While Lex was busy with the pagoda, and Larry carried out his revenge on earth, things were as peaceful as usual at the Midnight Inn. The number of guests at the Inn fluctuated considerably depending on the ongoing events, and the Inn was going towards somewhat of a lull due to the upcoming fishing event.
But even if the number of daily guests fluctuated, a certain number of guests had more or less taken up residence at the Inn. Although becoming a permanent resident of the Inn escaped the capabilities of many, nothing stopped them from perpetually renting out space at the Inn.
Amongst the various options was the Small village, which consisted not only of various houses, courtyards and rooms, but a few dedicated facilities as well. With the steep price of 15,000MP a night, it was only suitable for large groups of people who wished to stay together.
Most common amongst these were various sects and organizations. Many of them had discovered the Inn through the mysterious golden doors and then had monopolized access to the Inn on their respective worlds.
As if a higher than usual spirit energy concentration, access to meditation and training rooms and first-class medical facilities was not enough, the endless number of new Minor realm entrances at the Inn were enough to entice anyone.
Someone might have wondered how so many different groups, originating from such various backgrounds, were able to maintain their behavior in their newfound environment, instead of trying to extend their hands and claim more, as was the nature of many species.
Other than the almost perpetual rain of lightning that happened all around the Inn that thoroughly intimidated most of the guests who were actually not so strong, the hearth at the entrance of the Inn that used the souls of the Inn's enemies and fuel was more than enough to set them straight.
So then, having become more or less residents of the Inn, these guests often ran into each other. If their proclivities tended to lean towards violence or disharmony they kept to themselves, but many others took the opportunity to foster friendships.
One such group, formed from the young members of various different sects, sat together as they watched the fishing event kick off. They didn't much care for fishing, but the environment itself was nice and it was a great area where they could just hang out.
"I'm heading back to my homeworld for a few days," said the first youth.
"Lucky you, I'm stuck on pill duty. My teacher accepted a request in the Guild room for 100 bottles of Qi pills to help Qi Training cultivators, and all of us now have to help him fulfill it," said a second.
"That's nothing. I have to accompany my sect into a Minor realm. Don't they know that's dangerous? I've heard people have constantly been getting ambushed by others in the Minor realms. Almost no one has formed a long-term base and they maintain nomadic habits. I really don't want to go," said a third.
"It'll be hard to keep in touch after this, with our random schedules," lamented another youth.
"Not really. I've created a discord channel, so just join it. That way, we can catch up on everything as soon as we return to the Inn. Everyone can respond whenever they're back. It's better than leaving it up to chance."
The youths continued their conversation, completely ignoring what was happening in the competition. It was for that reason they completely missed when the first contestant fished out a spatial ring, and the second fished out a literal treasure chest.
The surrounding crowd, however, had paid attention, and slowly interest was beginning to build in the competition. The more valuable the item fished out, the more the crowd became excited. One of the contestants pulled out a cultivation scroll that gave birth to a massive phenomenon as soon as it was pulled out. A vision of an eternal ice age formed above the head of the cultivator, large enough to be visible across the Inn!
*****
Vera Joel was pacing around her room anxiously. Although they used to have a lot of freedom even as prisoners, since the discovery of the Midnight Inn and its golden keys, they had more or less been kept under strict observation.
Even then, it wasn't as if they were being kept in jail cells. But as far as she was concerned, the situation was no better. As an oracle, she could glimpse into the most likely future. But there was a caveat to her seemingly incredible power, one that almost no one knew of.
While she could glimpse the most likely future, she was restricted to seeing only her own future! The only possible way she could see the potential futures for other people was if it had a major or significant impact on her own life.
The thing about seeing her own future was that while she could take many precautions against upcoming problems, she could not leverage her ability to help or aid others. That meant that no one had any incentive to help her!
While that was not necessarily a bad thing, since she ought to be independent, there were times where that would become an issue. If, for example, she needed to use her ability to make an income at the Midnight Inn, she would not be able to charge people to see their future.
Once again, that did not really sound like a big deal. But given her current circumstances, it was a massive deal. She needed to get to the Midnight Inn and stay there, but she had almost no money with which to pay!
"Calm down Vera," said Kristine, Vera's mother. "Everything will be fine."
