The Innkeeper

A few hours after the golden hue had disappeared, most of the guests had already completed their breakthroughs and the festival had resumed. Though, the guests seemed more focused on just partying and celebrating than participating in any random activities. This was good, because the next major activity would also be a week later. Even most of the tournaments had ended, as it was expected that this week would be spent in a meditative retreat for anyone who had breakthroughs from one realm to another. In fact, the only reason a majority of the guests had even finished their cultivation was because they were at the Foundation realm or even below. In that case, while a retreat was needed, it did not take as long. Moreover, once they regained basic control of their bodies and spirit, they could space out their cultivation retreats over a period of time.

Keeping all this in mind, the jubilant mood at the Inn could be understood extremely well. Of course, there was a small portion of guests who were equally depressed at having missed out on such a great opportunity, and some were even angry at the Inn for not giving a longer warning period. After all, a couple of weeks truly was too short a notice period. This is the kind of thing people plan months or even years in advance, depending on the cultivation level.

Among these crowds, there were a pair of young, human siblings who were completely overwhelmed. Plot Device, as the brother was called, had to do his utmost to keep his tears from falling out, while the sister, called Plot Device-2, did not hesitate at all to let her tears flow. Their lives had been too miserable, so much so that they could not believe the wonderful thing that was happening to them. The feeling of relief and joy… it was so rare in their life that they did not know how to express it.

The boy of age 13, and the girl of age 11, had both been born with terrible birth defects that not only kept them in constant pain, but would have prevented them from cultivating when they came of age. If they could not cultivate, they had no chance of ever improving their lives. After all, their parents were long dead in the war.

They too would have been destined for death in the recent raids, had they not been saved by… by… she could only be described as an angel, a holy woman or a saint. Who else would help them?

Then, as if they were being rewarded for a lifetime of bad luck, not only were they saved by her, they had been brought to this Inn via something known as the Pro Bono room. Before they could understand what was happening, a strange change occurred, after which they got extremely sick and fell unconscious. Yet when they woke up, not only was the pain gone, so were all the defects.

Was this heaven? It must be. First, they were blessed by an angel, and then brought directly to heaven.

Unfortunately, this was not heaven, and they could not stay forever. They disappeared, returning to the tent where they had been living previously. Fear filled their heart, as they felt they were about to wake from a good dream. But no such thing happened. The pain continued to elude them.

The flap to the tent opened, and the angelic saint woman appeared once again, though if anyone else saw her they might not agree. She did not have hair of flowing gold, for it had been tied and hidden behind her helmet, nor did she have skin as fair as the pure snow, for it was covered in dirt and sweat and grime. She wore leather armor and not a summer dress, and the air about her was hot and full of battle lust, not delicate and petite.

"What happened? Where did you go?" she asked, suppressing the concern in her voice.

"We went to this magical place called the Midnight Inn!" the sister began. She did not notice the look of recognition that passed through the woman's eyes. The Midnight Inn. She had been there too, once or twice. As she listened more to the children's story, she realized that she had missed out on a great opportunity. She should pay more attention to it in the future.

*****

Over the next few hours, Lex tried to learn how to control his spirit sense. It should not have been so difficult. After all, how hard could it be to manipulate an invisible sense inherently linked to his spirit that could channel information directly to him, and pass through physical objects like they were nothing?

Well, the answer was it was pretty hard. But that was not all. His body was still undergoing the stabilization process from his breakthrough, and the more time he spent, the more new abilities he discovered.

Like spirit sense, he also unlocked something called Soul Sense, as well as an advanced version of the instincts his body afforded him called Intuition. They both were incredibly powerful and diverse, and drastically increased the number of things Lex could do.

But… unfortunately, there was still more awaiting him. When his body finally completely stabilized, he underwent a familiar rush of information from his cultivation technique.

Every time he had a major breakthrough, he would receive information from Regal Embrace about his new realm, what it was normally and how he was different, and what he should do to progress further.

This time, though, he got a lot more information than ever before. As if it were a sentient thing, the technique imparted to him the various details of the effects that each realm had on him, and how they were inevitably linked to the needs of his breakthrough in subsequent realms.

One of the major factors, unsurprisingly, was stability. His cultivation was focused on extreme stability, so as to continuously perfect his defense without eliciting any adverse reactions. Similarly, his Regal affinity was supposed to do the same for his future breakthroughs.

However, Lex achieved something that should have never happened, and his energy took on an unknown affinity. As such… should he attempt to break through to the Nascent realm in the future… there was a 99.99% chance that he would explode, and die!

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