The Innkeeper

There was a question Lex wondered which was equally philosophical and literal. If an object came to life, was it now a person or could still be treated like an object?

As he stared at the massive spaceship, he got from the Cthulhu, the very one that had come to life and had developed a fear of heights, the one that had served as a daycare for so long, and wondered if he could still treat it as a spaceship, or if now counted as a worker of the Inn?

Considering his requirements, if he could treat this ship as a tavern, that would be perfect. The original purpose of this ship was life support. It had state-of-the-art healing technologies, which, when paired with the system’s functions, would be perfect to help a group of mercenaries heal and recover from battle.

The ship was also incredibly sturdy, and could take a beating in case they were attacked. Given the short notice, this was perfect for a tavern.

Alas, when he asked Mary to confirm whether he could treat the ship as a tavern, she stated that he could not.

“The condition to establish a new tavern is that you have to make it by hand, and then submit it to the system for review. If it passes the review, it will become a new tavern that can be used. It’s pretty much the same as you had to do with the treehouse tavern.”

“Yeah, but the problem now is that I don’t really have the time to make a new one, and I don’t really want to use the old ones. I mean, that escape room down in the Treehouse tavern is incredibly popular. People haven’t left it since the day it was launched. It would be pretty sucky to just suddenly kick them out of the tavern and make the tavern disappear. They should at least get the chance to solve the escape room first.”

“I think the fact that you can prioritise your guests’ addiction to the escape room means you’re not as worried about this as you’re pretending to be,” said Mary.

Lex looked back at her, though he didn’t respond. In truth, these days, the only thing that really troubled him were things connected to the Dao, for there was almost nothing he could do about them save bluff as the Innkeeper.

Everything else at least gave him plenty of options with how he could respond. So, to an extent, Mary was right. He was not entirely concerned because he already had multiple ideas for what he could do.

He just hoped that whatever enemies he would have to face, they would be Earth Immortals, or Heaven Immortals at most. Any stronger than that, and he had no chance of surviving this quest.

Lex immediately contacted Pel Jr, his current cultivation mat, and gave him a rather harsh task.

“I need you to remove as many scales from your body as you can, in perfect condition. You have twenty minutes. I’ll send over some helpers to aid you in this task.”

Though the request was kind of harsh, Pel Jr. did not mind at all. The soul inhabiting the body was still much too weak, so anything at all that could be done to weaken the body he would do happily.

This was especially because the heavily nourishing environment inside the Inn was actually slowly strengthening the body. Even with Lex actively absorbing a lot of its power during his cultivation sessions, the progress was not enough to allow the soul to perfectly take control of the body.

So, while this task sounded harsh, it was actually the kind of thing he already did on a regular basis. In fact, Lex already had quite a stockpile of Heaven Immortal dragon scales – the perfect building materials for his latest tavern!

He had a wooden tavern and a treehouse tavern. Now, he was going to make a castle tavern.

Wasting no more time, Lex immediately conjured over twenty clones of himself and sent them all to complete various tasks. One worked on the blueprint of the castle, another made his way to the Veevatil forge in the dwarfs city to heat it up for use, while another made his way to collect some mountain milk, while another yet went to gather a handful of the waters from the Chaos Sea.

Over the years, the number of rare materials Lex had found inside the Midnight Realm were immense, and now he began gathering each and everyone that was related to durability or toughness.

That included getting his hand on some wood from a Void Stabilisation Sequoia tree, which he would use to build the skeletal structure of his castle. He immediately got to work on building the castle, which wasn’t the issue.

The issue he was actually concerned about was who he should bring along to manage the Inn. The lack of information about the level of his enemy concerned him not because he was afraid for himself, but because he didn’t want to expose his workers to an impossible enemy.

In the end, instead of informing the workers about the upcoming mission, he just sent them a message informing them to stay ready, for there may be an unexpected mission coming up.

Lex had a small hope that whoever assigned the Joint quest wouldn’t assign him a quest that was far too difficult for his level. But Lex didn’t believe in relying on hope, so instead he focused more on improving the design of the castle.

By creating an impressive tavern, and integrating the most powerful formations and laws he could manage, Lex hoped to create a structure that would allow them to fight above their level.

If there was truth that seemed to translate equally well between mortals and immortals, it was that sieges were tough, and the advantage was always with the defender.

Just as Lex began working on the castle, Luthor returned to the Midnight Inn, and submitted a report about everything that had happened on his mission.

Lex skimmed through the parts about him harassing and blackmailing the living planet. Instead, he focused on two key things. First, Luthor had managed to upgrade his physique, and thereby his fire. Also, he had a lead on Hells.

All that was well and good, but the news about Luthor’s new fire made Lex’s eyes sparkle. He could use that in his castle.

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