The Innkeeper

The Inns prestige system had been unlocked for quite a while, but it remained mostly unused beyond the first level. Even then, it was mostly because the first level was free and anyone who arrived at the Inn would automatically get it.

The only benefit Prestige 1 availed was the use of special glasses with the Clark Kent effect. Anyone could put them on and hide their appearance and energy signature perfectly, allowing them to come to the Inn in perfect disguise. This was a feature all guests had, and was probably the most used feature that the Inn offered.

Then came Prestige 2. A guest had to spend 10,000 MP to unlock this level, a feat that was originally very difficult when the Prestige system was unlocked, mostly due to the fact that there was nowhere to spend the money. Now though, renting a Small Village for a single night costs 15,000 MP, which would put you well within the Prestige limit. But the only benefit this level offered was to be able to instantly teleport to the Inn once a year without the use of a golden key or door.

There were genuinely a few circumstances in which this feature may seem useful, for example if you ran out of keys or for example were in the middle of an intense fight and needed a sudden get away. But outside of those very special circumstances, the feature seemed very lacking.

After this came Prestige 3. Though the feature this level unlocked was also time sensitive, it was definitely more attractive. This level would allow the user to directly travel to a planet connected to the Inn once every 10 years. Considering that interstellar travel could take hundreds of years, especially while traveling between galaxies, the appeal of this feature was considerable.

It was somewhat unfortunate that the reach of the Inn was limited so far, but over time this would become an extremely sought after feature. But despite its attraction, it was just one feature. Considering a guest had to spend 100,000 MP to unlock this level, it was both cheap and expensive.

For anyone who needed to travel large distances in the Origin realm, it was dirt cheap. But for everyone else, it was too expensive. Moreover, traveling to another world would pose considerable risk if one were not strong enough, so why would they leave the comfort and familiarity of their home planet?

Such features, that were limited in their use cases, made it so the Privilege level was an almost forgotten feature of the Inn. But now Lex intended on increasing its uses and setting certain features as only available at certain Prestige levels.

Not only would this be an incentive for guests to spend more MP, it could increase the attractiveness of becoming an Inn employee, as they would not need Privilege to use any facility or feature.

After all, while the first 3 levels were simple to achieve, from Prestige 4 onwards, there were more and more restrictions. The 4th Prestige level itself, other than requiring guests to spend 10 million MP, required the guest to be minimum at the Nascent level cultivation, and have spent at least 1 month renting a room at the Inn. The requirements may seem simple, but they became progressively more difficult as the level went higher.

At the same time, the level of difficulty matched the subsequent perks for example, Prestige 4 which would allow guests to have a 5% discount on all Inn services, would also allow guests to use any Inn facility once while outside the Inn once every ten years.

This meant that they could use anything from the facility of the Meditation room, recovery pod, hot tub room etc. from anywhere in the universe. As Lex added more and more services, the number of facilities they could use would continue to expand. For example, now anyone who reached Prestige 4 could directly retrieve some information from the News building without having to come to the Inn and then approach the building for specific information.

Speaking of which, Lex suddenly had an idea and sent it towards Velma. Instead of dividing news into two categories, one available for public and one only for the Inn staff, she could create various levels of sensitivity and make certain information available only if the guest was at a certain Prestige level.

Yes, once Lex started thinking like this more and more ideas started coming to him. He recalled that the Sovereign Galactic turtle had charged someone for growing a plant. He had been so occupied with hiding the greenhouse, he forgot it could be used as a service.

He still would not let guests into his greenhouse, but he created a small portion of it available to the public in the forest that surrounded the greenhouse. He then decided to create a service which would allow guests to submit rare or difficult plants to grow, and the Inn would grow it for them. Or, they could also sell it directly to the Inn. Lex was interested in collecting rare plants as he wanted to develop his collection - who knew when he would encounter something useful.

According to the difficulty, the payment and Prestige level would be raised. Lex assigned the duty to the turtle, but since he was doubtful about how serious the turtle would take this job, had Mary keep an eye on him.

After assigning the tasks, Lex already moved onto other tasks. Had he continued to pay attention, he would have realized that the turtle was nowhere near the greenhouse - as usual. Instead, he was standing over the ravine which contained the Fire Temple. Its eyes contained a fanatic glow as it lowered vines into the lava pool.

Strangely, the vines were not incinerated by the heat, though, of course, they never directly came in contact with the lava. Near the peak of where the lava reached until, the vines drilled into the ravine walls and disappeared. A short while later, black crusted mushrooms began to grow, feeding off not only the heat, but the divine radiance of the Temple.

After watching its experiment succeed, the turtle carefully took out another seed. This seed was one of three Lex had given him. The first one had bloomed on its own after the Inn underwent an increase in Star levels, and became the World Seed Lotus that now resided on Lex's back.

He lowered the seed, this time even more carefully, and planted it in the ravine, as close as possible to the lava without actually touching it. At first nothing happened, but a short while later the aura of the Fire temple fluctuated as a majority of it was sucked away. But just as quickly as it vanished, it returned, for the system's control over the Inn was insurmountable, and it quickly adapted for the aura being absorbed.

A short while later, a single charred stem grew from the ravine wall, pointed towards the temple. Its growth stopped, as if it was satisfied with simply being exposed to the temple's aura, but the turtle grumbled. Clearly, this was not the result it wanted.

Back at Lex's office, he had to temporarily stop his growth of the Prestige level, for something else important attracted his attention.

Marlo had delivered the binder to Fernanda. The reason Lex knew this was because he had slipped one of his business cards inside it.

Not only was this a good way for Lex to experiment on how useful his business cards were, this allowed him to know how Fernanda would react to this information.

This was a loophole Lex discovered in the systems design. Originally he would not be aware of anything related to the card until someone channeled spirit energy into it, activating his consciousness clone. But when he sat in his office chair, his connection to the system and the Inn was deepened completely. This included, among other things, any business cards he had given out, since they were also generated by the system.

Returning to Fernanda, the strange thing was that Marlo handed the binder to a projection of Fernanda on Earth, but once the projection disappeared, the binder disappeared with her. But Lex knew that the binder reappeared on a space station somewhere where her real body was.

Lex raised an eyebrow. That was cool, he had to admit. He was watching silently and intently as she read the binder, though he could not detect any changes in her expression. Either she was used to maintaining a cold expression, or she already knew all the information she was reading.

All Lex could really do was observe the environment around the card, otherwise he would have started considering whether or not to activate the card. He really needed to see what a consciousness card felt like, but there was no way he could prompt her to find it and channel her energy into it.

After a few minutes, she closed the binder without finding the card and went away. Lex did not know if she planned on doing anything, but he would keep an eye out for any changes on Earth. If she did nothing... well, even if the Innkeeper did nothing, Lex Williams was also now a force to be reckoned with.