It took some time for Lex to stabalize his emotions this time around. His mind kept slowly inching him towards feeling guilt towards Little Blue for what had happened to it. He had to constantly stop himself from having wandering thoughts and focus back on meditating. Eventually, when he finally stabilized his mood and meditated. When he was done, he discovered that while it was harder for him to meditate this time around, the benefits had also been greater.
With his mood calmed down and his thoughts clear, he firmly came to the conclusion that he cannot take ownership of guilt on behalf of others, even if they were from the same race as him. He only had to focus on his own actions and act according to his own conscience. Even if others were saints he would get no credit, and if others were devils he would get no blame.
With that out of the way, Lex turned his attention back towards his event. He was feeling a little excited now, and it was only a couple days away from the arrival of all the leaders.
He looked at his MP and had around two million one hundred thousand. Originally he kept a budget of only 1 million MP for the event, but with the scope of what he was planning it was not enough. He had been waiting till the last moment to spend his MP as he did not want to rent stuff for too long, as each day would cost him more. But now it was time. First, he had to get the big stuff out of the way.
He had already decided on the awards for both portions of the event, so he spent 250,000MP on each. The amount might seem like a lot, but considering that the prize was for a whole planet, it was actually very cheap. In fact, it was one of the cheapest options available in the event management panel under rewards for an entire planet. Before the prize was actually awarded he would be able to upgrade them if he wanted, but Lex would only do that if he earned an enormous amount during the event itself. Right now it was difficult to judge the earning potential, so he would have to wait and see..
His next expense would be the extra staff for the event. This cost him only 50,000MP. In this package he would not get any actual new staff, but each individual guest would get a private hologram assistant when they arrived at the Inn during this period. The assistant would be able to answer all their questions regarding the Inn or the event, and if they needed any actual service they would be able to use the power of the System to automatically provide them.
His next two expenses were the ones that strained his budget the most, but were one's he absolutely could not do without. The first one was event security. He was expecting a lot of guests to attend the event, not only because he would tell the various leaders who were going to attend to bring as many guests as they wanted, but he was going to distribute silver keys throughout the three worlds that would automatically activate when the event started. Due to the massive number of guests, he was absolutely sure that someone would disturb the peace. Parents fought each other during their kids talent shows let alone crowds during such a large event that would be representing worlds. So Lex put a heavy hand on his heart and spent 450,000MP on security.
This would get him 200 peak Golden Core guards, 50 peak Nascent realm guards, and 10 guards at the peak of the realm above Nascent. Lex found it slightly humorous that he could hire guards at that cultivation level, but his authority with the Inn was not enough to view the name or learn details about that realm. Still, he felt that these guards should be adequate to maintain the crowds. He wasn't sure what the highest cultivators on the other planets were, but he was hoping none of them were on the same level as Bastet as he was sure she was much more powerful than even his strongest guards. Though, based on public knowledge of cultivators on Earth, his guards should be more than enough to handle any trouble. All the guards that appeared seemed to be wearing suits, fashioned after the style of his own Host Attire. Lex absolutely did not mind having tough but well dressed guards keeping the discipline.
In total, the two awards, the extra staff and the event security cost him exactly 1,000,000MP! He had already spent his entire original budget. Keep in mind, so far he had not purchased any event related items to be sold, any decorations, any consolatory prizes, not to mention keep an emergency fund for unforeseen expenses.
Still, he had 1,195,526 MP left. That should be more than enough to cover any unexpected expenses. Or so he originally thought. Although Mary did not give him any advice whatsoever, he would often tell her his plans while he was drafting them. The holographic assistant, unbeknownst to herself, had a terrible poker face and Lex would often find it easy to read her thoughts. So when he saw her hesitant and worried look after he finished his plans, he realized he was missing something. After a little trial and error, he came to a single conclusion: he was missing a private bodyguard. A private bodyguard was different from the event security. Their attention would be divided amongst the entire crowd all throughout the event. His private bodyguard would focus solely on defending himself.
Still, considering the great deal he got for 450,000 MP, it should not be a problem to get a good deal on a private bodyguard. He mentioned the amount he was planning on spending to Mary, but discovered that while she still did not say anything, her appearance did not get better. Lex frowned, thought about it a bit, and decided his own personal safety was worth splurging on. After all, if he were dead, what was the point of saving MP? So he resolutely decided to spend 500,000MP on a personal bodyguard! Just as he was about to make the expense, he noticed that Mary still looked worried.
