The Innkeeper

Lex had been extremely focused on taking care of the Inn as much as he possibly could in the few moments of lucidity he had every time he woke up. But he had other plans as well which were just as important. One of them was bringing Leo, the owner of the Gamer’s Den, back. After all, if anyone ever guessed that Lex worked at the Inn, he would use Leo to explain that identity. Now was a good time to make his comeback, and he intended to come back in spectacular fashion.

He scanned the Inn once and instantly picked on something interesting. After learning the details surrounding what was happening Lex couldn’t help but be amazed. Sometimes, things just aligned up too perfectly. He teleported away.

*****

“I told you for the last time, I can’t fight any Nascent realm cultivators,” said Z in an exasperated tone. It had been days since he last watched any decent anime. It was work this, responsibility that. After all that had happened, he hadn’t even had any time to rest.

As if that wasn’t enough, some of the regulars at the battle arena started to come and bug him. Z had quite the reputation, and fought many battles.

But while he had a near perfect win streak, it was within limits. He could not fight Nascent soul cultivators, as he could barely fight against Golden core cultivators if he used all his strength and bloodline abilities.

Yet those regulars did not seem to care, as they kept trying to convince him. After all, it was just a little gambling. The good thing about the Inn was that the fights weren’t to the death, unless stated in the beginning, so there was no farm. The Recovery pod had been good enough to heal all combat wounds so far.

“Think of it as training. Come on chap, if you only ever fight easy opponents, how will you ever grow? Even defeat can teach a valuable lesson.”

“If you think it’s easy, you fight them,” said Z one more time. Though they were annoyingly persistent, at least they weren’t insulting or blackmailing him into fighting, which is why he kept tolerating them. Otherwise, all he needed to do was tell old man Gerard they were bothering him and they would be taken care of. Security had been very strict about safety lately.

“Come now, don’t be like that. Just one fight. Think about how impressive you’ll look in front of all the ladies.”

Z sighed and was about to respond again, when he heard a voice that he hadn’t heard in a long, long time!

“Stop bothering my cute little employee. If you want someone to fight, I’ll do it.”

Z and the men begging him to fight all looked over to see Leo. He was dressed very casually, in a black T-shirt and blue jeans, and the expression he wore was that of a smug smile. Since he was wearing Clark Kent glasses he was in disguise, but it only changed his appearance without changing too many details. Yet, despite how ordinary he seemed, for some reason, the feeling Z got was not casual whatsoever. Instead, he felt that right now, Leo was very, very dangerous.

The system was suppressing the aura of his laws, since no one here was an immortal and could not tolerate it without getting hurt, but the natural intimidation carried by Lex’s body was allowed to flow freely.

He looked athletic, but his body was not bulging with muscles like that of body builders or, in some cases, body cultivators. Yet that did not mean that the strength of his body was not completely overwhelming.

Lex released his Foundation realm aura to show them that he wasn’t too strong either. Since he scanned the Inn, he knew that there was a group of gamblers who had gathered together to try and get Z to fight a nascent realm fighter. They didn’t have malicious intentions, or else the system would detect it. They were just ordinary gamblers who had been blinded by Z’s endless victories, and wanted to bet big. After all, they had yet to see him fail so far, so they believed he was capable of anything. Lex decided to make use of the crowds attention to declare his return.

“Who are you?” one of the gamblers asked. Unlike Z, who was honed in battle, they did not pick up on ‘Leo’s’ dangerous aura at all.

“Leo, I’m Z’s boss, and…” he disappeared from right in front of them, and reappeared in the arena.

All the screens in the arena, as well as everywhere else in the village, turned to show Leo standing in the arena alone, his aura on full blast.

“I’ll accept as many challengers as you want, Nascent realm and below. You can come at me together, but you only have 60 seconds, as I’ll stop accepting challengers after that. I’ll personally put up a pot of 50,000 MP. Anyone who beats me can get it.”

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60 seconds was not a lot of time, yet the incentive of 50,000 MP was enough to cause people to run, especially when Lex was displaying his Foundation realm cultivation. Within 1 minute, over 300 contestants entered the ring, all of them in the Nascent realm, and over 10,000 people placed bets on how many seconds ‘Leo’ would survive the fight.

As soon as the 60 seconds was over, the fight began and the desperate contestants didn’t hesitate to attack Lex. After all, based on logic, whoever struck first would be the winner to 50,000 MP!

But from start to finish, Lex did not move. Instead, below his feet, a massive array started to form. Yet because it was on the ground, no one noticed. They only watched as the first attack approached Lex, and then landed.

Immediately, it was followed by hundreds more. All the attacks landed within 1 second, and everyone stopped as they began looking around, waiting for the winner to be declared. Yet the declaration didn’t come.

Instead, when the smoke cleared, they found Leo standing still, completely unharmed. This time, instead of a technique, he had used an array to defend himself. Now, he would also use an array to attack.

The sky suddenly darkened, casting a large shadow over the arena. When everyone looked up, they saw an array several times the size of the arena itself, floating up in the sky, gathering energy.

In the horrified silence that filled the arena, the sound of loud cracking woke everyone up. Lex was cracking his knuckles. He gave himself 5 minutes for this fight, before he had to get to his other tasks, so he should really stop dilly dallying.