"What do you have in mind?" Gerard asked, his expression turning a little more serious. In matters regarding security he took nothing lightly, and this matter which involved them taking an initiative to propose a change in the way things operate was especially one that required his full attention.
"If I'm being completely candid, then if it were completely up to me, all rule breakers would receive the capital punishment!" Luthor said, his eyes narrowed. "But no matter what, we must not let the Inn's reputation be tarnished. As such, different levels of transgressions must have different levels of punishment.
"In that case, if we do things my way, the lightest transgression for a first timer will result in a one year ban from entering the Inn, while a repeat offender will get permanently banned. We can also suspend any tasks they're performing or requesting in the Guild room. Furthermore, depending on how serious the issue is, the punishment can be even more serious.
"According to what I know, some marauder's attacked the Inn some time ago, and are still being held at the Inn as prisoners."
"Yes, that is the case," replied Gerard. He took care of the prisoners' security and nutritional requirements, which is why he was one of the few people still aware of the prisoners. The rest seemed to have forgotten about them.
"They were pillagers who attacked the Inn. A lot of them were captured instead of just killed. The Innkeeper did not feel like executing them, so they have been kept hidden at the Inn so far."
"Excellent, so following that train of thought, we'll also need to develop a dungeon, or a prison. Guests who break very serious rules can be put in prison or punished otherwise. Of course, for matters related to this we will have to get the Innkeepers permission, but we should prepare a full-fledged proposal before we present it to him.
"Moreover, I've noticed that we have many strong cultivators, but most of them are at a low level. We should prepare a thorough recruitment plan and present it before the Innkeeper. Some of the guests are genuinely talented and we should utilize them to the best of our abilities.
"At the same time, I've noticed that we have many workers, and all of them are treated very well, but very few have additional benefits which has caused everyone to become complacent. I think we should design a promotion system to motivate employees to work harder…"
The evil gleam in Luthor's eyes began to shine even brighter. He had a very calculative and mathematical mind, and the Inn, as impeccable as it was, was full of inefficiencies. Of course, that was not the Innkeeper's fault, but a result of the workers, who he found lacking.
The Innkeeper had trusted him, and Luthor would not disappoint him. That, he would make sure of.
*****
Lex had dismissed Luthor because he wasn't expecting to see any more guests and wanted to explore the Inn he had been away from for so long, but it was not meant to be.
A number of Inn employees applied to meet with the Innkeeper, for they had many things to report. Although Mary had kept him abreast of all matters that required his attention, that was only on the large scale of things. The minor details relating to the Inn were many things he had overlooked as a result of his absence.
Well, he could not blame anyone, nor was his work getting any less by avoiding it. He began meeting everyone one at a time. The first worker he met was the Sovereign Galactic turtle, who had requested his presence at the greenhouse.
In fact, it should no longer be called the greenhouse but a farm due to its massive size and formidable output.
Fields of vegetables were planted over the sloping hills of the Midnight Inn, with several orchards nearby as well. The formation that was supposed to protect the greenhouse had undergone many upgrades, both in size and function. Since it was only designed to confuse any who entered, and prevent them from delving inside too deeply, the upgrades were not costly. Or at least, not too costly at only 700 million MP!
It had resulted in the greenhouse staying safe so far, though now Lex was considering adding fruit picking as an activity for guests to indulge in.
A random thought occurred to him, which was that he would probably get some cool upgrades if he got his hands on some kind of farming system. After all, any aid his own system gave him in terms of maintaining the 'greenhouse' was very limited.
"How have you been?" Lex asked as he appeared in front of the massive turtle that had buried its shell in the soil. Lex had no idea what it was doing, nor did he want to ask.
"There has been a small, teeny tiny accident," the turtle said, slowly. "Yes, just a small teeny tiny accident. Oh dear, why does no one ever listen to me?"
"What was the accident?" Lex asked, suddenly becoming serious. It was the first time he heard the turtle lose control of a situation.
