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A tall, beautiful lady sat with her legs crossed on a sofa, her long blonde hair falling over her shoulders. She was wearing a suit but had taken off her shoes, but the casual look did nothing to diminish her overwhelming charm. She was sitting in a private lounge, the table before filled with various sushi dishes. She was listening to a man making a report and she leaned forward and grabbed a California roll with her chopsticks and ate. Guards were standing in the corners of the room, all extremely serious.

The setting right now seemed quite harmonious, but everyone knew that the truth was contrary to how it appeared. The woman's name was Sophia Ramos, formerly known as Sophia Bravi – Marlo's wife! Officially the two were still married, but their separation had been quite public, and in the original sense of the word, epic. No one knew the exact reason for their separation, but the consequences were so drastic that multiple ICPA's had to get involved. A small town had been destroyed in their fight, and the officials had to report it to the public as a sudden earthquake. It was said that when they were together no one had ever been in as much love as Sophia was with her husband, and when they separated no one could hate someone the way she did.

Like her husband, she was a Golden Core cultivator. She was also the head of one of the largest and most influential cultivator families in Europe, the Ramos family. However, she did not live in Spain, where her family's strength was focused. She lived in New York, where she could keep a close eye on her 'dear husband'.

Some time ago, the man disappeared from the public eye. It was not surprising as he was one of the strongest members, if not the strongest member, of the Bravi family. Although he had long since paid back whatever he owed that family, there were times when the family requested him to use his specific skills. This was not to mention that Marlo himself ran multiple enterprises, and sometimes they would require him to handle sensitive matters. But matters became different after the Egypt incident. Even ignoring the serious political waves the incident brought throughout the cultivation world, Marlo himself had a relationship with the Morrison family. An incident of that scale did not simply finish, there were repercussions that would last years if not decades. Everyone would have to make their stance clear, alliances had to be made or broken, forces strengthened, protections and precautions had to be taken. Yet the man still had no response. Even the Bravi family was alarmed by his absence, and quietly started looking for him. If he kept his silence for too long, and did not reappear, people might even begin to suspect that that he was directly involved in the assassination attempt, as he had disappeared right before it.

Whether other people were beginning to be suspicious of his actions or not was still unclear, but Ultimate Fighting Fortress, Sophia's personal organization, was very open in their search for him. When traces of him could not be found using official methods, they started getting aggressive. A distant observer might think that perhaps the wife was concerned about him, that he needed to clear his name before the Morrison family took notice, but at least the people standing in this room did not think so..

A phone rang, breaking the subtle peace in the room, but everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they saw Sophia picking her own up and answering.

"Any updates?"

"We've finished looking up all of his recent students. He's had a closer relationship with two of them, a Matilda Ross and a Lex William. The scope of his extra interactions with them has not been too unusual, but it's still a lead. A background check of Lex revealed to be quite ordinary, but Matilda's background is clearly forged. She also sent some of our men to the hospital. We're looking further into her, but the latest report said that she disappeared from Bluebird custody."

"Were you able to extract any information from them?"

"His other students said he gave them a week off before leaving, but they don't know anything else. Matilda attacked our men as soon as they tried to intimidate her, and Lex pulled out a gun as soon as he made contact. Both of them showed a very aggressive response, which does not reflect their social standing or cultivation level. Although at the moment we do not believe Lex was related to his disappearance, for several hours our men were unable to locate him as he had gone without his Bluebird token, which is why he's still under suspicion."

"Keep investigating. Also, send my dear mother-in-law some flowers, and invite her over for some coffee."

"Understood," said the man at the other end of the phone before hanging up.

For a few moments Sophia was still, as if thinking, before her face warped into a grimace and she crushed the phone in her hand. She threw the broken pieces across the room before screaming, "THAT SCUM IS CHEATING ON ME! I KNOW IT!"

The men in the room trembled, but said nothing. Marlo himself had a fearsome reputation, but Sophia was the name people used to scare their children at night.

*****

Lex propped his broken door against the entrance where it used to reside and returned to his apartment. He took a look around before saying, "Mary I don't trust my judgment right now. I need some advice."

