The Innkeeper

Chapter 1951 Deeper

Lex nodded, as if everything the great and fabulous Mango said was true, but Lex did not take it too seriously. As he knew the full details behind the so-called ‘agreement’ between Mango and the Innkeeper, he could imagine situations and scenarios where people had taken advantage of Mango’s well-meaning and well-intentioned attitude – unlike him, who was simply helping Mango network a little and explore the universe outside his hut. Yes, Lex had only the best intentions.

Regardless, the important thing was to take Mango’s claims with a grain of salt.

“You know, since I have stepped out of my hut to act as your guardian, I may as well help you along on your quest as well,” Mango said as he sunbathed for the first time in his memory. “Why don’t you show me that karmic string you’re following, and leave the rest to me.”

Lex gave Mango a dubious look as he glanced between the fish and the karmic string.

“Do you… know what a karmic string is?” Lex asked, doing his best not to sound too hesitant.

“Absolutely no idea,” Mango said as he changed positions to let the sun hit his scales differently. “But don’t you worry, I’m a quick and intuitive learner. I’ll know what to do once I see it.”

Lex rubbed his head, but decided to humor Mango. Obviously the karmic string wasn’t the kind of thing Lex could just pass onto the fish as he wished, and while he could make the string visible to Mango, that would reveal much of Lex’s own karma which is not something he was keen on doing. So he did the next best thing.

Using that 1.1% of his power that he had access to, Lex created a visible string that greatly mimicked the karmic string in many of its features, but revealed only what he wished to reveal.

Considering the odd nature of the suppression in Arch-Heaven, Lex was not able to mimic the entire string, and instead could only reveal string up to a certain distance from himself.

“My apologies, great Mango. This is as much of the string as I am able to reveal,” Lex said, sounding exhausted. In truth, he really was spent. Instead of focusing on healing, he was exerting himself like this, and it wasn’t a pleasant

experience.

“Do not fret, this is enough,” Mango said, nailing the old, wise guy tone of voice. He began to swim forward, following the string, not minding that his fishing bowl was in the way, and something incredible happened.

Even though Fenrir was already running, following Lex’s instructions, they began to move even faster. In fact, the sled began to move faster than the pup until he eventually found himself sitting on the sled beside Lex, looking at him oddly.

Instead of explaining, Lex simply closed his eyes. This was, generally speaking, one of his least pleasant outings. Not only had he not regrown his skin yet, he was being made to work, and even his pup was being shown up.

In Fenrir’s defense, it was not easy pulling Lex’s weight even with the allowance of having a 100% pure Mythical bloodline.

But they were moving faster, so Lex wasn’t going to complain. Instead, he divided his focus on keeping the string visible and on healing.

Mango, perhaps relieved to have company, or perhaps simply because he had a ridiculously positive personality, started to chat as he swam through Arch-Heaven. Mostly, he was simply elaborating on how incredible he was as a goldfish, and seeing how neither Lex nor Fenrir negated him, he felt pretty great.

Several hours in, Lex snapped his eyes open because he sensed a familiar chaos. There, on their horizon, the perfectly normal landscape suddenly turned into abstract chaos. Colors lost meaning, space ceased to exist in the way it normally did. Loud explosions like thunder and grating stone could be heard from even this far. What was truly incredible, however, was that the chaos was completely contained within a specific segment.

Right beside the exploding chaos, even the grass and flowers on the ground remained undisturbed, while within the region filled with chaos, nothing ordinary remained.

“A Lawstorm,” Lex muttered, chills running down his spine.

“It’s nothing to be too concerned about, it’ll pass,” Mango said as he continued to swim.

“Do you know why they happen? Or how to avoid them?” Lex asked, clearly noticing how casually Mango treated the devastation. He suspected that even though the fish didn’t remember such things, it might subconsciously remember them. Or perhaps it had developed an instinct for how to avoid and deal with such things in Heaven.

Lex had no idea how old the fish was, but to achieve a magnificent 39% reduction on its limiter, it had to have spent a lot of time here.

The fish looked towards the chaos for a few seconds, as if studying it for a bit, before turning back towards the karmic thread.

“There’s some flaw in that region which needs to be corrected,” Mango said vaguely. “Everything here is not as simple as you assume. A passing blade of grass may actually be a realm, and a random rock may be a law. This is not a place that was made for the living, so don’t judge it by its appearance. The only safe places here are the white buildings. If you want to be safe, don’t leave them, and get an official position.”

For someone who was supposed to have no memory past the last ten days, Mango sure knew a lot of random things. But, based on the confusion Lex detected with its eyes, he suspected that even Mango himself did not know why he knew those things.

Once again, Lex was left to speculate on his own while the fish went on a tangent about how white and its own magnificent golden were the only colors it had seen until Lex and Fenrir showed up.

He suspected getting an official position afforded residents more information. Unfortunately, until he found someone else to ask, Lex could only speculate. So, while listening to the fish speaking, and while cultivating and hoping that the fish could help them avoid trouble, Lex went deeper and deeper into Arch-Heaven. You could tell they were going in deeper because the already intimidating presence of laws only kept getting stronger and stronger.