The Innkeeper

The golden light shining from Lex's body spread across the entire Midnight realm, and for most creatures it was just an interesting and unusual event, but for some it was the beginning of a monumental change.

Perhaps none benefited as much from the change as the Inn workers though, as their bodies potential had already been repeatedly improved. The higher their potential reached, the more difficult it became to improve, yet that is exactly what they experienced.

In fact, the cultivation potential for the Inn workers could no longer be measured on a scale for humans. They would need to compare themselves to the average humanoid from a superior race, such as devil, elves or even angels.

The timing could not have been better, because Luthor had just returned after a thoroughly successful negotiation session with the emperor from the minor realm that invaded them, so even he managed to get the benefits.

Lex, who had already anticipated that touching the resin might not be so simple, was mentally prepared to accept any system prompts as soon as they came up. He was not able to act on it immediately, for he had been completely overwhelmed, but slowly and steadily his mind wormed through its constraints and accepted the prompt, not even reading it properly.

The resin that he was touching disappeared, and Lex fell to his knees, finally freed from its constraints. He trembled for he was still reeling from the experience.

It was fair to say that Lex had long been used to feeling various levels of excruciating pain. It just came with the territory of being an Innkeeper, he supposed. Those experiences, as terrible as they were, had prepared him for the hardships he would face on his journey. But what he had not been prepared for… was how awesome that had felt!

It might sound crass to say such a thing, but the reason his mind had blanked was because it felt like he was having an orgasm with his entire body! It was the most euphoric feeling he had ever felt, and even now that it was over, his body was still jittery just from the memory of it.

Lex tried to stand, but he just fell down because he couldn't control his body properly. He groaned, and was getting ready to try again when he realized that he was still kneeling, and hadn't moved at all. Yet at the same time, he had tried to get up, and had fallen.

Lex became even more confused when he realized he… he could see his own back. He tried to move his right hand, and yup, he saw it from two different angles.

The fact that it took Lex so long to figure out what was happening was a testament to just how severely impacted his mind was from the effects of the resin. He turned around, and saw the fairy, fallen over, looking at himself. That's when he realized he could see the world from his own eyes, as well as those of the fairies.

"What the hell?" Lex said, with both his bodies, which was extremely disorienting.

He closed his eyes, and realized he closed the fairy's left eye, and his own right eye. He was not used to having two sets of eyes yet.

At that point, Lex allowed himself to slump back into the hole he had excavated. Until his mind completely recovered, he was not ready to deal with whatever was happening. But just because he didn't want to deal with it did not mean he would stop feeling any sensation from his other body.

Despite his exhaustion telling him to give up, somehow, his fairy body was not exhausted at all. In fact, it was ready to jump up and run around. Well, part of that was because he was sitting awkwardly on his own wing.

He got up, flapped his wing so that it would move, and then sat back down.

"Thanks," Lex said to himself, for letting himself sit more comfortably.

"No problem," Lex responded.

Then the two bodies just sat there, staring at each other. That's when Lex realized that he either looked much bigger from a fairy's point of view, or his body had grown a little taller after touching the resin.

It only took a few minutes. Lex's mind recovered from the zenith of pleasure it had just experienced, and besides feeling a slight withdrawal, he returned to his normal self. At that point, it took him only a few seconds to completely get used to having two bodies.

He could control them both independently and with such precision, one would think Lex was born with two bodies.

Lex stood up using his fairy body and flapped his wings a few times, to get a sense for them. The wings were transparent and paper thin. Even though a fairy's body was small, one would have a hard time believing that such frail wings could help them fly.

Yet, strictly speaking, it was not the wings that allowed fairies to fly. As Lex flapped his wings, gold fairy dust dust began to appear, and allowed him to levitate. The faster he flapped his wings, the most dust would appear, allowing him to fly higher and farther. The wings, then, were just left to help him navigate while in the air.

Lex's instincts told him that there was more to the fairy dust than just allowing him to fly, but he had inherited no memories of the fairy whose body this used to be. As such, his understanding of fairies was extremely limited.

He allowed his fairy body to return to the ground, then sit back down. He wanted to see if his other body could also use the same cultivation technique.

For a few seconds nothing happened, but then the cultivation technique automatically delivered some information to Lex's mind, and began to run on its own. The reason for the delay was because the meridians in a fairy's body were different from that of a humans, and the layout was different as well. Therefore, the technique obviously would not run in the same way. But it was still usable!

He could tell that, physically speaking, his fairy body was even weaker than he was when he was at the Foundation realm, but it was growing quickly. It seemed the level of his original body was subtly influencing the fairy body, helping it grow faster.

Then Lex had to come to terms with the fact that… he just randomly gained a clone. This was not exactly what he had in mind when he wanted a clone. But no matter what, he had one now.

After the original shock of discovering he had a clone, if it could even be called that, was over, he began to consider how he could use it. There was nothing connecting the two bodies, but his soul was present in both of them. He could make them act independently from each other, and his mind was completely capable of running both bodies without ever being confused or overwhelmed by running two different bodies.

Lex almost immediately came up with countless ideas, but before he could make any decisions, he wanted to ensure one very critical piece of information. He wanted to see if he could access the system with his fairy body.

When he tried, the interface did not pop up. But he realized only a moment later that was because the system was undergoing repairs! It had successfully absorbed the resin!

That, at least, addressed one of his greatest concerns. What was amazing was that he had another system in his spatial bangle waiting for him to use to continue with his system repairs.

Lex felt a great burden lift off his shoulders. Now that he had confirmed how he was going to repair his system, he could plan out his next set of actions.

But the most immediate ones concerned figuring out whether his clone, or rather, his other body could use the system.

It would be ideal if it could not, and in fact, if it had no relation to the system whatsoever. Now that he had another body, he did not plan on telling anyone about it. This secret, second body would be perfect for him to set up a number of contingency plans he had been considering for a very long time.

To be on the safe side, he decided to not even bring the fairy back to the Inn for the time being.

But while he could not confirm whether or not it could use the system, there were other things he could test out. For example, if the distance between his two bodies was great, would that have any affect on his second body or not?

To test it out, Lex finally stood up and began to walk out the chamber, leaving his fairy body with the other fairies. Slowly, he walked back through the tunnel network towards the city up above.

But even when he reached the surface, there seemed to be no effect on his second body at all. Lex grinned, and tried teleporting away. This would be interesting.