The Innkeeper

Many small but interesting things that happened while Lex slept. Showing miraculous speed, Dillion Jormander, the creature that wanted to do Ragnar's task, submitted several tasks at once. Not only did that release a number of payments, which gained Lex some much needed MP from, but also allowed Ragnar and Dillion to finally meet.

The content of their discussions remained between only them, but Ragnar seemed incredibly happy when he left. In fact, only an hour later, Ragnar returned to the Inn himself to deliver the Entire Core, and actually gave 3 grams of it!

No one at the Inn knew the true worth or rarity of that metal, and even Lex could only guess vaguely. The fact that it surpassed both the seed that Lex absorbed to strengthen his Foundation, as well as the Divine Essence he absorbed, should have been more than enough to hint at its value. After all, the Lotus needed something stronger than the items already used to finish its task.

Still, Luthor took down the matter of the general providing the ore for free in his heart. Whether the general was just that generous or he had ulterior motives did not matter at all to Luthor, just that he had helped when help was required.

But with that task done, they turned their attention to Earth. The matters there took time to investigate, since Velma had to gather information. But, for that to happen, the relevant guests would have to visit the Inn first.

Still, a preliminary investigation made it seem like no drastic measures had been taken so far.

Unbeknownst to them, Fernanda had been trying to contact Serene Williams since she received the news about how to proceed. In fact, it was one of the reasons she did not go back to the binder, and therefore had missed Lex's business card.

Yet, oddly enough, no one was able to contact Lex's mother, nor did anyone know where she was. This was troubling news, as it was common knowledge that she had a soft spot for Earth. In fact, her insistence was the real reason cultivation had been hidden on Earth for so long, as she did not want the chaos to spread to the mortal world. Perhaps her attachment to the planet made her vision flawed, or perhaps she had other motives in mind. No one knew the truth, but what mattered was that this was an incredibly delicate situation that Fernanda could not handle on her own.

However, because Fernanda was so focused on contacting Serene, she missed out on very crucial information that she definitely would have known how to handle were she to learn of it.

It was not the fact that Luthor and Velma were planning on taking action. No, it was a much more serious and dangerous matter.

Earth's technology had grown rapidly in the past year, aided not only by the new perpetually open Minor realm but also due to the trade between more advanced civilizations. Better computers, faster processors, operating systems and more that humans had not even begun to conceive flooded the research industries.

This was reflected in the technology made available to the public as well in the form of environmentally friendly vehicles, ozone and climate management technologies and more. But the one aspect of trade that all companies, as well as countries and families that traded through the Inn greatly wondered about, but never got a decent answer for. It was that, with such advanced technology, why had no one indicated the presence of any advanced A.I?

It was so much so that even their spaceships lacked the autopilot functions. Instead, they had just made piloting the ships manually much simpler.

Regardless, they decided to use the advanced technology to design their own A.I., which ultimately led to the creation of the latest sensation that swept the world, ChatGBaby! It was revolutionizing the world at a faster pace than ever precedented in the history of Earth, yet it was also the cause of some problems.

Only a few of the prisoners trapped on Earth were in the know, and they were freaking out trying to contact Fernanda, but she wasn't responding. Moreover, the spirit clones left on the planet by Lex's family had been dispersed some time ago, around the same time that Serene disappeared. As such, this small yet critically important information somehow remained hidden from the few people who could do something about it.

Another interesting thing that happened was in the Crystal realm. Aegis and Zagan finally made contact, and besides being besieged by countless enemies, the exchange went simpler than expected.

Zagan had an unusual temperament for a monster, which was that it was patient, smart, but also lazy. It easily accepted the deal to use the platinum key in exchange for the Blue Crystal Essence, and so was currently actively undergoing a test to work at the Inn.

Roland had also passed his test, and directly became an employee under Velma at the news agency. His role was to expand the reach of the newspaper, as well as the news agency's customer base as a company that sold news.

The Krab-man, J. F. K., had spent all his time at the Inn since he didn't want to go back to being hunted. As an ardent fan of the lazy river, he spent much of his time there, until he was once again teleported to the oasis, and finally met the girl Alysha, who had been farming alone in the desert.

He repeated the process until they were finally able to talk, and he threw her a key to invite her to the Inn. She had no cultivation of her own, so was trapped in the desert. She had no money to pay the Inn for its services, but as it turned out, the crops that she grew in the desert could be used to pay the Inn!

It brought tears to her eyes, for she had truly spent way too long stuck in a desert. Naturally, she also became fast friends with J. F. K. as not only was he very charismatic, he was also the one who brought her here.

Quite a few other things happened as well, but they were of lesser significance. Like this, when 10 days passed, Lex finally woke up.

This time, he immediately felt the difference, as not only was the influence of the hallucinations almost gone, Lex felt like he could stay awake for a few hours.

But, instead of appearing as the Innkeeper first, he decided this time to only use his Leo persona. After all, the appearance of Leo and the Innkeeper can't coincide too much. It would raise suspicions.

Still, a few hours was far from enough to take care of everything, so he began immediately. First, he met with Luthor, who passed him the Entis Core and updated him on how the Earth task was going. He also handed him the folder related to all the Jill incidents, as well as their suspicions for why the Security room had been failing.

Their strongest theory was the use of hypnotization and memory suppression. After all, if the miscreants were hypnotized to act a certain way when they encounter certain triggers before they entered the Inn, they would not exhibit any malicious intentions. It was the same with memory suppression. If their memories were suppressed or locked, only to be unlocked when encountering a certain trigger, it would prevent them from having any dubious thoughts or intentions the entire time.

The theory was honestly quite good, and Lex would need to think of a way around these loopholes.

Once he was done with that, Lex returned to the Gamer's Den and made sure to be seen by as many people as possible. It was important to keep his persona as Leo believable, so not only did he have to build and maintain his social relations, he had to act in accordance to Leo's interests.

The Gamer's Den was almost always packed, so it seemed like it was time to expand. For that, noy only did he plan to expand the building itself, but he also planned on opening new locations.

Of course, in keeping with Leo's character, he dumped all the work on Z.

"There's my favorite employee!" he yelled as he walked into the busy building, looking directly at Z. He was an assistant manager now so he did not need to man the desks, but he could almost always be found near a computer, watching some anime.

At the moment, he was watching a relatively new one called Spy X Finland with great excitement. Yet the moment he heard Leo's voice he froze. For some reason, he had a very bad feeling...

"By the way, I think it's time we expand. I want to finalize on three new locations before I meet with the Innkeeper next time so we can start immediately. But I've been away from the Inn for too long, you know. So why don't go pick some nice locations for me and let me know. I'm going next door to Battle Ax to meet up with John. It's been a while since I met the guy."

With that short visit, Leo had exited the shop already. To be clear, this was not Lex's attitude. He was just faithfully playing the role of Leo, that's it.