That stopped him in his tracks. This was no longer a simple expense. The fact that such a large amount still did not assure her meant that he was clearly underestimating the strength of his incoming guests. But it did not make sense, all three planets were 1 Star, and should have had the same level of cultivators. He was not expecting cultivators on the level of Bastet because she clearly stated that she had been put on Earth as punishment by her father, meaning someone of her level should not have been on such a planet. She was an anomaly, not a norm. In that case 500,000 MP on a single bodyguard should have been overkill. But the fact that it wasn't meant that he was missing something.
Lex thought about it a little, and went back to everything he knew about each planet. It only took a little contemplation before he remembered something incredibly obvious that he had overlooked. When Blane, Chen and Lily had come last time he had spied on their conversations just a bit. He had learnt that the Jotun Empire was reclaiming their planets. Lex did not know the Jotun Empire, but clearly an Empire that could colonize other planets from completely different galaxies could not have been simple. Since he invited the leaders on Vegus Minima, they would have learnt about the Inn. It was completely possible for them to send some very powerful cultivators to investigate.
Realizing his mistake, Lex no longer hesitated. It hurt his heart to spend so much, but he ultimately decided to spend 1,000,000 MP on a body guard! That left him with only 195,526 MP but Lex could make it work..
*****
Somewhere on the opposite end of the universe, far beyond the reach of simple entities such as the Jotun Empire or Demons or Bastet and Falak, a cultivator was practicing a new attack skill. He needed to practice only once to learn an attacking skill to its highest level, but for all other types of skills he would require extra effort. Yet he did not mind, he firmly believed that offense was the strongest offense, and had learnt various attacks that ranged from physical to spiritual to even soul attacks. He could attack using elements, he could attack using dreams, beliefs, thoughts, and most recently he had learned to attack even with laws. He was blessed when it came to his combat capabilities. To be more exact, he had Mo's Blessing, a cultivation technique that could destroy the universe itself when he reached the highest level.
Yet what he was practicing right now was not an attack but a stealth technique, so it would require some time. Still, he did not mind as he had all the time in the universe.
"Host, you have a new Limited Edition Quest. You can choose to accept or reject it. You have five minutes to decide," he heard a feminine voice in his head.
"A Limited Edition Quest? I haven't encountered quests like that before, what's the difference?"
"Checking host authority…host authority insufficient to learn details…using special bloodline clearance…host authority partially accepted. A Limited Time Quest is one that comes with certain conditions. You have the option of accepting or rejecting without any consequence, however if you accept the Quest and fail you will be punished heavily. Yet if you succeed in the quest you will be rewarded correspondingly."
"What are the details of this quest?"
"You have to act as someone's bodyguard for a week. The special condition for this quest is that after you finish, all your memories of the duration of the quest will be erased by the system to protect the identity of the person you were protecting."
The man smiled in amusement.
"Interesting. Can I decide the reward for the quest? I want to change the quest reward to simply raise my authority as much as possible. The level of the system is too low, it cannot benefit me at my strength right now whatsoever."
"Negative, the reward is fixed…using special bloodline clearance…reward changed. If you accept the quest your authority will be raised by 10 levels, if you fail you will have 0.5 bad hair days while you are in public. Do you accept?"
The man's smile grew. The system was too amusing. If he didn't know better, he would say the system was in love with him.
"I accept."
CHAPTER TITLE: Mo's Blessing
Lex had to wait a few minutes before his bodyguard finally showed up. Emerging from a bright light, Lex saw a handsome man walk out. He had long, silky blonde hair and sunkissed skin. At first glance Lex assumed the bodyguard was human, but after looking at him for a while something started to feel off. While he had the appearance of a human, something about him told Lex that the being in front of him absolutely wasn't human. What Lex did not know was that he was being protected by the natural aura emitted by the bodyguard. If he could have felt the aura, he would have been even more assured of his guess.
"Welcome, you can call me the Innkeeper," Lex finally said.
While Lex had been observing the bodyguard, the bodyguard had similarly been observing the Innkeeper. He was unable to determine the Innkeeper's cultivation, and was surprised that the Innkeeper remained unaffected by his natural aura. This had nothing to do with cultivation – his natural aura suppressed others on a biological level so even those with a higher cultivation than himself would be affected. The only exception the bodyguard had seen was when he suppressed his own aura consciously to prevent it from affecting others.
