The Innkeeper

After buying the History Wiper, for no reason in particular, Lex quickly went through the list. The things the shopkeeper had arranged for him were tempting, but he wanted to get a look at some of the really valuable items as well.

Unfortunately, as monumentally rare and impressive as they were, the truly high tier items had no way of helping him as they aided in the cultivation or requirements of very high level cultivators.

Either way, it did not matter much to Lex. His next focus was going to be on finishing the Foundation and beginning his journey on the Golden Core realm. As such, he would now start getting items that would help the Inn better nurture Golden Core cultivators, as well as himself personally.

The first thing he got was a spatial bangle that would allow Lex to store items within it. For example, if he had a chest full of gold in front of him, he could teleport it directly to the space within his bangle, without being burdened by its weight or having everyone see him moving it.

Cwenhild used to have such a treasure, and it made Lex supremely jealous, though he was pretty sure that the one he had now was far superior to hers. After all, it contained a space the size of 5000 cubic meters.

After that… despite how odd it felt, he got himself the upgraded version of the Fancy Monocle. For better or for worse, he had to know if they truly were the same, or were at least the same kind of technology.

Then, naturally, he bought the other bangle that would help him hide his identity. After that, he bought a couple other level 7 items that would ultimately aid his own cultivation, and his guests as well, of course.

One particularly interesting item he bought was a spirit stone vein seed. It was an item that would absorb chaotic energy from the universe and create spiritual energy in the form of spirit stones. Of course, the level of energy produced wasn't too high, and could barely suffice for Nascent level cultivators, otherwise such an incredible money-making machine would never be up for sale.

Then he bought an entire repository of techniques. His real purpose was to get various spirit techniques for himself, but there was no reason he shouldn't populate the Inn's library at the same time.

The size of the repository Lex requested was so large, in fact, that even the Emporium couldn't deliver all the books at once. After all, the amount of books that could be fit into the payment for the business card were beyond count. Furthermore, ensuring that techniques were not repeated made it even harder. Even Powell was troubled by the sheer volume of this request, and ultimately had to promise Lex regular payments every month instead of delivering all techniques to him at once.

That little maneuver made Lex a little proud, as he more or less solved his technique problem for the near future.

There was, however, one more thing Lex bought - something he had been on the lookout for many months. He bought information on the Kraven race.

He was very pleased to see that the Emporium actually had information on Kraven, until he started reading, that is.

Instead of a detailed report on their race, their culture, their strengths and weaknesses, the information was only a summary of their history in the Origin realm.

Much like they were behaving in the Crystal realm, the Kraven were a warring race. They waged continuous war throughout several galaxies and were responsible for the extinction of many races. Perhaps this trend would have continued, but in their mad desire for conquest they attacked another extremely strong and extremely vindictive race called Marzu. After being attacked once, the Marzu wiped the Kraven from the origin realm.

The matter for how they were wiped out remained a mystery to this day, because the race had not been encountered ever again in the Origin realm, even in newly encountered galaxies.

This was a huge deal, since there was a pattern of races reappearing throughout the realm. Even planets completely separated from the rest of the realm, several races reappeared, as if they had evolved as an original race of that planet specifically.

It was in the way that humans kept reappearing on various planets throughout the realm.

Yet according to the information, the Kraven had never been encountered again after that incident.

Unable to help himself, Lex looked up information on the Marzu as well. When he read about them, he was startled to learn that he had already encountered this apparently ridiculously strong race. In fact, they had once been natives of Earth as well.

The only thing was that now, on Earth, this race had gone extinct. Moreover, after studying their fossils, the name humans had given them was… Tyrannosaurus rex.

Apparently, they innate advantage in cultivation was so immense that they controlled over 100 galaxies in the realm!

That was several times the size of the Jotun Empire.

Since he failed to learn anything useful about the Kraven, he collected information on the Marzu and returned to the Inn.

There were only two and a half days left until the assembly now, and he was getting impatient to try out his business card.

Fortunately, he did not have to wait for too long.

On a massive space station, a teleportation formation powered on, revealing a square block of metal.

A mechanical arm picked up the block and put it on a conveyor belt, transporting the block across the station to what looked like the command center.

A gray skinned being that had its body merged with various machines weakly opened its yellow eyes and looked at the metal block. Though it appeared to do nothing, the metal block was sliced open, revealing a thin paper card buried in the middle.

The card looked extremely ordinary in the spaceship, surrounded by exceptionally advanced technology, yet the being knew it's worth was immeasurably greater.

With a pained expression, it channelled some of its spirit energy into the card, activating it.

Once energy was channelled into the card, it gained a life of its own and began absorbing energy from the environment on its own.

Lex, who was sitting in his office, felt a brief but sharp pinch in his mind before he suddenly realized that he felt like he had another brain.

Though still linked with his main body, somewhere out in the universe another version of himself appeared, completely able to think and behave on his own without even slightly affecting the brainpower or awareness of the Lex who sat in the Inn.

A few moments later, that 'brain' also developed a complete but ethereal body. Lex looked around and found himself in an extremely dark room. He immediately noticed that in front of him seemed to be some kind of... face buried completely in an avalanche of tubes and machines that seemed to keep it alive.

Lex did not immediately address the being, for he was busy investigating the features of his new clone. He seemed completely unable to move, and he could vaguely detect how long his clone could survive. He felt he could shorten or elongate the existence of his clone, but there was a limit to how long it could exist. At the same time, his clone seemed completely able to use all the systems features.

"Oh, your excellency, please excuse me for summoning you without your permission. I am desperate for any kind of hope, and am willing to pay any kind of price I can."

It was not the being that spoke, at least not on its own. The sound came from various speakers throughout the spaceship, as if the being had merged with the ship itself.

Lex did not respond immediately, and instead observed the being. His physical body was not present, obviously, but his instincts were still active. The being before him was much, much stronger than himself, yet it seemed unable to gauge his strength. If the clone hid his strength, that would be most convenient.

"What kind of hope are you searching for?" he finally asked.

"Your excellency, I am on the verge of death, yet my mission remains incomplete. My cultivation has regressed so far that I have no hope of breaking through, while my technology is no longer able to support my body. If you can allow me to live a while longer, you would have my eternal gratitude."

Lex raised an eyebrow, for this request really was too convenient to fulfil. After all, he had just received an upgrade to allow just such a thing.

"Would you choose to continue living, if it was only as a spirit?"

The being closed its eyes, as if it had been asked the most painful question it had ever heard, and yet it was one he needed to answer.