A million thoughts ran through Mary's mind as she concluded that someone was orchestrating an attack at the Inn, and after concluding that the Inn was in a weakened state, they had increased the severity of their attacks.
Even worse was the fact that they could not conclude how they were able to circumvent the system's maliciousness detector, or who exactly was even behind the attack. This was because everyone involved in breaking the system's rules or attracting the workers' attention seemed to have nothing in common, race included.
Was it some kind of mind control? If that was the case, they had to have been mind controlled before they even entered the Inn, for if someone attempted such a thing while being here the system would detect it. Yet the guests who were acting out had all been here for various lengths of time, some even for a few months already.
๐ก๐๐๐๐๐ช๐.๐๐ธ๐ถ
If that was the case, the schemer must have been planning things for a while now. In that case, why would they begin now? Was it coincidental, did they notice the slight difference in how Mary was giving out orders due to her mental stress, or did they know something about the Innkeepers actions or whereabouts?
These were all things that Mary could not make conclusions about. It wasn't as if she couldn't think of ways to react to the ongoing situation either, but she had no authority over the system so only Lex could effectively resolve this situation. But Lex was currently completely out of commission, and it was unknown how long it would take for him to recover. The only hope they had was to somehow come up with a way to wake him up. Otherwise, the situation would continue to get worse.
It had only been a few seconds, yet all three situations that occurred had already been resolved. The guest who was stabbed had been admitted into a Recovery Pod while the assailant was ganged up on by numerous guards from the security team, taking him down.
The leopard that had tried to kidnap the worker was... well, Mary would have preferred if it had been captured alive, but the security team was already extremely tense. Watching one of their own being attacked like that, well... let's just say not enough of the leopard was left even for fertilizer.
Ironically, right before its death, the leopard tried to use Beyond the Grave to give up its entire wealth and continue to live at the Inn as a spirit. Unfortunately, the moment it broke the rules, all services had been suspended for it.
The Midnight manor had been dealt with by Qawain. With its aura alone, it eradicated the smoke itself and crippled the person who set off the bomb! The security team rushed to the manor quickly to send everyone into Recovery pods. The fact that guests were getting hurt was already bad enough for the Inn's reputation, but if they allowed a guest to die... although in the grand scheme of things, it would still not hurt the Inn too much, it would seriously affect the Innkeeper, for he really cared about such things.
There was a momentary respite, but by now Mary knew that this was not the end of things. The only way to really deal with this matter would be to wake Lex up.
Her mind raced as she thought of ways to wake him up. For that, it was first important to understand what exactly happened to him. While Mary was merged with the system,and sometimes knew more than Lex about matters related to the system, it was only because the system itself shared such information with her. Without the system volunteering the information, she had no way of discovering things on her own. For example, she could not use the status panel that Lex often used.
If she did, she would have been able to view Lex's status to determine what his actual diagnosis was. Without it, however, she could only speculate based on what she knew.
Lex had fallen into a coma when he sent his consciousness clone away to the Henali assembly. Theoretically, Lex should not have been exhausted at all by the use of the clone since the energy required to keep the clone running was provided by the system, and by the ambient spiritual energy it absorbed.
The only part of Lex that was, in any way, tied to the clone was his consciousness. That should have made it so that Lex would remain safe no matter what happened to his clone. Even if it was destroyed, Lex would, at most, be slightly injured. This was because normally he would suffer from soul damage, but with his unique cultivation, it would bring him no real harm. He would heal from it eventually.
But whatever happened to him had affected him greatly. She had no way of knowing that it was not his soul that suffered damage, but that his spirit was drained so much beyond what he could tolerate, it ended up weakening his body and soul as well. His heartbeat slowed and his brain activity dropped, right up until he was barely a feather's touch away from death.
It was not actual harm he suffered, but that he was just really drained. One might think that a solution to this was just to pump him full of energy, and that would take care of everything. But that was not true, for not only did he need to regain energy, his body needed to digest it, and distribute it to all parts equally.
It was like saying an exhausted mortal should be fed 10,000 calories and that would rejuvenate him. Not only was that not accurate, for his body could only absorb so much food and energy at a given time, alongside which he needed rest to recover, but doing so would probably harm him as well.
Of course, the cultivation world was far from simple. There was no doubt that there were various forms of energy available, some so nourishing that Lex would be able to absorb and digest them immediately.
But for that to happen, Mary would have to first properly diagnose Lex, before making the appropriate arrangements. Unfortunately, even after spending so much time, she was unable to say what was wrong with Lex confidently. She did, however, think of a possible solution that might work. No, it would definitely work - after all, Lex's cultivation level was very low. That made it easy for him to get harmed, yes, but it also made it relatively easy to heal him.
