Lex wanted to sell merchandise, but flashing banners and passing out flyers were too tacky. He also didn't want to be like a low budget tech company and sell T-shirts. No, whatever he sold had to have class, first and foremost. It also had to be exclusive.
He opened his panel and quickly designed the item he had in mind. Unlike the Midnight Games commemorative coin, which was made from a special material, the next item he designed was not special in its material. Instead, its look and feel were what Lex focused on as well as, oddly enough, its smell.
What Lex was designing was a suit. It was the same suit that all his guards wore and, more importantly, the one Little Blue wore. As much as Lex wanted to give the suit special protective abilities, that would become too expensive for him at the moment. He settled for the suit's ability to look flattering regardless of who wore it, feel great to wear and always smell amazing. It also came with a gold lapel pin with the initials MI that one could wear or take off. The price for the suit was 9000 MP! It was the single most expensive item he was selling at the moment, priced far more than even the Tier 4 zombie core that he once sold.
The suit did not have a functional purpose like the core, but Lex had no doubt that it would definitely sell. When people achieved a certain level of success, they spent more on luxury than other things. Lex made a quick mental note to hire a really good tailor. The one drawback to this was it was becoming relatively apparent that the Inn put a lot of emphasis on attire that originated on Earth. But Lex did not care. He was the Innkeeper. Who did he need to explain himself to?.
With that done, and an embarrassing 40,000 MP spent on preparing 100 of those suits, Lex was ready to proceed. Quickly making an appearance as Leo, he went towards the Guild room and added a commission for items that could nurture low level souls. This was necessary, as Mary let him know that, unlike his previous two procedures, there was nothing he could do to accelerate the stabilization process himself. The only option he had was to use medicine or natural treasures that nurtured the soul, both of which were rare and expensive. He could only hope someone would quickly respond to his commission.
Following that, he changed back to the Innkeeper and appeared in the coliseum, where hundreds of smaller, individual stages were set up on the main stage. When the event began, guests would be able to walk between the smaller stages and view them from up close or stay seated and watch projections of them. For those who were in their rooms or sitting elsewhere, they would be able to summon individual projections to view the several stages. They would be able to flick through the different stages like channels on a TV in the pre-streaming era.
The event management panel would record live the genuine response from each audience member to each stage that they saw. For those whose presentation comprised a play or performance, the Inn would automatically record it and play it back for anyone who wanted to view it. This would avoid having them constantly perform.
Something interesting Lex noticed was that many people from Earth who were setting up their stages actually did not know where they were, or the significance of what they were doing. They had just been given massive financial incentives by their superiors and thought they were performing at a special event. Lex wondered what they thought about arriving here by the use of the key, but it seemed some sort of explanation must have been given to them prior, as they just casually accepted it.
Just as the center stage was filling up, so were the seats. Most of the viewers were human, even those were mostly from Earth. A few of the guests were from Vegus Minima, and even those were mostly soldiers. The only civilians from Vegus Minima seemed to be a small group brought by Chen and Lily. The number of Beasts was in double digits. It seemed that such an event did not really appeal to Beasts. For future reference, he would have to remember that.
What did make him happy was that many of his guests were enjoying a Saturn cake, and the smell of it was enticing the other guests nearby. The environment was jolly and festive, and all the guests were behaving. That's what he liked to see.
At 12 pm Lex made an Inn wide announcement that the opening ceremony will begin in one hour, prompting all the bigwigs to show up. The representatives of the five families sat together, while Ragnar and his entourage sat in another corner. Worth noticing was that only two Devils remained, probably the ones who would be managing the stalls, and the rest had disappeared somewhere. Of the Beasts, Golden Hair and Greens Haven sat side by side.
As the time neared for the opening ceremony, Lex once again felt himself getting nervous. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths. Entering the state of 'flow' was not easy, and not something he could control. To be exact, he did not even know what that state was or why it drained him so much. Even Mary was unclear about it, though to be fair her knowledge was limited by the Inns authority level.