Similar to Vera, Kristine was dressed in a tracksuit, and was wearing a backpack stuffed to the brim with valuables. "We'll figure something out."
"It's not so easy. I can't see my future inside the Inn from the outside. We have no way of knowing what will happen!"
"We'll figure something out. For now, get ready. It's almost time."
Though Vera was not able to relax, she did finally stop pacing around. She gave her mother a nod, indicating she was ready. Her mother, in turn, took out her phone and sent a message to a seemingly random number.
If anyone saw the chat history, they would see that Kristine had sent this number various details about their prison as well as their guard formation and protective measures! While the name of the contact had not been saved in her phone, if anyone tried to call, on the other side they would find Marlo!
"It's done."
The mother and daughter left the room, guided completely by Vera. Though she lacked the skill to be a spy, she walked through the halls that made up her prison completely undetected. Her timing was completely perfect, and managed to avoid detection not only of the patrolling guards, but of the security teams viewing the various cameras as well.
As if they completely owned the place, the two made it to a security office and entered. As it happened, the guards were undergoing a shift change, and so there was almost no one in the office.
"Hey, you can't be here," said the only guard in the room aggressively, but the mother daughter duo paid him no attention. Vera began accessing a computer right there, while the other directly attacked the guards!
As it happened, this was the newest guard on duty, and also the weakest. The chances they would encounter him alone were next to nil, but that's exactly what happened, because the pair had been preparing for this day for a long time.
"The defensive formation has been deactivated," said Vera, just in time for her mother to incapacitate the guard. Kristine sent another message on the chat and they began to move.
A few minutes later, a private jet smashed directly into the building!
Such a massive and unexpected incident should have caused countless casualties, but an unexpected incident at another section of their prison caused many of the guards to be moved away. It seemed quite coincidental that the area that the unmanned plane crashed into just happened to lack any guards at that moment.
*****
The moment Lex chose to exit the pagoda, he received the reward for the fourth floor, which was information on how to more precisely control his strength. It was not earth shattering information, but once Lex reviewed it, it would no doubt help him tremendously.
For the moment, however, Lex found it impossible to focus on the information even with the ability to split his mind. That was because the moment he exited the pagoda, his makeshift undergarment disappeared, leaving him completely naked before a host of Jotun soldiers.
Everyone froze as they stared at the man who had just exited, but Lex did not act ashamed at all. With a nod of acknowledgment, he began walking towards the nearest tree as if he was on a casual stroll.
The leaves were not suitable for his purpose, so Lex tore the bark off the tree and wrapped it around his waist, not minding the sticky sap.
"Do you have a helicopter heading back?" he asked the soldiers, who were still staring at him with dumbfounded expressions.
"A what?" the soldier asked, breaking free from his shock.
"Oh, sorry. A slingshot. Do you have any slingshots heading back to the realm entrance?" Lex reiterated, recalling the name of the ide he took to the pagoda in the first place.
"Oh yes, of course. There will be a ride back in about 30 minutes that you can take. Would you uhh… would you like some clothes while you wait?"
"Sure, if you have any to spare I'll take them."
"Follow me, I'm sure I can find you something. By the way, there's a voluntary questionnaire for anyone who enters the pagoda. Would you be willing to go through it? Like I said, it's voluntary, so there's no obligation to do so. But we're collecting information to compile a pagoda guide book. If you go through the questionnaire, you become eligible to receive a free copy of the guide once it's published."
𝘭𝒾𝒷𝓇𝘦𝑎𝑑.𝒸ℴ𝓂
"That doesn't sound too bad, sure I'll take it," said Lex as he followed the soldier. He hadn't ventured too deep into the pagoda anyway and he did not think his experience was too unique. Of course, that did not mean he would be giving out information about how he overcame each floor. But it wouldn't hurt to answer a few questions. That guide could end up being helpful when he sent his workers to the pagoda.
The soldier led Lex to an impromptu barracks they had set up and handed him a fresh pair of military fatigues which, Lex had to admit, were surprisingly comfortable. The questionnaire afterwards was not a piece of paper on a clipboard, but rather involved Lex meeting with a dedicated team who brought him to a different room where they asked him several questions.
He was pretty honest in answering the questions, including the fact that he met up with Alexander on one of the floors. Even if he did not answer, he expected that Alexander himself would reveal that they ran into each other. After all, unlike him who was answering voluntarily, he did not expect Alexander would have much leeway considering he was a part of their army.
