The Innkeeper

The feeling was electric. It sent tingles down his spine and made the hair on his body stand up. The heat from 300 Nascent level cultivators bodies filled the arena air, yet Lex felt as fresh and awake as if he was breathing in crisp air up in the mountains.

It was strange because in his mind he felt devoid of emotions, as if they had been stripped of him, yet his body was humming with excitement. His heart was not racing, but he could feel that it was beating faster than normal. Though he was standing straight, he felt his muscles loosen and tighten, as if warming up for the battle.

Adrenalin had already begun pumping through his veins, and the anticipation was heating up his body. Yet, as if completely detached from his body, he watched everything with a cool head. Today was about venting his frustrations, yes, but it was also about so much more.

It was about the return of Leo. It was about making a statement. It was about protecting his workers. And, it was about finalizing his Foundation through his actions before he could no longer suppress his breakthrough.

The thing about arrays was, they did not have a designated strength level. The amount of strength they produced was entirely up to the array made.

So then how would the strength of an array be measured? Of course, using appropriate characters to form an array affected its strength. Moreover, the characters naturally occurred in space, and directly produced results from the universe itself for simply existing, so the better, or rather, more appropriate character one used, the stronger the array would be.

Another metric to measure the strength of an array was usually the size or complexity. But this too was not always the case, for an ingenious array could provide the same feedback as a large more complex array.

All in all, there were no firm rules to declare how an array could be strengthened, and unlike formations, which had clearly marked levels to denote their strength, arrays had none.

Still, it was not hard for Lex to come up with ingenious ways to use arrays. His background in programming helped, to a degree, and his understanding of science also played a role. For example, if he was creating an array to burn something, he didn't forget to create a necessary fuel as a part of the array to keep the fire burning long after the array ran out of energy.

But, in certain ways, his deep dependance on human understanding of the universe derived from Earth restricted him and his imagination. After all, while he had a scientific background, he lacked a cultivation background.

In his current state, however, it was no longer an issue for his subconscious was playing a large role in his actions, and his subconscious was also being affected by the hallucinations.

He was only in the Foundation realm so his perception of time should not have been as good as the Nascent cultivators that surrounded him, yet practically speaking that did not seem to be the case.

The moment the match began Lex entered his Overdrive state and took note of all his enemies. There were only about 44 humans, while the rest were either beasts or from other races Lex hadn't really paid much attention to.

Their attacks would no doubt be extremely strong, and carry a bit of their element, not to mention they probably had some aspects to them Lex did not understand yet. After all, his own realm was far below them.

'Hmm, it would be much easier to just negate the attacks, or send them somewhere else rather than defending against them,' he thought.

An array started to form beneath his feet, as he casually thought about how to react. The first Nascent was forming its attacks and Lex's instincts started screaming, but he did not move.

'Maybe I should form a realm around myself…' the array around his feet grew, formed of characters Lex never even learnt. 'No, that's not a good idea.' The array shrunk back in size, the previous characters disappearing

'A direct crash is not a good idea for I'll need to create a barrier stronger than all of the attacks and the cumulative force. I know, I'll create a barrier around myself that can accept any kind of energy and use the energy to continue to exist. It should not have the ability to suck in any energy itself, or that could cause me problems instead. The activation energy should be high enough so that the ambient energy can't keep it active, and only the nascent attacks coming my way can keep it running. Yes, excellent. So long as it has 100% efficiency in absorbing all energy, I won't suffer from a single attack, but the barrier will also fade quickly once the attacks stop, so it won't become a prison for myself.'

Lex's thoughts all occurred quicker than a single instant, and the array on the ground formed at the same speed. The barrier formed just in time to absorb the first attack seamlessly. Honestly, there should have been no explosion or loss of energy of any kind had all the attacks landed on it, yet due to the tight space and narrow target, the 300 attacks kept hitting each other and exploding prematurely.

Still, none of it mattered to Lex. His mind was already focused on the next array.

His actions would form his Foundation, or something like that - he couldn't remember. Some would argue that his actions were immense enough even if they only considered everything he achieved in the Crystal realm, let alone the fact that he decimated an entire religion from the entire realm after coming back.

The truth was, when he heard that his actions would reflect in his Foundation he decided to build it by using an array to defeat impossibly strong enemies. He was so focused on that single thing that he completely forgot… he had long surpassed it!