The Innkeeper



Despite Lex's concerns, Rick ended up performing his job well. It helped tremendously that accompanying him was an incredibly strong monster with almost no intelligence at all. The reason why it was 'almost' no intelligence instead of actually none was because he was smart enough to suppress his base instincts to attack mindlessly while in the presence of the aura of its leader.

Moreover, with Toro as a guide, and the awesome might radiating from the invitation, an exception was made and Rick was allowed to enter the Trelop Sacred lands. Moreover, they even promised to help out in delivering the letter to the Poloids.

With his major troubles taken care of, Lex slowly took a backseat and allowed things to progress naturally. With Ash coordinating well with the Phillips family, let alone the tavern, all of Babylon was getting ready for the wedding.

The resources of the Midnight Inn also came into play. Spending a mere 100,000 MP was not an issue for the Noel family or the Phillips family, so both the bride and groom soon reached Prestige level 3, which allowed them to avail the services of Geeves, the tailor.

The Guild was, of course, also made use of and various items that were not easily available in the Crystal realm were being exchanged nonstop.

Due to the sudden increase in wedding related activity, word finally spread at the Inn that some of the guests coming were from a different realm entirely!

When that news spread, there were mixed reactions. Most people did not care. A majority of them would never even leave their home planets, let alone things such as star systems, galaxies or even realms. Why then should such a thing matter to them? Someone from another realm was just as much out of reach for them, as someone from another planet.

Others, however, did not react so simply. Since this time the Henali were already keeping an eye on the Inn, they noticed immediately, and yet another emergency meeting was held about how to react. Bringing in citizens from another realm, while bypassing the Henali protocols, was a severe transgression!

Of course, Lex did not know about that, and there wasn't much he could do about it either. Lately, he had been spending all his time in the library or inside the Henali portal, studying. He was looking up anything and everything, so as to increase his general knowledge. Of course, if certain things caught his eye, he would pause his general study and focus solely on that topic.

For example, he found the similarity between Talismans, Formations, Arrays and techniques, spiritual or otherwise, quite interesting. While arrays solely relied on the characters and energy to bring about various effects, formations, talismans and techniques all could reproduce the same effects!

Of course, the potency and power that was released by each, assuming all related things were on the same level, was vastly different. Take, for example, an array that produced fire strong enough to harm a Foundation level cultivator. A formation that only used materials and resources at the Foundation level would be able to produce a much stronger flame. A talisman would produce a flame stronger than an array but weaker than a formation, and could be used instantly, but the resources required to make it may be more difficult to find. A spiritual technique could produce a flame that was either weaker or stronger, and the cost would depend entirely on the technique as well as the cultivator using it.

While each had their own advantages and disadvantages, Lex was intrigued by the fact that each one could replace another, to some degree at least. The fact that talismans could be prepared beforehand was actually quite enticing, and Lex almost considered delving into it as well. But, for now at least, he did not have time to take up a new discipline.

While he did not attempt learning anything entirely new, he delved in deep into the capabilities and limitations of everything new he encountered. For example, he was most intrigued by how the major powers got around the language barrier of different planets and races. When he found out it was often through techniques or technology, he studied about them in great detail, as well as the concepts behind them. But he did not study those techniques themselves.

Speaking of techniques, as the days went by and slowly turned into weeks, and Lex waited in anticipation for the wedding, he also took some time to study various techniques. His focus, up until now, had always been combat oriented. It was only once he began to explore other avenues that he realized how much he was really missing out on.

There were techniques to help in singing, there were techniques for skin care, there were techniques for art, for calligraphy, for better sleep, for body odor,  and so much more. There was a technique that allowed Lex to copy every video game character in history, and 'double jump', meaning he could jump once more while already in the air.

There were extremely intriguing illusion techniques that attracted his interest for the endless applications that they had. There were techniques that could be used in aid in farming and cattle raising. Fishing, incidentally, was also an area which seemed to have an endless number of techniques.

Since Lex was looking at relatively low level techniques, such as the Foundation realm and below, it was easy for him to quickly master the techniques if he really wished.

The area that Lex had been neglecting most, but should have been an obvious first choice of techniques, or at least second, was healing and medicinal techniques. While most techniques that he encountered were focused on simple ailments and diseases, there were some that could be used to heal others.

For himself, Lex already had the most ideal techniques which boosted his healing while he slept. But being able to easily diagnose or perhaps treat others, even if it was emergency aid, was not something to be overlooked.

During this time, while he occupied himself with his studies and overlooked the Inn, as the wedding got even closer, he was once again asked for help by Alexander. Since he wasn't rushing anywhere, and things seemed to be going well, he decided to pop over and help.

There were still a little over two weeks to the wedding, so he didn't think it was an issue.

He was also determined to continue thinking this way until one day he proved that death flags weren't a thing, and he wasn't inviting trouble for himself just by thinking about it. It just didn't make sense. He had to be right… he had to be!

When he teleported over to Polebitvy, he was greeted with the sight of an extremely worn out Alexander. He did not look weak or injured, but just extremely sleep deprived, which was not an easy state to achieve at his cultivation level.

"You look horrible," Lex said, not bothering to feign courtesy.

"All out war has broken out on the planet," Alexander answered. "Only areas protected directly by Jotun are safe. We are almost 100% certain that the war is being instigated by the organization backing Jeffery. There are already over 300,000 casualties, and we are expecting a lot worse yet to come."

Lex's smile faded as he looked at Alexander seriously. He once again reminded himself that he could not be the hero to every suffering person in the universe. He knew this the day he inherited the Inn. But it wasn't as if he would ignore a friend in need.

"What do you need from me?" he asked seriously.

Alexander rubbed his forehead as he suppressed a headache and motioned Lex to follow him as he walked into a briefing room.

"The crown you gave me has really helped out," Alexander stated. "I've been studying all the data we have, and all our leads, and I believe I've discovered something. The reason Jeffery is on this planet is because he wants to target some VIP, that much we've been able to confirm. But I'm having some disagreements with my team over who the VIP might be."

"What do you mean?"

"What is a VIP? To a villager, the village head is a VIP. To the village head, the mayor of a city is a VIP. To the mayor, a provincial governor is a VIP, and to the governor it is the King. So who is a VIP to a terrorist organization capable of orchestrating chaos across an entire galaxy?

"My team lead, Valkyrie, seems to think it is the family head of the family which controls this star system. But I don't think so. There's nothing too great about this star system that would get them to target it specifically. Why then should they care about the family head? Sure, they might spread more chaos and mayhem. But I feel like it's a waste of resources. The ramifications of war here aren't great, since this planet has suffered through so many wars in its recent history.

"No… I think something else is afoot, and that we haven't identified the real VIP who is the target yet. And that's where you come in."