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Lex's meeting with John was not all too special. Leo and John did not have a particularly deep bond, and the fact that Leo had been absent for so long didn't help either. But John treated Leo with professional courtesy.

He had amassed a good amount of MP, and had even become free from his restraints. That meant he had regained a lot of freedom, but that left him with the decision of what to do in the future.

He could go back to assassination and continue to raise his cultivation using the system. In fact, it was all but guaranteed that he would do that. But he could not make himself leave the Inn until Harry recovered either. He also recalled that a long time back, the Innkeeper offered him a job as well.

He did not know if he wanted that, either. Currently, the most coherent plan he was able to muster was to resume his assassinations gig and use the Henali portal as the only way to assign him tasks. He could perform assassinations and use the Inn as his permanent home or hideout. His identity at the Inn had existed long enough to keep it from having any association with his real identity, so the plan was almost perfect.

Still, while the plan made sense, John couldn't make up his mind. The fact that the Innkeeper knew about his system was practically assured by now, and he didn't know if he should ask the Innkeeper more about it.

After all, the system had extreme significance in his life, but he now also knew that it could be influenced externally, as his last quest was way too coincidental. The Innkeeper had still been kind about it, but what if he ran into someone who would manipulate his system in ways John did not appreciate? He would be a prisoner.

The difficult decision had been eating at his mind for a while now, so the only thing he could do was throw himself into work to keep himself busy.

His conversation with Leo also gave him new ways to keep his mind occupied. He expected that Leo would ask him for a new technique, since he literally created techniques for people, but instead Leo asked about a good way to train the workers of the Inn.

These things could not be forced, and would take time and resources, but with John's unique insight and exposure, he could possibly think of things Lex hadn't.

This was actually a matter that had plagued Lex for a while. He had a panel to take care of his employees and give them perks. He could even directly award them techniques and give them access to the meditation rooms. Yet that was about the extent of what he could do.

The only possibility he could think of was to somehow run into someone with an army training, or teacher system or something along those lines, and absorb that system as well. The Murder system had given him upgrades to his own system, but they weren't too relevant to his needs.

The Murderer upgrade, which would allow him to learn the techniques or skills of someone stronger than him if he killed them outside of the Inn, was not really something Lex saw improving his situation any time soon. In fact, the upgrade had not even been triggered when he used the butter knife to slay countless people in and out of the Inn, for he himself had been inside the Inn at the time. The upgrade required him to kill those stronger than him while being outside the Inn for it to work.

Similarly, the Murder ground was not helpful either, as it just provided a place for two people or groups to kill each other.

But Lex had no way of finding system wielders, as he had not met a single one besides the Murderer back in Crystal realm. While John was on the list of suspects due to his status showing 'error', it could not be concluded yet.

Lex shook his head and quickly concluded the meeting. John had actually given a few good suggestions that Lex kept in mind, but he didn't want to press too hard.

After the meeting, he spent some more time as Leo, walking around and making sure people saw him. He even encountered a unique new guest from a race called Krab-man.

Once he did the rounds, he teleported away and gathered whatever Divine Essence the Inn had in a special container then went to the Infinity Emporium.

As expected, after the amount of pressure that Lex put on him, Powell had managed to procure some Entis Core, though he merely had 1.2 grams. Lex paid him using the Divine Essence.

Technically speaking, the core was more valuable, but the essence was rarer and harder to procure which is why it was quite valuable.

Lex did not spend a lot of time there and simply took all the medicine that was meant for Harry and returned to the Inn. After sending all the medicine to nurse Jubilation and having Mary inform her that it was for Harry, Lex oddly found himself with some free time.

He had too little time left to start a bigger project, but too much time to just sit around. He sighed and decided it was time to do the one thing he had been putting off, which was check all his notifications.

He made himself cozy in his Recovery pod and finally began to peruse the list.

The first notification was actually a quest completion notification!