She swept her mind through the Inn and, unfortunately, noticed 7 more issues that had cropped up in the time she was thinking. Unfortunately, they were getting worse. More and more guests were being harmed.
As dire as the situation was, she had to pull Gerard away from his duties, as he was the only one who could go to Lex at the moment.
Gerard, who had previously lost the appearance of an old man due to his evolved bloodline, had regained signs of age just in the past few days. As if the stress of knowing the Innkeeper was incapacitated was not enough, the Inn itself had been going through its darkest time. He was sure that if any of this happened at any other time, the Innkeeper would have solved it in an instant. But now that they had to take care of the Inn while the Innkeeper himself was not around, they were failing miserably.
It was Mary's oversight to leave him like this, for if she herself had not been so stressed she would have come up with a believable explanation for the Innkeepers condition. Still, the damage that had been done could be remedied later. For now, she had him return to his Recovery pod room.
Gerard trembled slightly as he looked, once again, at the sleeping Innkeeper. He was still dressed in his suit, as remarkable as ever, and seemed to be only sleeping. It was as if the lightest call of his name would rouse him from his slumber, but it was not meant to be.
Or at least, that's what Gerard thought originally. When he heard Mary's instructions he became confused, as that went contrary to what he had originally thought was happening. But...
Gerard reached out and tapped the glass surrounding the Recovery pod a couple of times, before saying, "Excuse me, Mr. World Seed Lotus, I hate to be a bother but there are a few important matters that require the Innkeeper's attention. But, unfortunately, the Innkeeper is taking a nap and I would hate to wake him up prematurely. Would it be possible for you to rejuvenate him, even if only for a short while? I'm sure the Innkeeper would be appreciative once he deals with his tasks."
Gerard held his breath after he finished speaking, waiting for something to happen. The room, however, remained completely silent.
The World Seed Lotus had undergone a subtle evolution. The evolution was not too drastic, as its species had not changed. It was still a World Seed Lotus, just that its minimum possible achievement had changed from a 5 star world to a 6 star world. It had gone up a level while still staying within the definition of World Seed Lotus.
Unfortunately for it, as a result of its upgrade, it would take it much longer to become a world now. Fortunately for it, it did not care. It had spent practically all its life on Lex's back in a semi-dormant state so that was really all it knew. Of course it had strong instincts, and helped Lex numerous times using its abilities, but that did not mean it had magically gained some other knowledge.
This worked heavily in Lex's favor, for the Lotus never realized that Lex was actually very weak. The Lotus never thought too deeply into it either. As far as it was concerned, other than the Sovereign turtle that had first awoken it, Lex was the closest person to it. Now that Lex had done it such a huge favor by giving it the crystal that allowed it to evolve, it felt even closer to him.
The question, then, would be why would it let Lex fall into a near death state if it felt so warmly about him? The answer was simple: it did not even realize anything was wrong. For anything unrelated to world building, or any other stuff where the Lotus' instincts would kick in, the Lotus knew nothing.
Suddenly, though, it was woken from its semi-dormant state. It was not Gerards smooth, velvety voice that woke it up. No, it was the energy strands the old man released into the Pod that went straight to Lex's back, rousing it.
When it heard Gerard's request, the Lotus felt ecstatic. The sheer warmth and affection it felt for Lex at the moment could not be described with simple words, and just the opportunity to do anything even remotely positive for Lex filled it with excitement.
But while it lacked knowledge about many things, and it was driven by strong emotions to help out Lex did not mean it would do things carelessly. The first thing the Lotus did was check the condition for Lex's body and see if it really did match what the old man had said.
The tattoo on Lex's back warmed up ever so slightly, and a stream of energy entered Lex's body, traveling along his blood stream. There did not seem to be any injuries, but the heartbeat was extremely slow and the body seemedโฆ strained, like a fruit that had been squeezed of all its juice.
Any and all activity had been slowed down to the utmost, even the passive flow of spiritual energy within the body.
The Lotus could not conceive that the Innkeeper had suffered harm, so it came up with its own explanation for the situation.
Once before the Innkeeper had gone through a process during which Lex was remaking his body. Back then the Lotus had provided some help by helping the Innkeeper amalgamate all the precious materials on hand. Now it seemed to the Lotus that the Innkeeper had set a Foundation in its body, but was not satisfied by how sturdy it was and so weakened it thoroughly without actually destroying it, so that he could slowly strengthen the Foundation to the utmost.
