The Innkeeper

Once Lex woke up he finished up his selection and returned to his apartment. There were many things he needed to practice, attacking with arrays and his new techniques among them. There was a part of Lex that wondered why he couldn't just use the techniques he already knew. After all, considering those same techniques would be powered by a stronger fuel source, they should be more powerful as well, right?

That was not what happened, as even fueled with spiritual energy rather than Qi, the techniques could not perform much better, for they apparently had an upper threshold. The techniques themselves were just not designed to be used on such a scale.

The intricacies of that Lex would learn during one of his new classes focused on cultivation, for now though, he was catching up with what occurred at the Inn. When he saw his MP balance at 6,451,000 he smiled. Once he had gotten the full update, the first thing that needed to be done was decide what to do with the prisoners. He didn't want to kill them outright, but considering their past, just kicking them out of the Inn wasn't the best solution either, since then Lex would feel responsible if they harmed someone.

In the end, he deferred the decision, and told Mary to make sure they wouldn't break free from their imprisonment. The second thing he needed to do, or rather, wanted to do, was something he had been thinking about for a while.

"Mary, now that we have decent security at the Inn, and our income has increased, there's something I want to try. I want to use the increased authority that I have and open up a branch of the Inn in this realm."

Mary was taken aback, as this was something that had never occurred to her. But, after her initial surprise, she replied, "that would be redundant. It may make sense for you to try to make another Inn there, but as soon as you are able to connect this realm back to the main Inn, the new branch would become redundant."

"Not necessarily," Lex replied confidently. "This is not a spur-of-the-moment idea. I've been thinking about this for a while. The main Inn will always be that one but, I want a few physical locations for the Inn in a few worlds as well. These new locations won't be operating the same way as the main one, they'll be a lot more low-key. But, for certain customers, if I like them, we can give them access to our better services, such as the Meditation room or Recovery room.

"After all, being teleported away to a new location is not ideal for everyone. This way, the Inn can become a part of a community and, once the realm is connected, it can even be a way we can give out golden keys. Furthermore, once we've connected this realm back to the main Inn, and we have a few more physical locations, it'll be a lot easier to find capable employees we want to hire. Plus, we can develop a network of Inns. We can gather information across the universe, offer the best services, make the best use of all resources. Our options are endless, we shouldn't limit ourselves by just doing the obvious. Weren't you the one who said to find ways to make use of the system's loopholes? Besides, how can the Midnight Inn be the best Inn in the universe if it only has one branch?"

Lex's last statement was one he said as a random justification for his idea, but it was as if Lex had somehow insulted the system's honor, and immediately prompted the release of a new quest!

New Quest: Establish a branch of the Midnight Inn: The Midnight Tavern!

Pay 5% accumulated energy

Pay 10 million MP

Quest Reward: Pocket Watch

Remarks: The Midnight Inn is the best universal hoteling establishment in this universe! How can it not have branches?

Lex, for once, was amused by the system's reaction while Mary was astounded by it. The truth was, she had a lot of ideas for how to develop the Inn, but she held back in expressing them because she didn't want Lex to become dependent on her for ideas. Lex's unorthodox way of thinking, however, seemed to have surpassed her wildest expectations for how to develop the Inn. It seemed, more and more, he was proving himself a capable Innkeeper. After all, he was no longer the one chasing quests to improve the Inn, but the system was giving out quests to meet his vision.

"Well, to be honest, this is not something I ever even expected," said Mary. "I had no way of figuring out how to even approach this, but with a quest, everything will become much easier."

"Easier, yes. But the wording on this quest makes it look like the system will form the tavern on its own once I pay up the MP as well as the energy. This is not good. While I save up for this, you have to think of a way to let me control where and how the tavern is formed. This has to go according to what I want."

"I'll look into it."

Lex came out of this much happier than he expected. He was completely prepared for there to be multiple problems with his idea, for he had already scoured the system interface and did not find any way to establish branches anywhere.

The next thing for him to focus on now was once again on collecting energy. Fortunately, Cwenhild provided him with a solution. The fact that the academy was going to open up multiple new Minor realms, completely unexplored, meant there were suddenly many areas easily within his reach where he could search for energy. He had not yet decided if he would join her group or go on his own. Once he had more information about this event, he would decide. The drawback of joining Cwenhild was that she was planning on focusing on a single Minor realm, instead of exploring many, while the advantage was that it would clearly be safer in a group than alone.

Lex put all these thoughts aside for now and focused on practicing forming arrays. He was a little excited, for this would be his first time trying to draw one.

Since he was just starting out, he chose an extremely simple and stable array. It only had a few characters and its only effect was to provide a small degree of warmth. This was an array commonly used while traveling to heat up places like rooms, tents, beds or even baths.

He stuck out his index finger and slowly started to draw a character in the air. You did not really need to draw each character like this by finger, but considering that Lex had only just reached the Foundation realm, his control over spiritual energy was not the best and this made it much easier. As he released the energy from his finger, it remained in the air with a silver hue. The hue was the effect of one of the 'esthetic' techniques Lex had picked up, since normal spirit energy would be invisible. He did this on purpose, for he needed to see if he was drawing properly and if any deviations occurred in the character.

It need not be said that Lex's handwriting was not... the best. Of course, that was before he started cultivating. Now he had much better control over his body, and though his handwriting had improved, drawing characters for arrays needed extreme precision.

After he completed the first character, the silver hue of the spiritual energy faded, and the character took on an orangish color. This was normal, as this character represented a type of ember.

After a moment, when the character did not explode or go horribly wrong in some way, Lex continued with the next one. Honestly, a part of him was expecting him to mess up somehow, but his control over his energy remained stable and each character he drew was perfect. A couple of minutes later, once the array was complete, the characters merged and a soft, yellow light emit a gentle warmth into his room. It was like putting on a cozy pair of socks, still warm from coming out of a dryer.

For a moment, Lex was stunned. He actually did it on his first try? Wasn't this supposed to be a test of commitment and dedication, something that was supposed to take countless tries? Was he a natural at this?

No, going as far as calling himself a natural was surely conceited. After a moment of deliberation, though, he started drawing some new characters. This time, he was not drawing a tried and tested array, but one that he had thought up on his own. Theoretically, it should work, and now he would find out.

There were nine characters in this one, so it took much longer, for he was drawing very slowly. Eventually though, when he drew the last character, and all the characters started to merge into one, his heart skipped a beat. Could it really be possible?

An emotionless, electronic voice whispered in his ear, "Hello World."

Lex burst into a mad laughter. This would be fun.