He finished just in time to catch the slingshot heading back.
"How's the event going?" Lex asked Mary while he waited. He expected that the fishing event would cause things to calm down for a bit, though Lex wasn't complaining. There was no shortage of things for Lex to do, not to mention that he hadn't forgotten he was waiting on a reply from the Henali. Although he had given a proposal, they had yet to accept.
He also had to catch up with Aegis to see what progress he had made into discovering the secrets of the Crystal realm. In fact, he should start spreading the golden keys around the Crystal realm and focus on getting the upper echelon to come to the Inn. That would be a much easier way to spy on- eh, no, much easier to establish better relations, and by happenstance learn various secrets about the Inn.
He also had to get around to confronting his family, which was a tedious chore he did not feel like doing at all. He also had to check up on procuring the Shining Irisberry for the turtle.
Lex could not help but release a sigh. Yeah, a small reprieve at the Inn would really be welcome.
"The event is a huge hit. A number of guests who were participating in the first round fished up some incredible treasures, including one old man who inherited a mind-blowingly amazing cultivation technique that caused an anomaly at the Inn! He might not be able to continue in the competition, since he immediately absorbed the technique and began cultivating. I don't think he'll exit in time for the remaining event, but he's already received countless recruitment offers from nearly every organization present at the Inn. It's already too late for more people to register for the event, but viewership has gone up to 13 million and rising."
Lex's eyes widened in shock as two things suddenly crossed his mind. The first was that the reprieve he was looking for probably wouldn't come. The second was that he couldn't believe he himself never tried the fishing well! If he had known it was that amazing, he would have fished in it everyday!
*****
While their infiltration had been easier than Larry expected, the anticipated resistance eventually showed up. Other than himself and Marlo, there were four others who had accompanied them, all of them in the Golden core realm.
On earth they could have been considered an elite fighting force, yet they were heavily pinned down by the prison guards. In fact, if Marlo hadn't been attracting most of the attention they would have likely already been eliminated!
Smashing away the last of their attackers, Marlo looked back at them without concern for whether he was living or dead.
"Larry, you follow me. The rest will split up and create diversions. We have a 10 minute window where most of the defenses are down. Once the 10 minutes are up we have to retreat, regardless of whether the mission is complete or not."
Everyone nodded, as they all already knew the plan, and began moving out. Larry moved at his fastest speed to keep up with Marlo, and even then he was being left behind as they navigated the halls of the building they infiltrated.
It was eerily empty, which is not what Larry had been expecting, but he wasn't complaining. The less resistance they faced the better. As for how Marlo knew the route, and the destination, Larry didn't ask. The stopped for a brief moment as Marlo set down a small black pouch on the ground before he kept running. Larry didn't inquire about the pouch, or anything else for that matter. At the moment, his thoughts were completely focused on what was about to happen. He was finally, FINALLY, about to get some answers, as well as his revenge.
A few moments after Larry and Marlo disappeared, Vera and Kristine Joel walked out of a perpendicular corridor. Showing no inclination to be sneaky, the mother approached the pouch on the floor and picked it up.
Within the pouch were a couple of golden keys, as well as a hundred or so small diamonds. It was not enough to allow them to be extremely extravagant, but at least they'd be able to live comfortably at the Inn for a few years.
"I'm going to miss this place," said Kristine fondly.
"Well not me!" Vera exclaimed before grabbing a golden key and disappearing. It would not be long before her mother found out why she was so anxious to leave. After all, one of the tenets of prophecy were to reveal only what was absolutely necessary. The more details they revealed, the more bad luck they would accrue, and the law of luck was a tenacious one.
A single moment later, Kristine disappeared as well.
Only a dozen seconds later, Larry and Marlo reached their intended destination. There was no hesitation as both of them were on a time limit, so Marlo smashed down the door to the room.
Depending on the situation they would either kill him or kidnap him, with the preference being for kidnapping as both of them wanted to interrogate him. But once they entered the room they did not find a scared or alarmed man.
Instead, they found a mature looking man seated comfortably on a sofa facing the door. He was wearing a velvet robe and swirled a glass of wine in his hand. His gray hair had been combed neatly yet stylishly, perfectly setting his mature yet handsome face.