"I can't tell you what to do, but I can give you a few suggestions based on what you want to do. What are you thinking?"

"I need to decide how to respond to this. I really don't want to get involved in any trouble on Earth, but I'm also really pissed at those people for trashing my apartment."

"Hmm that's too vague. Let me ask you another question, what are your top priorities right now?"

Lex thought for a while before answering, "Raising my cultivation, developing my Inn and keeping my family safe."

"In that case, you should plan according to what you want. Although originally a self defense class was not a bad idea, right now it has caused you problems. Drop out of the class immediately, and then figure out the easiest way to get out of the public eye. Focus only on your cultivation and the Inn. In fact, you should know that the Inn will allow you to have your own home in a separate space from the Inn. You should complete quests till you unlock that, and then completely move away from Earth until your cultivation is strong enough. There is no reason to put yourself in unnecessary danger. As for your family, simply introduce them to the cultivation world, and then tell them to remain lowkey as well. There's no need to keep cultivation a secret from them, it serves no purpose."

"Dropping out? Don't you think that's a little drastic?"

"Let me guess," Mary said with a knowing look, "you don't want to drop out because you'll feel guilty or because you don't want to compromise your relationship with Marlo. Is that right?"

Lex didn't answer immediately, but eventually gave a reluctant nod.

"Lex you can't risk yourself for such a stupid reason. You may like Marlo but his complicated life has directly caused you to be in danger, or at least some trouble. You have to get your priorities straight and act accordingly. With the system and the Inn you can grow so much stronger and be exposed to so much, but that doesn't mean you're immortal or won't die. The system may feel like a cheat or a shortcut, but if it's not used properly then that's on you. Even the best cheat can't help you if you don't use it well and keep getting distracted."

Lex felt like he was getting scolded, but ultimately agreed with the tiny floating projection. He was making things more complicated than they needed to be. He should focus on the Inn and his cultivation, and once he was as strong or even stronger than Marlo, he could do whatever he wanted on Earth and he would have no worries.

Just as Lex made his decision there was a knock on his broken door, before someone moved it aside and entered his apartment. Lex, to his great surprise, saw his old boss Jessica entering his apartment followed by a few men. She was dressed formally, in a beige dress, but the men behind her were in police uniforms.

"Are you okay? We were told there were intruders," she said with some concern in her voice. Lex however was not buying it. Even if she worked for Bluebird, it was too coincidental that the one person he knew answered his distress call. Larry told him that even Bluebird was concerned about Marlo's whereabouts, and it seemed they wanted to try and see if they could get any answers from him.

"Of course there were intruders! Does this look like the kind of redecoration I would do?" Lex said between barred teeth. Someone had come in and trashed his entire apartment, and then came once again to threaten him, but Bluebird delayed their response to find Jessica because she had a connection to him. He was feeling pissed at Ultimate Fighting Fortress (UFF) and annoyed at Bluebird, and it was coming out right now.

"Lex calm down, you're being too aggressive," Mary told him. "You need to maintain a good relationship with the authorities."

Lex realized his words and tone were too strong. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, holding it in for a few seconds before breathing out.

"I apologize," he said looking at Jessica again. "I was a bit emotional. I am not used to this kind of thing."

"It's completely understandable," Jessica replied, looking around the apartment. To be honest, handling incidents of cultivator violence was not her domain in Bluebird. Her work was more logistical, and she rarely ever entered the field. It was true, however, that she was called on an emergency basis to handle this case because of her connection with Lex. She had been on a date that had to be cut short which annoyed her, but she maintained her professionalism. She had been briefed that other than handling the immediate incident, she should try to investigate Lex's relationship with Marlo as well as if he had any information on him. No one expected Lex to know, but there was no harm in being thorough..

"Before anything else, are you hurt? Do you require any medical attention?"

"No, no I'm fine."

"Then can you walk me through what happened?"

As the two of them talked, the two police officers were looking around the apartment to get a clear idea of the scope of the incident. There wasn't a single part of the apartment that hadn't seen some damage.