Quest Complete! (Have the Midnight Inn be officially recognized by the Henali assembly)

Quest Reward: Guest Registry

Remarks: The host should attract guests for the Inn, not enemies!

The next few notifications were actually pleasant.

New Notification: The Inns reputation has increased!

Reward: 0.5 Star increase token!

New Notification: The Inn has attracted the attention of several Gods!

New Quest: Host a God at the Inn

Quest reward: Holy Shoot!

The next dozen or so notifications were about the increasing chaos at the Inn. Since the Security room was unable to stop the infractions, each time the Inn would give him a notification warning that punishment would be meted out if it continued.

Then came the notifications of the actual punishments. It began with a deduction of 1000 MP, followed by 10,000 MP, and then increasingly so. But, after the punishments crossed 10 billion MP, the punishment changed, and was no longer about MP. It threatened Lex's authority!

At this point, the notifications became varied, and were no longer about warnings. He got quests to protect his guests and to calm down the situation within a given time. It need not be said that he failed many of them.

Although many of the notifications were the same, Lex read all of them, not only to remind himself that he could not afford such a failure once again, but also in case there was some valuable information in them.

Unfortunately, they were naught but a testament to the chaos the Inn witnessed. About the first time one of his buildings was attacked he lost his first authority point, and the quests started ramping up.

The first time one of his employees died, he lost another authority point. He started receiving fewer notifications about the chaos.

Then, suddenly, the kinds of notifications changed. It was evident that this was when he used the Butter Knife.

These Lex read slowly, for they were actually different instead of repeats of the same things.

New Notification: Massive surge in aura detected, Minor realm is destabilizing!

New Notification: A tear in Minor realm detected, the Inn is losing prestige!

𝑙𝒾𝘣𝘳𝑒𝒶𝒹.𝑐𝘰𝓂

Quest Complete! (Stop the Invasion of the Inn)The Host's rewards are being calculated:

-Reward reduced for multiple guests injured

-Reward reduced for multiple buildings destroyed

-Reward reduced for multiple workers injured

-Reward reduced for multiple workers killed

-Reward reduced for completing quest in over 1 hour

-Reward increased for increasing Inn's prestige (putting on powerful display)

-Reward increased for increased for killing all invaders

-Reward increased for tracing invader's outside of the Inn's grounds

-Reward increased for punishing invaders (punishing their souls)

-Reward increased for increasing the Inn's reputation in the Origin realm

Reward Rank: A-

Reward: 1 Inn Service upgrade token, 1 Inn lockdown token

Remarks: ...get angry more often...

New Notification: Foreign energy is connecting Inn to Origin realm (attack from Butter Knife)

New Notification: Multiple Minor realms detected near the Midnight Inn's realm tear!

New Notification: Multiple Minor realms merging with the Midnight Inn (Progress 91%)

New Notification: The Innkeeper's demonstration has spread the Inn's reputation across the Inn!

New Notification: The Innkeeper has eliminated a religion in the origin realm, and started a new one as the Butter Knife God. The system will automatically absorb all divinity targeted towards the Innkeeper!

Reward: 1 Wish ( 0.005% divinity obtained)

New Notification: The tear in the Minor realm has been repaired!

Before Lex could read more, he fell back into his coma.

The moment Lex fell into a coma, the Lotus began working on his body. Since he had managed to gain much more than the minimum amount of Entis Core required, his recovery would take slightly longer than usual, but not by much. In total, it would take 20 days.

Fortunately for Lex, this period was spent in relative calm. No major incidents took place. Or rather, no negative incidents took place.

While Lex was asleep, the one year mark from when he got the Inn passed. As it happened, the day that Lex got the Inn was just a day before Lex's birthday, so he also turned 24. Last year, it was because of his depression on his own birthday that he ended up sitting in the park late into the night, wondering what he could do to improve his life.

Harry started to recover surprisingly quickly, but it made sense when one considered that his soul wasn't very strong to begin with, so restoring it was easy.

