The Innkeeper

"Oh crap!" Lex exclaimed as his body was lunged across the room. He tried to resist the force of the shockwave, but it came too quickly and without warning. For a moment Lex felt his heart drop. There were time fractures right behind him and he couldn't afford to touch them.

He turned his hands into claws and dug them into the air, grabbing onto space itself! Even if he could not teleport, that did not mean his space affinity was useless. After all, he was still surrounded by space.

Using pure physical strength, Lex resisted a shockwave he suspected was more powerful than the one produced by nuclear bombs. Fortunately, it did not last long.

In truth, this was not enough to hurt him, and if he hadn't been caught unprepared, he would not even have been blown away. But he had been taken by surprise.

Nevertheless, he had saved himself.

Yet when he turned back to look, he realized that the time fractures might no longer be there. This was because he could see the impact of the shockwave traveling across the room, whereas if the time fractures were there, the shockwave would have been destroyed upon touching them, like everything else.

A loud thud sound attracted Lex's attention, and that's when he turned to see that the minotaur had fallen over, while the flames that made up the banshee whittled out.

No matter who they were so long ago, or why they were fighting, after suffering the ravages of time, they were both dead now.

A flicker of interest passed through Lex's eyes. Even if they were both dead, their treasures were still as good as new, and they were quite impressive. Lex wouldn't mind adding them to the museum in his penthouse.

Lex grabbed the ten feet long golden hammer, and instantly learned that he could control its size. Shrinking it down to a more reasonable four feet, he stored it away, while doing the same with the silver sword and every other piece of gear they were wearing.

It was funny. He gave up the more valuable treasure that was hidden here, but was now looting these small things.

A familiar notification sound tinged in his ear, and Lex gave a cursory glance at the system notification informing him he had completed the quest.

The reward was, as expected, keeping the system alive.

Lex wondered if Giselle got the treasure she was after. He was about to go look for her when he felt a change occur throughout space.

Something gripped him, covering him in a protective shield, as the pyramid unraveled around him. He saw the walls dissolve, as if they were nothing, and the body of the minotaur also turned to ash.

Everything around him was undergoing a change, though that allowed him to briefly catch a glimpse of a hidden basement underneath the floor where he was, as well as a sarcophagus. Unfortunately, whatever secrets were hidden in the basement would remain a mystery.

As the pyramid finally disappeared from around him, Lex caught sight of the first ray of sunlight peeking over the horizon. The dawn was no longer frozen, and as the distant sun came into view, the world around them completely dissolved.

Throughout it all, Lex never caught sight of Giselle again, so he could only hope she was fine, and got whatever she wanted.

For a few minutes, Lex was surrounded by darkness and nothing else. But then, like a rubber band returning to its normal shape, he snapped back into the world, and found himself in a familiar lobby.

It was exactly the place he had entered the Temple of Frozen Dawn from. Countless others appeared around him as well, all of them contestants in the same stream as him. None of them even know how close they all came to dying.

They also just passed purely on luck. But that luck would not follow them forever.

"Congratulations, Mr. Lex, on passing this ground," said the receptionist standing in front of him.

"There is a 20 hour break during which you can feel free to rest and rehabilitate yourself. After 20 hours you will be eligible to move onto the next round of the preliminaries."

"Next round? I thought after this I can move onto the Trial of Eternity."

"Yes, it's through this stream that you can eventually end up there," she said, smiling politely, "but there are still two more rounds for the preliminary tournament for you to experience first."

Lex groaned, and left. There was no point in arguing with the receptionist, so he returned to his room, and then returned to the Inn.

He wanted to check and make sure everything was fine and operational during the time bubble, but there didn't seem to be any issues.

The only thing worth noting was that he had been gone for 30 days, or roughly 721 hours. That was good and bad. It was good because he had accumulated a lot of MT, and it was bad because the Midnight Games almost stopped because of it. He was continuously spending the MT he earned to keep the games running, and after 30 days the MT he had spent to keep it functional was almost used up.

But that was easily fixed. Lex spent a majority of his income, which would keep the Midnight Games running for easily three months now, and observed a little.

It was funny because his first Midnight Games had attracted the attention of a Dao Lord, but this time around nothing like that happened.

Maybe it was because the Innkeeper already had a bit of a reputation by now. Or maybe they were just busy with other things. Either way, fortunately he did not end up attracting any troublesome attention, which was not to say everything was going smoothly either.

With a sigh, Lex sat down in his chair and began addressing the many issues cropping up. The first of which was not even a Midnight Inn issue. Instead, he had to address the large number of applications that had been sent in to join Lex's harem.

Every time this came up, Lex swore in his heart he would make that stupid rancher pay.

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