The Innkeeper

Lex gulped as he eyed the book with intense greed. This was not the kind of greed that one could shrug off, and Lex had felt it only once before when he encountered the Bangle of Narn - a bangle which had an entire galaxy within, with all of its resources available to any who wore it.

Back then, accepting the bangle would have put Lex at great risk, which caused him to hesitate in accepting it. Yet now, there weren't any risks.

But the feeling did not last long for the system, quite unprompted, provided him with a clear explanation of how the last anchor worked.

Basically, anyone who had a soul anchor in this book could find a way to continue living, even if someone murdered their body!

It was basically the same method that Harry used to survive his attack. Although his body had been destroyed beyond the point where it could allow him to live, causing his soul to scatter, bits of his soul were retained in his equipment. Using those bits, Harry had been allowed to live on, until Lex could provide him with medicine to heal and regrow his soul properly.

The only difference was, with the anchor, even if the body was completely destroyed, it would allow the person to fully retain their consciousness for as long as the anchor lasted. He wasn't sure what could be done in that situation to keep oneself from dying, but it was better than nothing. It could give them time to come up with a plan, or allow them to share their last wishes or information about how they died.

Honestly, no matter how many guests it would attract, Lex saw no reason why he would put this book in public instead of using it for himself. Well, that is until he saw the latest notification.

New Notification: In the event of the Innkeeper's death, the Inn and all its services will cease to work, including the Guest Registry. The Guest Registry will, therefore, be unable to revive the Innkeeper.

A bucket of cold water doused all of Lex's heated emotions, but it was to be expected. From day 1, the system had done its best to make sure it would not help Lex directly as much as possible. While it was less successful now in doing that due to the variety of services the Inn offered, it still tried to do the same.

Lex was so disappointed, in fact, that he directly teleported the book to the Midnight manor and told Mary to have it put out in front. He did not even open up a special place for it, nor did he advertise its effects. He knew he should do that as it would only benefit him, but he was slightly bitter.

Once the depression of having a 'get out of death free' card taken away from him dwindled, Lex would properly do something about the registry. Until then, he had other things to do.

The next reward was the 'Wish'. The system was automatically absorbing all divinity that belonged to the so-called 'Butter Knife God' and using it to power the wish. Once it reached 100%, Lex could literally make a wish and it would come true.

He did not know what limitations the wish had, but that was impressive no matter what. He could already think of a few different things he would want to wish for. Well, more than a few. It was a good thing he had plenty of time to narrow down what to use it for.

Now that he was finally done reading the notifications and rewards, it was time to see if he could use any of them. The guest registry was automatically excluded, and the magnet had been teleported to the fridge in his apartment, despite his wish to bury it somewhere. The lockdown token was of no use to Lex at the moment, so that only left the other two tokens behind.

Lex already knew what he was going to do with the 0.5 star increase token. He was going to do a full event based around it, so that only left the service upgrade token.

He could potentially leave it alone until he encountered a situation where he really needed it, but to do that, he would first have to evaluate whether or not he could massively benefit from it right now.

The token could upgrade any service which had been provided directly by the system, and there were quite a few of them. If Lex were to list them...

The list was long, but it included: Basic and Advanced accommodations(various rooms etc.), Beyond the Grave, Boulder Shrine, Chamber of Secrets, the Fishing well, the Greenhouse, the Guest Registry, the Guild Room, the Hot tub room, the Inheritance lounge, the Meditation room, the Midnight News building, the Murder Ground, the Mystery Trial, the ORR (Organic Reconstruction room), the Pro bono wing, the Recovery pod, the Recovery room, the Rumor room, the Training room and the Wine cellar, among others.

If the Security room counted as a service, Lex would have picked it in a heartbeat, but like many other things it counted only as a feature of the Inn, not a service, so it was not upgradable.

That left him with a few various options. Meditation room was a no-brainer, for it would help in cultivation. One of the recovery services would also be a good upgrade option, as that was always a popular feature of the Inn. Boulder shrine was a good option for Lex could directly benefit if the divine essence improved.

To be honest, quite a few of the services had great possibilities with an upgrade. But at the same time, there was one specific one which could not receive an upgrade normally: the Mystery trial.

Although Lex himself never got around to trying it out, the Mystery trial was one of the most popular attractions at the Inn. But regardless of how popular it was, Lex could not create multiple, nor could he upgrade it as it came as a reward from the system. Technically, there were a few other services that could not be upgraded through normal means, such as Beyond the Grave, which would benefit from this token immensely.

Yet for some reason, Lex felt greatly attracted to the idea of upgrading the Mystery trial. It was a gamble, but his instincts had not led him astray so far. Without giving himself the opportunity to come to his senses, Lex used the token on the trial.