Luthor was incredibly busy during this time, for he was either training or looking into matters related to Earth.

The other workers were also working very hard, and even the ones who weren't too focused on cultivating began to do so. After all, it was not so easy to get over the trauma of having your home invaded.

But while the days were passing very peacefully at the Inn, the Origin was much more eventful. Just because Lex's attack had ended did not mean its repercussions were over. In fact, they were only just beginning. Hundreds of new galactic empires were formed in the region closest to where the tear in the Midnight minor realm had opened up, and multiple new races gained extremely strong cultivators.

The concentration of spirit energy had boomed in these regions, which was not only resulting in faster cultivation, but the birth of treasures that would normally take hundreds of thousands of years to form.

At a glance, the birth of so many empires should have had no effect on the Origin realm, for regardless of how powerful an empire became, traveling from galaxy to galaxy was a task that took countless years. But more important than the birth of so many empires was the trend that had begun. Lex's attack had happened too short a time ago to spontaneously catalyze the birth of so many empires, unless the necessary requirements already existed, and only required something to push them over the edge.

It was evident that as more time went by, this trend would continue. As if that was not enough, while the boom in spirit energy was relatively focused in a certain region of space, like a wave, that boom seemed to be spreading across the realm. A time of prosperity was coming, but that prosperity would also nurture endless competition.

The assembly held by the Henali for all the existing empires in the realm took note of this trend, and warned all their existing members. Such prosperity, unfortunately, would also prompt fiercer attacks by the Fuegan.

But, seeing how this was an event that would likely affect the entire realm, the Henali decided to be proactive in how they handled the situation. A realm wide competition was announced to compete for most Fuegan's killed according to one's cultivation level. The winners would be appropriately rewarded.

The Emperor of the Jotun Empire felt nothing but anticipation when he heard the news. It seemed he would have to make a few preparations himself before the Henali tournament started. After all, a good performance by his empire might just get him what he needed

But none of that had anything to do with the Midnight Inn. Instead, it was an unusual event on Nibiru that was taking place that had the possibility to affect the Inn.

A battle was taking place between two groups of avian beasts, high in the sky near the tallest mountain range on the planet. Most of the beasts were in the golden core realm but a few were in the nascent realm as well.

The explosive sounds of their clashes had already caused countless avalanches, till the top of the mountain was almost bare. Gray rocks could be seen jutting from the remaining snow, while a few were painted red with the blood of the fallen beasts.

The battle had been going on for hours and seemed like it would go on for hours more. They were so focused on the fight they did not notice the changes in the environment happening around them. The gathering clouds meant nothing to them, for they could just fly above them. The clap of thunder may as well have been the rustling wind for all they cared, and the bolts of lightning that crashed into the ground could not be farther from relevant to them.

They did not notice as countless earthquakes shook the land, and caused cracks to form on the mountain. They were beasts of the sky, so why would the ground matter to them?

But even their arrogance was forced to divert their attention when they heard a boom so loud it physically hurt them! In fact, the sound spread across the entire continent.

Countless beasts temporarily lost control of their bodies due to disorientation and began falling from the sky. It was not dangerous, they were high enough that they would regain control of their bodies long before they reached the ground.

But their haphazard descent allowed them to actually see what had caused that earlier noise. Large visible cracks were spreading across the mountain range, each one causing reverberations across the lands.

Fear suddenly filled the hearts of the beasts for they knew full well what was happening. Another Mountain-man was awakening!

In the recent months, due to the evolution their world was going under, many mountains had transformed, turning into sentient mountain men. Well, the sentient part was debatable, but that was far besides the point.

What mattered was that these Mountain-men were incredibly, ridiculously strong and had spread havoc throughout the world. In fact, the sloth, Golden Hair, had been forced out of its retreat to combat these beats lest they kill everything on the planet.

