The Innkeeper

The coliseum was once again filled with silence. The tension was palpable, and though no one was actively exerting the pressure of their cultivation, some of the weaker Earthlings felt like they were going to faint. Yet even with such a scene, there were a few who did not take the situation too seriously.

Firstly, as could be predicted, was Marlo. The former behemoth sat comfortably in his chair near the 5 Nascent cultivators, with a table laid out in front of him. He was casually eating some Egg Fried Rice with a side of Dry Beef Chilli, as if he were watching a movie in his bedroom. Second was the sloth. It was asleep. The third, sitting amongst the Beasts, was actually a tree. Well, technically, it was not sitting; it was standing. It had rolled up all its roots beneath it, and stood firmly in its seat. Its focus was not on what was happening in the coliseum, but on shaking off the birds that would keep coming to sit in its branches. The endeavor was truly frustrating.

"I see," Loretta finally replied calmly. "Thank you for clearing up that misunderstanding. Please, continue with your explanation. I am eager to hear the details of the games."

Lex smiled approvingly at her, as if an adult proud of a little girl who finally managed to calculate 1 + 1 when she first started school.

"I'm glad you understand. Games are only fun when everyone participates. If you have to keep changing the rules of the game because of a few people, then it affects everyone's enjoyment."

Lex's words were polite, but who there did not understand the naked threat in his words.

While Lex was exchanging words with the Devil, the Celestial bodyguard was looking around at the crowd with an internal frown. Earlier, he was hidden, so it made sense that his natural aura was not affecting everyone. Yet now that he was out in the open, they were still unaffected. He was not used to so many beings existing so casually in his presence. He noticed a few here and there who recognized who, or rather, what he was and that filled them with an appropriate amount of dread, yet seeing the rest completely unaware bothered him. When in his life had he gone anywhere without entire nations kneeling at even the reminiscent of his aura?

"Are you the one restraining my aura?" he asked the Innkeeper, clearly unsatisfied. He did not bother using his spirit sense, and asked directly. When had he, as a Celestial, needed to care for subtlety or keeping others' faces? He intended to have the Innkeeper end the restraint on his aura, or else he may have to consider whether this quest was worth his effort.

Lex looked at his bodyguard and immediately understood that he was unsatisfied. This put him in a bit of a dilemma as he had no way to deal with the bodyguard should he renege on his duty, but for now, he could not show weakness.

"Naturally. Since your aura is not a conscious attack on my guests, it is naturally suppressed in my Inn, and there is no punishment for it. After all, how can I let my guests randomly suffer for no reason?"

In less than a millionth of a second after Lex finished speaking, the bodyguard was about to display his displeasure towards Lex, after all, since the Innkeeper required a bodyguard, he must be weaker than the bodyguard himself! Yet before he could act he heard a system notification in a tone he'd never heard before!

"Alert! Alert! Quest interference detected! Quest parameters changed! The punishment for quest failure has changed!

"New quest parameters: Ensure the safety of everyone in the Midnight Inn for the duration of the quest!

New quest failure punishment: Cultivation will be completely sealed for 0.5 years!"

"System, what is going on? Why did the quest change? This has never happened before?"

"Checking host authority…host authority is insufficient to learn details…using special bloodline clearance…host authority partially accepted…host authority suppressed…please raise your authority to learn the answer!"

His special bloodline clearance was suppressed! Yet another situation he had never encountered. At this point he could only speculate, yet the reason was most likely the Innkeeper warning him. How the Innkeeper could influence his system, he did not know. For now, he decided to behave - after all, being suppressed was also a novel feeling for him. The Innkeeper was more mysterious than he seemed.

"Interesting," he murmured and disappeared.

Seeing his bodyguard disappear, Lex was internally relieved, but did not let it show on his face. He believed that the bodyguard behaved because his system restrained him. Everyone in the audience believed that the Innkeeper must have admonished his bodyguard secretly, which scared the very few who recognized the Celestial. Even the bodyguard himself believed it was the Innkeepers' doing. No one knew that a tiny, floating projection of a girl hovered behind Lex's head, looking at where the bodyguard had once stood. She snorted, then disappeared.

"Now, as I was saying. There are ten very important nodes that keep the formation protecting the spawning portal protected. As a result, there will be ten games, five for Foundation realm cultivators and five for Golden Core cultivators. Each game will include all planets participating at the same time, and will be a group effort for each planet rather than an individual's efforts. The success or failure of each game will give each planet a certain number of points. Once all the games are concluded, the planet with the highest number of points will win. As for what will happen to the spawning portal once the games are over? That has nothing to do with the games, so it won't affect the outcome of the Midnight Games."

Lex smiled and was about to proceed to the questions portion of this meeting when something occurred to him.

"Naturally, since it's a team effort, if certain team members from a planet try to sabotage the game, they will be immediately disqualified and removed."

He did not look at or point towards anyone as he said this, but the Devils grimaced and the Jotun soldiers breathed a sigh of relief. As much as Ragnar was interested in the reward, so long as the portal was revealed, he would consider it reward enough, which is why he never cared if the zombies or devils would try to participate and sabotage. In fact, he hoped such low leveled Devils would participate and give him the opportunity to kill them.

"If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask."

Silence once again filled the air as they all waited for someone to ask the first question. It did not take long, however, before a Marlo who had just finished his meal stood up and asked, "Is there an age limit on the cultivators for the games?"

"No, so long as you fall within the category, anyone can participate."

"And how safe are the games?"

This was a question many people had in mind, and one Lex had also fretted over a lot. He did not want a lot of people to die, so he did his best to make it as safe as possible. Yet he was limited by his funds, and was unable to make it completely safe.

"The difficulty of each game will be based on the cultivation. But it will ultimately still be dangerous, and anyone who is not careful risks losing his life. This is one of the reasons that the games will be based on teamwork rather than individual games, to support and protect one another to achieve the goal. How well the contestants use this is up to them."

Marlo did not seem disappointed by the answer, and sat down with a grin. Unfortunately, he did not realize that even though his new cultivation method was incomplete, he no longer qualified as a Golden Core cultivator.

The tree that had previously been shaking away the birds raised a single root, as if raising its hand to be called on.

Lex looked at the tree's status and called out to it.

"Yes, Igishima, what is your question?"

The tree had no mouth so Lex expected it to speak using its spirit sense, yet who could have expected its leaves to start vibrating rapidly, causing a sound akin to the voice of a young lady to come out?

"I will need a few days to set up for the culture show. Is that fine?"

"Yes, it is not a problem. As soon as this meeting ends, anyone who wants to participate can register, and those that need to prepare beforehand can start doing so. The Inn will cooperate with your needs."

Once a few questions were asked, the guests became more comfortable asking questions and more and more started opening up. This continued for a while before Ragnar gave one of the men beside him a look, prompting him to stand up to ask a question.

"I have a question that's not strictly related to the games, I hope you don't mind," he said, flashing the Innkeeper an apologetic smile. This man did not look bulky or muscular like the rest of the Jotun soldiers. In fact, standing next to them his clear skin and delicate physique seemed even more prominent. It made one wonder how such a character ended up alongside these elite soldiers.

"Go ahead." Lex was looking forward to interacting more with the Jotun soldiers. He planned to learn more about this so-called 'known universe' from them since eventually he was bound to have guests from planets in this territory. The more knowledge he had, the lesser his chances of making an ignorant mistake.

"Is it alright if, during the Midnight Games, the empire sets up a recruitment stall?"

Lex raised an eyebrow in curiosity. This truly was not what he was expecting.