As much as he wanted to re-enter that state, he was unable to. So, when it was finally 1 pm, he appeared in the air in front of the massive crowd with some nervousness in his heart. He was unable to calm himself down, but he continuously brainwashed himself by saying that he was completely calm.
"Welcome," he said with a loud and forceful voice, hushing the various crowds around the Inn. "Welcome to the Midnight Games! Some of you may already know about them, and some of you may not, so I will simply say this. The Midnight Games are to promote friendship and camaraderie between different worlds, and to introduce you to new possibilities. By understanding and experiencing each other's cultures, you may develop bonds that you carry with you throughout your lives. I won't say much, long speeches are not really my style. I hereby announce that the Midnight Games now begin!"
He clapped his hands loudly as he concluded, and as if on cue, two streams of fireworks spread into the sky and exploded in a spectacular display of colors. His 'speech' was exactly one minute long and as soon as it ended, various things started happening at once.
Invisible walls were constructed around the individual stages, so that the performers would not be interrupted by any heckling – only positive sounds would be let through, such as clapping and applauds, and even those in moderate amounts so as to not disturb them. On the stages, the air itself seemed to become fresher. All the performers felt invigorated and felt as if they could go all day if they needed to.
From silence the Inn slowly went to the steady buzz that accompanied any festival.
In total, there were 3427 stages, of which 3000 came from Earth. Although Lex did not want to jump the gun, it was safe to say that Earth had a great advantage in this portion. Around 70 of the stages were from various Beasts, and the rest were all soldiers.
Lex himself was a little curious about the various displays, but first he had to ensure that everything was progressing smoothly.
At opposite ends of the main stage were two recruitment stalls, one for the empire and one for the Devils. What they hoped to achieve was beyond Lex but a part of him had really been concerned about facilitating leading Devils back to Earth. Fortunately, he overheard Brandon saying that Earth was under some kind of protection and it would be impossible for anyone to find the location of Earth, even if someone was tricked into taking back a transmitter or locator of some sort. Nibiru most likely did not have such protection but the sloth did not seem to be worried.
After spending a dozen minutes to see if any problems arose, Lex finally breathed a sigh of relief when nothing happened. Finally he turned his attention to the various stages and started admiring them. Internally he was extremely nervous, hoping that the performances were a success. It was not only the incentive of the quest that motivated Lex – he did not want the Inns first major event to end up in failure.
He walked to the first stage and noticed acrobats swinging around using tight ropes. At first he thought this was circus, until he noticed the performers were all at Qi training realm. In that case, there had to be more to it, right?
This particular stage was fifty feet wide and thirty feet long. There were two individual tight ropes going from end to end on either side that some of the acrobats were walking atop. Several ropes hung from the ceiling as well that the rest of the acrobats used to swing from side to side.
Synchronously acrobats from the left and right swung towards the center at the same time. Hey let go of the ropes and did a few flips in the air before latching onto the rope that the other had just used with their feet.
Lex himself had never been to a circus, but had seen enough of them on the television. Their performance was very impressive and the timing of it was immaculate, especially when you considered there was no safety net below. Yet somehow, Lex had expected a little more when he noticed they were cultivators.
To be fair, their performance had just begun. They were likely warming up the crowd before. But Lex did not want to wait as there were many other stages as well. He would watch a replay of this later to see if they did anything more interesting..
Driven by curiosity, Lex skipped all the human stages and went to a Beast one. This particular stage was not raised like the rest, but was instead lowered so that the viewers would have a top-down view. A layer of sand covered the stage, and various snakes slithered through it. At first, Lex did not understand what they were meant to be doing. He observed each snake individually and focused on it as it went from slithering on the surface to somewhere below it.