Unfortunately, the sloth itself had only recently entered the Immortal realm, and could not control its strength at all. After all, it never had the time to learn. Previously the planet Nibiru was only a 1 star planet, which meant that the unrestrained might of an immortal could easily crack space and shatter the continents. It was only now that the planet's star was in the process of elevating that it had the opportunity to try and learn about its strength instead of simply slumbering.

All of this did not mean that the sloth had been unable to defeat the sentient Mountains. No, what it really meant was that their clashes had caused untold destruction, and had resulted in the death of countless beasts that were in the vicinity.

Now, if a mountain of this caliber were to birth Mountain-men, at least a dozen of them would be born. Such a force… it was impossible to guess how long it would take the sloth to settle the matter.

The moments the falling beasts regained control over their bodies, they began escaping. In the face of certain death, territorial disputes were nothing - especially when the terrain itself was coming to life.

Countless stampedes occurred, until they eventually reached a size large enough to be called a 'beast flood', all escaping the mountain range. As a result, a few hours later, not a single soul was around to see when the mountain gained life.

But, instead of giving birth to multiple mountain-men, only one, massive Mountain-man was born. Moving its rocky body, the creature broke its hand free from the depths of the continent, and slowly pushed up its humanoid body.

Strangely enough, this particular Mountain-man looked more humanlike than any of its predecessors, with distinct facial features instead of randomly spawning eyes and a mouth somewhere on the rock.

"Ugh," the creature groaned as it picked itself up to its knees, causing its head to reach some of the highest layers of the atmosphere.

"Why does my head feel so heavy?" the mountain murmured, its voice thundering across the land.

"Wait, how am I alive?" it asked, as visible confusion filled the creature's eyes.

"Last I remembered… I was fighting off Lu Bu… we were losing the war… the princess had to escape… then a sword pierced through my back… was I betrayed?"

The mountain did not get a chance to think much longer before it heard a strange 'ting' noise in its head, and letters appeared in its vision.

New Notification: 'Reincarnated as a Mountain' system is online!

"What?" the mountain asked, shock and confusion filling its mind. "Reincarnation? Mountain? What's going on?"

The mountain creature tried to get up, but it did not notice at all that a relatively tiny golden door had appeared in the air behind it. When it tried to move, a part of its body hit the golden door, and the massive creature disappeared.

All was peaceful at the Midnight Inn, which was the norm. Anakin Indiana McClane found it hard to relax completely after the chaos that the Inn had encountered last time. But, in his humble opinion, the Innkeeper was very clear about his displeasure by ripping the universe itself to attack every bad guy and their mother, not to mention damning the souls of the attackers to endless soul torture.

Now, Anakin wasn't a man who condones violence, no sir. But it made him feel somewhat special that the hotel owner would go as far as creating a mini-hell in the form of a hearth to dissuade anyone from attacking again. Honestly, Anakin even considered asking the man for an autograph.

Unfortunately, Anakin had been much too busy to waste time lately. The strange grandpa who visits him in his dreams had been very unhappy that Anakin hadn't been cultivating his special darkness affinity, so to appease the old man, he had been dutifully cultivating in the Meditation rooms.

As if that wasn't enough, his new scam- eh, his new business of taking advantage of Noman's ability to detect lies, had made him very popular. It wasn't anything official, but many women secretly brought their boyfriends to him without letting on what they were doing to test if the boys truly loved them. At first, Noman felt hesitant to use his ability like this, but all it took was the attention of one heartbroken girl to change Nomans mind. Teenagers really were easy to get along with.

Of course, he had found bigger clients too. Currently, opposite to Anakin sat his latest client, Souta. Their discussion had been conducted in the Chamber of Secrets, so he did not remember Soua's secret, but he knew for a fact that Souta needed someone to die. To be specific, a Mr. Suzuki had to die.

