The Innkeeper

"Pel, how do I search for the resin?" Lex asked as he surveyed the land. The feedback he was getting from the Glyph was immense, and turning it into usable information was quickly becoming a massive burden on Lex.

It was still fine when he hadn't noticed, but now that he had, it was as if every individual grain of dirt, every rock, every insect and animal in the vicinity were all giving him individual feedback. If he didn't find a way to filter all this information, he would soon be overwhelmed.

"You influence the Glyph through the use of Domination," Pel informed him, while he transferred the relevant data over to Lex. "Once you can control the technique, you have to raise the bar just high enough that you no longer get any feedback from your surroundings, and then increase your sensitivity at the same time.

"The ingenious thing about this Glyph is that it is designed to peek through seals that are designed to hide treasures. After all, while the aura of the treasure can be suppressed, the way it interacts with laws cannot. Seals actually just compensate for any interaction the treasure would have, thereby preventing any traces from appearing out in the open. But the Wyrm's Glyph is not looking for traces at all. It is instead measuring quantity and capacity for interactions with laws. Master, considering the weakened state of your Domination, your range will not be too large, so you will have to search on your own. But once you're in the vicinity of the resin, you should be able to sense it - hypothetically."

Lex decided not to focus on Pel's last word, and began regulating his technique until he was just above the level where he got any feedback from his surroundings. As much as he wished for an easy solution, he still had to search.

His preliminary search would be from the surface. He was hoping that the range of his Glyph was great enough to locate the resin from the ground, for if he was forced to dig then that would add another great obstacle in his path.

Just to be sure he was doing his utmost, he spread his spirit sense to its limits as well, before he began flying just over the ground at breakneck speeds. He could have run, yes, and it would not be much slower. But why put in so much effort when he could just fly?

From time to time, he picked up on some buried or hidden treasures and valuables. More than once, he saw creatures that shone brighter in his eyes than anything else in the region.

Lex pondered if what he was seeing was their spot on the Cosmic Ascendance spectrum, or if their bodies were just very valuable. For once, he did not have a clear guess.

Time flowed like the wind, but Lex did not allow himself to focus on that. If he thought about it at all, he'd begin to get impatient, and that could distract him from his task.

While he did not find the resin for a long time, since his spirit sense was spread out, he observed the land with greater scrutiny than he would ever normally use. He originally thought that this place was barren, but that was far from the truth. It was just that life here had adapted and camouflaged itself perfectly to anyone only using their eyes.

The rocks were covered in gray and brown moss, which hid themselves perfectly in the curves and shallows on their surfaces. The moss, then, became hidden habitats for countless tiny insects which themselves looked like pebbles or chips of rock. Snakes, scorpions, lizards and other creatures made themselves at home, just their natural appearance hiding them so well even as a Nascent soul cultivator Lex had not noticed them based on sight alone.

Then, there were the ants. More than any other creature here, Lex took notice of the ants. He had seen four or five different species of ants in this region, which was not a lot. But what was astounding was the size of their colonies. For hundreds of miles, each species of ant took a region as their territory, and fought off competing ant colonies at the borders, waging a war right underneath his eyes.

Perhaps, if Lex had not seen the development of the realm from an angle directly above it, he would have felt different, but at the moment he felt like some kind of deity looking down at his creations. Their struggles and troubles seemed so arbitrary to him. He could randomly throw a piece of meat down in their territory, and that would be enough to feed each ant colony for generations, putting an end to their need for such fighting.

But to them, what could be solved by him with a wave of his hand, was important enough to stake their lives.

It was… a humbling observation. As he grew stronger and stronger, and his place in the universe grew, it was important to reflect upon what his power meant for the world around him.

He remembered back on earth, one time in college he failed a class because of which he lost his scholarship. He had felt so miserable then. He wished some all powerful being would come and just reverse time to give him another chance so that he could do it differently. He had sworn so deeply that he'd do it differently if he had just one more chance.

It turned out later that he didn't need a deity to help him out. He talked to his professor, who gave him an opportunity to redeem his grade by redoing a critical assignment. But the temptation of an all-powerful being just solving his problem for him had gripped him so strongly when he felt so miserable - even though back then he did not believe such things existed.

Now he himself was an all powerful being. More importantly, he wondered if his problems looked the same to the countless beings more powerful than him. What must the mysterious man who just showed up inside his room at the Inn one day think of him when he looked at Lex? Perhaps, to him, guiding Lex was no more effort than Lex throwing out a piece of meat for the ants.

Lex paused for the briefest of moments. He looked through his spatial bangle and found a lot of food that was no longer as nutritious to him now that his realm had grown. As he continued to fly over the land, he threw bits and pieces of it here and there to some animals he saw struggling.

Although Lex was not too into charity himself, it also didn't hurt to help others now and again, especially if it was no big deal to himself. After all, he had also benefited from the help of others.

It seemed that sometimes, in life, there were free lunches.

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