The Innkeeper

Confusion clouded Lex's mind as he repeatedly went over the information provided by his cultivation technique. The Regal affinity was supposed to make spirit energy extremely resilient, meaning its affinity would not be easily overridden and induced stability in whatever it affects. This was supposed to be the bedrock of Lex's breakthrough when he entered the Nascent realm.

This was due to the fact that, normally, when humans cultivate, Nascent is the realm in which their soul finally becomes strong enough and gains the ability to exist without the body. The realm was more complicated than just that, and included many things beyond the simple strengthening of the soul, but in context to Lex, it was a huge issue. After all, another ability of Nascent was to separate the soul from the body according to need, but Lex technically did not have an independent soul anymore.

Thus, since this was the cultivation path that Lex was following, adjustments needed to be made to assure that the breakthrough wouldn't try to separate Lex's soul forcefully, thereby destroying him, since his soul and body were the same now.

The stable nature of Regal affinity would have played a key role in stabilizing his body while the natural process of the breakthrough tried to do the exact opposite.

The very fact that Lex's affinity had changed, regardless of whatever effects his new affinity had, jeopardized his breakthrough, making it likely that he would fail and die. Moreover, this was not a one time issue that needed to be dealt with only once. Even if Lex found some external assistance in helping to stabilize his body during the breakthrough, the reliance on the nature of Regal affinity was repeated in many more aspects of the cultivation technique from thereon.

What that basically meant was that even if, using external factors, he did breakthrough without dying, meaning availing that 0.01% chance of survival, he would become crippled and unable to actually use his cultivation due to conflicts his affinity created.

Once the confusion elapsed, panic set in. How could this be? No this wasn't supposed to happen? What will he do now?

What-

Lex suddenly closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. While holding his breath in, Lex clenched his fists tightly and strained all the muscles in his body while standing still. For a few minutes, he stayed like that, before he slowly started letting the air escape his lungs.

One by one, he relaxed his muscles and once he was done, unclenched his fists.

When Lex reopened his eyes, there was no panic or confusion in them any longer. There was only calm.

It was not even confidence, for how could he be confident in tackling a matter that far surpassed his understanding. But he was definitely calm. He had traveled the universe, walked out of hordes of zombies, bathed in lava, killed countless strong enemies, hosted rulers of entire Empires and races at his Inn. He was Lex. It was not so easy to overwhelm him anymore.

Facing this great, seemingly impossible task, Lex set out to think of a solution. But before that, he had to adjust his state perfectly.

After a very, very long time, Lex put on the Bathroom set, which included the Bath robe, Bathroom slippers and the bathroom towel. Individually, all these had various effects, but when worn together, they had a set effect which basically cleansed him internally and externally of all hazardous factors and let him focus on the task at hand. The reason he put this on now was because internal factors also included things such as doubt, anxiety, inner demons, etc.

He could have no distractions during this time. He could not afford to make a mistake regarding such a sensitive issue.

He reviewed all the available information that he had from the very beginning. First, Regal Embrace was a unique cultivation technique, meaning that no one else in the universe had ever practiced it before, nor would they ever do so again. That was not a part of the cultivation techniques description, but a requirement of his reward back then.

He recalled that the Regal Embrace was a part of someone's collection. A certain 'being somewhere in the universe' had it. He had not thought about it again since then, but the insinuation of that information was great. If there was a cultivation technique that blatantly said it had the strongest defense in the entire universe, yet the owner only kept it as a part of his collection, then what did the owner cultivate?

In fact, now that he was recalling the matter, even Mo's blessing, which was described as having the strongest attack in the universe, was also a part of a 'beings' collection. There existed the possibility that these were two different beings, but Lex thought it was unlikely.

Regardless of whatever the being in question cultivated, the fact that it existed in his collection, and was not generated by the system gave Lex a lot of assurance.

That did not mean that he was aiming to search for that being. It just meant that someone somewhere had designed these two cultivation techniques. If there were beings capable of designing his cultivation technique, there were surely beings capable of altering it as well to help him. Moreover, with the Midnight Inn, he was uniquely equipped to search the entire universe for those skilled in created cultivation techniques.

Come to think of it, John himself created spiritual techniques based on his customers' requests. Lex wondered if his system was some kind of academic system, capable of designing techniques. It seemed he would have to put questioning John on his agenda.

Focusing back on the matter at hand, Lex identified a few key things he had to do now. First of all, while he could not break through the realm, he was free to grow within the Golden Core realm, so he would do that.

Next, Lex would begin doing research into cultivation techniques and how they were designed. Other than that, he would also have to begin doing research on people or entities skilled in creating or altering cultivation techniques. How he would ensure their trust once he found someone potentially skilled enough was also an issue he would have to look into.

These were the key things in regards to focusing on regaining his cultivation path. Other than these, Lex also had to spend some time familiarizing himself with his new abilities.

While Regal Embrace gave a brief description of what Soul sense did, Lex did not understand it completely. Intuition, on the other hand, had it in its very nature to allow Lex to understand completely what it did.

Yes, Soul and Spirit senses were extremely cool. In fact, technically speaking, all three abilities were probably different but equal in their potential. But damn was Intuition impressive. Lex already knew it would be his favorite.

It was a much more advanced version of the instincts he had already been using, except that he could freely direct it towards whatever he wanted. Moreover, it made him extremely sensitive to anything at all that had to do with him. If he was sitting in a room of a thousand people, and a single one of them thought of Lex's name, his Intuition would be able to detect it!

The range of his ability was limited, for now, but in all things related to Lex, his Intuition was going to play a huge role.

*****

Primary Realm, Gaia's graveyard

In the center of this zone, which was acknowledged as the largest death zone in the entire universe by some, was a cozy little wooden hut. Well, it was not wood but the flesh of Gaia, but as the originator of the Dao of Wood, it could be considered the same thing.

The hut itself did not seem very impressive and had only one bedroom, one library, one vault and one study. Inside the library sat a being whose name had not been uttered in the entire history of this fledgling universe.

On his small little sofa, made from the skin of the first ever 'dragon' - no, eh, on the sofa made from the comfiest leather, the being sat wrapped in a robe that had definitely not been made from the feathers of the Divine White Heron, drinking from a mug that had could most definitely not have been crafted in the flames of a realm that exploded.

Beside him sat his pet, a common Lynx and completely not the physical manifestation of a realm that had gained sentience.

Yes, all was normal in the library, until the being suddenly frowned in confusion.

"Someone surpassed the Regal heritage? In this universe? How is that even possible?"

The confusion in his eyes turned to intrigue as his eyes moved as if he was reading something written on air.

"Ho ho, this is actually interesting," the being said, sitting up. He put his book down and began reading with fervor, but his eyes were only looking at air.