The Innkeeper

Despite its horrendous taste, Lex downed the coffee, for he needed the mental clarity it would bring. After all, this was not normal coffee but the Midnight Special Coffee brew, and had the effect of providing the drinker with 1 hour of mental clarity. Of course, that was just a blanket statement, and effects would vary depending on circumstances. In the case of Lex, it barely provided him with an extra 10 minutes at most.

Keeping that in mind, Lex directly delved into matters. He had a list of system notifications waiting for him, but they could wait. First on Lex’s priority list was healing Harry, so he teleported to X-142 once again and entered the Infinity Emporium. Powell Grant greeted him once again with a big smile, but Lex had no time.

“Show me the strongest soul healing medicine you have,” said Lex. “It should also be extremely gentle, so that it can be used on even weak people.”

Powell, as a great salesman, immediately noticed that Lex was not in the mood for the usual banter that they enjoyed, and so immediately showed him the list. Lex was a rank 9 member of the Emporium, and though the items on sale were of all ranks, Lex didn’t even bother looking below rank 7.

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Powell, who by now practically worshiped Lex as his best and favorite guest, once again broke out in a massive smile.

“Excellent choice. It will take a few days to procure all the items, but no more than a week at most. How do you intend to pay?”

“With valuable information,” Lex replied hurriedly.

At this moment, there was another consideration that Lex had to take into account. He did not believe that there was ever a possibility of anyone tying him to the Inn, and especially to the identity of the Innkeeper. After all, who could track his movement across the universe? But Lex had had enough of believing in probability and luck, and decided to prepare contingencies. He had already sold a few pieces of information to Powell that should have been way beyond his level, not to mention the business card which was a matter related to Daolords.

Keeping this in mind, he knew that were anyone paying attention to him, for example the Emporium itself, he had to provide a reasonable explanation to source everything he knew and had, and let people arrive at the conclusion he wanted.

Thus, he decided that in case it became inevitable that someone should track him to the Inn, he would make use of his other identity at the Inn, Leo the owner of Gamer’s Den. For that, moving forward, he could only use information which was possible for someone of his level to have. Moreover, Leo himself also needed to become more active at the Inn, so that people actually knew about him.

But keeping up that persona would cause him to lose the availability of a lot of information and items. So, while selling sensitive information, such as the identity of the owner of the person who launched the attack that shook the realm, would give him a lot of profit, he had to maintain the mentality of an employee. An Inn employee would never purposefully reveal details about the Innkeeper, so Lex must also never do the same.

But then, at the same time, he could use common information from the Inn and sell that. After all, so long as the Emporium didn’t gain direct access to the Inn, they would have to rely on him for information.

When Powell led Lex into the appraisal room, Lex wasted no time and first informed him that there was a hotel in the universe offering special environments to cater to divine guests. That’s about all he said, for he was still trying to gauge the level of this information, and would depend on Powell’s reaction to understand how much it was worth.

His strategy paid off really well, for the man really had no concept of a poker face, and stumbled so hard he nearly fell from his chair.

“What’s the name of the hotel?” he asked with a feverish energy. This information to ordinary people meant nothing, but to the right people, was worth a lot.

Yet Lex did not answer and maintained his emotionless expression.

“How much is this information worth?” he asked, without expressing if he would divulge more or not.

Powell quickly regained his composure and began negotiating with Lex, but no matter what he did, Lex never directly gave the name of the hotel. Instead, he traded other bits and pieces of information until he had sufficient information to pay for what he wanted to buy, such as the news that a group of pillagers lead by a Quash leader called Nzaar had been destroyed, the devils had lost a star system to the advance of the Jotun empire, the Iron Heart pirates had changed their profession and had become marketing managers etc.

All the information Lex sold was worth nothing to him, but he knew how much it could be worth to those with vested interests. Finding those people would be the Emporiums job, Lex only cared that one week later he would have what he needed to heal Harry.

As soon as he was done, Lex left. It was only after his departure that Powell realized they had spent only 4 minutes during the entire exchange. His casual smile and cavalier attitude quickly changed as he elevated Lex’s status even more in his mind. Something was different about Lex, and whatever it was, it made him seem… more intimidating. Powell did not want to be the person who would stand in his way.

With his conscience cleared, Lex focused on the next matters. He only had a few dozen more minutes maximum before he fainted again, so he would make the most of them.

He skimmed through his system notifications, there were way too many to read in depth at the moment, and got the gist of the matter.

He had actually lost 2 points of authority because of the chaos that had been caused at the Inn, and the number of his guests who were affected. He also received a bunch of emergency quests to save the Inn, save his workers, save his guests, save his reputation…

Most of them he succeeded, but some of them he failed. Due to the valiant effort of his workers, none of the guests were actually killed, so the system’s punishments were not too severe.

Yet no matter how bad his punishment had been, he had completed quite a few quests when he killed all the enemies. Moreover, as a result of his attack on the entire realm, as well as his act of making a demonstration of his enemies and burning their souls, the reputation of the Inn had been elevated so much that he regained the 2 points of authority he lost, and in fact even gained 2 more, alongside a few other rewards.

Lex did not have the time to go through them in excruciating detail, so once he confirmed that he had no impending urgent quest, he turned his attention to the rules of the Inn. There were aspects of the system he still could not control yet, such as the appearance of the golden doors randomly, yet in other areas he had great control.

Though the Inn itself was generally open for all, Lex began designing special zones that would be limited to only those with a high enough cultivation. He could not force people of different cultivations to stay away from one another, but by creating exclusive zones for each cultivation range, he would automatically entice his guests to divide themselves.

While this was not a perfect solution, his goal was to reduce the number of weak and strong cultivators mingling, so that if anything ever went wrong, the amount of collateral damage would be reduced to a minimum.

Also, while it was not a perfect solution, until he got something figured out, he would have to continue relying on external security. As such he began planning a long term event that would allow him to keep sufficient guards around for a long time. He also had to allocate a sufficient budget.

As for what the event was? He had the perfect idea. After all, the event itself didn’t matter to Lex as much as the duration and security of it. He was just using another loophole in the system.

How was he supposed to know that the lame event that he was planning would set off a storm, and kick off a new hobby for all the secluded cultivators of the Origin realm?

He anticipated that it would take him only a few successful deals through the Guild room before he had enough MP to pay for security. Then he would begin his next plans.

In the last minute before he fell back asleep, he scanned the Inn one more time to check if he missed something, and found something interesting.

Aegis had finally come to the Inn to investigate, and alongside him was Roland, the young entrepreneur. More importantly, in the new Live Map function he had unlocked recently, Roland was coloured yellow, meaning he was an excellent candidate for an employee!