Lex took this time while they observed one another to check the bodyguards status and was surprised by what he saw.
Name: *&%error%&*
Age: *&%error%&*
Sex: *&%error%&*
Cultivation Details: *&%error%&*.
Species: *&%error%&*
Midnight Inn Prestige Level: 1
His status was almost identical to John's, which was unusual. Lex had to figure out what exactly it was that caused these errors in his status, it didn't feel good being left out of the loop.
Finally the bodyguard nodded in acknowledgment, but did not say anything. After that the bodyguard disappeared, as if he had teleported somewhere but Lex knew he was still closeby. The system had informed him of the bodyguards duties. The bodyguard would protect him anytime anyone took action against Lex with malicious or hostile intent, but was under no obligation to listen to Lex's orders. To assure Lex, the system also told him that the bodyguard was incredibly powerful and had a strong incentive to protect Lex otherwise he would suffer a strong punishment for failure. If only Lex knew what that punishment was, he would not have been so assured.
With that out of the way, Lex returned to his preparations. A little something that irked him was that Marlo was still in the meditation room. Despite his inner voice telling him to save his MP at the moment, Lex spent 10,000 MP to upgrade the Meditation room so that whatever Marlo was trying to achieve would be done sooner.
Something worth nothing was that he eventually managed to contact Larry on Earth, but Larry was behaving strangely. Lex assumed it might have something to do with Marlo's disappearance so he really wanted the old geezer to return.
Lex started changing the appearance of the Inn a bit, putting up lights and adding sky lanterns in the sky so that the Inn would look more festive. He even spent 10 MP to buy a suit that could be worn by Little Blue. Despite his large size, the baby whale looked adorable in the new costume.
It was during this time that Lex started receiving some guests. Naturally it wasn't the guests invited for the event, but those that already had Golden keys. It was Chen and Lily, who arrived with several bags in tow. Literally they were covered from head to toe with bags, and as soon as they arrived at the Inn they collapsed, dropping the bags on the ground. Various cores, papers and other gadgets fell out of their bags but the duo quickly started cleaning up.
"Please, allow me," Lex said as he summoned Gerard and his subordinates who loaded all the stuff onto their golf carts. "That's quite a lot of luggage. Are you planning on having a longer trip?"
"Thank you for your assistance," said Lily, handing her bags to the staff. "These are not actually our luggage but some things for your guests from Earth that we met last time – Rorick and his party. We agreed to trade a few things."
"In that case, you should have them bring your stuff to the Guild room. You can explore it yourself as well in the meantime, I think it will serve you well."
"Thank you, we will," she said as she sat in the golf cart and allowed Gerard to take them away.
Lex was curious about why the duo came without Blane this time around as he had always accompanied Chen, but they weren't talking about it so spying on them would not change anything.
He took a backseat on things and watched as his staff handled the two guests, to see if there was something he would need to correct. Having a well trained staff that didn't always require his supervision was extremely important. And now that those two had arrived, he expected more guests would start arriving shortly as well.
He was correct, though he could not have guessed who his next guest was. It was Ayesha, one of the few guests that Lex had completely missed. She arrived at the Inn, looking a little forlorn. Lex was quite curious about this guest of his. Not only did she leave a surplus of 10,855 MP at the Inn, she and her counterpart were probably the ones who enjoyed the Inn the most.
Lex had watched a playback of them flying around the Inn, enjoying themselves. Such youthful spirit was something Lex greatly appreciated.
He checked her status once before approaching her.
Name: Ayesha Shehzad
Age: 15
Sex: Female
Cultivation Details: None
Species: Human
Midnight Inn Prestige Level: 1
"Welcome guest, to the Midnight Inn. I am the Innkeeper, owner of this humble establishment. I greatly regret missing your previous arrival, I hope you found our services to be adequate."
Ayesha was surprised to see the Innkeeper, and for a moment forgot about her worries. So this was the mystery man behind this mysterious dating spot.
"It's a pleasure to meet you," she replied politely. "Your services were excellent, and I was very happy that someone appreciates the universe's needs for romantic getaways."
Lex chuckled at Ayesha's strange focus. He had seen how Ayesha called the Inn a dating spot last time she came. It seemed the teenager's mind was completely focused on romance.
