The Innkeeper

Lex felt slightly amused as he saw the changing emotions of the man who attacked him. Although he did not know what the reason behind attacking Lex was, he could tell that he had chosen Lex because, of everyone else on the street, he looked like the easiest target.

After all, almost everyone else was taller than him, not to mention more muscular than him. Compared to everyone else, Lex looked truly malnourished.

But that was probably just because the humans here were probably just a sub-race of humans that were taller and more muscular. It made sense actually, considering they had to cope with a higher gravity. If they had no way to cultivate, then they may have ended up shorter than other humans. But, since they cultivated, were focused on body cultivation, and lived in such an energy rich area, they grew to be tall and strong.

That did not, however, mean that others were weak. The guard who attacked Lex recoiled back and held onto his right hand, which was trembling, and looked at Lex in shock.

“What’s happening here?” yelled another guard as he pulled out his sword, but did not rush to attack.

The two girls were also intrigued, and though a number of guards surrounded them to protect them, they kept watching.

“Sir he… I caught him glaring at the two young mistresses, and suspected something was amiss. Then I saw him try to attack, and rushed to stop him, but he’s stronger than I expected. He… he knocked my sword from my hand.”

The other guard looked at Lex warily, though there was a trace of doubt in his eyes.

According to what Lex had read, this was a perfect opportunity to act mysterious. He just needed to stick around, get into a verbal fight with the guard, establish his moral superiority before attacking the guard and possibly uncover some kind of underhanded plot.

But now that he was in the situation himself, he discovered that it was… kind of lame. The guy had attacked Lex, so why did he need to justify anything to retaliate? Moreover, just the thought of trying to convince everyone he was innocent and the guard was guilty sounded exhausting.

“Don’t waste my time,” Lex said to the guard who attacked him, and flashed him with Domination, causing him to froth at the mouth and fall unconscious. Instead of sticking around, Lex teleported away to the commission building.

It was only after he teleported away that it occurred to Lex that the guard might have been cooperating with the thugs who tried to book the tavern. Maybe he was trying to create a scene as a signal for them to act. He shrugged, and decided not to worry about it, and instead entered the building.

Since he had withdrawn his spirit sense, Lex missed the reaction to his disappearance, which alarmed those who were watching even more than the sudden fainting of the guard. Afraid for his life, others checked up on the guard, only to discover a number of unusual items on his person, including a knife with a strange marking on it and a couple of bottles of unmarked medicine.

The two girls were quickly escorted away, lest some issue arise, but the locals of the area who saw what happened began to whisper of a ghost who appeared in broad daylight. Some said he was lascivious and desired the two girls, while others claimed that he saved their lives from a guard who was actually trying to kidnap them.

Several other versions of the story also began to spread, but the only thing they had in common was that the ghost was thin and lacking in muscle. But that did not mean he was weak. Instead, he had traded all his muscles for an impervious body!

As soon as the guests who were sitting in the tavern heard the story, they too began to share the story of how a single look of the ghost defeated a dozen men. But instead of a ghost, he was a wanderer who traveled from place to place, tasting both wine and life.

The building that Lex entered was called the Simple Life building, as he learnt once he arrived there. It was named so because it was supposed to make life simple and easy. Anyone who wished could come here and place commissions for anything they needed, or accept commissions for money, or buy and sell things. Obviously not everything was bought and sold here, but the categories were well defined.

It really did keep things fairly simple.

To accept commissions, however, Lex first needed to register himself. That gave him pause. If he gave a name, would that reduce the mystery around him? It might, just a little, but he decided to go forward with it and got registered. The process was, unsurprisingly, simple and straightforward.

He would need to use his registered ID to accept new commissions and their rewards. Originally, Lex had imagined that he would just complete all the commissions in one day, using his superior abilities, but that was not possible. A lot of the commissions required him to work with the person who set the commissions, or with other groups.

That would naturally take time. So he began to devise a plan as he looked at the various commission boards.

At the moment, he was a grade 1 member, meaning he could only accept commissions that had a grade 1 difficulty. Other than difficulty, the commissions were also differentiated into types.

So, naturally, after some consideration, Lex decided to accept all the hunting commissions available to him. Most of them were asking for certain body parts of beasts that lived nearby, while some were for eradicating pests.

Accepting so many commissions at once was an issue, so Lex had to use Mindmeld to enter the thoughts of the person who would register Lex’s commissions, named Henry, and added the idea of letting Lex do as he pleased.

That was the first time he added a thought into someone’s mind like that, and it was fairly easy, but he considered it might get harder if his target had a higher cultivation level.

Once he accepted the commissions, it only took Lex a few minutes to actually complete all 112 commissions that he accepted. But, instead of returning immediately, he waited till almost an hour passed.

Once he hit that one hour mark, Lex walked back into the Simple Life building, lugging a massive bag over his shoulder. Although Lex attracted a lot of attention, he ignored it and got back in the queue to report his completed commissions. There were other, shorter lines, but Lex decided to stick with Henry.

“How you doing Henry,” Lex asked, when it was finally his turn. “I’m just here to report that I’m done with all the commissions. I’ve brought all the harvested parts as well. Just let me know where to drop them.”

“You… you what?” Henry asked, as he looked up at Lex in shock. It almost sounded like Lex had said he completed all the accepted commissions. That was over 100 of them! The massive bag he was carrying seemed to reinforce that thought, but it must be a mistake.

“I said I completed all the tasks and brought the harvested stuff. Where can I have them checked out?”

“The room to the left… No, wait, I’ll take you there myself,” Henry said, once he woke up from his stupor.

Henry quickly left his station and walked out from behind the counter, and led Lex to a room on the side.

There were a number of booths in the room, most with lines in front of them, and people were bringing stuff in to be appraised in each one. Henry led Lex to one of the larger booths which did not have a line.

“This booth is normally only used for grade 4 members and above, but since I’m personally bringing you, it’s fine if we use it,” Henry explained.

Lex found Henry’s expression quite amusing. He looked equal parts bewildered and curious. Logic told Henry that it was impossible for Lex to have completed all the tasks he accepted, or even half of them, so quickly. But for some odd reason, he believed Lex.

“Hi, can you appraise these goods and confirm they correspond with these commissions?” Henry handed the appraiser a list of the commissions Lex accepted, who was also stunned when he looked at the massive list.

Lex only smiled, and put the massive bag he was pulling onto the table. For a moment, the massive bag, much larger than the table or even the people standing in the booth, made for quite a commercial scene. Then the table collapsed under the weight of the bag.

“Is this some kind of joke?” the appraiser asked, anger rising in his chest. Was he being made fun of?

“No, not really. Can you hurry up? I have more commissions to accept,” Lex responded innocently. After all, this was just the beginning of his plan.

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