The confusion disappeared, however, when he noticed that his focus should not be on the snakes but on the sand. Influenced by dozens of snakes moving in calculated coordination, the sand pulsed, as if a beating heart lay right under it. Dunes rose and fell quickly in the sand, making it feel as if Lex was watching an accelerated view of a changing dessert. Slowly, he became aware of patterns in the rise and fall of the sand, but to view it he had to stop focusing on the sand, and somehow focus on the whole.
This was a little difficult for humans, as the human eye was designed to be attracted to and focus on certain points. To forcefully stop yourself from focusing on a certain point and somehow taking in the whole was a bit of a challenge, and something most others would miss out on unless they were actively trying to do so.
Lex had an easy out in this, as he could rely on his awareness of the entire Inn to view this stage as a whole, rather than focusing on it with his eyes. But the moment he did so was when Lex realized just how much he was actually missing and was momentarily stunned. The movement of the sand had a strange kind of symmetry. The rise and fall of the dunes started forming patterns in the landscape and started to form some kind of art.
This was unlike the art humans created, but seemed like it was a creation of nature. It was so wholly random even while maintaining its previous pattern. It was like Lex was becoming aware of the course of how things progressed as nature intended. He was reminded of an old documentary he saw about repeating shapes and patterns in nature called fractals – where the shape or pattern would be repeated on various scales. Whether you focused in on a certain part, or focused out on the larger whole, the patterns would be present. The strange way of repeating the pattern is also what gave birth to the sense of symmetry.
But if all there was to it, Lex would not have been so overwhelmed. The depth of the snake's art was not just limited to the visage of it. When Lex used his awareness to view the stage, he also felt the vibrations in the sand. As the snakes moved through the different layers, the way the sand in between the layers rose and fell between them, the way they rubbed against other grains of sand and the way they pressed against the scales of the snakes produced a sensation Lex could only describe as music.
The oscillations weren't large enough to produce a sound greater than a gentle hum, one that could easily have been mistaken for wind, gently caressing the dunes into its desired shape like the paintbrush of an artist. Yet since Lex was aware of it in greater detail, he felt the same visual pattern emerge in each and every vibration. He saw the pattern in the way that each grain of sand fell, and in the way that each grain of sand rose.
The pattern that emerged was so much greater than the two-dimensional ones he had seen on paper, or a three-dimensional one a person might encounter in an art exhibit. The pattern existed in the top down view. It existed between the layers. It existed in the vibrations. It existed in the way the snakes moved. For a moment, Lex felt himself enter a trance, and felt a strange thought form right outside of his range of perception. It was like a word on the tip on his tongue – he knew what it was, but could not say it. The feeling was abstract, yet at the same time concrete.
"Not bad," Lex murmured, and decided to make a change to this stage. Currently, to prevent the performers, each stage prevented spiritual senses from coming through. Yet now, Lex changed it so that others would be able to use their spiritual senses only to view the stage. This would still prevent them from using it to pressure or communicate with the performers. Lex did not want others to disturb the snakes, yet at the same time he wanted them to enjoy it on a greater level as just simply viewing the sand would leave them missing out.
Indeed, if some simply focused on the snakes, and did not take in the whole, this was probably one of the least interesting exhibits. It was only snakes moving in the sand. He hoped others would also be able to pick up on the intricacies of this display.
What Lex did not realize was that all the people at the top of each respective world were paying a lot of attention to the Innkeepers' every move. His murmur may have been soft, but it was like an announcement on a loudspeaker for them. Especially when they felt the changes on this stage, they immediately used their spiritual senses to try and observe the peculiarity of this display. Whether any of them noticed it to the depth that Lex had, there was no way of knowing.
Impressed by what he had just witnessed, Lex went to the next Beast stage. This one only had two Beasts that Lex had never seen or recognized before. This Beast's hind legs were similar to that of a frog and allowed it to leap long distances and far into the air. Yet, unlike a frog, this Beast was around four feet in length and three feet in height. Its body was covered in violet hexagonal scales that reflected light in an unusual way. Lex had never encountered light that he had to describe as 'dark', but that was the only description he could think of at the moment.