In his eyes there was only amusement as he looked at the two, as if he had long been expecting them.
But how he looked could not have mattered less to the two. Their movements did not stop as they lunged forward to grab the man, only for their hands to pass through a hologram!
"No need to be so alarmed. Did you really think I would sit and patiently wait for you here?" The man completely dismissed Marlo, not even acknowledging his existence. Instead, his gaze was fixed onto Larry.
For a moment, both of them were confused, but recovered quickly.
"No matter where you're hiding, I'll find you!" Larry swore with gritted teeth.
𝓵𝓲𝓫𝒓𝓮𝙖𝓭.𝒄𝙤𝓶
"I'm afraid that will be a little harder than you imagine, old boy. You see, the moment I realized my fun on this planet was coming to a close, I made other arrangements. I'm already off the planet, and going far, far away!"
"That's impossible. This is a prison specifically meant to keep you on this planet!"
"Well, yes, it's supposed to be," the man continued, swirling his some more. "But I've always just treated it as more of a retreat. You see, I've been eligible to leave for a long time. It's not like this place was meant to be a permanent prison. I'd just been putting it off until the moment was absolutely right."
The man grinned as he watched Larry trying to understand, doing his best to deny reality. He was so close. This was meant to be it. How could this happen?
"How's that metal spirit embryo treating you, by the way? To be honest, I never thought you'd actually be able to merge with it. That's not supposed to happen. You completely ruined all its value by doing that."
"Huh?" Larry's attention snapped back to the old man, breaking free from his ever increasing sense of denial. While he did not know what a metal spirit embryo was, based on the context, he quickly realized the old man was talking about the treasure his father had fused into his body.
While he was born with a body incapable of cultivating, his family had uncovered an amazing treasure that his father had fused into his body using a ridiculously expensive operation. While the surgery wasn't exactly a secret, the use of the treasure was.
"You knew?" Larry couldn't help but mumble.
"Well of course I knew. Why else do you think I had your entire family banished except for you? Someone had to pay for wasting such a valuable treasure. Though, I let you stay because I wanted to see how you'd react to the embryo in your body. And oh boy, was it worth it. The amount of data I collected studying how you eventually began cultivating. Just that alone was worth being exiled to this pathetic planet."
The sadistic old man began laughing, relishing the horrified expression painting Larry's face.
"Larry we don't have time," Marlo interrupted. "Whether he's on earth or not, we have to retreat from here."
"Oh, oh, before you leave children, I left a little surprise for you. Larry, what if I told you that your family wasn't all dead? What if I told you, I brought your parents and siblings along with me when I left earth."
"You… you're lying. You're just saying that," Larry barely managed to say, his entire body beginning to tremble. Even if they were alive, how… how was he ever supposed to get to them? Everything… his whole life had been… had been a game to this man.
"Am I?" the man asked as he started roaring in laughter. "Will you ever figure out if I'm telling the truth? You'll spend the rest of your life wondering!" The man burst into laughter once again, savoring the pain his words were causing.
Marlo kicked the floor and the wall, trying to destroy whatever was causing the projection but it failed. In the end, he decided to leave despite failing and began dragging Larry away.
"Oh, before you leave," the hologram yelled out after the two, "I left one final present for earth. Think of it as a farewell gift from me. It's quite easy manipulating you barbarians. Have fun living the rest of your lives as slaves!"
The man continued to yell, but at Marlo's speed they were out of earshot in mere moments. Neither of them put much thought into his last words as they escaped. That is, until they reached outside.
The light of the sun had been blocked out by a massive spaceship that had suddenly appeared right outside earth's orbit. The ship arrived too fast, no one had detected its arrival. One moment it was absent, and the next it was there, as if it had teleported there.
For once, a sense of dread gripped even Marlo's heart.
Lex did not immediately attend to the fishing event once he returned to the Inn. Regardless of how popular it was, while listing his various tasks he was reminded of a chore too important to put off until later.
He teleported directly to X-142 and entered the Infinity Emporium. Not only had his order of Shining Irisberry fruits arrived, Powell had even arranged for a tree sapling for the tree that grew the plant! He gave plenty of warnings of how difficult it was to planet, but Lex was sure the turtle would be able to handle it.
That was, until he heard that the tree had to be planted on the surface of a star to grow. That… that added an element of complication to planting the sapling, but he was sure he'd be able to figure something out with the Inn.
