THE INNKEEPER

Once his conversation with Licanderoth concluded, Lex was brought to receive his Holy Baptism, which was actually quite a painful process regardless of how it started. The baptism affected him down to his very soul, and not just his physical body, despite the fact that it was only meant to increase his physical strength.

This way, should his body ever be destroyed and he remade a body, or perhaps inhabit another body, its strength would automatically be raised, influenced by his soul. There was a way to receive a maximum amount of benefit that the baptism could provide, and unlike the Heavens Guidance, many people were able to achieve this. The only real obstacle was pain tolerance.

The longer the baptism went on, the more painful it became. One could end it at any time, but that would mean giving up on more benefits. For many people, this was a very real and difficult obstacle, but for Lex it was a walk in the park.

It was not that he never felt pain, or could ignore it. But when one ended up taking so many lava showers, it essentially fell into the classification of hobby rather than existential threat, one learned to tolerate pain.

So, while his body and soul were being cooked under the purifying light of the Holy Baptism, Lex’s mind wandered, as if entirely unaffected by the pain.

He thought a lot about the threats Licanderoth had warned him about. For once, Lex was entirely stumped about what to do, having no good tools available to him. It was just that bluffing could only take him so far, and at the Dao level, no amount of bluffing could help him resolve a major obstacle.

He could not kick out the guest of his Inn, nor could he face the enemies such a guest brought about. He could only rely on himself and his system to possibly navigate this issue, but he couldn’t be sure if either of those would be enough.

His personal strength was easy to increase – he needed to only grow his level. Yet if he entered the next level without maximising his gains in this one, he would limit his future ceiling. For now, at least until he reached the same level of mastery as Cornelius from the Crystal realm in lawcraft, he didn’t want to grow his cultivation level.

That only left his system. He had been hesitating to grow it, mainly because he couldn’t trust the system. Yet between the system and an uncertain future involving angry Dao Lords, it was obvious that he must choose the system.

In fact, lex reluctantly admitted that his avoidance of developing his system in the past may actually lead him into trouble. Regardless of whether he wanted to acknowledge it or not, he was intrinsically linked to the system, and could not avoid its influence.

He had tried as much as possible, and Jack seemed to be disconnected from the system, but that was also probably because he didn’t fuse with the system in the Nascent realm. If he had, then it was likely that even Jack would have been able to use the system.

Lex could not help but sigh. He was the most powerful he had ever been, and was literally right in the middle of becoming more powerful. Yet he was still too weak, and had to do the thing he didn’t want to do. He allowed himself to feel sad for a few seconds, but then suppressed the feeling.

At this point, the truth was, even if he found a way to separate from his system he wouldn’t do it. When he had first received the system, he had been extremely wary of it, mainly because he didn’t believe in such a thing as a free meal – let alone a free system that could grant him treasures that were incredibly valuable the universe across.

But whether it was free or not no longer mattered. Whatever secret plot was behind these systems, Lex could no longer avoid it. Now, instead of trying to separate himself from the system to avoid whatever trap it had laid – and he still believed that there was definitely something to it – he instead decided to focus his attention on taking control of the system.

He had seen some of the system’s secrets. He had looked under the hood of the car, as it were, and seen the engine beneath.

Naturally, just glancing at a combustion engine would not give anyone the appropriate knowledge about how one worked, let alone how he could alter it to suit his own needs. Yet he could study. He could learn. In fact, he needed to learn.

Lex was convinced that since he could not escape the influence of the system, he must take control of it, and make it entirely his. That did not mean he was ready to fuse it with his soul just yet. Rather, he would now dedicate a portion of his vast mind to studying anything and everything related to treasure manufacturing, formations, arrays, and anything else that might one day help him decipher systems.

Once upon a time, Lex had a fleeting thought that one day he could create an array complex enough that it could act as a system as long as he kept getting stronger. Now, he wanted to do that and more.

Just one more thing to add to the pile of tasks he had waiting for him.

“Hey Mary, did you know about this ‘universe as a separate space of its own’ thing? I still can’t wrap my head around it,” Lex said, ignoring the mind numbing pain that was ravaging his body and soul. Quite frankly, the smell that Jack had to put up with was more distracting than mere pain.

“Yes, I did,” Mary said. “But you do not need to worry about it, nor do you need to think about it. That is the kind of place you never need to visit in your life, now or in the future. Essentially, it makes no difference to you at all, and it has no bearing on the operations of your system either.”

Lex was curious about why Mary seemed to be so averse to that place, but knew better than to ask. Instead, he focused his mind on something else.

Even though he had not joined the coalition that Licanderoth was representing, he had reached an agreement with him nonetheless. At the very instant that agreement was formed, Lex felt the image of the Go board in his mind appearing, and yet he exerted a measure of control over it, and prevented a black piece from being placed.

In fact, back when he completed his Heavens Guidance something similar happened, and Lex even suspected that as soon as he completed his baptism, he would receive another opportunity.

But now, after placing so many pieces, Lex was slowly accumulating experience and gaining a measure of control over how his pieces were placed. He still didn’t understand the rules of the game, but he was close to figuring out how his pieces were generated.

His initial guess was that any time he grew stronger in some way, he would gain a piece. This was a good theory, but it didn’t perfectly fit. For example, reaching an agreement with Licanderoth didn’t increase his strength.

One could argue that it increased his network or influence, which was a part of his strength. If that was the case, Lex had no counter theory to disprove it. All he knew was that the appearance of his beads was not limited solely to the increase in his personal strength.

To test the theory of expanding his connections and network, he had spent more time with Daffy, as well as the Valkyries, but so far it hadn’t resulted in any beads. Maybe if he formed an agreement with them, a bead might form.

He was also experimenting on how and when he could place those beads. He’d learnt that even if he refrained a bead from being placed on the board, he would not lose it. Yet that did not mean he could place it on the board whenever he wanted.

He had to wait for the board to appear in his mind on its own to be able to place a bead. He hadn’t yet placed any, so he wasn’t sure if he could place multiple in one go, but that wasn’t what he was experimenting with at the moment.

What he wanted to see was if he could fuse the beads together to form something similar to the rook he had experienced before. Or, he wanted enough beads to completely surround some of the white ones.

He wanted to see what would happen. This game, whatever it was, had very real consequences, so he wanted to understand it as quickly as possible and overcome it. If it was a game, he wanted to win.

Lex kept his eyes closed and allowed his thoughts to continuously wander, unaware that he was secretly being watched by numerous figures. They just wanted to ensure that there was not another repeat of the accident that happened with Heavens Guidance.

As long as Lex received a normal baptism and moved on, they would be extremely grateful.

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