"Well, a guest paid me a handsome commission to plant a sapling and help it grow up quickly at the Inn. Since the conditions for the sapling to grow were too difficult to find normally, I accepted. At first, all was well. Then the sapling grew a consciousness. Then it fused with the Delinquent Viper Vine hidden underneath the Inns soil, and took control of the vines."
Lex was extremely alarmed at the news, as the Delinquent Vines spread as far as the Inn extended, and were a very important part of the Inn's security system. They were what restrained any trouble makers before guards or security could reach them. If someone hijacked the Inns security… that would be problematic.
"Show me," said Lex gravely.
The turtle, after considering for a moment, rolled over. The soil that covered it was ripped from the ground, falling everywhere but leaving a hole in the center where the turtle had been.
There, in the ground, was a small, but very familiar plant.
"Igishima?" Lex said, suddenly startled. He remembered the sentient plant well, for it had given him quite the shock back when he saw it the first time during the Midnight Games. But it could not be Igishima, for he remembered receiving a notification saying that it had died, and it's MP balance had been sent to its inheritor.
Yet the plant looked too similar for it to be a coincidence.
"The name is McDonald," said the small sapling, "Young McDonald."
"Hello Young," said Lex with a hint of amusement when he realized that… this plant was actually an employee as well! But unlike the turtle, which had hired itself as an employee, this time the system claimed McDonald as having been born only due to the unique environment it provided, and so accepted it as a part of the system in the form of an employee.
"I have been told that you've taken over the Vines underneath the Inn. What are your intentions, little sapling?"
The few green leaves on the sapling changed color, as if blushing out of embarrassment.
"I didn't mean to do it, promise. It just... kind of happened."
"Well I hope you can continue to use them to protect the Inn, since you've taken control away from everyone else."
"I don't know how…" said the sapling, its voice reduced to a squeak.
"The turtle will teach you," said Lex, before turning to give the turtle a silent look. This was the first time he had lost control of the situation, and Lex kind of found it amusing. He also did not forget the little scamper had been accepting MP payments privately. It seemed the turtle was entering its mischievous age.
"Let me know if there's anything else," said Lex one last time, before teleporting away to his next worker. He really had a lot of ground to cover, and a lot of work to do. But, in a way, this was probably the best way to settle back into the flow of things.
He met with a few workers who were planning Harry's wedding and wanted Lex's permission with a few things. He met with workers who had, predictably, gained a bit of weight from eating too much of the Inn's extremely organic, extremely nutrient rich foods and he met with a few who were just making up fake excuses to be able to meet the prestigious Innkeeper.
He met with Gerards old racing crew, who had grown vastly in numbers now. Their fleet of golf carts could be seen all over the Inn, some even racing against the Midnight Train. He met with Little Blue, the flying whale, who had grown a lot more cheerful these past few months, and he met some of the animals who had been living at the Inn for so long that they began cultivating.
Everything was going well, then he met with Velma. She approached him pulling behind her several bags, all full of notebooks. She had reports to give, and they were extremely detailed. After all, she was the gossip queen of the Inn.
"It's been a while," said Lex as looked at Velma, doing his best to avoid looking at the several bags behind her. No matter what, Velma and Gerard held a special place in Lex's heart as the first workers he'd ever hired at the Inn. They had been with him through everything, and their help along the way was invaluable.
All things considered, it was not strange to say that Lex genuinely missed them dearly.
"It has been too long," she said, maintaining the professionalism in her voice, though Lex could clearly hear how emotional she felt.
"No need to be so formal between us. We can be considered old friends now."
Velma lightly trembled upon hearing the Innkeeper's words, and relaxed. Her smile widened as she gestured to the Innkeeper to have a seat. She had prepared some snacks and refreshments, for their meeting would not be a short one.