"Three guys broke into my apartment and started trashing the place. I tried to ask them what they wanted but they were very forceful." Lex lied through his teeth flawlessly, as if the truth was exactly as he described. He didn't want Bluebird to know he was gone for a while and the apartment was destroyed behind his back. "They seemed to be looking for something. When they couldn't find it, they came for me. Fortunately I have this for self defense," he said, pulling out the Heavy Harley. "As soon as I took out the gun I threatened them to leave. Maybe I could have told them to wait till you guys appeared but I didn't want to take a chance."

Jessica took a look at the gun and said, "Yes, we saw that you had a registered weapon. But you should be more careful, if they had weapons as well it could have turned into a confrontation. Do you have any idea what they were after?"

"No clue, they weren't exactly chatty and I wasn't in the mood to ask."

Although Lex was trying to control himself, it was apparent that he was agitated, though no one thought that was unusual as he had just been through a traumatic experience. Jessica asked him a few more questions, but Lex would always answer that he did not know anything. He did not know who these people were, why they were after him or what they were looking for. He was completely attempting to distance himself from the situation.

Finally, with no actual information on hand and no way to lead the conversation Jessica had to ask the question she was wondering up front. "It says on your profile that you've registered for self defense classes, but your trainer took a leave. Do you know anything about that?"

"No not much, he just gave us a week off…wait, was this because of him? Did these people find me because they were looking for him?" Lex asked, feigning his shock and anger extremely well.

"No, of course not. I just thought that if he were around you could ask him what to do in a breakin situation. Having a direct confrontation against three intruders is not a smart idea." Jessica covered herself really well, but Lex showed a doubtful look. They asked him a few more questions, until they finally left. They told him they'd contact him again if they made any progress on the investigation, and asked him if he wanted to follow them to a safe house. Lex naturally declined to follow them as he had other plans.

He took Mary's suggestion and decided he was going to drop out of Marlo's class and leave for a while. As for his family…he decided that he'd tell them about cultivation whenever he met them personally next time. Actually there was a Bluebird program that helped new cultivators explain to their immediate families about the cultivation world. This was so that there would be a bit of credibility when these people talked to their families, and to avoid accidents. However Lex didn't want to think about that right now. Dealing with family was always complicated, he wanted to avoid thinking about it.

Leaving Marlo's class was not normally an easy procedure, as it was in his contract that once you started you could not stop or you would be prosecuted. It was an unusual clause, but in this situation Lex had an easy out as he could claim his life had been endangered because of Marlo. He wrote up an email and sent it to the official email attached to the self defense class before he left his apartment. He only grabbed his phone, wallet, Bluebird token and Heavy Harley that he stored in his backpack, nothing else in the apartment was worth putting any effort into. He hailed a taxi and told the driver an address he'd looked up online. He arrived at a skyscraper and quickly made his way in. At the reception he showed his token and said, "I'm here to register at Ballor's castle."

The receptionist scanned the token, and after checking if everything was in order, told him to take the elevator to the 20th level. Of course, the 20th level she was referring to was the basement level, not the floors in the highrise. Lex, already used to this system by now, and directly went underground.

The reason why he was so decisive about coming here was because he'd done a lot of research on Ballor's castle since Larry told him about it. They took their role of protection quite seriously, and had a very positive reputation in the cultivator community. He would relocate using their help, and also finally gain an affiliation with an organization on Earth. Although he wanted to avoid doing so, it couldn't be helped. At least this one was not so demanding of its members.

When he reached the floor he was greeted with a bold 'Ballor's Castle' imprinted on the wall, along with various images of its leading members. Lex only glanced at it before heading towards the reception on this level.

Joining an organization was not as quick and straightforward as he had seen so many characters do in books. After scanning his token and checking his profile on the Bluebird database, they checked his criminal history. Once they were done with that, they checked his social media to check if he had any extremist views or dubious connections. Then came the paperwork. Oh lord, there was so much paperwork!

