The Innkeeper

Chapter 1679: Foundational and Relational Laws

There were many things that Lex did which were extremely confusing, and mentally strenuous. However, living simultaneously in two different flows of time was actually one of the insanely complicated things that he had gotten used to.

It didn’t matter at all that in one second of Jack’s life, wherein he may not have even finished pronouncing a single word, Lex lived for days or weeks. He had to maintain perfect reaction speed in both flows of time, making sure that he didn’t speak too quickly as Jack or too slowly as Lex. It was the same for his every action and interaction.

Despite how unfathomable it sounded, that was something Lex had mastered pretty easily. He even managed to keep updated on the happenings of the Midnight Inn, which was operating in a third flow of time.

The thing that was actually bothering him was studying the aura remnants on his clone. In fact, Lex had dismissed his clone long ago. He simply captured the remnant aura, and continued to study it over time.

Studying deeper laws was a headache, not only because it caused him a headache, but because he didn’t understand what it meant for laws to be deeper.

It was more or less easy to understand that laws had a hierarchy – that seemed to be a running theme with everything in the universe, from races, to energies, to, apparently, even laws.

But such a thing clashed with his understanding of laws. When Lex looked at the universe through his tenet, he saw endless chains. Each chain was a law, and there were countless chains attached to everything.

The very existence of a thing depended on laws, and similarly how it behaved depended not only on the law associated with it, but how that law reacted to other laws. For example, the law of fire was independent of the law of heat, and often enough, they worked in correlation with each other. Yet Lex had also seen blue flames called cryoflames, which worked with laws of cold, among other things.

So if the existence of laws were so integral to all of reality, how could there be laws which were hidden, or deeper, whatever that meant? Of course, Lex already had the theoretical answer for that since he had looked into the Heaven Immortal realm. He didn’t really need to ask others, though he also did that, anyway.

He originally thought that deeper laws probably meant that these were the laws that created the base laws of the universe. That was wrong.

Surprisingly, the person within the castle who had the deepest understanding of these things, and gave Lex a very detailed explanation, was not Kaemon or any other warrior. Instead, it was Geeves, the tailor who had decided to accompany them on this adventure.

“One cannot make a good suit unless one has an in-depth understanding of the metaphysical aspects of the universe,” Geeves said as he pulled out a roll of measuring tape and asked Lex to stand on a pedestal. “Raise your arms and hold them there. You’ve gained a bit of weight on your conscience and I need to redo your measurements for your future suits. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes, the universe. It’s a pretty interesting place with a fine variety of materials for suits. Ten out of ten, I would recommend living within it.”

Geeves lifted Lex’s arms a little higher, as if he was dissatisfied with his posture.

“Now, any material at all is absolutely worthless if one does not understand the laws that relate to it, which is why I’ve studied this topic in great depth. In basic syntax, the laws of the universe are divided into three layers. The first and most basic layer, which is what Earth Immortals are exposed to, are called the Foundational laws. In essence, they dictate the inherent nature of everything in existence. I don’t believe I need to go in more detail about that, do I? Now stand up straight and flex your muscles as much as possible. I need to make sure they haven’t gotten smaller. The elasticity of your suit needs to be sufficient to suit your body, but not too much either.

“Now, as I was saying, the layers. After the Foundational laws comes the second layer, which Heaven Immortals can sense. These laws are called the Relational laws. These laws are highly contextual, and highly dynamic. They bridge the gap between Foundational laws and more metaphysical, higher-order concepts. One such example is cause and effect.

“The very fact that independent laws can interact with one another is based on cause and effect. Then there are certain laws such as the Law of Potential, the Law of Balance, the Law of Contrast, the Law of Life, the Law of Death, and so on. Karma, a very popular and famous law, appears as if it is a Foundational law, since Earth Immortals can sense it. Yet when you become a Heaven Immortal, you will discover that it is also a Relational law.

“However, when you become a Celestial Immortal, you’ll discover that Karma also has traces of its existence in the Law of Tether, one of the eight ruling laws. Irrespective of what Karma, and such similar concepts, truly are, you will discover that Foundational Law, without the presence and support of Relational laws, cannot do anything at all.

“Take, for example, this suit I made for you,” Geeves said, showing Lex a mannequin wearing a torn, shredded suit. It was not originally like this, but had become so after one of Lex’s very intense life and death fights. For some reason, seeing how Geeves still kept the suit made Lex feel guilty for what had happened to it. But it wasn’t like it was his fault someone tried to kill him, right?

“Using very valuable materials, I imbued this particular suit with the Law of Correspondence. The defensive capability of this suit corresponds to the defensive quotient of your own body. It was a very ingenious design I have to admit. How was I supposed to know that you would challenge some followers of a dying Deity to a match and allow them to tear up this suit with great efforts, only to realize that your own defense was so much better than the suit?”

Oh. This was that suit. It seemed like Geeves had found out what Lex had done that day. The look he was giving Lex was…

Lex coughed, and pretended like he wasn’t phased by the tailor’s expression and just continued to listen.

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