The Innkeeper

Chapter 2179: Easter Eggs

Though Lex wanted to keep the suspense for as long as possible, he knew the entire layout of the Inn perhaps better than anyone else. This, with the old man’s hints, and based on the direction they were traveling in, Lex could more or less guess where they were going.

To be fair, the old man was not wrong. One of the most popular new activities inside the Inn was built by someone who had lived practically their entire life inside the Midnight Inn. They took what they learned in the younger stages of life, and adapted it for adulthood. It was silly, but the entertainment value was there - not to mention many people used it as training as well.

Lex was, of course, referring to the 5000 acre Jungle Gym built by Jimmy and the other Peacock warriors!

In truth, it started out as a training facility for their own Peacock forces. The Peacocks of the Midnight Inn had grown into formidable beasts with incredible power and versatility, but a Peacock warrior could not depend solely on the peacock. The actual warrior needed to be decent as well, and needed to have perfect coordination with the peacock.

Thus, to train their forces, Jimmy had requested permission to build a massive training facility. The issue was, the training looked like a lot of fun and began attracting more and more guests until they eventually adapted it completely into a facility for Inn guests! The warriors did not even need to stop their training for it didn’t really interfere with anything.

"Are you, perhaps, leading me to that giant thing?" the Innkeeper asked the old man, pointing at the massive, blue rods of metal that rose into the sky, forming the most complex, artificial terrain inside the entire Inn.

The Jungle Gym was as if a monkey bar on steroids began to cultivate the Dao of What The Hell. Besides spanning around 5000 acres, it also rose 4 km into the sky and was designed by a bunch of children in the Midnight Daycare using crayons, forming the most incomprehensible obstacle course known to man.

Using the incredible ability of the Inn to create things as they were designed, and even the ability to make what should be impossible, possible, the Jungle Gym was the perfect deathtrap - though fortunately they did not want to kill anyone, so there was nothing lethal in there.

"Yeah," the old man said with a hint of childlike enthusiasm in his voice. "The official name of that place is just the Jungle Gym, but among the guests it’s earned another name - the Playground of Legends! The terrain is truly too complex and unpredictable for you to explore randomly, so before entering you can select any number of objectives to pick from to help you focus on a certain style of challenge.

"The last time I came here, I did the Easter Egg hunt challenge, which involves searching specific parts of the playground for eggs from rare and powerful beasts. If you find them, and can actually get your hands on them, you get to keep them, which is more than worth the price you pay for the ticket. But the challenge of it should not be underestimated. Most people hardly manage to complete the challenges, which is what makes it so interesting."

The Innkeeper nodded as he heard the old man’s review of the ’playground’. The eggs were honestly not that special. They were just random eggs acquired from the Inns’ various ranches. It was just that beasts born inside the Inn had tremendous potential, which is why everyone valued them.

"So, will we do that challenge?" the Innkeeper asked.

The old man shook his head, turning his attention from the gym to the innkeeper.

"No, the hunt is for solo participants. Since there’s two of us, we perfectly fit the requirements for a challenge called It Takes Two. I’m not too sure about the details of it, but I’ve heard it’s also quite challenging. We can try that out."

The Innkeeper nodded.

"That’s all quite creative," said Lex, admiring the playground, which the old man agreed with.

"Yeah, I’ve heard the playground was made by someone who used to manage the Midnight Daycare for kids. He got so used to providing entertaining challenges for kids, he started to provide the same challenges for the same kids once they grew up."

Well, that wasn’t entirely accurate in the sense that this hadn’t been Jimmy’s intention. However, that is what effectively happened.

Soon, the two of them arrived at the entrance which seemed to be swarming with countless guests. If Lex had to guess, which he did not need to honestly, but if he really had to guess, he’d say there were anywhere between one to five million guests inside the playground at the moment.

It seemed like they would either need to build more, or they would need to expand the existing one. He resisted the urge to use his spirit sense to scan the entire playground and pull out the experience information of all the guests. Instead, he used his eyes to what they were going through right in front of him.

The Innkeeper and the old man quickly made their way to the registration booth, and got the information for the It Takes Two challenge.

The rules of the playground were that they had to be astride their peacocks at all times. They could not get off, nor could they use their own abilities or powers to help with the movement. All movement and travel had to be done via the peacocks, and they had to control the peacocks using a number of tricks and gestures.

Beyond that, they were not allowed to attack other guests, unless they specifically signed up for combat related challenges. For the specific challenge that the two of them were doing, they had to make it through ten, time sensitive challenges wherein they had to help each other cross the challenge. If they made it through all ten levels, they would win a prize.

The actual prize, while valuable, was hardly the point of the challenge. No, getting their name on the achievement board for those who completed their challenge was far more valuable to most contestants.