Then came the issue of payment. Lex once again had to barter some goods he had collected through the Inn to receive his order. He was beginning to get annoyed at the system for not allowing him to convert his MP into currency at a more reasonable rate.
He returned to the Inn and immediately gave the turtle the berries, and informed him of the sapling. The turtle replied that he would look into it once his cultivation was done, and retreated into his shell.
While the turtle disappeared, Fenrir had completely recovered from his difficult breakthrough and became unusually attached to Lex. No matter where he went, the wolf pup would follow him and stick to his side, not that it could be blamed.
Unlike his workers, who were newborns but had the maturity of adults, the pup was genuinely a newborn. On top of that, the person it was most attached to, Lex, barely spent any time with it causing it to feel extremely clingy.
Lex could only laugh and allow the pup to follow. Considering the fact that Fenrir was able to partially change its size, and was usually more than large enough for Lex to ride, he often forgot that Fenrir was actually still a pup.
The two were on their way to the fishing well when Lex received a system notification. He was a little surprised, since he wasn't expecting any notification, but stopped dead in his tracks when he read it.
New Notification: Connected planet Earth is undergoing a world event 'World War'. All currencies have lost 100% value due to global blackout, and will not be accepted as payment for MP. Only physical assets are eligible for payment
New Notification: Guests from earth are eligible for 'refugee' status and will experience a 70% discount on all prices. All refugees from earth below the age of 15 are eligible for a 99% discount.
"What the hell?"
Lex immediately teleported to Velma, who was in the Newsroom.
"What's going on on earth? Have you heard any rumors about any new massive wars? What is the council of new order doing?"
He asked, though despite his inner anxiety, he had to maintain his calm as the Innkeeper.
"War? No, there's been no rumors of any large-scale wars, nor have the order been focusing on that."
"Well pay attention to this matter. A world war has broken out on earth. Gather as much information as possible."
Without waiting for Velma to answer, the Innkeeper teleported to his office. He sat on his chair to maximize his synchronization with the Inn, and began honing in on all new arriving guests.
He started picking out the ones coming from earth, and began eavesdropping on their conversations. He did not know the situation on his planet, and since war had just broken out it was unlikely all the guests were even aware of it yet. Most likely, they would just be suffering from the so-called global blackout.
But at least a few should know something, right?
Unfortunately, reality was out of line with his expectations. Not only did most people arriving from earth have an idea of what was going on, they all kept saying similar things.
Keywords like 'aliens', ' giant spaceship' and 'aerial invaders' kept on being repeated.
As if their worries were not already enough, many of the guests who arrived from earth started getting notifications from their personal hologram assistant. The knowledge that they were eligible for a discount was well received, but the fact that their currencies held no worth made almost everyone immediately broke!
Panic and chaos started to spread amongst the refugees.
Though Lex was extremely troubled by what he was hearing, he did not completely lose his mind. He set a new area where all incoming refugees would teleport to, so that the chaos they would create would not spread to the general public. Moreover, he deployed many guards and workers to calm all incoming people down.
Though they felt like the Inn was taking advantage of them, there was nothing Lex could do about that. MP was one of the few things about the system that had forever been outside the domain of his authority. Fortunately, the system was able to claim their physical assets as payment even if they didn't bring them. Of course, that did not extend to assets such as buildings or land. Yet things like furniture and used cars, apparently, were fully acceptable.
But the logistics and technicalities of how the system accepted payments was the least of what was on Lex's mind.
"Goddammit!" he exclaimed, and decided to teleport to earth. No matter how much he hated his family right now, he could not leave them to fend for themselves.
Even as Lex passed a few instructions to Mary and teleported to earth, he did not stop cursing his family.
If those stupid, greedy, fat, annoying, stupid people had not kept secrets from him, he would have never decided to ignore them, and he would not be in this situation.
No matter how much he hated his situation with his family, he could not help but give them the benefit of doubt. Moreover, no matter what his parents did, he could not abandon his sisters.
Belle… well, Belle would be fine even in war, but his younger 2 sisters deserved better. Unfortunately, due to the very secrets Lex was cursing his family for keeping, he did not know that his family on earth were all spirit clones. Not only that, the clones had all vanished from earth some time ago.