Near the neck of the Beast, colorful feathers started emerging from within the scales and covered its forelegs and shoulder blades. It did not seem enough to allow the Beast to fly, but Lex imagined that the Beast could glide great distances. Yet as the stage provided was not big enough, the two Beasts were not gliding, but seemed to be doing a dance. They would leap towards one another from the ends of the stage and twirled effortlessly in the air.
Its shining scales, bright feathers and intricate moves enamored the viewers, making them completely oblivious to how lethal its moves exactly were.
As the Beasts approached one another they did not collide, but somersaulted in the air and clapped their hind legs against each others. Then, pushing against one another, they leaped higher into the air, all the while not forgetting to twirl. Once they reached the peak of the jump, and had no other platform to push against, they spread their forelegs and formed thin wings akin to the gliders used by humans. Moving counterclockwise, they glided down in the air, dancing in the air, near one another.
It was a spectacular show indeed, and Lex was very impressed by the visuals. It was unfortunate then that his wonder was completely deflated when he overheard another Beasts saying that they were displaying their mating ritual. He supposed exhibitionism transcended species and even worlds.
Lex quickly moved away from the stage before he saw something he would regret.
While Lex was strolling through the various stages, taking on the role of a tourist, he was completely unaware that seeds of chaos had been planted on the three planets, and were getting ready to sprout. On Earth, the rebel forces started rearranging their forces with a little more aggression. They only had a limited amount of time where they could get ready, and they had to take chances at getting caught to ensure they were ready when the second portion of the games started.
The combat portion of the games, when the various military forces the five families had taken with them would be committed, would be the beacon that lights the beginning of their revolution.
How their movements remained undetected by not only the forces of the families but the ICPA's, which were supposed to be independent organizations, was a total mystery. Even if they somehow managed to take control of the Earth before the return of the Nascants and their forces, how they would deal with the raw power of the five strongest humans on Earth was another mystery that yet had no answer.
While on Earth the chaos was only on the edge, hiding from the view of potential informants, on Nibiru there was no such case. Various territories had been brought to war by sudden invasions from their neighbors. The absence of the territory leader, such as Igishima, or of a large chunk of combatants, made the territories vulnerable.
In Red Nation, a lazy looking brown fox stood, or rather, lay groggily at the head of the invading forces. The real villain behind the scenes, the enigmatic head of the Iron Mountain, was as of yet absent. Though despite his own absence, his forces were definitely present..
Yet, even without Igishima present to command its Beasts, Red Nation, which was heavily reliant on human management, had an organized army which managed to hold off the invading forces.
Even the 13-year-old Tiffany, who had been awarded a strengthening fruit for her brave actions of delivering the letter, fought valiantly at the front lines. She had assumed her good friend Lex had died so that she could escape, which filled her with a sorrow and anger she had never felt before in her life. It was even worse than when Father Henry was captured, because at least she still knew he was alive.
It must be pointed out that eating a strengthening fruit did not technically count as cultivation, which is why it did not adhere to the general rule that humans cannot cultivate before the age of 15.
Even then, the rule that one cannot cultivate until they were 15 was not a hard and fast rule. Can you imagine someone waiting arduously for their fifteenth birthday, and then on their birthday they have to wait for some specific hour, such as 2 pm, because that was the exact hour they were born in? The moment the clock hit 2 pm, that person would start cultivating – only to fail miserably. Turns out they were born in a different time zone and needed to wait a few more hours till they were exactly 15.
No, the 15 year old age limit was more of a guideline, because that is the age by which a human body would have developed enough to withstand the arduous journey which was cultivation. Using special treatments to strengthen the body was one of the ways a person could get ready to cultivate in advance. It just so happened, eating strengthening fruits was one of those ways.
On Vegus Minima the Devils really started treating the planet if they were about to lose it, and sent all their zombie hordes to attack human settlements. They also deployed a special kind of demon known as Grubber worms, which specialized in recovery. The worms recovered not only the dead zombies, but the dead humans as well. What they intended with those bodies, besides the zombie cores, was as yet unknown.