Lex felt like he'd spent hours filling out forms, answering questions, and then redoing some parts that the receptionist told him he did wrong. They wanted to know everything about him, from his academic records to his professional experience, his medical history to his political affiliations if he had any. When it came to his cultivation, it was mandatory to list his level as well as how long he had been cultivating for, followed by optional questions where he could write down the details of his cultivation technique. Lex left all the optional questions and then submitted the paperwork and began waiting for the final process, the personal interview. Under normal circumstances he was told that the interview would be scheduled in a few weeks, but he told them that he was in an emergency, after which they revealed to him the option to pay for an express interview. He didn't know if he should be cursing or grateful for the capitalistic mentality.

Naturally he paid the $5000 express fee and was led to the interview room where he waited silently for his interview to begin. To be honest, he was surprised by how thorough the organization was in its joining process. He assumed it would have been easier and more straightforward. The receptionist then told him that because Ballor's castle took their role so seriously, they were also very selective in who they allowed in. Criminals or people with potential ulterior motives were not allowed to join. He supposed that was good for him, as long as his interview went smoothly and he could join. For now, all he could do was wait.

Two men and a woman entered the room, all holding folders Lex assumed held information about him. They all looked relatively relaxed and gave off friendly vibes that made Lex feel more confident about his chances. They sat down across from him and after and introduced themselves before diving right into the interview.

"Mr. Lex, can you tell me what interested you about Ballor's castle?"

"The freedom and safety," Lex answered promptly, "especially the safety part. Since I accidentally learned about the cultivation world, the strongest impression I've gotten is that it is very unsafe. I spent a lot of time researching various organizations, but Ballor's castle is the one I felt could best safeguard me and my interests."

"Well we would like to thank you for your confidence in us. We try our best to uphold our standards to the best of our abilities. Have you tried joining any organization before, and if so which ones?"

"No, I haven't tried joining any organization before. I am very new to the cultivation world, and considering how dangerous it seems I've tried to minimize my contact with other cultivators as much as I can. I did take a self defense class for cultivators, but even then I have kept mostly to myself."

"Mr. Lex, you've mentioned a few times that you are concerned about your safety. Do you have any enemies?"

"No of course not! Why would I have any enemies?".

"Mr. Lex, I hope you don't mind but it is standard procedure to run background checks on our applicants. According to our research, there was an incident report at your apartment just a few hours ago. Could you tell us about that?"

"There was a breakin at my apartment. They completely destroyed everything I own and even threatened me. That is what prompted me to come here, I realized that I wasn't safe on my own."

"Yes, of course, I can understand how such an incident can be traumatic and make one want to protect oneself. But tell me, do you have any idea why you were targeted?"

"No, I've never seen them before and have no relation with them."

"Mr. Lex, I don't know if you're aware, but the cultivator community in New York is very tight knit. Rumors get around quickly, and rumor is that a lot of people have been investigating your self defense instructor, Mr. Marlo. Do you think you could have been targeted because of your connection to him?"

"He is my instructor, and other than that I have no connection to him. I don't know why I would be targeted because of him."

The three investigators looked at one another, before pulling out a picture to show Lex. As soon as Lex saw his lips twitched – it was a picture of him when he was going to Marlo's apartment right after returning from Vegus Minima. He was battered and bruised and completely covered in dry blood. Suddenly he felt his chances in this interview had dropped drastically.

"Mr. Lex this picture was pulled from security footage of you entering Mr. Marlo's building some time ago. Having no context about this picture at all, it does not seem to me that your relationship with Mr. Marlo is simple."

Lex gulped as quickly started thinking of a good excuse.

*****

Velma was standing silently in the Gift shop. She was an A.I. that worked at the Midnight Inn, however that did not mean that she was an emotionless and cold machine. It just meant that she was created and given intelligence artificially, and not born in the usual way. Although technically her age was less than a month old, she was mentally around seventeen. She was extremely disciplined and obeyed orders so her mental age never compromised her work at the Inn, but when she had no work to do she felt extremely bored. Gerard had the mental age of a fifty year old man, so the two of them could not relate very much at all. The new addition to the Inn, the Gardener, was very boorish and Velma did not get along with him at all. All he wanted to do was dig and dig and dig.

