The Innkeeper

Chapter 2136: A few quadrillion more

The Crystal realm, as a whole, was pretty massive. It was about as big as the solar system, if Lex recalled correctly. Moreover, it existed as one continuous plane of existence, meaning that across that entire area, living beings existed. Thus, the population of the Crystal realm was far greater than merely a few hundred trillion. After all, this was not the population of one single race, but all the races and living beings existing within the Crystal realm!

Lex wasn’t exactly sure if, throughout all the batches of migrants, Harriot only wanted to migrate sentient living beings, or all living beings. Whatever the case, this was big business for the Inn!

In fact, this was a big deal, so the fact that he hadn’t been issued a quest felt strange to Lex. But, the moment he returned to the Inn, he heard the familiar sound of a new notification. The delay was unusual, but Lex merely took it to mean that the system went dormant in the presence of a Dao Lord. He had been told by Nuwa already that she wouldn’t be helping him anymore, which meant that he could not rely on her to hide his system - not that he ever did that before since he hadn’t even known of her presence.

Considering who Harriot worked for, it wouldn’t be surprising if he was incredibly powerful, and thus the system’s dormancy in his presence could be explained.

New Quest: The Host has encountered a special commission from a special patron. House the subjects of the patron, complete the special commission and receive a special reward.

Quest Reward: Migrants Lodge

Remarks: If commissions did not fall into the hosts lap by themselves, the inn would never see any guests!

Lex smiled sheepishly. For once, he actually felt like the remark from his system was valid. It had been a long time since he actively sought out guests for the Inn. In his defense, it was because the system usually had way too many guests for him to deal with anyway, and he didn’t want to deal with particularly strong guests either.

Now, though, he was being sent the weakest living beings in the Primordial realm, which consisted of many of the new residents it gained due to the realm fusion. Not only did Lex have no problem with taking them on, he saw a unique opportunity in front of him.

He had been told that if the guests wanted to take their own residency or migration into their own hands, they could. These were beings who had gained benefits from their realm ascending, so even if they were weak they held great potential. If Lex could pick and choose some of them which could greatly benefit the Inn, or his realm, he wouldn’t mind offering them residency in his own realm!

Even if they were weak now, they could contribute to the diversity in special and potential of the realm, helping it grow stronger while also raising the level of the natives of the place. It would be a slow process, occurring over countless generations, but as an Immortal, it was a good thing for Lex to plan longterm.

Thus, with that in mind, the first thing Lex did when he returned to the Midnight Inn was not tell his staff to prepare for the arrival of 5 trillion guests. He’d already gone over the list of all five trillion of the guests arriving inside the Inn, which is why he knew that it wouldn’t be a problem accommodating them at all.

A majority of the five trillion guests were insects and worms, most of which could survive as long as they were provided a suitable environment. After that, the guests were small rodents and animals. Only about nine hundred billion of the guests required actual, specialised environments which Lex could create using the system.

This also explained why Harriot had not wanted specific housing for the guests as a simple, open environment was more suitable for them.

All of these guests were the most basic, low level living beings one could find in any realm, and it made sense that they weren’t able to adapt quickly or properly to the Primordial Garden. Most races lacked the adaptability of the human race, and even after receiving special benefits to help them, could not adapt to the Primordial Garden even with Harriot and the other Dao Lords ensuring they weren’t targeted.

The reason they were selected to send outside the garden was to prevent mass deaths, which would negatively impact the garden apparently. Lex could imagine that if the Dao Lords hadn’t been specifically looking out for them, a majority of all those who arrived in the Primordial Garden would already be dead.

Fortunately, the Dao Lords had intervened, which meant that Lex didn’t need to have their deaths of trillions of tiny lifeforms in his consciousness, since he was the one who started all this. In fact, he got the opportunity to help them out, and even house them.

Of the five trillion guests, the only ones who needed actual tending to were a measly 320 billion guests. 180 billion of them consisted of the entire population of a particular type of sentient plant that could only grow in clouds. They also needed to live in societies due to their strong need for cohabitation since their survival usually required helping one another.

Of course, since they were sentient they had their own unique requirements that needed to be fulfilled. The way that this race had developed meant that they were dependent on the presence of Sol and Frio birds, with whom they would trade energy for sustenance. Based on what Lex saw, the birds would rest in the clouds where these plants lived, settling inside their roots.

The plants would clean and rejuvenate them, while the plants actually used the various kinds of dirt or contaminant energies on their body as their own sustenance. It was a fair trade based on the requirements of all these races.

Replacing that cycle was something that would require actual intervention on his part, but it was simple enough. With a bit of planning, these plants, known as Cloudborne Creepers, could even be brought to the regular Inn, as well as the rest of the Midnight realm, allowing them to fit in to natural ecosystem of the realm as well as providing the guests of the Inn with an interesting opportunity to help one another.

The remaining 140 billion guests that required active intervention consisted of various races, some sentient, some not, that had special requirements and consistent attention.

Since they were all relatively low leveled, all in the mortal realms, managing them was not as difficult. It would just require establishing a few systems, which was a task he delegated to the Planning division.

The hours went by quickly, and Lex was more or less prepared for the arrival of all the guests by the time limit he set was up. Yet, when the five trillion new guests arrived from the garden, something unexpected happened.

The Lotus, which had gone to sleep to digest the gains it was getting from the sudden growth of the realm, woke up. Though it was confused about what was happening, it quickly connected to the realm to understand the situation, before sending Lex the feedback it got.

The sudden arrival of 5 trillion low level guests inside the Inn had sped up the growth of the Midnight realm by 0.0001%!

While that sounded low, in truth, considering how slow realms matured, that increase in speed was the equivalent of attaching rockets to a cycle.

Lex paused for a moment, trying to understand. Through his connection to the realm with his system, as well as from Lotus, Lex began to observe the growth of the realm and how it was affected by a mere 5 trillion low level guests.

He had a feeling that he had stumbled onto something big. It was unlikely to be a huge secret, but since he had limited access to knowledge about maturing realms, he had to deduce this on his own.

One hour, two and then three went by before Lex woke from his stupor, and arrived at a mind bending conclusion. These five trillion new guests, which weren’t exactly Primordial yet but carried a hint of Primordial aura, contributed to the environment with a rich, nourishing energy that not only supplemented the lands themselves, but the laws as well!

This was the benefit of Primordial energy! It could enhance the growth of laws! No wonder it was so abundant at the start of the universe - it was required to grow the laws of the realm. In essence, the arrival of these five trillion guests was like a weaker version of the enhancement that the Sun Crow was providing to the Inn.

Since that was the case, if Lex could get his hands on a few quadrillion - a thousand trillion - more of such low level guests, he could increase the speed of his realms growth even more. No wonder the Henali wanted them - they were doing their best to grow the Origin realm.