The Innkeeper

It took several hours for Lex to regain his calm, and once he finished his meditation, Lex could not help but frown. It had been a long time since he lost control and had the sword show up. But this was a reminder that just because a problem stopped appearing for a while did not mean it had gone away.

He needed to work on his sword intent and make this sword go away.

But much more than that, Lex was disappointed in himself. Was this all it took to get under his skin? It was understandable if he got angry when his Inn was attacked, or his workers, but just a random mention of his parents was enough to set him off?

It didn't feel good to have such a glaring weakness. He had no interest in going looking for people who had essentially abandoned him - at least originally he didn't. But today his anger had even spilled over to his sisters. This showed that this was not something he had been ignoring because he was over it, but rather because he was hiding from it.

He didn't want to face it. But now that he realized that he didn't want to face it, that left him with no choice but to face it head on. After all, that's what Lex did with all his weaknesses. It was the reason he kept looking for volcanoes, and the reason he kept pushing himself to face adventures and dangerous situations.

If he had a weak mentality he would have stopped exploring new worlds right after nearly getting killed by zombies back on Vegua Minima. Or right after getting chased by wolves in Nibiru. Or any of the countless near death experiences-

Lex paused. Was he brave, or did he have some special kind of crazy that kept looking for near death experiences? No, no, he wasn't crazy. It was completely normal to want to hone oneself on the razors edge between life and death.

He paused again. That definitely sounded a little concerning. But he felt fine.

In short, he decided to face William and Jotun again, but not right now. He would face them right before the Inn closed, as he had other things he wanted to focus on right now.

He had already tied up loose ends in the Origin realm before leaving to the Midnight realm, so there wasn't much for him to do there. For the next few days all he needed to do was ensure that everyone who came into the Inn knew that he would seal it soon.

But whether it was coincidence, or because the Inn had been sealed for so long, the resurgence of guests coming to the Inn was massive.

Many people he hadn't seen for a long time came back, such as Ragnar! The last thing Lex remembered was that the general had lost severely to the devil Warheil, and had thus been infected, ready to turn into a zombie.

But now that he saw Ragnar, it had not even been so long, but he looked pretty good. He did not look like a dying man at all. In fact, he looked healthier than ever! But at that point Lex stopped spying, because the emperor Jotun then brought in his daughter, and began discussing the details for their marriage!

Many guests came, and as a result, Lex also finally learned about the war between Jotun and the Fiery Mammoths!

It turned out another reason Jotun was at the Inn was to have a meeting with the leaders of the Mammoths to discuss a truce. That discussion turned into an argument, which led to a duel to the death!

The situation escalated so quickly that Lex was absolutely certain that the Jotun emperor had planned this from the start. The emperor initiated a challenge in the Murder ground, and they both disappeared the instant the mammoth accepted.

Lex was mentally preparing himself for the fact that this fight might last until the Inn is once again sealed, but in only a few minutes, the emperor returned, holding a corpse many times his size.

Negotiations broke off and the war would continue, but Lex was impressed by the emperor's might. The mammoth he faced had to have a similar realm as him, yet the emperor ended the fight in mere minutes. It was not for nothing that the man had been selected to work for the Henali.

But he was far from the only noteworthy person to appear. Kenta Haru, the heir to Tilaiya, was visited by his adopted father, who was also a Celestial Immortal. But after a brief visit, they disappeared.

Much more alarming was the fact that Loretta herself appeared at the Inn once more, followed closely by another devil Lex recognized. His name was Creel, and he first entered the Inn back during the Midnight Games. Since then he had never left, though he had not done anything noteworthy either.

At the time, he was the devil running the recruitment stand that the devils set up. Since then, he had done naught but roam the Inn and occasionally talk to the other guests and workers. Once the Inn opened back up, it was the first time he left the Inn since his departure, and he had now returned with Loretta. If Lex had not regularly memorized the list of all his guests he would not have picked up such a small detail, but he did.

The odd thing was that Loretta did not go meet Lilith. Instead, she met a few other devils, roamed the new Inn for a bit, then requested to have a meeting with the Innkeeper. Once she was informed that the Innkeeper was not available, she left a message saying that she would like to meet the Innkeeper whenever it was convenient for him, and that she could be reached through Creel.

After that she left. It did not seem like it was such a significant visit, if only one did not focus on how excited Creel was.

The devil tried to hide it, but Lex had become excellent at such things, and was able to detect even the slightest of hints from his body language, his aura, and the way his spiritual energy behaved. The devil was absolutely ecstatic. The meeting Loretta requested seemed to be regarding something deeply important to her. The fact that she had come back with Creel must have meant that it was related to the Inn, since the devil was the one who had gone to report to her.

Considering the fact that the Inn had moved to an entire new realm, and Creel had likely witnessed the birth of the entire realm, there were any number of things he could have gone to report to Loretta. But something told him this matter had something to do with his physique.

He put the matter of meeting Loretta aside and continued to manage the Inn secretly, until all ten days in the Origin realm passed, and the emporium managed to gather everything. Despite their best efforts, they were not able to speed up the process of getting the embers, so Powell did not get his extra commission.

Regardless, nothing untowards happened so Lex was satisfied. It was almost time to seal the Inn again with the token, so he did the last thing he had been putting off. He once again met William and Jotun.

"What do you think of our offer?" the emperor asked upon noticing the focused expression on Lex's face.

"I didn't look at it," Lex responded honestly. Then he took out an ingredient at the Heavenly immortal level, then another one. Since he had recognised them while searching for them to upgrade the system, it was much easier to find them now. But even so, he had only found two, and he had no intention of depositing it to the system.

"I am showing you these because I want you to know that these are just some random things I can get on my own with a little effort. Things even more valuable than this are not out of reach either. So what exactly can you offer me? And what exactly do you want from me? Give me a straight answer, as this is the only chance I'm going to give you."

The emperor and William exchanged looks, then turned to Lex once more.

"If you check the envelope, you will find a method to help you properly hide your bloodline - the one that allows you to improve the potential of other humans," William said. "We handed you the complete method. You can have it checked. There's nothing we're holding back. But the method is not perfect. If you work with us, we can help you by improving it. You can ask others to do so as well, but no one will be able to help you the way we can. In exchange, all we ask is you help us improve some of our people. It need not be too many."

Lex's expression did not change as one of his greatest secrets was revealed. This time around, he was much more composed. After a long and detailed negotiation session, Lex finally came to an agreement with the two. Then they left.

With nothing else holding him back, Lex summoned the Lockdown token, and after giving all his guests one warning, activated it. The Inn was, once again, sealed.