Of the three planets, Vegus Minima was the most chaotic, yet somehow it was also the one dealing with the situation best. But the chaos had only just begun, and there were many opportunities to make mistakes.
Lex, the person who could be said to have indirectly caused all three situations, was completely unaware. He had seen various performances already, but there were many more left to go. Fortunately, the first part of the cultural event would go on all day, and the second part would only begin the next day.
At a certain point, Lex decided to depart, and come back in his Leo persona. He noticed quickly that any time he would approach a stage as the Innkeeper people would either move away or hush up, scared to offend him.
When Lex, or rather Leo, returned his attention was caught by a stage where he saw a single ballerina dancing. So far Lex had enjoyed the Beasts performances more, but maybe that was because those were novel sights, whereas he had some knowledge of Earth's culture already. Yet this ballerina was different.
Suffice to say, she was breathtakingly beautiful. Lex felt a little shallow, thinking that the first thing that caught his attention was her looks, especially when her performance was extraordinary. Yet at the same time, he would be a hypocrite if he did not admit that the best and most apt description of this woman could be summarized in a single word: beautiful.
Lex was not paying attention to her gorgeous phoenix eyes, her thin pink lips, her sleek jaw, her smooth cheeks or her flowing brown hair. No, he was mesmerized by her entire visage.
The various silk layers of her tutu flowed in the air like dancing birds as she twirled on a string so thin it was invisible to the naked eye. The gray see through cape she wore sparkled, leaving behind a trail of images of dancing butterflies, following her wherever she went.
Lex had never seen a ballet before and so did not have an understanding of what it was supposed to entail, but he was pretty sure that the enrapturing performance being put on by this one woman was only possible because of her ridiculously high cultivation of Peak Golden core!
Yes, unexpectedly, this woman was a soldier from Vegus Minima! Maybe Lex should not have been so surprised, as even soldiers were human, but he was just not expecting such a spectacular display from a soldier.
It took a while for Lex to wake from his trance. At this point, the ballerina was no longer simply dancing on an impossibly thin string. She was dancing vertically and horizontally as the strings went in every direction. At some points, she even danced upside down. This was an experience he would have missed had he been wearing the Host Attire as it would have prevented him from fully falling into a trance.
Finally, when Lex started feeling embarrassed from staring at the beautiful woman for too long, he decided to leave. Instead of heading towards another display, this time he walked towards the Empire's recruitment stall. He was very curious about what their intentions were, and wanted to experience it for himself. The Inn was not facilitating transport from one planet to another en masse yet, and Earth was determined to stay hidden, so what were their intentions?
What Lex did not know was that Ragnar had completely dropped all of his plans and intentions for Earth after discovering that it had some secret. He did not want to get involved, nor did he care enough to distract himself from his mission.
Still, when Lex arrived at the stall there was a small line. At the forefront was the smallest beast Lex had seen so far. Generally, once beasts started cultivating their size would grow. This one was roughly the size of a hamster. It had six legs, a scaly body and a face that looked like a dogs. What it was, Lex had no idea, but it was in the Golden core realm, so it definitely wasn't weak.
Lex was unable to hear the discussion between the Beast and the soldiers, a result of a small formation they set up on their own. Yet from the looks of it, they both were very satisfied by the result.
A few people were ahead of him in line, but Lex waited patiently. When it was finally his turn he spoke first, not giving them a chance.
"What kind of performance are you guys doing? How come your stage is different from the rest?"
"Ours is not a performance," one of the soldiers said amicably. "We're here representing the Jotun Empire, the largest human force in the universe. Our job here is to provide you with information not just about the universe, but about how to grow individually as well as bring growth to your own society. After all, the prosperity and growth of humans is in both of our interests."
"Oh, how so?" Lex asked, completely ready for the upcoming barrage of propaganda.