The Innkeeper



System notification: New system detected! Analyzing the secondary system. Overnight Celebrity system grade D- detected. Begin assimilation? Y/N.

System notification: Overnight Celebrity system detected. The Dao of fame touches upon all that exists. Whether alive or dead, everything that exists can have fame, and thus become a celebrity. Whether it's your clothes, your looks, your aura or your talents, each can turn you into a celebrity. With millions, billions, or even trillions of eyes only on you, your each and every move will shake the hearts of entire empires! Become an overnight celebrity, and rule all the hearts of the universe! Or, enjoy the power to turn others into celebrities overnight, and know that you control all their fame on your fingertips!

Once he absorbed this new system, Lex would lose the ability to control the system for a while. But he had already made some preparations. With all his instructions already in place, he took out the small containers which would hold the elixir and filled five of them with varying numbers of drops. Three of the containers held one drop, one held two and one held three.

This would be enough for him to auction off, and he had already relayed the details of how to accept payments for the auction to Mary. Hopefully he would regain control of the system by then, but in case he didn't this was merely a precaution.

Ideally, he would have wanted to conduct the trade with the emporium now as well before absorbing the system, but it would take the emporium a few days to arrange everything, so all he could do was hope the upgrade was completed in time.

Just in case, however, he went and delivered the couple of drops to the emporium for which he had already accepted the payments for. In the worst case scenario, he would lose the opportunity to trade with the others who had items containing laws. But even so Lex did not think about delaying the system upgrade. Time was too short, he could not end up delaying anything.

"Mary, is there any way I can spend some MP to speed up the system upgrade process? Or do something else that will result in the same?"

"Not really. Systems are incredibly complex and thus the process of upgrading, or in your case repairing, it will naturally take a lot of time. The system already performs at its maximum speed for each repair."

He only nodded. He suspected as much.

Once all the necessary tasks were done, Lex immediately chose to absorb the Overnight Celebrity system. Once again, the system interface disappeared and a familiar 'updating' appeared in its place.

With that done, Lex turned his attention back to the puddle of elixir. Originally, Lex had created a nice bowl shaped indent in the ground for it, but the elixir had absorbed the ground around it, and was beginning to grow. But, Lex realized that while the quantity of the elixir seemed to be increasing, the allure it held was decreasing.

Perhaps the more it grew, the less concentrated its potency became. Unable to decide if he was happy about that or upset, Lex took another sip and bolted to the nearest bathroom. To date, this was his most arduous cultivating experience yet. But it would all be worth it, he kept telling himself. In the end, it would all be worth it.

*****

The greenhouse was doing exceptionally well under the care of the Galactic Sovereign turtle, especially after the turtle grew in its cultivation realm. It was also quite fortunate that the spirit energy inside the Inn was quite abundant, for the turtle relied heavily on it to sustain itself. While its body grew in size and adapted to the extent of its new powers, only extremely pure spirit energy could prevent it from entering a hibernation state.

Moreover, the turtle was slowly accumulating helpers. Although Young McDonald had been recruited by Lex to defend the Inn, most of the time all it did was help the turtle in the garden. Now, it also had the help of Zen, the immortal level sentient grass which had finally stopped being malnourished. Its body was now no longer as weak as common grass, and was now slightly more resilient than common weeds on earth.

Everyday it was watered from the Well of invigoration, and it received the best fertilizer the Inn had to offer. Unfortunately, due to the fact that its spirit was already immortal, its body was under a lot of strain and would take a lot of time to grow. Still, at least it could now uproot itself when it took a humanoid form and move around.

The latest addition to their group was the young Sol bird who was still unnamed. The light given off by the bird was especially helpful to plants, making it perfect to help them grow.

Currently, all three of them were working on taking care of a tree that a guest had deposited at the greenhouse.

The tree had been brought to the Inn from earth. Specifically, it was Sophia, Marlos wife, who had the tree brought here. Her family had used the tree for generations, taking advantage of its especially potent medicinal properties.

But since it had come to the Inn, the tree had begun to grow more and more vibrant. By now, the tree had reached 40 feet (12 meters) in height, which wasn't remarkable, but it also had a staggering diameter of 18 feet (5.4 meters). Moreover the tree was radiating an extremely noble aura, which caused all who saw it to want to kneel before it. Well, all but the turtle.

While the three were doing their normal duty of taking care of it, the turtle suddenly appeared with a batch of the most powerful fertilizer the Inn had ever seen. The previous batch had been fed to the vine near the Fire temple, whereas this one would go to this tree.

Even the turtle was curious what would happen if it continued to feed it.