The Innkeeper

Cornelius once again found himself eating an entire feast as he listened to various reports. He had a busy schedule ahead of him, so he had to make up for it and handle all the governing matters that required his attention today. In his absence, he had others to keep things running, and he was slowly distributing these responsibilities to his sons and daughters, but in the end, some things could only be handled by him.

A nervous-looking man entered the chamber and gave him an extremely deep bow, but before he could continue with any more formalities, Cornelius used his spirit sense to stop him.

"Save the flourishing for public settings, it is not important. I was told you have some important matters to report to me. You may begin."

The professor was caught in surprise, but he quickly gathered himself, recalled the information he had rehearsed. The fact that Lex was suspected to be the king's son was something he need not mention, for it was irrelevant to the revelation he was going to present. As a professor, he was used to summarizing important aspects of his lecture as bullet points in his head, before delivering the lecture flexibly.

"I suspect one of my students is secretly cultivating the true path," the professor began, but already the demeanor of not only the king, but of everyone else in the room changed as well. "His name is Lex, and after I began to suspect as such, I did a thorough background check on him as well as kept a close eye on his actions afterwards. My background check only…"

"Wait," Cornelius said, interrupting him. "Assistant A, bring up a picture of the Lex you previously informed me of."

Miscellaneous Assistant A, the king's closest and most loyal assistant, quickly turned on a terminal nearby, and brought up a picture of Lex.

"Is this the student you're referring to?" the king asked.

"Yes, yes that's him!" the professor replied with excitement. Just the thought that he may have once been a teacher to a cultivator of the true path filled him with excitement.

"Miscellaneous, fill me in on what Lex has done since you last gave me a report. Stick to major things only."

Cornellius actually expected a very brief result. He remembered that what he liked most about Lex was his extreme focus and dedication. It was the same mentality that got him to his position today, and it was the same mindset he tried to nurture in his kids.

"Let me see… He broke through to the Foundation realm, as predicted, spent over a month training for the Realm races with your daughter Cwenhild, and successfully helped her become the first person to take control of a Minor realm. It was reported he single-handedly defeated a Kraven in the Golden core realm. During the fight, he is reported to have shown great resilience to spirit attacks, and a sturdy body. Autopsy of the Kraven after the fact revealed minimal to no physical damage other than the killing blow, leading to the suspicion he defeated the Kraven using spirit or soul attacks."

Cornelius' hands paused halfway through cutting his steak. Just as he was about to comment, Miscellaneous continued with his report.

"Once he successfully gained experience in capturing a realm, he entered multiple other realms on his own and was able to take control of 2, or possibly more. This information was hidden from the academy, and the only reason we know about it is because of the spy you placed in your wife Nora's estate."

The professor paled, as he felt like he heard something he shouldn't have. The king though didn't care about his private life being revealed. In fact, it wasn't as if Nora herself did not know about the spies. The fact that she still revealed the information meant she wanted him to know. She was clever like that. She never outright asked people for what she wanted, but manipulated events to make certain things happen.

Well, for better or for worse, she had attracted his attention.

"You have done well," the king said, looking at the professor. "You deserve a reward. Tidy up your affairs at the academy and report back here tomorrow. I'll have an immortal be your teacher for a year."

Before the professor could even begin to process what he heard, and his elation begin to show, the king disappeared.

*****

Upon hearing the familiar ting of the system, Lex checked to see a new notification.

Quest Complete! Midnight Tavern being established!

Host Authority sufficient for manual setup. Would you like to manually set up the Midnight Tavern? Y/N

Please note: manually accepting the Midnight Tavern will cost an extra 5 million MP!

Lex didn't even hesitate to select yes. He already had an image in his mind of how he wanted to do things this time around, and for the Midnight Tavern, he planned on doing things differently than the Midnight Inn.

A complete map of the entire Crystal realm was projected into Lex's mind, alongside hundreds of thousands of undiscovered Minor realms, as well as millions of discovered Minor realms.

As if that wasn't enough, he also received a lot of information about each and every region of the Crystal realm that he would focus on. If he wasn't in a time crunch, he would spend hours, maybe even days, agonizing over every detail. Unfortunately, time was the one thing he did not have.

"Mark all the areas on the map controlled by Kraven as black," Lex said to Mary. A very massive chunk of the map turned black, nearly 8% of the entire realm. When considering that the total amount of land controlled by the 7 races combined didn't even cover 40% of the realm, that 8% seemed massive.

"Now mark all the regions with ongoing wars and conflicts as red. Mark all neutral zones as yellow. Mark all areas where are at least basic laws enforced as brown. Mark all areas where all races are freely allowed to enter as green."

Different colors filled the map as he looked over it. The best case scenario was a place that had all the colors representing aspects he liked, while being far away from black and red. Still, there were too many options.

"Marks areas with low supervision as silver. Mark areas rich in treasures and resources as gold. Mark areas with a high concentration of travelers as blue."

The map was still vast, but suddenly, one area stood out to him as was colorful enough to be a rainbow. It was rich in resources, was in neutral lands, had a high concentration of travelers and, most importantly, it was far away from any major conflict so Lex didn't need to worry about war disrupting his plans any time soon. He would have liked to study the map some more but, his instincts suddenly started screaming so he made his choice. The next moment, he vanished from where he stood.

40 seconds later, the king appeared outside the bank, his expression one of intrigue.

"How did he teleport without emitting any spatial waves?" the king asked, assuming Nora was responsible.

"How am I supposed to know? Shouldn't you be the one keeping an eye on your kids. I already have my hands full taking care of one of yours"

"How can you call that taking care of? From what I understand, you see her maybe once a year." Cornelius had originally come, not for Lex, but for whatever cultivation technique he cultivated. His own personal one was too difficult for most people, but if more and more cultivation techniques for the true path could be discovered, slowly the nation would have more true cultivators. But since Lex was gone, quite mysteriously at that, he turned his mind to other things. Namely, Nora. He had been so irritated by her behavior that he completely forgot that she was actually quite beautiful. Suddenly, he felt like giving her another kid.

On the side, Cwenhild was frozen still. Literally. Nora was using her spiritual sense to freeze Cwenhild because she had no idea what this daughter of hers would say to her father, and she just couldn't handle the embarrassment if something went wrong. After all, she had worked hard to build her reputation.

*****

In the bustling town of Babylon, two streets away from the busy dock, on Bakers street, a three story building stood empty. It was a wooden building, with age and history embedded in every board and plank. But as it often was, when things were described as aged, they were often just run down. Yet beneath its shabby exterior, was a building with a strong foundation, that had stood for as long as the town had existed.

However, on this busy street, full of wealthy traders, skilled workers, soldiers, sailors and vagabonds, no one cared for history, age or nostalgia. This was a center of commerce, and as such, the people longed for something new, something bold, something adventurous, something that would add to the charm of the town.

That something or rather, someone, stepped out of the wooden building and took a deep breath of the salty sea air. With a grin on his face, Lex turned back in. It was time to renovate.

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