The Innkeeper

"Highest quality spirit stone mine? Uh, yeah, I suppose," replied Moon, and tried to bring up a map, but none of her technology was working. She blushed, but pretended like she wasn't bothered by it.

"I can't pull up a map, but I can tell you where it is," she said.

"Excellent. Actually, just to be safe, how about you tell me the location of the top four spirit stone mines. You can just tell me their approximate distance and direction from where we are. I'll find them on my own," Lex said. He did not seem like he was in a rush, even though thirteen immortals were attacking the space bubble outside the planet. It would take them at least a few minutes to crack it, or find ways around it. That's if they were exceptionally strong. Otherwise, he had at least half an hour. That was more than enough time.

Moon, suppressing her confusion, gave Lex the directions he required before he just disappeared. One moment he was right in front of her, and the next he was gone.

Moon once again felt the connection between her and the formation that was supposed to protect her, but couldn't detect anything. So much for keeping her safe by hiding her on one planet and making sure she never goes anywhere else. All it had done was make her a sitting target.

She tried to muster up some anger, but all such emotions had left her long ago. She sighed, and her thoughts drifted towards her other siblings. All of them were in messed up situations one way or another. But before she could dwell on it too much, Lex reappeared. This time, he was wearing a smile, and looked satisfied.

"Hey Moon, want to go on a trip?" he asked. But instead of waiting for a reply, he held her hand and covered her body with his energy, making sure that it had support and wouldn't be hurt.

"What am I saying? Of course you want to go on a trip, but before that, let's see off your guests. No need to be rude."

He would have teleported both of them to the edge of the space bubble, but he didn't want to risk bringing her too far from the surface of the planet, so instead he opened a small portal that opened right at the edge of the bubble.

Through it, they could see out into space. More importantly, they were brought face to face with one of the guys trying to break through the space bubble. To Lex, the man was just another guy he would probably thoroughly thrash sometime in the future, but the guy clearly recognized Lex, and placed great importance on him!

"You know me?" Lex asked, surprised.

"Yes. You're Lex Dragonslayer, with a bounty of 32 2-star planets on your head offered by the Dragon King. Who doesn't know you?"

Moon's eyes dilated in shock, and Lex raised an eyebrow.

"32 entire planets? For me? Wow, that's pretty cool."

"That's if you're brought in dead. If you're brought in alive, the bounty is even larger," the man continued to explain. "But you don't need to worry. I am not here for the bounty. In fact, I can offer you refuge from the dragons, so long as you agree to join us. Your future can be very bright."

"Care to tell me who exactly is 'us'?" Lex asked.

"I can tell you everything, if you lower the barrier and let us in. If you're concerned about safety, I can swear a Dao oath that we will not act against you in any way. Even if you refuse to join, you will not be harmed. We will just talk in detail, and I can even bring you with me so you can see exactly how massive of an opportunity this is for you."

"Cool. And what about my sister?" he asked, pointing towards Moon.

"The saintess is your sister?" he repeated, shocked. But the immortal quickly gathered himself and responded.

"The saintess has been valued deeply by our superiors. She will have a superior position among our ranks, but we cannot let her be. She must join us."

"Ah, pity. In that case, I'll have to refuse. I'll be taking the saintess with me. Feel free to send assassins after me later on. I'll be joining the champions tourney, in case you need help finding me."

Without waiting for the immortal to respond, Lex closed the portal.

"Let's get out of here. By the way, I'm going to have to drain your planet's spirit stones just a bit. But I'll return them later, so don't worry."

With that said, Lex activated the formation he had laid around the planet. It was not the best he could do, not even close, but considering the time constraints they were under it was pretty decent.

The formation around the planet was an incomplete teleportation formation, anchored into the planet itself. Another reason he had created the bubble around the planet was to preserve the atmosphere around the planet once he teleports it away.

Unfortunately, even Lex could not casually teleport the planet anywhere he wished. But teleporting it away to a random location would make it impossible for others to follow or find them in a short period of time. That would be enough time for Lex to figure out how to take Yildirim Utopia back to the Midnight realm.

The formation had been built using exceptionally rare materials he brought out from the Midnight realm, and it would be powered by the planet's own spirit stone reserves, so it shouldn't be too much of a drain on Lex. Hypothetically. In theory. At least, according to all his studies. He hadn't really had time to verify his knowledge since he acquired it.

"Lex, why do I have a bad feeling about this? What are you doing?" Moon asked hesitantly.

"I'm not doing anything dangerous, relax. Everything is going to be fine. There's nothing to worry about."

He activated the formation, and the planet began to tremble.

"Does this count as you getting a body massage?" Lex asked as he looked at the quaking ground. Before Moon could respond, the entire planet disappeared.