"I hope you had fun," Velma said, but then greed gleamed in her eyes as she got to matters she really cared about. "Moreover, if you encountered any touching love stories, I hope you'll share them with me."
Lex smiled weakly as he quickly went through his memories to judge if he could recall any love stories. The hedonistic King's harem of wives did not really paint him as a romantic, and everyone else was too focused on killing Kraven to have any decent love stories. At most, Dino and his wife could barely count.
"I visited a realm under siege by an alien race. I did not get the chance to see any decent romances."
"How unfortunate," she said in a saddened tone, though Lex wondered if her sympathy was towards the realm being invaded or the lack of romance.
Her morose mood lasted only a moment, though, as she quickly brightened up when she unzipped one of the bags and pulled out her first binder.
"The Inn, on the other hand, was rampant with love stories of all kinds. While I was learning about them, I managed to also learn a bunch of interesting things about various worlds. Take Earth for example..."
When she opened her binder, Lex was expecting to encounter a scrap book dedicated to the romances of his home planet, but what he saw instead was an extremely well documented, and completely unraveled list of secrets.
"Though the planet has come under the rule of Fernanda, beneath her there is a web of political intrigue, all secretly being manipulated by the many political prisoners kept on the planet."
From the binder she took out a few pages which had pictures of a few key political leaders on Earth, as well as pictures of the so-called political prisoners on the planet who were manipulating them from behind the scenes.
The more Lex heard, the more serious he became. It reached to the point where over 90% of all wars in the last 200 years were caused by the same three prisoners, who all happened to be friends.
In fact, Velma even managed to uncover the fact that one of the Nascent cultivators from Earth, the one fondly called as Fatty, was just a normal person who reached his current realm due to a random treasure he found. The truth regarding that matter, however, was that one of the prisoners lost a bet, and had to give a treasure from their personal collection to a mortal on earth as punishment.
As if that was not it, one group of prisoners had been influencing the Nascent cultivators, and another had been manipulating the so-called rebellion, treating it all as some kind of entertainment.
The more Lex heard, the more horrified and amazed he was. He was horrified because of the reach and influence of the prisoners was ridiculous, and amazed at the detail with which Velma had managed to gather information. He did not even have time to process the complexity and intricacy of the conspiracies she was uncovering in front of him, so much so that the next few hours flew by like the wind.
But, unfortunately, the few hours did not mean they went through all the binders, no. It took them so long only to cover one binder, which had been labeled Earth. None of the other binders had anything to do with Lex's home planet, which, frankly, once again left Lex astounded at Velma's capabilities.
When he asked her how she learned all this, she said this was just her collection of useless information she got while asking various guests about their love lives.
Lex's jaw dropped, only mentally of course. In actuality, his expression only changed slightly and showed genuine appreciation for her effort.
In the end, though, Lex concluded that he could not listen to her entire briefing today, and instead told her that he would listen to her elaborate on one of her binders each day.
Velma found that most satisfactory, as she had assumed that the Innkeeper would only take her binders away and read them at his own leisure. By allowing her to tell him about them each day, he not only ensured that they would meet often, he allowed Velma to fully show off her hard work.
But he was not done with the binder from Earth, no. He told Velma to create another binder, keeping only information pertaining to all the people secretly causing wars and strife throughout Earth. He would first give the new ruler of Earth, Fernanda, a chance to set things straight. If she could not, he would make all that information public.
Once he was done with Velma, countless other workers had requested meetings, including Gerard, so Lex was still not free. Between meetings, though, he still found some time to set down the Inheritance lounge and open it, as well as used his new Remote presence ability.
The Remote presence ability let him create a holographic projection of himself anywhere on system grounds. In this case, that included the tavern.
This was very important for Lex, for while he was doing the rounds at the Inn, some people had arrived at the tavern to deal with him. Namely, Joseph Noel had shown up, followed closely by Mario and Elio Ricci. They had been very discreet in their arrival, ensuring that no one knew they arrived together. Moreover, they had gone directly to a private room, not taking the risk of being spotted together.
