The Innkeeper



In the few minutes after Warheil's victory, a little over 120,000 fights broke out between overly emotional guests. Of course, they did not break out all at once, and they were of varying levels of intensity. Predictably, most of them were started or at least instigated by those who were strongly affiliated with the empire.

A majority of the fights were stopped before the first blow even landed, and each individual was fined and threatened with expulsion if they continued such behavior. Some of the fights between the stronger guests were not so easy to stop and took a couple of moments, which was enough to cause some collateral damage. 

Fortunately, no one was really harmed with most of the damage being dealt to the environment. These people were all fined, as well as expelled from the Inn, with a temporary ban of one month.

On that note, Lex was extremely grateful for the ability to ban guests from coming back into the Inn. When he first started out, he had no influence on who could enter the Inn.

There was one particular fight, however, that did threaten to cause massive damage. It was one of the generals of the empire, who was unable to listen to the demeaning dribble of a gloating devil. As a Heaven immortal himself, it would have been tough to control him. Fortunately, Jotun himself put a stop to that fight before it really started.

The countless guards that had been hired once again flashed their aura for a moment to serve as a deterrent, but during such an emotional time, its effect was going to be minimal.

Many guests departed, following in the footsteps of Warheil himself, but many remained to celebrate or mourn at the Inn. Others still decided to explore the Inn a bit, as they were arriving for the first time.

But the Inn, which had the current capacity to provide services other than a simple room to a few million at most, was severely overcrowded. With no other choice, Lex had to spend billions of MP more to create more temporary cities and hire temporary workers to funnel all these guests into.

It had to be said that his very few Draconian Apostle workers, the second race of workers he had, really outdid themselves in such an environment. The more pressure they were under, the better they performed. Moreover, regardless of how hazardous he made the environment in the temporary zones, they were able to cope.

Lex had become too used to running the Inn on autopilot, but during the next two days, he barely got a moment of rest. The Inn was grossly under-prepared to handle such a huge crowd, and not just because of the size of his management team. The low cultivation levels of his workers was a fundamental problem that needed to be overcome, but could not be solved in the short term.

Almost all of his workers were at least in the Qi training realm by now, with those who had gone through at least 1 star rank change at the Foundation realm. But that was it. Almost none had yet surpassed that realm. Unbelievably, Lex was actually looking forward to the time when the Inn would stop accepting guests because he really needed some time for his staff to grow.

With most of his guests at the Golden core realm, and many more at realms even higher, he could only continue to rely on external security for now.

During this time, Lex had spent a rounded figure of 90 billion MP in making temporary cities, hiring more security, and taking care of other miscellaneous issues. The Inn had also once again run out of all the spiritual food they had grown, and so were once again serving only mortal food which the system provided, which was not appreciated by some.

But despite the heavy expenditure, he had earned 200 billion during the same time! That meant, after deducting his expenses, Lex made 110 billion MP! That was not even counting the rent MP he made on the first day.

It was finally on the third day that the number of guests finally dropped below 500 million, and Lex was able to relax. Instead of going to his office, or even meditation room, Lex found himself in his Hot tub room to unwind. He really needed it.

The first half hour, he barely even realized that he was in the hot tub. His mind was still too active, going over the various tasks he had handled the past two days. Unbelievably, besides the fight between the two heavenly immortals, the most popular thing at the Inn… had been the spaceship daycare service! He really ought to give the bunnies running that a raise or something.

But, eventually, his mind slowly relaxed and he was able to free himself from the thoughts of work. Work at the Inn never finished, and there would always be more things for him to take care of. But he had some of his own tasks to do.

Well, technically, he only needed to go get that treasure that mystery man told him about, and maybe check up on Alexander. He was somewhat curious about the details of the poisonous substance he had discovered. If it had made him sick just by being exposed to the air around it, after it was already sealed, he could not even imagine how dangerous it really was.

There was also that event hosted by Vera coming up, the one meant for prophets and oracles, but he did not expect that to be a problem, since he had handled bigger events before.

If only he knew that even as he sat there, relaxing, countless oracles were traveling to the Origin realm from other realms, just because that was where the golden keys to the Inn were available.

After Lex finally felt like he had recovered mentally somewhat, he left the hot tub and went to cultivate. He had already missed two days due to how busy things were, he could not miss another day just because he felt tired.

He continued to absorb the various materials he had gathered, upgrading his foundation bit by bit. Even if he spent hours doing this, when he could actually feel himself growing stronger, Lex never tired of cultivation.

Once he was done, Lex finally went to bed. Although at his level the need for sleep was greatly diminished, after such hectic days all without any rest, even he needed a nap.

When he woke up, he checked the Inn to make sure all was well.Things were not perfect, as he still had around 400 million guests, way too many for the Inn's capacity, but the temporary cities were keeping things running for now.

Since there was no emergency, he decided to head out. Before he returned to X-142, though, he decided to check up on Polebitvy once. It had been a while since Alexander communicated with him, so he wanted to check up on things.

He teleported to the planet, reappearing in the wilderness where he previously left from. A scan of the area with his spirit sense revealed that he was alone, so he tried to contact Alexander through the local equivalent of a phone, something he had kept in his spatial bangle, but discovered that he could not connect.

Lex frowned. This was not earth, and the technology he was using was supposed to not experience any issues like 'connectivity problems'. Something was amiss.

Since his instincts weren't warning him of any danger nearby, Lex decided to first investigate the fort he was previously staying at. Maybe he could learn something over there. Not to mention, he still had not investigated if the local rebel leader was cooperating with the terrorists Alexander was after.

He was not worried his previous identity would suffer any extra suspicion, for he really hadn't done anything or appeared anywhere else on the planet. Even if they tried to investigate him, the rebels would not get anywhere.

*****

Elsewhere on Polebitvy, two men casually walked around as if the planet was not at war. In that respect, they behaved much like Lex. Yet there was also a difference between them. When the two walked through crowded streets or passed by other people, no one seemed to notice them.

One of the men was holding a clipboard and was taking note of various things. But what was strange was that he did not seem to be observing the people or the buildings. In fact, none of his observations seemed to have anything to do with the locals. Instead, he seemed to be observing the flow of energy and its density, among other things.

"Auditor Ripley, as you can see, the Henali have been very careful in maintaining an organic growth of this realm. There are strict laws to ensure the realm grows under the best of conditions."

"Be that as it may, a few anomalies have been detected as of late in this realm. Although I do not doubt you, monsieur Hennessey, or the Henali, the Versalis bank has protocols that need to be followed. But do not fret, the Henali have a stellar reputation. I have no doubt that there won't be anything amiss for me to report."

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