The Innkeeper

Once Lex returned to his apartment, he investigated the ring given to him by John, but when he saw the size of the massive book that appeared in his mind, he quietly and respectfully put it away. That was not to say that he had given up on the book, but that currently he had his hands full with learning his techniques and didn't have the mental energy to read what looked like a physical representation of Wikipedia.

He spent the day practicing, as usual, but at night he did not immediately fall asleep despite his exhaustion. His mind wandered to the situation with Helen. Alexander had spent all his time at the Inn since he last talked to Lex, hoping for Helen's return, but to no avail. He had finally left today, and at a glance he did not seem too bothered, but with the power of the Host Attire, Lex could tell just how stressed he was. Lex even overheard a conversation he had with his family about her.

Since Alexander was so busy with his own things, he had not realized how neglected Helen was, though no one could be blamed for this. His family were caught up in their own tasks, and though they shared a courtyard with her, they would usually only see her once every few days. Alexander felt guilty for neglecting her, but there was nothing for it.

Lex, however, had his mind on another matter. He was considering whether there was a flaw with the keys, but he didn't have enough information. The only thing he could conclude was that if Helen didn't use the key, it meant that she didn't want to, she had lost it or, as much as he didn't want to consider it, that she was dead.

Lex sighed and pushed the thoughts away and allowed himself to fall asleep. The next few days Lex followed the same routine, and slowly built up his familiarity with using his spiritual techniques. He also used his Leo persona more often, for two main reasons. First, he wanted to build up more relationships as Leo, not to mention he couldn't leave Z to run the Gamer's Den all the time. Secondly, he used the Leo persona to learn as much as he could about the universe.

One of Leo's most frequent guests at the Gamer's Den was called Crawford-981. He was a very friendly guy, but had been suspended from duty for the next month over something he only called 'the incident'. Leo didn't care much about the details of the incident, but spent a lot of time chatting and gaming with 981. The man was like a walking encyclopedia for the universe, and Leo learned a lot about the kind of worlds one can expect to encounter when traveling the universe.

Despite the massive size of the empire, and the prospering cultivation not to mention technology, it seemed that the Empire actually did not interact with about 90% of the inhabited planets in its territory, for various reasons. The quickest summary of it was, they simply didn't have the manpower for it and often enough, it wasn't worth it. They would let the worlds continue to exist on their own, unless they encountered a demon invasion, birthed a sufficiently strong enough cultivator, or possessed rare resources.

These planets that had been left ignored were almost always Ground of Sky level civilizations. Ground level meant that they had not yet even left their home planet, and Sky level meant they had colonized multiple planets in their star system.

Over the period of a few days, Leo learnt a lot of common practices and trends among these kinds of worlds, as well as some of what one can expect. Of course, this was Lex building up his knowledge base for when he starts connecting new worlds again. He learnt common forms of currency, frequently repeated etiquettes across the universe, and many more details that might be useful to him should he end up at such a planet.

One more thing Lex learnt from him, the most important thing, was the name of the Star system that hosted the Jotun Empire's main planets in the galaxy that hosted the Vegus system.

It was known as the Pendal system, and hosted 11 planets that had all been inhabited, and hosted the various bodies of the Jotun Empire's governance system. Leo didn't care much for the details of that, but memorized the name in case it ever came up.

As leisurely as the days were passing, Lex was now only waiting for the Vine to enter the Golden Core stage. Once that was done, Lex would leave the security of the Inn in Mary's hands and start traveling once again. This was not only to increase the Inn's connectivity, as during this extended lull it was experiencing, Lex had only earned a total of 21,000 MP since the Midnight Games ended, but also for an event he knew would be coming.

One day, Miranda reappeared at the Inn. She looked just as exhausted as ever, with the number of dark circles under her eyes ever increasing. This was a rare sight amongst cultivators, but she made it evident that it was still possible.

She did not waste any time, however, on any services, and directly asked to meet with the Innkeeper. Lex, who was in the middle of practicing his techniques, had her wait a while as he finished up and showered.

"Miranda, it's good to see you again. I hope you've been well," the Innkeeper said, as he appeared in the private room she had rented while waiting for him.

"Not as well as I would have liked," she replied with a mocking smile on her face, though it appeared she was mocking herself. For some reason, in front of the Innkeeper, she did not maintain her usual facade. It was as if she expected that the Innkeeper would be able to see through her attempts at keeping things together, and so did not even try. Obviously, the council's rule over the Earth was not progressing as they had hoped. They had broken away from the chains of the family heads seeking freedom, only to be brought down by an even stronger, more mysterious force.

Waking up from her daydreams, Miranda composed herself and focused on the business at hand.

"Innkeeper, I would like to talk to you again about the Expo I brought up previously. Earth's political situation has stabilized, and we are ready to begin planning colonization of the rest of the Solar system, but before we begin that we want to know what kind of support we can garner via business relations out in the universe.

"We've also obtained some rare and unusual resources from the new Minor realm that has opened up, the uses of which we cannot yet identify. Perhaps they will have a high demand, or perhaps they can shed a light on their uses to us. Regardless, we have much to gain and offer from this, but at the same time, we are not yet ready to host it.

"We want to have the Expo at the Inn in six months' time, and by then we will be completely ready with a very thorough list of all that we can offer, as well as what we are looking for. This should also be sufficient time for any interested parties to get ready, as well as word for such an event to spread."

"Well, if you are sure, I will book the date for you. For an event like this, the deposit will be 1,000,000 MP and the rest will depend on how exactly you want the Expo to proceed and what kind of services you require. You can come to me one month prior to the event, and then we can discuss in greater detail the options available to you."

They spent some more time hashing out the details before Miranda quickly left, as there was no shortage of work for her to do.

Lex, on the other hand, returned to his room and looked at his calendar. 6 months of time before the Expo was more time than he was expecting, but that was a good thing for him. This event was also one of the reasons Lex was in a hurry to extend his reach to more planets. If he only advertised this upcoming event to the same three planets, the image the Inn had built up of reaching the whole universe would be greatly affected.

It was currently October, so the event would happen in the middle of March. It was up to him now to expand the Inns' reach as much as he could without overwhelming himself.

He was not worried, though, as the equipment he had ordered had already arrived, and his practice was going along well. Whatever the next world could throw at him, Lex was ready for.

Three days later, the Vine finally entered the Golden Core realm, and its speedy growth slowed down considerably. The only way to speed it up once again would either be to increase the level of the Greenhouse, or provide it with very high leveled resources as fertilizer, neither of which Lex could do at the moment.

It seemed as if everything was telling him, it was time to move forward.