Her 2nd boss, the tiny floating projection called Mary, was a little more fun. She would occasionally gossip with Velma about her first boss, the Innkeeper. Speaking of whom, the Innkeeper was incredibly handsome and Velma always felt very shy around him. A few times she wanted to strike up a conversation with him, but every time she wanted to she could not make herself do it.

She let out a sigh, she was really bored. But right then her 2nd boss appeared before her.

"Velma, the Innkeeper is busy and some new guests are entering the Inn. Receive them."

"Immediately," she answered as she disappeared, reappearing at the entrance. From a bright light a young man ran out, holding the hand of a young woman. The pair of teenagers looked very troubled.

"Haris, where are we?" asked the young woman, panting.

"I have no idea Ayesha, but I think we've lost them for now," the teenager replied, wiping the imaginary sweat off his brow.

Ayesha, who was relieved to hear that they had lost their pursuers, threw herself into Haris' arms and started sobbing.

"Oh Haris, what are we going to do? They're never going to let us be together! Your family will move away across the oceans and I'll never see you again!"

"Then I will swim the oceans if I have to. Nothing can separate me from you!"

The two lovers continued to talk to one another, professing their love and imagining the various struggles the world would throw their way, denying them the one thing that they both wanted – love. It was as if it was predestined that they were not to be, their difficulties far beyond the petty hurdles of Romeo and Juliet.

Velma, who was waiting for a chance to introduce them to the Inn, completely forgot her purpose, and was listening to their sweet nothings with glowing eyes. Since there was no television, or basically any kind of media available at the Inn, this was the first time the young A.I. was getting a taste of teen romance and she was hooked.

"But long distance never works," said Ayesha, breaking free from his arms and looking away. "You'll go to college and make new friends and fall in love with some blonde bimbo, and I'll be left alone, with nothing but a memory of a time I was happy, if only for a moment." Their extremely cheesy lines and over the top emotions held Velma in a vice, and at the thought that the two lovers would be separated Velma suddenly remembered her job, and along with that she came up with an idea.

"Welcome guests," she said loudly, interrupting Haris' monologue about slaying all the bimbos that would stand between the two, "to the Midnight Inn, the universe's best rendezvous for estranged lovers."

The two teenagers turned their attention to Velma with a frown, but then suddenly realized that they were not alone. Ayesha quickly pulled herself out of Haris' arms – he had hugged her once again – and quickly straightened her clothes, as if removing all proof or memory of the lovers embrace.

"Our humble Inn caters to people from across the universe, wherever they may be. It brings lovers together so that they can spend time with one another, walking in our gardens, climbing our hills, making memories free from pursuit or judgment."

"Across the universe you say?" asked Haris, intrigued. He accepted Velma's words quickly, as if traveling the universe were the most natural thing, and started rubbing his chin as if he were coming up with a plan.

"So this is like a dating spot?" Ayesha asked, curious. "How scandalous, I love it."

Velma lost a bit of her composure when she heard the Inn being called a dating spot – if her bosses ever found out she'd be too embarrassed!

"Uh, well, no the Inn doesn't cater to just lovers. Anyone who wants to enjoy our services can come. But lovers, especially lovers who have been separated, can come to the Inn to enjoy their time together, so that their love can overcome all adversity." Poor Velma did not know that to some people what she was saying could be taken as the description of a 'Love Hotel' that charged by the hour. It truly was a good thing that neither Mary nor Lex were here to hear this.

Ayesha's eyes started to slow as she looked at Haris excitedly. The both shared a look, and it was as if they both had found the solution to their problem.

"Why don't you show us around," said Haris with a smile. "I feel like we'll be coming here a lot."

"Please follow me, I believe you'll like what we have to offer." Just as she began to lead the two towards the Inn, she came close to Haris and whispered, "You should buy her a Saturn cake, trust me. I'll show it to you later." The three 'teenagers' excitedly made their way into the manor, all of them thinking of their exciting futures.