Now such a horrible, nefarious and insidious task was completely outside of Anakin's domain, for he had never killed a pet goldfish let alone a human, which is why opposite to him also sat Larry. They were just having a conversation about how Suzuki had been hired to kill Larry. What Larry did with that information was completely and totally up to him, as Anakin had in no way exaggerated Suzuki's motivations and dedication to completing the task.

Yes, it was a perfectly normal, calm and peaceful day within which Anakin was just having a normal conversation, with no otherwise strange occurrences at all. The wind was blowing, the birds were singing, the sun was shining- eh?

One moment, the group of Earthlings had been sitting out in the garden, sipping some pi?a coladas, the next, a massive shadow had appeared all around them. The change was too sudden for it to be a cloud, and the size of the shadow covered not only them, but a massive area!

The trio looked up to see… a massive spaceship! The metallic structure extended for hundreds of miles, yet it floated effortlessly in the air. In fact, the flying city above the village almost bumped into the massive ship, but quickly adjusted its path to dodge it.

Up in the air, the entity known as Abroar which had been relying on the spaceship to keep its body alive had finally arrived at the Inn. It needed to complete some final tasks before it made the transition to existing as a spirit.

Though Abroar was stuck inside the ship, it had access to all of the ship's sensors, and so could sense the entirety of the Inn. In fact, even the formation surrounding the greenhouse could not deter its vision, revealing everything to it.

At a glance, Abroar felt quite disappointed. The Inn was too small, and it detected few, if any, beings of considerable strength. But then, it began to notice a few minor details. Due to the realm it used to have, as well as the extremely advanced technology that made up its ship, its knowledge was far beyond ordinary cultivators. It immediately noticed multiple sources of divine energy, as well as the numerous signatures of extremely potent bloodlines, not to mention the destiny shield.

Abroar let out a mental sigh. To be honest, it did not matter whether this place was impressive or not, it was the only choice it had left. It had long noticed the small hologram of its original species that appeared in the ship's bridge, ready to provide information once Abroar was ready to interact.

The being strengthened its resolve and was about to ask the hologram about completing a few final requests before it took advantage of the Beyond the Grave function of the Inn, when its sensors detected a new being which had teleported near it.

Compared to the ship, the new being was small. That did not change the fact that the Mountain-man was over 20 miles tall. While the ship was technically longer than the Mountain-man, it was horizontal, and its length was parallel to the ground. The Mountain-man, instead, was standing vertically, and so its head went far beyond anything else in the Inn.

As if that sight was not enough, the Mountain-man had teleported while moving. It was already not used to its massive body, and the ground moving from right under its feet caused the creature to trip terribly, ultimately landing on the ship!

Anakin repeatedly rubbed his eyes and he tried to clear his vision, but no matter what he did, the image did not change.

"Guys, I think I had too much Saturn cake," Anakin said lightly. "I must be hallucinating or something. I swear I can see a giant man made out of rocks on a space- no, a giant rock man on a hoverboard that looks like a spaceship. My compliments to the chef who baked that cake."

"It's not the cake," said Larry, whose eyes were gleaming! He absorbed precious metals to grow stronger, and the 'hoverboard' in the air felt more precious to him than anything he had ever felt in his entire life!

Occasionally missing content, please report errors in time.

The entire Inn, staff and guests included, came to a standstill as they watched the magnificent sight. Even calling it a scene out of a movie would be inaccurate, for even movies hardly ever depicted something as bizarre as what they were seeing.

But while many were mesmerized, some were silently preparing to escape. They had no idea what this was, and the memory of the recent attack was too fresh.

Regardless, no matter who it was, everyone in the Inn was frozen still as this was a scene they wanted to remember.

Abroar himself was stunned. He did not know what to do or how to respond. Were he in his prime, he would have squatted the Mountain-man on top of him into mountain-paste! But, not only was he at the Inn, where he didn't know if responding violently would affect his request for the Beyond the Grave service, he honestly barely had any strength.

