The Innkeeper

While Lex was observing the sealed domain, and discussing its possibilities with Pel, back in the Midnight Inn, the two Rhinocentaurs were giving their daily news. Lex had already informed Velma about the details of their agreement, and informed her to record everything they said.

Whenever he returned from his various tasks, he would take his time to check the veracity of the news they submitted, mostly by reading their soul language as he asked them about each piece of news.

The reason he told Velma about it was because since she ran the Midnight newsletters, he thought she’d find it interesting, and could maybe add it to the newsletter if the information was relevant or interesting.

Since Velma was involved, she naturally informed Anita as well. The beautiful lich, who was these days getting accustomed to motherhood, had not forgotten that she was also tasked with recording history in the Midnight Library. As such, she was also present when they shared the news, and recorded it all down.

Something interesting, however, was that Lex had been very particular in his choice of words when discussing this deal with the Rhinocentaurs. He had asked them to share news about the universe.

That seemed very general, but because the Rhinocentaurs did not want to risk their freedom, they searched the groupchat for channels open to all members for universal updates. As such, for the first time ever, the Midnight Inn came in touch with news about universal powers, rather than just powers limited to a single realm.

“The Celestial court has set a precedent by allowing half-bloods to apply for bloodline purification based on merits,” one of the Rhinos informed.

“As a result, countless realms have applied for recognition, pledging allegiance to the Celestial court as long as the realm owners can undergo purification,” the other said.

Neither of them elaborated too much on the news they shared, but they both counted as important pieces of news that defined the trends of the entire universe. Not all the news they shared had been as monumental as this, but slowly and steadily, through them, the Inn’s records about the powers of the universe began to grow.

At the same, Lex was still having a discussion with Pel.

“Who do you suspect can create such a domain?” Lex asked as he slowly approached the walls of the sealed domain.

“First, I need to explain something. A domain and a formation seem similar in function, but they are not the same. A formation performs a function, or maybe even a series of functions depending on the complexity of the formation itself.

“But a domain completely rewrites the rules of the world or region it encompasses. You can say it directly manipulates the laws of that place. Moreover, domains can only be formed completely naturally, though such a thing is exceptionally rare, or be created by extremely powerful beings – even stronger than myself in my previous life.

“That means, ordinarily, it cannot be arranged or created by others in the way a formation is made. This is because the origin or source of a domain needs to be singular. Meaning that the energy source, as well as complete and cohesive design of the domain need to come from one item or person. This is another key difference from formations, which create a whole using multiple individual parts, which make an eventual whole.

“Keeping all of that in mind, it’s impossible for someone in this realm to be strong enough to create a domain on their own, yet at the same time, this domain lacks the features of a natural domain. We seem to have encountered a paradox.”

“In my experience, all rules are relative. The rules that govern one species might not be true for another,” Lex said, as he thought of various examples. The Sovereign turtle was such. So beloved by the universe was his race that it seemed to be above all its rules. Was he, perhaps, about to encounter his second Sovereign?

“Indeed, that is the case. After thinking about it for a few days, I have been able to think of a certain race that might be able to accomplish such a feat, while still remaining within the accepted limitations of this newborn realm. It’s fairies!”

“Fairies?” Lex repeated? He was not expecting such an answer at all. He had encountered fairies before, obviously. Countless fairies had even come to the Inn as guests, but they never made much of an impression on him.

In fact, he had a tendency to forget that they even existed, despite the fact that he had encountered them on multiple planets and even in multiple realms!

“Indeed. Among the many humanoid races, fairies are especially capable in manipulating spiritual energy. As a dragon, in my previous life, I did not feel the need to pay much attention to such things, but as a result of my long life I was naturally exposed to various kinds of information, which is how I came to know about this.

“Apparently, in the Realm wars, the first of the humanoid races to suffer were the fairies. Not only were all of their stronger race members killed, but the entire race was cursed. Wherever they exist, fairies will naturally be targeted for slavery and servitude, and are easily forgettable. This is because of how great a threat the influence of fairies was perceived by the countless other races.

“But even having suffered so much, it is still a race beloved by the universe. They suffer almost no fatigue from channeling spiritual energy, which means that a tribe of fairies can work together to empower a single member of their race enough until he can at least take control of a domain, if not create one from scratch.”

Lex paused. This was new information, and it was quite scary. He was certain that he had countless encounters with fairies before, but true to Pel’s explanation, he could not recall any one specific incident. How can a curse be so powerful?

His second thought… was to hire a whole host of fairies to be employees for the Inn! If they really were so gifted, then he definitely should hire them!

“Even if this domain is created by fairies, that does not present us with a solution? How do we get inside?”

By now, Lex had already arrived at the barrier of the domain, and even tried touching it. Despite being in a soul state, he could not just travel through the walls of the domain.

“Well, we will need to look for a specific solution for this domain. In the meantime, we can still look for possible entrances. We haven’t explored all of it yet, so maybe we’ll encounter something.”

“This might take a while,” Lex said as he began Blinking forward. He would only teleport a fixed distance so that all his senses were constantly covering the domain. “Pel, why don’t you pass me all the Glyphs you’ve compiled so far while we search? That Dragon’s breath sounds impressive. What else do you have?”

There were only a few beginner level Glyphs that Lex could use, for his Domination level was still too weak to use them all. But halfway into learning them, Lex decided not to focus too much on the combat oriented ones – besides Dragon’s breath of course!

This was because he really needed to focus on his sword intent. But while there weren’t many he could use now, there were quite a few that interested him. For example, one of the dragon race’s greatest abilities, which was hardly ever talked about, was their passive growth. The greater and more valuable their hoard, the quicker their cultivation would grow!

There was a Glyph which produced a similar effect, and the best part was that it didn’t need to be actively maintained, or even used on by the creator! That meant that Lex could use the Glyph and bestow it to someone else!

Still, they would need to own many valuable things to grow! But for someone like Lex, whose massive wealth did not match his actual meager strength, this was not a bad technique. Of course, one could argue that he was already growing much too fast. But that still was just one example of the many Glyphs that awaited him.

While he searched for an entrance, a small part of his brain was focused on learning the new information Pel passed to him. The odd timing of such multitasking was a reflection of the kind of pressure Lex was under. In a little over 380 days he had to fulfill this quest or lose the system forever.

It was not nearly as bad as the quests he got that threatened death, but he had too much that he didn’t want to lose now.

Exactly one day later, Lex had searched the entire surface of the domain at his fastest speed possible. There was no entrance.

“Now, we use the rules of this domain against it. Don’t worry, I was studying it as well while we searched. I have a few ideas.”

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