The Innkeeper



The circumstances required for the production of Cosmic Erosion Elixir were extremely stringent, even on a universal scale. In fact, even if many Minor realms or realms were destroyed, they might not produce this elixir.

The first most important requirement was that the realm needed to be extremely stable, and should otherwise appear completely inline with its normal lifecycle. The stability of the realm meant that the space it constituted would be extremely stable, and capable of healing normally and naturally should anything happen.

The second requirement was a significant and constant destabilizing factor. This factor should be strong enough to strain the laws of the realm constantly, but not strong enough to actually unravel the functionality of the realm or its laws.

The third requirement was that the realm should not be fully mature, and should still be in the growing phase of its lifecycle.

The fourth requirement was a sufficiently long enough duration of time to pass without any of the prior requirements changing.

The natural inclination of the realm to grow would increase the stress on the laws of the realm caused by the destabilizing factor, without unraveling them. The otherwise stability of the realm alongside the increased stress would, in random locations, cause space itself to begin to disintegrate.

The byproduct of this disintegration was the Cosmic Erosion Elixir, which was a physical manifestation of the various laws that used to occupy the space that had been destroyed. The reason why this liquid was so attractive to all living beings was because of those said laws, which could directly elevate them to a higher life form. Lex himself had undergone such evolutions through the natural sequence, which occurred every time he rose from one cultivation realm to another.

But if he followed this path, then his maximum ceiling for evolving higher was fixed to the number of cultivation realms he could cross. Items and treasures which could elevate the lifeform without going through the process of raising a cultivation realm were so rare that they were essentially never sold. There was no price for them in the market because it had never happened before.

Yet the reason no one could make use of this Cosmic Erosion Elixir was because it had to do with laws, and their bodies could not handle the strain on directly touching laws. The only reason Lex was not suffering a similar fate was because his body had literally used fragments of laws to upgrade itself.

If he used the elixir to reach a higher life form level than he was supposed to be at, he would begin to understand how important and valuable such a thing was. But it was not meant to be, for now at least. His cultivation technique had called first dibs, and informed him of how he could use this liquid to slowly augment the existing laws that made up his body as well as influence his affinity, so that slowly it would change in a direction which would allow him to enter the next realm.

Of course, the elixir alone was not enough to achieve such a thing, but it was a start.

That gave Lex an amazing idea. Not only could he use this elixir, he could transport it to the Inn.

He would use however much of it was needed for his own upgrade and trade the rest to get other materials with similar effects so he could continue to upgrade himself. After all, although he knew he could fix his cultivation if he got an SSS+ rank on a quest, such a thing was easier said than done.

Every time he had completed a quest with such a high ranking, it had been completely based on luck, and was a result of the involvement of extremely high leveled cultivators.

A part of him wanted to keep the elixir forever, continuously feeding it items to allow it to grow, but such a thing was not possible. Apparently, the elixir would only exist for a very short time before the laws within it would naturally reorient themselves, causing the liquid to disappear.

If there was one fortunate thing, it was that he now knew how he could transport the liquid.

Since his body and spiritual energy would not be corroded by the elixir, he only needed to use them.

He used a curved Imperial shield, and scooped up all the elixir into it like a massive bowl. He would first take it back to the Midnight Inn before consuming it. He did not know what kind of reaction would occur once he did, and did not want to leave himself vulnerable to external influence.

"I'll be back," Lex told Toro, before eventually disappearing to the Inn.

He teleported to his personal meditation room before using his influence over the system to create an especially expensive and powerful basin for the liquid before pouring it in.

He did not know how long the liquid would continue to exist, he had to be quick.

The Lotus, which had finally woken up, was frightened silly when it sensed Lex drinking the elixir! That was not soup, but laws! Even it did not dare absorb such a thing for if he was not able to perfectly influence how those laws were absorbed, its body itself would instead be absorbed by the laws!

That was a fact that Lex's cultivation technique had already mentioned, but had already given a solution to. So, while Lex went ahead and augmented his cultivation, the incredibly powerful Lotus on his back was filled with reverence for the incredible Innkeeper. He was truly beyond common sense.

With that thought, the Lotus went back to sleep. Since Lex's body was a carrier for the Lotus, the stronger his body, the faster the Lotus would mature. With Lex doing something as daring as drinking the elixir, there was no doubt the Lotus' maturing speed would continue to increase.

It was fortunate that the Lotus had gone back to sleep, for the reverence it had built up might have been severely affected when it noticed that, instead of entering a state of cultivation upon drinking the elixir, Lex immediately teleported to the restroom!

The elixir had given him a bad case of diarrhea!