The Innkeeper

Hargreaves was officially a rank 2 wizard and a part of the Prometheus Empire – the largest and most dominant force in the universe. Or at least, that’s what the empire stated in its slogans. With almost forty rank 6 wizards, and 3 rank 7 eight wizards as the heads of the empire, it was tough to see how anyone could compete with them.

Hargreaves had no reason to doubt them, either. Countless wizarding organizations frequently colonised new worlds that they discovered, enslaving its inhabitants and turning the planet into farms.

Planets that could not support life were mined and harvested for their resources to the last grain, till they ceased to exist, while planets that did support life were the ultimate source of life energies that many wizards needed, so this was a booming business.

It was said that it was basically impossible to become a rank 5 wizard without harvesting at least one world whole, and even more impossible to become a rank 6 wizard without harvesting hundreds!

Born without any backing, or talent for that matter, Hargreaves was destined to never move past being a wizard’s apprentice. That is, until he got the ‘Cultivator in a wizarding world System’. Everything changed after that.

While it seemed like he was a rank 2 wizard, in truth, he was a Qi training cultivator, and instead of spells and spell models, he used spiritual techniques his system gave him!

A cultivator’s path seemed a lot easier to him than a wizards, because he didn’t need to create a complicated spell model to advance. He just needed to cultivate. Unfortunately, his theory of cultivators being superior could not be tested, for he had never heard of cultivators in his daily life, nor had the Prometheus empire ever encountered them.

Hargreaves stopped thinking about cultivators – he didn’t even know why he was thinking about them – and instead turned to his notification from his system about his latest quest. He didn’t remember anything from it, but he had a vague feeling that he had enjoyed it a lot.

He was going over the rewards and notifications, and everything was as expected, except for the very last notification.

Additional Reward Notification: Through fulfillment of unknown criteria, you have become eligible for the privilege of membership into the restricted-access tier membership of the Midnight Inn known as Obsidian. To finalize membership, proceed to the Midnight Inn and complete the process.

Additional Reward: Obsidian key.

Hargreaves withdrew the reward key, and as its name implied, an obsidian colored, old-fashioned key appeared within his hands. Yet not for even a moment could Hargreaves mistake the key for something mundane.

An awesome power, one that demanded respect and reverence, emanated from the key, gripping Hargreaves with its aura alone. The color of the key, the finish of its make, the feel of its touch, all evoked an ominous yet regal feeling, as if they belonged to an ancient power that could not be denied.

Normally, Hargreaves was not so easily impressed. After all, he came from an empire that believed itself the utmost in the universe. But if he could only recall his time at the quest, he would know that the mere rank 6 and rank 7 wizards that Prometheus claimed were the peak of power were only equal to Earth and Heaven Immortals.

Maybe that is why, when he felt the power of the key, even without that knowledge, his innate pride and sense of superiority were suppressed. He knew that he was now in the presence of a force far greater than he could currently comprehend.

Just as Hargreaves had received such a notification, countless other system users who had completed their quest at the Midnight Inn received similar notifications. The only thing that they had in common was that none of them reached the Nascent soul realm of power, and so their systems were not fused with their souls.

When Lex was creating an event for the system users, the actual event itself was simple. It should not have cost an entire MT. After all, 1 MT was equal to a trillion MP, and he had hosted the first Midnight Games for a lot less MP than that.

Even accounting for the fact that the keys needed to be sent to specific people through untraceable ways, and that none of them were on connected planets, the cost was too high. The real reason setting up the event had cost him 1 MT was because he had to set up very special rules for this event.

Within the Midnight Inn, far away from the main cities, he carved out a region that was restricted only to the people participating in this specific event. No guests who were not participating could enter, nor could the participants exit.

Like this, he created an exclusive zone, differentiating from the common-access tier members, or in other words, normal guests. Doing so would create an image of mystery and exclusivity, not just in those who would be participating in the event, but in normal guests as well, who would soon be learning of specific memberships to the Midnight Inn, which offered unknown benefits.

He then also had to pay to alter the keys that led to this specific zone, differentiating them from the normal gold keys. The mood and atmosphere of the Inn, which was usually calm and pleasant, had been changed to feel more eminent and distinguished.

In fact, Lex went far beyond just this, going into the minutest details. All workers who would do shifts in this zone would wear black masks to hide their identities, and all guests who entered had to always be wearing the Clark Kent glasses, to hide their own.

All of this was to create an air of mystery. After all, Lex had decided to hijack the System’s power structure.

When he realized that the systems could control a distinguished force through Joint and Competitive quests, he was amazed at how someone could harness such immense power without any personal investment.

Now, by creating an exclusive membership solely for System users in the Inn, he created an environment he could control, wherein system users could interact with one another. It was also a resource he could use to remove systems from any hosts who did not want their systems, not to mention he could offer aid or resources in exchange for having those system users accomplish certain tasks.

Now, finding a way to send scouting equipment to him in Abaddon would be the first task he would set up. But it wasn’t time for that just yet.

Obsidian, the special zone of the Inn exclusive for system-users, was not so straightforward either. After all, the greater the mystery, the more power he wielded. As such, he had gone to great lengths to dictate just how members within Obsidian would interact with one another, as well as the Inn.

Oh, and this event would go on in perpetuity…

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