"Alas, even with such romantic places to visit, the heart is left cold and hollow without his warm embrace," Ayesha said as dramatically as she could manage. She even turned away from Lex, as if to hide tears in her eyes. The act would have been quite convincing if Ayesha hadn't caught sight of Little Blue, swimming slowly across the sky. The turtle was using Little Blue's tie as a leash to walk…swim, no fly? The turtle was using the leash to lead the Whale across the sky and anyone would be stuck in a daze at such a sight.
"That's Little Black, our gardener, and Little Blue, its pet. Why don't I introduce you," Lex said, leading the young girl towards the two animals wearing a smug smile.
Lex had forgotten that he was being silently observed by his bodyguard, who was taking everything in with a lot of interest. He did not understand what this place was, or what the Innkeepers purpose was. Was he just playing around?
But the Innkeeper did not seem like a simple person, there had to be a deeper meaning behind his actions. From what he could tell, he was running some kind of hotel. Maybe this was a kind of cultivation? Or maybe it was some kind of organization? But what was the goal? So far, he had only seen the Innkeeper interact with low leveled cultivators.
Admittedly, the bodyguard was surprised when he saw the Galactic Sovereign turtle, but it was still young and weak. It would be tens of thousands of years before the turtle had any kind of real strength.
"System, scan the Inn for anomalies," the bodyguard said in his mind.
"Sorry host, for the duration of the quest, to maintain the clients privacy, the systems scan capabilities have been sealed."
"Interesting," the bodyguard said once again. He scanned the Inn himself with his spiritual sense, but found nothing out of the ordinary except the Mystery Trial. For some reason, he felt a slight attraction to the Trial, but the attraction was so slight that it clearly meant it had no significant impact on his strength or cultivation.
Intrigued, the bodyguard continued to keep watch over his new client. The bodyguard was patient, and didn't mind waiting to learn more secrets. Afterall, since the quest would forcefully erase his memory that meant that at some point the bodyguard would be exposed to great secrets. He was very curious to see what those secrets were, and if they were worth having a half a bad hair day over.
Lex walked Ayesha to the turtle, entertained by her amazed gaze. The young girl had already forgotten that she was supposed to be sad – or maybe she was hiding it. Lex wondered if he would see her counterpart, the young man. The last time they came, the Inn was comparatively bare. This time the couple would have many more options for their date. Lex especially wanted them to row the small boat on the tiny lake he created. He did not know why, but Lex was looking forward to it.
"Little Black, I'd like to introduce you to a guest. This is Ayesha."
The turtle turned his head towards the little girl, then slowly brought its head down to her level to get a better look at her.
"Hello, little human. How are you today?"
"You can talk?" she gasped in surprise, and then looked at the flying whale with eager eyes. "Can he talk too?"
"Little Blue is shy," said the turtle, looking up at it like a proud parent. "But if you become friends with it, maybe he'll talk to you." The turtle lowered the whale's tie and offered it to her. "Would you like to try?".
Ayesha grabbed onto the tie instantly, and was about to speak when she was whisked off her feet by the whale. The turtle was too heavy for the whale to pull up, but the girl had no choice but to get pulled into the air. At first she let out a surprised scream, but that quickly turned into laughter as the whale pulled her around.
She yelled out to purchase another pair of Icarus' wings and a card appeared in her hand with a picture of the wings on it since her previous ones had been used up. She quickly equipped it and started flying around with the whale, challenging it. She flew in front of it and did a loopty loop, as if showing off. The whale, not to be outdone, started swirling its body as it swam through the air.
The pair flew in between the sky lanterns, using them as obstacles. Lex smiled as he watched them in the air. He immediately took a liking to Ayesha, she was a good kid.
Turning his attention back to the turtle he said, "Little Black, we'll be having a lot of guests coming soon. Make sure no one gets into the greenhouse, it would be a waste if someone ruined all those plants. Also, I'd like it if you could plant vines of Tiffany's treasure all around the Inn. They smell nice."
The turtle looked at him once before turning away, murmuring "silly, silly human" as it went.
Lex didn't mind. He knew the turtle would do as he said. The past few days the turtle and the gardener had done tremendous work, and Lex had gathered a large supply of spirit vegetables, ready to serve his guests. Naturally, anything they ordered that was spirit food would cost more than normal food but he never doubted that they would order it.