In this case, it made sense that others might assume that the Innkeeper was napping. After all, how could they begin to understand the intricacies of the Innkeepers' plans?
The matter now was that the Innkeeper was required but it would take him a while to strengthen his Foundation at his own pace. In that case, the Lotus could speed things up.
After all, when he grew up the Lotus would set the Foundation for an entire planet. Compared to that, a small human body was nothing.
๐ก๐๐ซ๐ป๐ฎ๐๐.๐ฌ๐๐ข
From within the tattoo an extremely miniscule stream of blue liquid was released and fused with Lex's blood. Through his blood the blue liquid circulated throughout Lex's body, slowly entering and nourishing each and every portion of it.
The liquid was called Hydratia Basal Detrium. It was found only in 6 star worlds, and even then it would be found in miniscule amounts. After all, any of that liquid that was discovered was leftover liquid from when the world was being created. It was not strictly used to build a Foundation for worlds, but instead strengthened the worlds ability to interact with universal laws.
It was only after the blue liquid completely merged with Lex that the Lotus started releasing a warm stream of energy into Lex's body to nourish it, flood it with vitality, and build a Foundation strong enough to rival a planet.
The sequence of events in this situation was very important, for now that Lex had absorbed Hydratia Basal Detrium, and strengthened his Foundation afterwards, the ability to interact with laws easily became a part of Lex's Foundation.
All this took a few minutes, during which Gerard was waiting with gritted teeth. He could not detect any difference in the Innkeeper, but Mary told him to wait patiently. He could not even tell if his attempt had even produced any effects, but until otherwise instructed, he could do nothing.
His nervousness was only exacerbated by his knowledge of everything that was happening outside. By now, things had escalated by another notch, and there was a group of people outright fighting the Inn's security team. Moreover, one by one, their numbers were ever increasing.
Full on panic had started to spread.
But while everyone at the Inn was living through an unreal nightmare, Lex was finally recovering. Previously, he had been in such a state that his mind was, for all intents and purposes, practically stopped working. Now at least it recovered to a level that Lex was able to feel soreness and discomfort throughout his body.
His mind, from being a complete blank, entered a state of deep sleep. Slowly he started to dream, but even in his dreams he saw odd shapes and colors. He felt the gaze of people that should not exist, and he became aware of events that were both happening and impossible at the same time.
His unconscious mind blankly accepted everything, and it was fortunate for him that he was asleep when this was happening, for his conscious mind would have tried to resist this knowledge. It would have been beyond the realms of his comprehension, and he would have tried to explain it using his paltry understanding of the universe at large.
Instead of understanding the universe for what it was, his mind would have forced him to try to project the knowledge through the lens of what he could understand, which would have distorted the information.
But while it seemed like eons passed in the dream, Lex was actually recovering very quickly. At first, his body was only passively taking in the energy that the Lotus provided. But after a few moments, when it regained even a semblance of strength, it began actively sucking in all the energy.
After all, why would it not? This was not spiritual energy that the Lotus was providing. Instead, it was the energy that turned barren meteoric rocks from space into the vibrant, fertile land that would eventually become a part of its world.
A few minutes later, color finally returned to Lex's pale face, and Gerard finally felt relief flood his fragile heart. If it was that simple, he did not know why Mary did not wake up the Innkeeper sooner. Perhaps there was some great secret, or perhaps a huge price to be paid.
What he did not know was that the reason no one asked him to do this earlier was becauseโฆ Mary simply hadn't thought of it. It could be blamed both on her stressed out mental state, but on a deeper level it showed a lack of readiness by both Lex and herself.
If they had spent time discussing what to do in emergency situations, Lex would have definitely told her how useful the Lotus had been to him. But he was so used to taking care of things himself that it never occurred to him to rely on Mary for anything other than miscellaneous Inn related tasks.
Just as Gerard finally took a step back and sighed in relief, he heard a loud bang. His brow creased as he mentally contacted the Security team to find out what had happened. Unfortunately, the situation was too hectic, and no one was giving him a response.
No matter, a few minutes more and the Innkeeper would be awake and he would deal with whatever it was.
Gerard flicked his head towards the right as panic filled his eyes. He could sense, through his bloodline, a massive surge in energy. Before he could do anything, though, the wall of the room burst through as they were struck by a massive explosion!
Gerard immediately utilized his bloodline ability as he prepared to absorb the energy from the blast and divert it elsewhere, protecting the Innkeeper and himself safe from harm in the process.Yet the expected shockwave never hit him, and besides the rapidly flowing dust cloud that encompassed him, nothing else approached him either.
