The Innkeeper

"Well, you can send workers from the Inn to the connected planets now. You can send some over and hope they teleport somewhere nearby, after which you can have them come here and collect it," Mary replied sheepishly, knowing that that wasn't the answer Lex was looking for.

Lex thought of various answers on his own. The most ideal citation would be if he could connect to the Inn like he connects to his spatial treasure. That he could teleport anything he wanted directly to the Inn. But that wasn't possible, whether because it was actually impossible or because the system did not want to cooperate with Lex.

The next best option was to get the most massive spatial treasure possible. This was actually quite hard, as he already had some of the largest spatial treasures available, whether it was his bangle or the container for Silent Wanderer.

He could place an order at the emporium for an even larger one, but that would surely take a lot of time, not to mention be very expensive on its own as well. Ironically, the liquidity he would need to pay for such a treasure seemed to be right in front of him, but it was out of reach because Lex lacked exactly such a treasure.

He shook his head and made a decision. Although he was a greedy capitalist who would never say no to money, especially free money, he was not blind to what was actually precious.

Once, just to sate his aching heart, he filled his bangle with gold, teleported to the Inn, deposited it and then returned, but then he did not continue to do so. He had barely taken a drop from the hoard, and transporting all of it would surely take ages. Chances were that the treasures he would encounter deeper in were much more valuable than these mountains of gold right at the start.

With one last wistful glance to satisfy himself, Lex walked forward on the winding path through the mountains of gold all around him. After the first couple of mountains, Lex encountered glowing gems buried within the gold, illuminating the hoard.

Eventually, Lex started to jog as it was taking too long to navigate around the mountains. He was also concerned about the fact that although the dwarves had entered only a few minutes before him, he could not find any trace of them at all.

Every now and then, Lex would once again get lost in thoughts, but with Mary checking up on him constantly, he kept waking up.

Finally the trail reached a descending staircase and so Lex entered the 2nd layer of the treasure hoard.

Contrary to what Lex was expecting, the next layer actually consisted of a large garden. There were hundreds of thousands of fairies flying around, tending to countless flowers and plants. Instantly, Lex was able to tell that these were both very valuable, and also very toxic.

Holding his breath, Lex rushed through this room as well, completely undisturbed by the fairies. In fact, they seemed to not even sense his existence as they carried on with their tasks in unusual silence - though admittedly, a reason they might not have detected him was his suit as well.

The garden was well lit, showing a new pattern of illuminated chambers contrary to the rest of the planet which was completely dark. The plants also did not seem to mind the increasing heat, which by now was causing Lex to sweat visibly. He was very grateful that his suit would not suffer from any sweat stains!

After finding another staircase, Lex descended to the third level. This level looked more like a museum than a hoard or collection. There were countless stages or pedestals built on both sides of the path with each containing items or treasures.

Although Lex wanted to ignore these as well, since he could not identify most of them even with his lenses, he was forced to stop by an overwhelming attraction his body felt towards a particular vial containing a dark purple liquid. Lex almost lost control of his own body, so strong was the attraction.

But, ultimately, he managed to control himself. He only placed the vial in his spatial ring and didn't immediately drink it like he wanted.

The strangest thing was how each of these treasures were so easily accessible, with no formation or protective glass even. To try it out, he randomly picked up a sword and a shield that was also placed nearby and encountered no obstruction at all.

Speaking of which, he wondered what that sword and shield were made of. To be a part of a dragon's collection they must be valuable. Were they incredibly strong, or did they perhaps only have collectors' value? Did dragons care about such things? What if…

"Lex, it's been a couple of minutes, you alright?" Mary asked, suddenly waking him from his stupor.

"Yeah, thanks, I'm fine…" he had only begun to say when he realized that he did not recognize his surroundings at all. Although he was still in the hoard, as he could tell by the countless spirit stones and fountain of spirit water, he had long passed the stages and podiums.

"Lex! LEX! Wake up!" Mary's voice suddenly woke Lex from yet another stupor, and he immediately realized his surroundings were different once again. Fear gripped his heart as he suddenly realized he was losing track of time. Maybe he should return to the Inn.

Speaking of the Inn, Lex had had a dragon there as well. Would it have had the same effect if the system hadn't been suppressing the harmful effects of its aura?

Despite his best efforts, Lex completely lost himself to the influence of the spirit pull, and walked through the massive dragon's hoard like a zombie. Mary, who had noticed his strangeness, had been yelling at him for hours, but it stopped working long ago.

He did not even notice when he crossed the corpses of a couple of dwarves, nor did he notice when he started walking over a puddle of freshly spilled blood.