Only a short while later, Hera and Will entered the Inn along with her son, Jimmy. The young boy did not look too surprised to be appearing in a random new place, he was hiding behind his mother and holding her hand, focusing on staying close to her.
Lex's eyes lit up when he saw them, more specifically, when he saw Hera. He noticed the last time she came that she had a keen eye and sharp mind. She was helping Will in expanding his Rose Societies operations but Lex felt that her talent was being wasted. This was not a decision he intended to make quickly or lightly, but he kept an eye on her as a potential employee for later on. Eventually when the size of the Inn grew, he would need someone to help him manage certain portions of it. He had to observe how well she managed the Rose Society, and if she performed well it would help his decision.
"Welcome back," he said, approaching them. "I see you brought along a new guest today. I hope you enjoy yourself." Lex smiled, and handed the young boy a piece of chocolate. The chocolate was wrapped in a golden and silver wrapper with the initials MI on it. It was a little something he added to the Inn earlier, so that he could have the system leave chocolate on the guests pillow after the turndown service. The chocolate would automatically taste like whatever chocolate the guest preferred. There was no other benefit to it, but Lex liked the idea.
Jimmy hesitated, but when his mother encouraged him he took the chocolate and nodded at the Innkeeper as thanks.
Lex smiled at the shy boy, before turning his attention back to Hera and Will. "Congratulations are in order, I see you've restarted your cultivation journey," he said to Will. Looking at Will's status Lex could see that he had once again entered the Qi training stage.
"Thank you, I could not have done it without your help and guidance," the old man said sincerely. Only he knew how truly grateful he was to Lex for freeing him from the pain he'd been feeling for the better part of his life.
"It is my duty to help my guests the best I can. Speaking of which, I think you should visit our Guild room. I think you will find it very interesting. You can find it on the Main street."
"I definitely will. I would also like to rent a courtyard for a week. I intend on hosting a few guests here before the event begins."
"Of course, you are most welcome. Velma, please show Will to his courtyard and help him with anything else that he needs."
Velma appeared in the signature Midnight way, which was out of thin air, and led the trio towards the manor. The system naturally charged Will the 1400 MP cost and Lex was not bothered at all by the details of how the transaction took place. He had to say, that was one of his favourite parts about the system. Will and Hera immediately noticed that the environment was different this time around as not only did it look more festive as compared to its usual peaceful appearance, suited guards could be seen walking around in the distance. They were not sure how strong the guards were, but it was easily apparent that they were much stronger than Will's bodyguard Hugo. It seemed the Inn had undergone a lot of changes for the upcoming meeting. They were also more curious about the Guild room now – since a suggestion by the Innkeeper himself could not be simple.
The reason Lex had guided them towards the Guild room was because he knew they wanted to trade and so would find the features of the room helpful. More importantly, Lex would receive 1% of all transactions that occurred in the Guild room so he was completely shameless about promoting it to his guests.
It appeared as though some of his usual guests were arriving a little early and would wait here for the meeting, but Lex did not mind that at all.
A short while later, Alexander and Helen also entered the Inn. Lex was a little surprised to see him without his family, as he was expecting them to come. Perhaps they would join later.
"Welcome back," Lex said warmly, smiling at Helen. It must be said that he had gotten so used to her being at the Inn, the past few days almost felt strange with her gone.
"Thank you, it feels good to be back," she responded. Her response was not perfunctory either. After spending so much time here she had forgotten how dilute the spiritual energy and polluted the air on Earth was. She almost felt suffocated there.
"We'd like to rent a courtyard for the next couple of weeks," Helen said. Although in all technicality Alexander was the one who needed to rent a courtyard for his family, he had achieved Prestige level 3 with his previous transaction at the Gift shop. He felt it would be better if he got others to carry out the following transactions so everyone could raise their prestige level as the perks were very useful.
"Of course," Lex said, summoning one of the newer A.I. staff members to lead the duo. "By the way, you have guests waiting for you in the Guild room – the ones from Vegus Minima."
"They're earlier than we were expecting, I will go see them soon. By the way, my grandfather will be joining us later but he had a question he wanted me to ask. Instead of renting rooms, is it possible to buy a permanent room at the Inn?"
Lex was surprised by the question as he had never considered guests wanting to buy a permanent room, but he supposed the Morrison family's vision was naturally beyond that of ordinary guests. Before he could answer though, he heard the familiar sound of a system notification.
Hidden Quest Activated!