The old man did not have time for confusion as he quickly blew the dust away to get a look at what had happened, but was frozen still by what he saw. The Innkeeper, dressed pristinely as ever, stood tall in front of him, showing Gerard only his broad back.
A transparent shield had appeared in front of the Innkeeper, blocking all the debris as well as the shockwave.
Sounds of fighting filled the broken room, as well as tremors from distant explosions, but Gerard was no longer distraught. Instead, endless relief flooded his heart as the greatest pillar of support of the Inn had finally recovered.
If only things were really that simple.
"Gerard, do me a favor," Lex said, his tone exceptionally cold at the moment. "Bring me a cup of Midnight Signature coffee brew to my office, the strongest cup we have."
Before the old man could respond, Lex disappeared. But the unusual thing was, the shield that Lex had used to block all the debris was still active. Gerard thought nothing of it, for he never even considered thinking about the Innkeepers abilities or the scope of them.
Yet the truth was, instead of using some system related ability, due to the strong sense of urgency he felt flood him through his instincts, the moment Lex woke up he teleported and used Talk to the Hand to block the incoming blast. That in itself was not strange, for Lex had strong instincts and an equally impressive reaction time. The strange thing was... he never actually extended his hand to put up the shield.
Talk to the Hand was a technique that put up a wife, invisible shield parallel to the palm of his hand. He had managed to improve the technique previously to merge two of the techniques to strengthen the shield by using both hands. Yet now, he had deployed the technique without using his hands at all. Moreover, this was not a simple explosion that he had so effortlessly blocked.
But all of this would remain unnoticed, for to Gerard they were nothing but normal, while Lex himself was in an abnormal state himself.
Physically speaking, his body had reached its absolute peak due to the rehabilitation and nourishment provided by the Lotus. That should have been more than enough to wake him up and help him recover from his coma. Yet when he woke up, he was immediately afflicted with endless visual and auditory hallucinations.
He felt his mind once again slipping, like it had back at the Henali assembly. In fact, he had to go into his Overdrive state immediately to keep his sanity from being affected.
He had to do all of this the very moment he woke up, while responding to the crisis at the same time, which is why he never realized that the way he used his technique was wrong. Moreover, since Gerard only saw Lex's back, he did not see that Lex's eyes were filled with an endless mix of colors, his pupils completely hidden behind them.
In his Overdrive state Lex immediately estimated that the momentum of the hallucinations affecting him had not reduced at all from when he was in the assembly, which meant based on his past experience he would only stay conscious for about 2 minutes. Yet there was something different. While his mind was still being assaulted with the same pressure, the rate of his exhaustion had reduced somewhat.
This was the effect of the nourishment the Lotus had given him, but he did not know that. He immediately recalled the effect of the Inns coffee, which reinvigorated the mind for an hour, and asked for it before teleporting to his office.
He needed to understand what was happening with himself, but just as important, he needed to understand what the hell was happening at the Inn!
Due to the strain on Lex's mind, he was unable to think clearly, so he had to prioritize what he focused on. As a result, he did not notice at all as his emotions were going haywire, and that the weather of the Inn reflected it.
Dark gray clouds filled the previously clear sky, and along with the darkness, they brought down a pressure on everyone that they had not felt before. The weight everyone was feeling on their chest was not one of anger, or rage at what was happening at the Inn. Honestly speaking, it had barely been a few seconds and Lex did not yet fully understand what was happening, so he had not even had the chance to feel those yet.
No, the pressure they were feeling was a magnification and projection of a mild aura that Lex's body had begun to emit. After all, his body was now mixed with the capability of a 6 star planet to accommodate the laws of the universe into itself in a greater capacity than just as building blocks for its existence.
As if such a change was not enough, his body began absorbing the faintest bit of aura from his hallucinations into itself, manifesting itself as the pressure of the universe. After all, laws were things incalculably distant from Lex at his current level, so let alone control the aura, he should not have been able to perceive it.
In fact, that is exactly what was happening. Since the Foundation which allowed him to accommodate the laws, and the subsequent aura that he was beginning to manifest, were now a part of his body, Lex was as conscious of them as a mortal would be of the individual cells in his body. That was to say, he was completely in the dark about the fact that he was somehow breaking rules that had never even needed to exist because of how impossible his situation was.
It was like a being that existed in the 2nd dimension suddenly being able to influence the 4th dimension, directly skipping the part where he was even able to interact with the 3rd.
Then Lex sat on his office chair and became aware of everything that was happening.
Mary did not have time to feel elation at Lex's return for the situation was truly horrible. An all out battle had erupted at the Inn, and the situation was much worse than the invasion of the Raskals, for at that time at least Lex had been conscious and thus took care of everything.
