The Innkeeper

Chapter 1416  So expensive

Lex smiled softly as he read the reward. It was both simple, and yet not. It was a reward he did not need at the moment, but had a value far greater than what he needed, and the actions he took to get it. It was almost as if the system knew what he wanted, and so teased him with something of a much greater value, but one he couldn't use at the moment.

What was the point of having a million tonnes of gold if he could never sell it or use it anyway? Didn't that just make it an unnecessarily heavy paper weight?

Once, back in the Crystal realm, he had used the mere projection of the Innkeeper to nearly overturn the entire realm, slightly destabilise it and nearly cripple the realm by endangering the entire ruling class of the realm.

All of that had been done with a mere projection. Now, if the projection could solidify, then the power that the Innkeeper could display would be even greater - in theory. In practice, the Innkeeper had no real power. He just had a very powerful aura, and Lex wasn't entirely sure if even that was real.

Based on everything the system had shown him, Lex genuinely believed that it could just be faking the aura so well that no one could detect it so far.

Well, even if he couldn't use it now, it was good to know he could use it if he ever needed it. But his more urgent matter was that of Mary's projection, and then his Karma.

Lex opened up his system interface and looked at the options available to him. Just as he expected, he could now purchase an upgrade for Mary, providing her with a solid projection which could appear anywhere on Inn property, and could be seen by anyone.

The only catch was… its price was absurd. It was absurdly absurd. It was completely ridiculous.

The price of unlocking Mary's projection capability was 1000 MT!

A single MT was equal to one trillion MP! A thousand MT was a thousand trillion MP!

Suffice to say, this was currently outside of Lex's reach at the moment.

For a moment, Lex felt great reluctance. He was so close, yet so far. He was a single tap of a button away from unlocking Mary, yet the weight of that button was so great that he couldn't press it.

"Mary, why is unlocking your projection so expensive?" Lex could not help but ask. "Although the lousy system likes to rip me off, I have to admit that its prices are quite fair most of the time. But why is it suddenly so expensive to unlock your projection?"

"Three reasons," Mary said, appearing in front of him in a suit. Except, instead of looking formal, she looked like she was coming home from a long day of work. She wasn't wearing a tie and her top button was open. More importantly, her coat button was also open, and the sleeves of her coat had wrinkles as if she had been pulling the coat sleeves up.

"The first, least important reason is that I am not actually a part of the system, but forced myself into it. For the system to make changes to me, it needs to exert a lot of power and energy, since the process is highly indirect."

"That's the least important reason?" Lex asked. That sounded like a pretty solid reason to him.

"Yes. The second, slightly more important reason is that the system knows that you want it, so it automatically has to make it out of reach. The objective is not so hard that it's impossible, but completely outside of your current capabilities, thereby forcing you to put in more effort. You can probably guess on your own why that's important." Nôv(el)B\\jnn

"Yeah, I can," Lex muttered. Basically, the system just wanted entertainment. Entertainment could not be found if everything was easy. By pushing Lex and forcing him to enter dangerous situations, it could derive even more entertainment from his actions.

"The last, most important reason," Mary said, suddenly leaning forward, her expression turning solemn, "is that the current system will face a great strain if it wants to project even the mere remnant of my soul outside."

Mary did not elaborate, but the look she gave Lex was more than enough for him to draw a few assumptions. Lex was not entirely surprised, although the conclusion was troubling.

Lex could not more or less confirm that before Mary 'died' she was, at least, a Dao Lord. Sure, the system could mimic the aura of a Dao Lord, but interacting with a Dao Lord's soul, even if it was a mere remnant, should not be easy.

The reason that was troubling… was because Lex could not imagine what Mary and her system looked like when they were at their peak of power. A Celestial Dao Lord with a system on the level of the Midnight Inn, except it wasn't damaged at all and ran on full power, faced some kind of obstacle so great that they had been reduced to such an extent.

The universe was a dangerous place. Lex wondered if he was making the right decision going to the Expo and increasing the risks he was exposed to.

It was rare for him to doubt himself these days, but at the moment he could not help but do just that.

"Do you… think I should go to the Expo?" he could not help but ask.

Mary smiled, her solemn expression fading as if it was never there.

"You should trust your instincts and your own decision making. The universe is dangerous, but you're no pushover either. Not anymore."

Lex nodded, and then immediately began planning his next steps. 1000 MT was an immense amount, one that was entirely out of his reach at the moment. But… he had not even tapped into 1% of the Origin realms potential. The population of that realm was more than enough for him to make much more money than just that, let alone the Crystal realm.

Yet what Lex, despite the enormity of his awareness and consciousness, missed was that Mary did not immediately disappear. Instead, she seemed to look in a certain direction within the Inn.

Far away, on Main street, in the Gamer's Den, exactly in the direction Mary was looking, Wu Kong was sitting in a chair, wiping his tears as he watched the anime Z had recommended to him. He was watching an anime where the ultimate evil that threatened to destroy the world… were clothes! It was truly the epitome of story telling and fantasy.

Suddenly, he was distracted, and turned to look behind him. From across the Inn he saw that little projection girl from that superhero movie looking towards him. Wu Kong snorted, and turned back to his anime. He was not ashamed to shed tears.

Mary smiled, and disappeared. The entire exchange seemed to happen in Lex's blindspot, where he could not see or detect it, as if hidden by something. If he had witnessed it, he might have wondered how the monkey could see Mary even though she was not supposed to be visible to guests. Or maybe he wouldn't, since everything could simply be explained by the fact that the monkey was just too strong.

Elsewhere inside the Inn, in a small room that Lex had given to Mary as her own bedroom, not that she needed it, the projection reappeared.

The room was devoid of all furniture, and only held the few items Lex had given to Mary to help her rebuild her body. There were still too many things missing for her to begin rebuilding her body, such as a Phoenix feather. But Mary did not mind.

Instead, she closed her eyes, and allowed her body to descend into a dragon scale that Lex had given her, as if the scale absorbed her projection. The scale began to glow, as if it was filled with some unknown energy. Yet the strange thing was, even this, despite happening within the Midnight Inn, seemed to be outside of Lex's range of detection.

Slowly the days began to pass, and Lex focused on his most immediate concerns. The Midnight Games seemed to be going well - maybe as a result of the good luck he was supposed to be having. There were relatively few problems inside the Inn that required his attention.

Unfortunately, he wasn't able to find a sufficiently effective treasure to hide his Karma no matter what source he tried to get it from - including the Temple of Fasting.

Speaking of the Temple, Lex had been sending more and more Inn workers to the temple as the days went by, and over 50 workers had undergone their tribulations. In a statistic that would have shocked the entire human race, not a single one of his workers suffered any casualties.

Of course, some of them failed their tribulations and were gravely injured, requiring treatment, but none of them died. Of the ones that passed their tribulations, many were still meditating and getting used to their new realm.

In just a few more years, at this rate, Lex would have hundreds if not thousands of immortals working for him.