The ship itself had attack functions as well, but 99% of its energy was diverted towards keeping Abroar alive, and the remaining 1% was focused towards keeping the ship running. There was literally nothing he could do, he was literally helpless.

But the situation did not stay like that for long.

"My apologies," the Mountain-man said awkwardly. It was as if the being was not used to using its mouth, which it was not. In fact, this was literally the first time it was using this body and it had no idea how to move at all. When it tried to move an arm, its leg moved, and when it tried to move its leg, its hips thrust forward.

Eventually, the Mountain-man fell off the ship but, before it could crush anyone, Qawain appeared below it and froze it in the air. The workers were much more vigilant now, so even if the Security room did not spot an issue, they themselves were always on the lookout for a problematic situation.

"Do you need any help?" he asked. He did not detect that the giant rock man was trying to hurt anyone, but that it was completely helpless.

"I… I…" the creature did not know how to respond. Everything was happening too quickly and suddenly. It had not had time to wrap its head around its last memories of being at war, let alone even begin to understand what kind of body it had. As if that wasn't enough, the so-called 'system' kept giving it notifications. It was too much!

"Relax, calm down buddy, it's alright," said Qawain in a soothing voice as he moved the mountain to a portion of the Inn with no people and set him down. In close to 50 years, Qawain and Anita were going to be parents, so they had been nurturing their paternal instincts. Watching the massive, helpless sentient rock kicked Qawain into father mode, and he began to soothe it, not only with his voice, but by using his spirit to alleviate the stress it was suffering from.

"Calm down," he repeated over and over, his voice tinged with a sedative technique, until finally the Mountain-man calmed down.

"You're at the Midnight Inn," Qawain informed, his tiny body floating in front of the massive face. "This is a safe place where no one will hurt you. It's an Inn that caters to guests from all over the universe, so you're welcome here."

The Mountain-man did not entirely understand Qawain's words, for it had no concept of what the universe was. In its previous life, it had lived in a massive country, with no cultivation and civilization equivalent to earth's middle-ages. Everything that was happening was… truly too insane for it to comprehend.

In the sky, Abroar finally calmed down when it understood the situation. Much life itself, the living mountain was a guest. For some odd reason, he found that thought strangely relaxing.

He diverted his attention back to his personal hologram. He didn't have much time, it was best to be as quick as possible.

"I have with me a member of my race. Can I pay for his stay on his behalf?" Abroar asked through a speaker.

"Yes, if the guest is willing, you can pay for his stay," the hologram answered simply.

Abroar had to be very selective with how much he paid, after all, the requirement for Beyond the Grave was to submit to the Inn all his wealth.

"The little one is asleep in a chamber inside the ship. If possible, could I get some help moving him out?"

"It should not be a problem," the hologram answered, and forwarded the request to Mary. Considering the potential danger of the ship, Mary could only ask Anita to go and help move the child, as Qawain was busy.

Abroar was quite relieved when she saw how careful she was being with the sleeping child, and let out a defeated sigh as it prepared to give up all its wealth. Little did it know, this was literally the first babu Anita was handling since she got pregnant. Much like her husband, her paternal instincts had kicked in, and the lich looked at the 40 feet large gray creature with nothing but endearment.

'Does this make me… a mother?' she asked herself, as she carried the creature down, uncaring about the difference in race. After all, she herself had once been human, and had on her own changed into a lich. So then why should she care if her first child was of another race as well?

Up above, in the sky, Abroar closed its weary eyes and whispered, "take it all."

As if understanding his meaning, a storm of spirit energy gathered above him and began rushing into what remained of his broken body.

Immediately he knew his body was disappearing because after an unimaginably long time, he could no longer feel pain. From across the Origin realm, his hidden stashes of wealth began disappearing, slowly turning into MP. But, oddly enough, even after Abroar's body completely disappeared, the spaceship remained, hovering in the sky.

Back in his sleeping pod, the comatose Lex received one more notification.