Gerard too was in a state of confusion becauseโฆ due to the chaotic state of the Inn, he did not know where to get the Innkeeper his coffee!
While all this was happening, Lex finally sat down on his office chair. The chair made him more in synchronization with the Inn than even his Host Attire, so in a single flash he took in everything that was happening.
He was already under great duress, for his hallucinations made it so that everything he saw was blanketed in a layer of strange colors that did not really exist. Since the colors did not exist, and were incomparable to any color he had ever seen, he was under immense mental strain as it was. On top of that, he had entered his Overdrive state to fight against the insanity that was rushing in to claim him.
Step by step, by fighting back, he was once again bringing his body to an exhausted state, once again heading towards the coma from which he had woken up.
While all of this was happening Lex desperately wanted to understand what was happening to him, yet also had to take care of whatever was happening at the Inn.
Suffice to say, when he finally sat down, and the surge of information entered his mind, just in time for him to see countless guests being hurt in a number of battles happening across the Inn, and countless workers who were severely injuredโฆ he was unable to control his rage!
Though it may not always seem like it, Lex thought of himself as a rational man. Even at times when anger took control of him, he was able to keep a head clear enough not to do something so drastic. That is why when his tavern was assaulted and insulted by the kids of those nobles back at the Crystal realm, he managed to keep himself from just straight out destroying them like his first impulse stated.
๐๐ช๐๐โฏ๐๐น.๐ธ๐ฐ๐
For better or for worse, though, at this moment, Lex lost all his rationale. He was too strained to stop himself. For the first time in his life, the self-control his elder sister Belle had secretly trained him to keep failed.
One moment, Lex had over 70 billion MP stocked up. The next moment, he had 0.
Outside Lex's office, the Inn had become a war zone that stretched all corners as beasts and species of all races fought senselessly. Even the sudden appearance of dark clouds or the mysterious weight pressing against their chests had not been enough to dissuade them.
Until, that is, it suddenly became all too much!
From gray clouds, the sky was suddenly filled with black clouds. Streaks of lightning could be seen swimming through the abyssal clouds, yet instead of the usual white or blue, the lightning instead looked searing red, like lava. But the lightning did not have an opportunity to fall, for instead the pressure that had previously been putting them down changed so drastically, instead of a tinge of fear traveling up their spines, all the miscreants felt fear bloom from within their souls.
Every injured guest and worker were suddenly teleported away, brought directly to the Recovery room, while every other innocent was brought away to safety. Every miscreant, those that had already begun battle and even those that were still hiding and biding their time, was teleported to the entrance of the Inn.
In the darkness filled the Inn, deeper and more malevolent than the worst nightmare, a golden light bloomed and encompassed all those that had gathered at the entrance at the Inn.
Everything was happening too fast for anyone to understand or react, but as if the fear that arose from their very souls was not enough, suddenly they felt chained down by the golden light, as if something had imprisoned them.
So far, only those who had been deemed as enemies of the Inn had been victims to the building oppression, but then suddenly, something changed.
The oppression that appeared now was orders of magnitude beyond anything anyone at the Inn had ever felt.
For the first time ever, the Midnight Inn's protection failed to project its guests from the oppression of an aura. In fact, for the first time ever, the Minor realm in which the Inn was located shuddered, and tore open slightly, revealing the Inn to the rest of the Origin realm in which it resided.
A projection of the Innkeeper appeared in the air, and in the eyes of various people around the Origin realm itself.
He looked like a human, an ordinary man. Yet at the same time, nothing about him was ordinary. His eyes shone with red light and his aura was one that radiated absolute death, as if angering him was the same as angering the universe itself.
The phenomenon was so massive that, in the center of the Origin realm, even the Henali were alarmed, causing them to quickly tap into the laws that would allow them to see what was causing it. Yet all the saw was a vague figure. Instead, what was distinct in the vision, was a small, simple Butter Knife.
"Die!"
The word echoed throughout the Inn, as well as the Origin realm, before the figure threw out the small knife.
Thenโฆ there was chaos!
Similar to the way Lex employed Talk to the Hand in a new way, without understanding what he was really doing, Lex used his 1 Minute Butter Knife token to use the strongest version of the Butter Knife to attack in a way he did not even know was possible.
Instead of an enemy, he attacked a line of Karma. He attacked everyone and everything associated with the attack on the Inn. The resultโฆ well before he could really see the results, Lex teleported back into a Recovery Pod with a sticky note on it that read 'next time you wake me up, have my coffee ready'.