After all, Mario Ricci was the Goatfather of Babylon while Joseph was the actual owner of the town. In theory, they should be at odd ends instead of so close. Lex, however, had long surmised that they must have a close relationship.
Now that Joseph knew that Lex was in close cooperation with the royal family of Hum nation, he had dropped his guard, somewhat, and had arrived with the intention of discussing business.
Lex did not feel like leaving the Inn any time soon, so the Remote projection ability came in handy very quickly. Moreover, with the increase in his cultivation, his mental faculties had improved so much that Lex had no issues controlling the projection while he did work of his own.
When Lex's projection entered the private room, Joseph and the rest stood up to greet him respectfully. It appeared as if everyone had been briefed on exactly the kind of behavior they had to display in front of Lex.
Lex himself was quite curious because he had not seen Elio during the town blackout. He wondered if Elio had survived in one of the shelters, or if he had been somewhere else entirely.
"Lex, I know that you have already met, but let me introduce you again. This is Mario, my on ground manager for many of my ventures."
"Mario," said Lex with a nod in acknowledgment.
"Lex," said Mario likewise with a nod.
"In the future, he will be conducting trade on my behalf. Moreover, although it was a little tough, I've managed to arrange 100 energy crystals for you, though they'll be delivered in batches of 10 over the next few weeks."
"That's excellent. I have the stuff you asked for as well, I'll have someone bring them in. Though, I managed to get a lot of material. The price naturally went over 100 crystals, so you can just choose which ones you want and which ones you don't."
Joseph was both surprised and very pleased to hear the news, and became even happier when Rick carried in a chest full of extremely rare treasures. In his heart he wondered why Lex had trouble locating energy crystals when he could find other treasures so easily, but he did not complain. There was no market for the materials he wanted, simply because they were never available. In comparison, while the energy crystals were extremely expensive, at least they could still be found.
Their meeting eventually concluded with both parties very happy. Lex, especially, was very happy since he planned on relying on Joseph to learn about the secrets of the Kraven. That's because he asked Mary if another incident like the previous one where he got trapped in another realm could happen again. She only replied that until they uncovered the anomaly that resulted in Lex being sent there in the first place, they could take no precautions against it.
Lex did not dismiss his projection after he was done with Joseph and Mario. Instead, he went to Aegis, who had been sitting at the tavern, once again conversing with Roland.
Lex was slightly curious about what the duo talked about, but not enough to eavesdrop. He only signaled Aegis to meet him in the private room so they could talk.
𝓵𝙞𝓫𝒓𝙚𝓪𝓭.𝒄𝓸𝓶
The crown prince responded immediately, leaving Roland with only a plate of fries to keep him company for the moment.
When he entered the room, Lex did not waste any time and presented him with two keys, one platinum and one gold.
Originally, Lex considered not giving Aegis with a key of his own unless he got Zagan to use the platinum one, but he decided not to be so restrictive. Not only would this give Aegis a better impression, but it would also account for the fact that the crystal realm was now linked to the system, and golden doors could spontaneously appear anywhere.
Using them, Aegis could accidentally arrive at the Inn at any time, so he would rather provide him with a golden key first. If he wanted the platinum key, however, he would need to complete the task.
Of course, the chances that Aegis would encounter a golden door were too small, but Lex no longer trusted luck.
There was also a considerable drawback to providing him with the golden key, which is that considering his wealthy status, there wasn't much he could go from working at the Inn that he couldn't just buy himself. This made him consider the fact that he needed to improve his worker benefits. This was yet another thing he would add to his ever-growing list of things to do.
"This is a golden key, and can take you to the Midnight Inn. You can begin your search for greater opportunities from there as a guest whenever you want. But, if you want to join the Midnight Inn, you have to prove yourself by having Zagan use the platinum key."
