The Innkeeper

About eighteen minutes after he started, Lex’s main body arrived at the Veetavil forge alongside Luthor. The dwarves had been evacuated this time, for Lex did not want a repeat of the 13,000 beard casualty incident. A monument to all the beards that were lost the last time he used the forge had been erected by the dwarves, and Lex couldn’t bear the embarrassment if he repeated the situation.

This was especially because now it was not just Lex’s Dragonfire that would be used in the forge. No, this time Luthor’s newly acquired Hellfire would also play a role.

Now, Lex was not too familiar with Hellfire and how it differed from Dragonfire, so he had to consult Luthor on the matter. It was a risk using something he was unfamiliar with, but it couldn’t be helped. Although he could make the castle in the remaining time, if he could speed up the forging process even further, he could further enhance the castle’s strength and durability.

“Are you ready?” Lex asked Luthor, who had gone bald because Hellfire burned all his hair off. The man claimed the baldness was temporary. For his sake, Lex hoped he was right.

“Yes,” Luthor responded, his eyes glowing with a deep red.

Lex didn’t ask him again, and directly started the forging process. He activated the ability in both his eyes, using his left eye to see exactly how the process was going and his right eye to embed countless formations, arrays and Glyphs directly into the foundation of the castle itself.

Lex was moving fast, bringing in thousands of tonnes of materials directly into the forge and using his literal fists as hammers.

Beside him, Luthor was pouring in deep red flames that seemed more liquid than fire as they emerged from his body. If Dragonfire was raging and furious, then Hellfire was controlled and incredibly lethal. Of course, even the combination of two would never be enough to melt the scales of a Heaven Immortal dragon. That is why the supporting materials were so important. They acted like cement while the scales were like the bricks.

The heat was enough, however, to severely affect both Luthor and Lex. The situation was so drastic that both of them actually shed multiple drops of sweat during the process!

Jokes aside, the temperature in the forge was unbearable so the two had to block the heat using their bodies, so that everyone else involved in the forging process could tolerate the heat. Behind them stood Jace, who needed all the help he could get since he had not yet reached the Immortal level.

Jace was the Inn worker who could control the earth. During his time in the Midnight Battalion, he had been responsible for creating fortifications using his powers, and it was something he had refined to a great extent since then.

In fact, he was a budding architect and structural engineer specifically focused on battle fortification, and had spent a great deal of time within the Temple of Fasting increasing his knowledge. That is why, even though his power was insufficient, his skill and expertise were more than sufficient to aid in the construction of the castle tavern.

Besides him, there were a number of other Inn workers all of whom had unique occupations or knowledge, and each of them contributed to the best of their abilities, expediting the castle’s creation and enhancing its ability.

Once it would be complete, the castle would only be the size of a small toy car that could fit in a person’s hand. It was only once activated using spiritual energy that the castle would grow to its full size and potential.

Something like this should have taken much longer to prepare. Weeks, if not months, or even years should have gone into its planning and construction, but there was limited time, so nothing could be done about it. Fortunately, due to the very nature of the ingredients going into the castle’s creation, it could be upgraded in the future when Lex had time. The value of the ingredients would not be wasted.

As the minutes ticked down, coming ever closer to the time of the quest initiation, Lex became more and more focused. It was a tragedy that Lex had not seen his ancestors fight, or else he would have realized the immense untapped potential of his Flow state that he had been overlooking.

In the absence of that knowledge, Lex did the best he could, utilizing every last bit of his focus.

“You need something to purify the malevolent influence of the Hellfire, or it will forever taint the castle,” Luthor said. This was something he had already informed Lex beforehand, but seeing as how he had made no attempt at purifying it, he could not help but remind him.

Forging was not something any of them were an expert in, and so they could not interfere with Lex’s task at all. All they could do was assist him, and remind him where he seemed to be falling short.

“No, it does not need purification. It only needs to be controlled. Why would I waste something as valuable as the influence of Hell?” Lex asked as he activated his tenet, and began inscribing the laws of supremacy in the throne room of the castle.

Just as the Host Attire let Lex control everything inside the Inn, through the absolute command that sitting on the throne would avail him, through the absolute supremacy over every single aspect of the castle, he would be able to effectively control even the malevolent influences that were leaking into the castle through the Hellfire.

It would be yet another weapon for him to use against his enemies. After all, since he did not know what kind of foes to expect, he had to take a few drastic measures.

One of Lex’s clones stepped forward, holding in his cupped hands some of the liquid from the Chaos Sea. Within every single drop of that liquid was more energy than even Lex, as an Earth Immortal, could absorb or easily control. Fortunately, he was not using it as a store of energy.

Instead, he was using it to quench the molten joints of the castle and temper it on a cosmic scale. Although he could not achieve such a thing right now, ultimately Lex envisioned that this castle would be able to tolerate a siege from a Jorlam. Right now, he was just setting the foundation for it to reach such heights, eventually.