The Innkeeper

Alexander Morrison, confirmed heir of the Morrison family, the golden child of destiny, the youngest Foundation realm cultivator in the recorded history of Earth, walked back into his private booth as casually as he left. By looking at his expression no one would be able to guess he had just confronted one of his oldest friends for participating in an assassination attempt against him. You would also not be able to tell that he had casually let him leave, and continued to pretend as if he knew nothing. One must realize that if Zeus wanted to betray Alexander, the moment he escaped he could let the other assassins know that Alexander was already aware of the planned assassination. But he didn’t consider it a big deal. To be honest, even before he received a text message from the mysterious girl warning him, he already knew that there would likely be some attempt on his life today. In fact it would be more apt to say this opportunity for an assassination attempt had been specifically engineered by him and his teachers, and took years of planning.

Due to his status he was always followed by a protective entourage and his itinerary was always secret. The only foreseeable event in his life where he could potentially have lax security was during an occasion where he lowered his guard. The moment he broke through the Foundation realm and left the security of his family and academy seemed like such an opportunity. During the years leading up to his breakthrough, he ‘coincidentally’ mentioned in front of a few groups of people that when he broke through he would arrange for a shuffle in his protective detail because he wanted to choose his bodyguards himself rather than the ones his family gave him. He also let his friends know when he was planning on breaking through, which should have otherwise been a huge secret no one could have discovered. The reason for all this was simple: he really wanted to know who was truly loyal to him and who was only putting up a front. To be honest, knowing or not knowing didn’t really matter as he fully understood the concepts of searching for benefits and competition for resources. The people he could completely trust was predetermined from birth, so whether the others in his life took the chance to participate in this assassination or not would not change that. But Alexander wanted to do it anyway. He was treating it as an experiment, as well as a learning experience. He had always treated everyone with sincerity. A part of him wanted to know if sincerity and loyalty really affected his relationships, or was the world as cutthroat as it seemed. It could be said that the outcome of this evening would greatly determine the future actions and decisions of this destiny’s golden child.

“There were no keys auctioned,” Helen told warmly, looking at Alexander with puppy eyes. Alexander nodded and said, “What’s wrong with him?”

Greg was sitting in the corner of the room sulking. In his hand he was squeezing a stress ball, it was quite apparent that he was in a bad mood.

“Can’t you guess? He tried to bid for one of the items, but lo and behold, Alissa outbid him?”_.

“Alissa?” Alexander repeated, surprised. That was the name of Greg’s girlfriend, or ex-girlfriend. It was hard to keep track, they kept breaking up and getting back together so frequently one never knew what their status was from day to day. “What is she even doing here?”

“Who knows?” Greg answered, his annoyance apparent in his voice. “She probably couldn’t live with the fact that I broke it off once and for all. She’s just trying to get my attention.”

“How many times have you broken up with her ‘once and for all’ by now? Six? Seven times?”

“Seven times,” Helen confirmed, completely disregarding Greg’s annoyance. “But only if you don’t count when they broke up twice on the same day last Christmas.”

“This is not funny!” Greg roared, giving Helen a dirty look. But unfortunately for him, neither of his friends took him seriously.

The mood in the private room was relaxed and full of banter, as one would expect from a group of teenagers. No one mentioned Zeus even as time went on, but the longer it went the more Greg squeezed his stress ball – though only Alexander seemed to notice. Finally something happened that attracted Alexander’s attention. The auctioneer mentioned a last minute addition to the auction.

Alexander leaned forward and focused on stage. He was truly a bit curious as to what could attract the attention of the mysterious girl.

“Ladies and gents, you truly will not believe the treat we have for you today. Everyone here must have heard rumors of a village in Egypt inaccessible to all cultivators, even if they may be in the Body Tempering realm. The village that seems to be nothing special, but is said to be protected by the Goddess Bastet. For thousands of years, as far back as records go, this village and its residents have been left undisturbed by history. Protected from war, protected from famine, protected from any kind of tribulation, this unnamed village has passed through the annals of history as a mystery.”

It was true, what the auctioneer said. Alexander had also heard about it, the village that worshiped the Goddess Bastet was one of the forbidden zones of the world that no cultivator had ever entered. Mortals, however, had found their way in and even made videos, but could not discover anything significant about the village. Any mortals who tried to harm the village however would mysteriously disappear. Although it was a forbidden zone, if no one tried to invade its territory no one would be harmed so it was considered the least threatening. Before Alexander started cultivating he had tried to look for the village himself once, but unfortunately the entrance to the village could not always be found and depended on luck.

“Well our guests would be pleased to learn that earlier today, a resident from that village sold two spirit artifacts the likes of which have never been seen! The artifacts are in the shape of a key,” the auctioneer waved his hand signaling a woman who walked onto the stage holding a purple, velvet pillow. On the pillow were placed two golden keys, attracting all the eyes in the venue.

“The use for these artifacts cannot be determined yet, but when held they release a warm current of spiritual energy through the body that seem to have a healing effect. Our appraises strongly suspect that the keys lead to an ancient, unknown heritage waiting to be discovered.” The auctioneer beamed as he spoke, and waited for a moment for his audience to absorb what was said. “Both keys will be auctioned separately. We will begin the bidding at fifty million dollars as well as 5 thousand spirit stones! All bids must be at least one hundred thousand dollars and one hundred spirit stones!”

Auctions in the cultivation world were often like this. Money on its own was too useless to a cultivator, so spirit coins or spirit stones would also be used. Sometimes spirit stones would be used alone, but although money didn’t help with cultivation it wasn’t as if money had no value at all, which is why most often it was some combination of both.

Before anyone had a chance to consider whether to bid or not, Alexander had already placed his bid. “Five hundred million dollars, ten thousand spirit stones and one grade four Purple Spirit pill!” Everyone in the hall froze in shock!

A grade four pill was one meant for Foundation realm cultivators, and the Purple Spirit pill was a rather famous pill used to heal internal wounds quickly. It was an extremely rare pill that most people used in life or death situations, and now it was being used to pay for a key. Although the auctioneer had hyped up the key saying it could lead to a heritage, there was no proof of that, it was only a possibility. It really wasn’t the kind of thing someone would gamble on, at least this much. But to Alexander this price was irrelevant. He simply wanted to quickly get the key before his conspirators began their little ‘play’.

After a few moments, when no one else bid the auctioneer shouted “sold” with all his enthusiasm and started the bidding for the next key, but once again a voice rang out in the hall. “Five hundred million dollars, ten thousand spirit stones and one grade four Purple Spirit pill!”

Shock! Awe! Horror! These feelings gripped everyone in the hall, and even the auctioneer began to wonder if there were more secrets behind the keys they weren’t aware of. In fact, even Helen and Greg were surprised by Alexander’s brazen spending! He was not someone who carelessly wasted money, even if he had a lot of it.

“Do you know what those keys do?” Helen finally asked, her voice trembling a bit.

“No, but someone asked me to get the keys. I am just getting them for that person.” Alexander’s words scared the two kids in his room a bit. Who would dare use Alexander Morrison as a middleman? Could it be…the elder from his family?

Before the conversation could go any further someone knocked on Alexander’s door. The young man raised an eyebrow in curiosity. The keys were still on stage with the auctioneer, so it couldn’t be someone from the auction house bringing him his prize. Were his assassins about to begin their little performance?