The Innkeeper

In truth, Lex had more or less gained the ability to communicate with the system himself, and it more or less responded to him via notifications or remarks. But that kind of communication, while sufficient during normal times, was not the kind that Lex required right now.

Since he was now returning his focus on his duties as Innkeeper - something he had neglected for far too long - then he wanted to do things right.

He had been informed that due to how broken the system was, the natural progression that Lex was supposed to follow was broken. What was supposed to be a small Inn back on his own planet had now turned into a realm of its own, acting as an inter-realm Inn.

It resulted in him meeting and encountering Dao Lords with a frequency that was far too high for comfort, and generally facing challenges he was as of yet unfit to face. Despite his attempts to recreate such a result over the past fifteen years, even when completing quests, he had been unable to receive another full powered Butter knife attack.

Through his tricks as well as the Inn's ability to mask his power while he wore the Host Attire, he had survived so far, and no doubt Lex would continue to do so in the future, it was best to put himself on the path of least resistance. It would give him time to properly grow the Inn, realize his own power and minimize the many dangers he'd had to face so far.

For example, while the reputation of the Inn had spread far and wide, and all organizations associated with the Henali already knew not to mess with the Inn, there were countless disconnected worlds and entire galaxies in the Origin realm. Any random Heavenly immortal disconnected from the rest of the realm who accidentally found his way to the Inn could massively mess things up.

Of course, technically Lex still had Zagan, and Pel Jr. to act like there were Heavenly immortals around, it really was a facade. Despite using the body of a Heavenly immortal dragon, Pel Jr. could do nothing more than display a small fraction of the physical strength the body contained.

Of course, Lex had found a loophole around that as well by hiring external security for the perpetual events going on in the Inn, but he'd still like to minimize such incidents. He'd also like a little more control over the system.

Considering that Lex's opinion on the system had warmed up lately, and that the system was behaving instead of sending him death quests, he saw actual hope in this working out well.

That is where Mary came in. The system could no longer directly talk to Lex, unless something special happened, but communicating through Mary was still possible to an extent.

"What do you need?" she asked casually.

"First off, a good negotiation begins with everyone placing their cards on the table - or at least everyone being able to trust one another. So in the spirit of being honest, I want to propose a trade. I want the system to change a few rules of how things work, and in exchange, I will focus on helping the system recover to 50% of its functionality."

Lex leaned back in his chair, and waited for Mary to give him the system's response. In truth, this was a probe. Although Lex had begun to trust the system more, he didn't actually trust anyone completely. If the system came clean about certain things, then that trust would increase a little more. If not, well then Lex would just have to show it that the skills he had picked up as the Innkeeper weren't limited to just bluffing.

A mere second passed before Mary opened her eyes, yet it seemed much longer to Lex, who was waiting for the answer with anticipation.

"The system says it can't change the rules, only enforce them," she informed him simply.

A trace of pity flashed through Lex's mind, but not surprise. Becoming an immortal allowed him to learn many things, and since the system was technically inside of himself, he had more than enough time to observe it thoroughly - even somehow using the ability of his eye despite the fact that his eye couldn't look inside himself. That's when he learned that the system's soul was actually secretly growing, and it was doing sneaky things behind his back.

For some odd reason, Lex did not take that as a confirmation of the system being a nefarious entity. Instead, from feeling the soul, he could sense that it was like that of a child.

Lex pulled up his system interface which showed how much the system functionality had been restored. It sat at 40.2%, just where he had left it.

"If it can't break the rules, why is the information on my interface incorrect?" Lex asked, taking on the tone of a parent who had caught a child misbehaving. He heard a notification sound in his head, and when he checked it was just a confirmation of what he was seeing.

New Notification: System functionality at 40.2%! Please complete your quest to restore the system soon!

"The system is saying there is no error in the reading," Mary said after a moment.

"Mary, don't you find it strange that the Crystal realm, a realm much older than the Midnight realm, is growing so rapidly in a matter of months just from the death of a few tens of thousands of immortals, using their bodies to strengthen itself, while the Midnight realm itself, despite being a brand new realm, filled with the Cosmic Sea and countless other energies which are supposed to help it grow, has hardly grown at all in years?"

Mary's eyes suddenly widened.

"Wait, you think that…"

"Yup," said Lex. "I think the system is siphoning off energy to secretly repair itself. After all, you yourself told me that all systems inherently have the ability to repair themselves. Oh, and also, I am bonded with Lotus who is bonded with Menara. We chat quite a lot. He's told me that something has been actively stopping it from expanding its fusion with the realm."

That last bit was a lie. Lotus barely ever talked anymore, mostly because it was either unconscious or focused on its own growth. Lotus itself was a baby, how could it possibly understand such complex things?

Before Mary could say anything in response, and before the system could show him another false notification, Lex unleashed all his power.

His dragon's heart took a beat - most of the time Lex's blood flowed without the heart needing to beat at all. Whenever it beat, all his powers associated with dragons received a massive powerup.

A tattoo of a lotus began to appear on his back, unleashing an aura far beyond what Lex should have been capable of, and he channeled all of that into Domination. Yet his Domination did not spread out, but was contained within his own body.

Lex was not foolish enough to think that his paltry display of power could intimidate the system at all. The system could hide the truth of him even in front of a Dao Lord clone, so Lex had no hope of ever affecting it with his current strength.

Instead, what he achieved was a temporary boost in his standing on the Cosmic Ascendance Spectrum, something Lex had come to believe played a significant role in how the system treated him.

"Do not lie to me," Lex said, his voice tinged with the power of dragons, the very laws of the universe quivering to change to their will.

Suddenly, the system interface in front of him changed. It went from 40.2% to 40.7%. The change was not massive, but considering the fact that even the Amber Chaos Resin could no longer get that much growth from it anymore, and the fact that the system's ability to restore itself naturally was in the thousands of years, this was a huge change.

"Now listen here," Lex said in an admonishing tone. "We have a pretty good relationship going on. You wouldn't want to screw it up, would you? Let's have an honest chat now."

Another thing suddenly occurred to Lex. Ever since the realm was born, the system had started treating Lex better. Originally, Lex thought it was because of his growth in the Spectrum. Could it just have been because the system had a guilty conscience?

Mary suddenly closed her eyes, as if receiving some information, and opened them a few seconds later.

"The system is saying if it breaks the rules too much, something very bad will happen to it and you. In truth, the fact that it can even bend the rules, as it calls it, is because of how damaged it is."

"Well, how much is too much? You don't even know what I want yet. Let's have this conversation like two civilized beings - I think that would be best for everyone."

Lex suddenly felt like he was cheating a little child, and felt slightly guilty. But it couldn't be helped.

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