As panicked as Lex was about the situation, he did not lose his senses. He honed in on all the refugees and paid close attention to whatever they had to say. So far, none of them had a clear picture of what was happening.
Everyone seemed to be reiterating the same things. They had been hit by a power outage, and though some of them had backup generators, none of their devices seemed to be working. Due to this, there was a complete blockade on communication via any electronic devices. As a result, they did not know the extent of what the situation was.
What they did know was that there was a gargantuan vessel, or possibly multiple vessels parked in the sky above the planet. Though the massive vessel itself had not attacked yet, many of them witnessed many distant, smaller vessels approaching the planet.
Out of sheer panic they had escaped to the Inn, unaware of what else to do.
"Mary, have the planning division find a spot to build the temporary refugee spot. I won't force them to separate from the rest of the guests, but I think it'll be good if we have a designated spot where refugees can gather amongst themselves."
Not wanting to wait much longer, Lex decided to teleport to earth. Still bereft of any gear fitting his current realm, he decided to stick to the army fatigues given to him by the empire for not only were they extremely comfortable, they were easy to move is, and seemed durable.
After… well he was unsure exactly how long it had been since he had last been to earth, but it had been a long time.
Lex appeared in an unfamiliar street, causing him to feel slightly confused before he remembered that he was in London.
He looked up and, indeed, saw the massive spaceship hovering above earth. Upon observing its massive, oval shape blocking out most of the sky, Lex decided to dump all the physics he had learned in high school and college, because there was no way something so massive should have come near a planet without being affected by it, or causing an adverse effect in return.
Even the moon caused changes in the tides due to its gravitational pull, so if either the ship was massive enough to block the view, or close enough to cause the same effect, things should not have been so calm.
But then again, there was a global electronic blackout and information was scarce, so there was a real possibility that he was just lacking information.
Lex shook his head. That didn't matter right now. What mattered was that while the street he was on seemed barren and as if it suffered a storm, and there was not a single person in sight, there were also no invaders in sight either.
His senses were sharp enough that if there was fighting even in the distance, he would have picked up on it. Yet while there were sounds of screaming, running and general panic that Lex could pick up, there was no fighting. Or at least, no fighting that wasn't happening between humans.
In the distance, though, he could pick up a seemingly endless stream of ships exiting the ship in the sky and descending towards earth. Whatever was happening, it hadn't made its way here yet, which was good enough for Lex.
He sprinted towards his old home, reaching quickly due to speed. Things were actually progressing pretty smoothly for once. He expected to have to fight through an army of villains who happened to be between him and his family. Thinking about it, that was pretty stupid. Just because he often faced difficult situations didn't mean the universe was specifically targeting him to make his life difficult.
The door to the house was locked, but Lex didn't even need to exert himself to break it. Considering the circumstances, he didn't think anyone would mind.
"Hey is anyone home?" he yelled, as he extended his spirit sense out to search the house. Immediately, he noticed a number of unusual details. He did not recognize the furniture, and much of the layout of the house had been changed. There were fewer bedrooms and the rooms had instead been turned into storage rooms. Moreover, he noticed the distinct lack of certain items he knew his sisters would never leave.
There were still minor details. The most significant thing he noticed was that the house was only occupied by two, extremely senior citizens!
"Stay back, I have a knife!" yelled an old lady from somewhere deeper inside the house. Lex had a daunting realization, though he held out a faint hope still.
Calmly, and prepared to hear bad news, Lex walked forward so that he came into view of the old couple. There was an old, feeble looking man sitting in a wheelchair, while a similarly aged petite lady stood in front of him, holding a kitchen knife in her softly trembling hand.
"Don't come any closer, we don't have any money!" said the old lady, putting on a brave front.
"I… I don't mean any harm. I used to know the people who lived here before, I didn't know they moved out," Lex gently explained. "Is there any chance you know where they might have gone?"
It had been a long time since he came to earth, so it was entirely possible his family moved. In fact, it was highly likely since his entire childhood he lived a nomadic life. Belle had even informed him that she had gotten a new government job, which might have caused them to move. Or maybe his parents came back and decided to go somewhere else on an expedition.
Maybe them moving even had something to do with their secret. There was literally no way for him to know. He suddenly felt like an idiot for waiting so long to confront them about that, but in his defense, how was he supposed to know the world would be invaded? That had never happened before!