Carefully, Aegis took the keys from Lex's hand, his expression extremely ominous. He did not think he'd get access to the Inn so easily.
But, at the same time, he did not even consider reneging on their deal and avoiding Zagan. Whether he joined the Inn or not, it would be best not to start their relationship with a bad experience.
"Feel free to use the golden key once before you try to find Zagan. It'll be good to know what you're fighting for."
Aegis caught his breath, as he was severely tempted to do just that even before Lex said so. Now that he had permission…
Before he could decide on what to do, Lex dismissed his projection, disappearing from in front of Aegis, scaring the hell out of him! It was not easy to get the drop on an immortal, but Lex kept doing it!
As for Lex himself, he was in a meeting with the planning division. They had proposed many changes and alterations to the existing setup of the Inn, including Main street which was originally where all the main attractions of the Inn used to be.
Now, with the addition of the party village, a majority of the crowd was attracted there while the Main street and the rest of the Inn became welcome places for the guests who were just visiting.
In fact, since the development of the party village, something remarkable happened that Lex had looked over for a very long time. When Earth won the cultural portion of the Midnight Games, they won the award to have their top performers summoned to the Inn to perform for free. In fact, they would actually get paid for their performances.
But as the Inn lacked proper venues to host such events, that aspect of their award was never triggered. Now, finally, various performers from all over Earth found themselves performing live in front of the universe.
If nothing else, it had kick-started Earth's economy, as well as cultivation. There were over 100 Nascent realm cultivators on the planet now, but almost all of them lived virtually permanently at the Inn due to the better environment.
Setting all that aside, Lex had been overlooking plans for renovations to Main street when he saw a proposal for the addition to a very gothic looking cathedral. He had long since understood that the workers in the planning division all had unique personalities, and their personalities were often reflected in their work.
He had no issue with the gothic nature of the cathedral at all, but simply wanted to avoid building religious buildings for he did not want to involve himself in matters of religion. Earth alone was chalk full of religions and religious zealots, let alone the rest of the universe. So this was one controversial entity with which he wanted a clear distance.
Yet the moment he selected the cathedral to remove it from the proposals, he triggered a hidden quest!
Hidden quest: Different guests require different environments to survive. Establish 5 unique environmental biomes to cater to different kinds of guests from all over the universe, including divine guests!
Quest progress: ? complete!
- Stable Terrestrial biome (low chaos)
- Aquatic biome
- Stable Fossorial biome (underground)
He had to pause, not only because of the unique way in which the biomes had been decided, but because of the fact that he could almost immediately complete this quest. This was because as soon as he built the cathedral, supposedly, he would gain another biome. It would be a biome that would allow divine beings to exist.
Basically, of his existing biomes, on land, in the water, and underground, all counted as unique biomes, but for whatever reason the open air did not count. Or maybe it was a part of the on land biome. So then, what else would he have to do to get another biome? After all, on top of Midnight mountain he had a snowy terrain, yet the change in weather was not counter as another biome.
He theorized that the environment was not drastically different enough to count. He would need to run a few experiments to find out.
Also, did he have guests who'd been living underground all this time? He had to look into that, for he would have to figure out how to serve them.
With a bunch of new tasks suddenly on his plate, Lex quickly concluded the meeting with the planning division by approving their changes to Main street and told them that they would have to reschedule the rest of their meeting.
At the same time, Main street started to change. The road in the middle became wider and the buildings, which had been closely packed together to resemble the urban style of New York, started to gain some distance between themselves.
Some of the buildings became taller and wider as well, but in the case of the Barbershop, Battle Ax and Gaming Den, they only grew slightly bigger without gaining any floors. Street lights sprouted from the ground, growing like plants and filling in the empty gaps on the road.
Benches, small and large, appeared on the edges of the sidewalk, right in view of the greenbelt which were full of flowers.
Statues appeared at intersections, all of the various workers from the Inn who had gained some repute. Underneath the statues were small planks with the names of each worker.
