authority raised! Authority level: 5.

New Quest: Insufficiency in Midnight services has been detected! Provide materials to strengthen Space and Laws within the territory of the Inn to facilitate realm tribulations!

1. 0/1000 Lightning tribulation shards

2. 0/1000 Fire tribulation embers

3. 0/1000 Space crystals

Quest time limit: 5 years!

Quest reward: Subject to performance!

Quest failure punishment: 100 year cultivation lock

Remarks: I told you the consequences of getting answers would come in the form of quests!

New Quest: Sometimes guests find an Inn, but sometimes, the Inn finds its guests! Change the destiny of 100 guests!

Quest time limit: 5 years!

Quest reward: Subject to performance!

Quest failure punishment: Destiny level formation will be suspended for 100 years!

Remarks: Buddy, the next time you need my help, I'm going to go to a bar and get a drink!

New Quest: Sometimes, the Inn guests come to the Inn, and other times, the Inn must go to the guests! Bring a branch of the Inn to an event significantly affecting a specific cultivation realm:

1. 0/1 Mortal realm event

2. 0/1 Body tempering event

3. 0/1 Qi training event

4. 0/1 Foundation realm event

5. 0/1 Golden core event

6. 0/1 Nascent soul event

Quest reward: Midnight Inn branch upgrade (Tavern)

Remarks: I heard you need your employees' help to get a date. No wonder you drink every time you see a bar.

New Notification: Absorbing systems below rank B- will no longer upgrade system functionality.

Oh boy, there was a lot to unpack here. New features, interesting new upgrades, quality of life improvements, new quests that honestly did not seem to be as difficult as he was expecting, and much more. He even missed the system's attitude.

But, before doing any of that, Lex equipped the newly upgraded Host Attire, and searched for all the guests who wanted to leave the Inn, as well as those who were considering monopolizing the realm for themselves!

If nothing else, the malicious intent function was working a lot better, because he could easily identify everyone who was planning on taking advantage of the Innkeepers absence. With a wave of his hand, he kicked them all out, and banned them from ever coming back!

Then, with another wave of his hand, everyone who wanted to leave the Inn was also sent back. At the same time, all the buildings that had been repaired by the workers, but were left with tiny or barely noticeable imperfections were all fixed.

The terrain, the ground, the roads and public transport were all immediately repaired as well. At the same time, every single personal assistant for every guest was upgraded, so that they would inform the guests that the teleportation function was temporarily back online.

If anyone wanted to leave now, they could do so. In fact, they were encouraged to do so because the teleportation services were going to be shut down in a few days once again, and this time they might be closed for years!

If anyone wanted to stay back, not only did they need to pay for a deposit for their long stay, they also had to agree to the fact that they would not cause any issues until teleportation functions were turned back on. If they decided to stay, but then caused issues later on, they would be permanently banned from the Inn!

Everyone was surprised by the sudden changes, and for a moment thought that the Innkeeper had returned. But Lex did not reappear as the Innkeeper, and remained hidden. After all, he wanted to focus on all the new notifications he got, and take his time understanding the new features one by one.

Like an excited little boy about to unwrap his christmas presents, Lex rubbed his hands together and pulled up the interface and began going through everything.

With the return of the teleportation function, new guests were able to come to the Inn from outside again, but he intended to use a token to seal the Inn soon, so that was the least of his concerns.

He began going through the new features for now. First off was the Guest satisfaction rating. From now on, the experience of each guest would be recorded and automatically tabulated. Lex could check individual as well as cumulative satisfaction ratings. If his satisfaction rating fell…

Lex froze. This was not so much an upgrade as it was a sort of setback! If his cumulative guest satisfaction fell below a certain rating, it would affect his ability to use MP and MT! Basically, it added a condition to his use of money!

Maybe this was something that should have existed from the get go, but since Lex never needed to worry about this before, its sudden arrival was a huge downer. Especially since right now he had just kicked out thousands of unsatisfied guests. The fact that they were unsatisfied, and the fact that he had kicked them out both contributed to lowering the cumulative results! He was currently only at 62%!