As much as the planning division wanted to rearrange Main street as well, Lex chose not to mess with the original layout. Maybe some of the larger attractions, such as the Avallon building, would be more appropriate on Main street, but he preferred the smaller shops run by his workers.
They were unique and irreplicable, which gave them character, and built the charm of the street.
He did, however, allow the addition of the gothic cathedral onto Main street, though he kept it near the end.
It was a massive building, seemingly carved out of a massive gray rock or mineral. Gargoyles and demons of other kinds stood as statues where even the smallest of space was available, in contrast to the angels and spirits depicted on the stained glass.
Internally, the cathedral was one big hall, and instead of rows of pews filling the hall, it was almost bare. The white marble floor was filled with the wildest pattern in gray and black, depicting only utter chaos. Right in the middle of the hall was a marble bowl of pure black color, placed upon a stone pedestal. Around it were four large curved sofas, almost forming a circle, though they were spaced out to leave room for entrance from all sides.
That was it. There was no center stage for sermons or worship, no idols or pictures of deities. Yet it was filled with a strangely unique aura that was both ominous and... resplendent. Lex knew that this was the so-called divine aura, which created an environment uniquely suited to host divine guests. Maybe.
He would look into it, and in fact, he had a great idea where to get all his information and new cultivation techniques from.
When he finally got free, he would go back to X-142 and visit the Infinity Emporium once again. His experience there had been good, and he recalled that the person told him that if Lex didn't mind waiting, he could place orders for items that weren't immediately available.
Currently, though, it was time to develop the next biome. Lex walked to the lazy river as he thought about what kind of new environment he wanted to build.
He dipped his hands in the water and ticked off one of the many things he'd had on his list for a long, LONG time. He added Magikarpet to the Inn finally!
He'd added many animals from Earth to the Inn, but next to none from the other planets. When he saw the big, red beautiful fish he knew he had to have them at the Inn! But the system could not create something out of nothing. He needed to provide the system with some DNA for the animals he wanted to summon, moreover they could have no cultivation whatsoever.
Moreover, if their bodies were too complicated or had some unique treasures in them they could not be replicated either.
Lex smiled as he felt one of the Magikarpet rub against his foot.
He was thinking that he had to create a drastically different environment for it to count as a biome. Currently, he was considering two such options.
One was a massive lava pool inside a volcano, and the other was an extremely cold cave that reached - 100 celsius. There would, of course, be formations in place to ensure the temperature does not interact with and escape to the rest of the Inn.
Normally, in circumstances like this, he would have flipped a coin. But since had completely lost all faith in luck, he was forced to make a decision on his own. So, as a compromise, he did something completely different.
Lex disappeared and reappeared near the edge of the boundary for the Inn, and with a flick of his hand, split the ground open. A ravine hundreds of feet deep, and a mile (1.6 kilometers) long was formed soundlessly. Spending a nominal 100,000 MP he put down a formation to ensure the temperatures inside and outside the formation wouldn't interfere with one another, before creating several lavafalls from the ground, deep into the ravine, slowly filling it up.
He could have filled it up with lava automatically, but he wanted to watch as it happened slowly. He intended to fill the ravine only three quarters before creating an endless loop. Lava would continuously fall down while the same amount of lava disappeared from the pool down below, causing its level to be constant.
Soon the temperature inside the formation began to rise rapidly and, a short while later, he heard the familiar ting of a completed quest.
Quest Complete! Existing biomes:
- Stable Terrestrial biome (low chaos)
- Aquatic biome
- Stable Fossorial biome (underground)
- Divine biome
- Lava pitt
The Host's reward is being calculated:
- Reward upgraded for completing quest in less than 1 hour
- Reward upgraded for having 1 extremely unique biome
- Reward Rank: B+
Reward 1: Fire Temple
Reward 2: New worker class unlocked!