The Innkeeper

Chapter 2238: Building desperation

For a while, Mary was genuinely and completely stunned. Although she had been waiting and hoping for her new body, she hadn’t been expecting it to appear so suddenly. But Mary was not stunned for long, and immediately locked into the second part of what Lex said.

"Are we in some kind of trouble?" she asked, looking at Lex.

Lex sighed and shook his head.

"I’m not sure, but I feel like someone is targeting me. I can’t tell whether I’m being targeted personally, or it’s the Inn that’s being targeted. But since when have I been one to silently stand around and wait to be played with? I have set a few plans of my own in motion - and this is one of them. So tell me, how long will it take for your body to be ready?"

Mary turned from Lex back to the chest and carefully inspected all the materials in great detail, including and especially the Time accelerator.

"The time accelerator can... speed up time by five times, I think," she said hesitantly. "However, considering we’re in an Immature realm, such a fast speed will only affect the formation of my new body. We can, at most, limit the speed to twice.

"Beyond that, all the resources provided are in good condition. While that will help in making a strong body, it will cause the formation of the body to slow down. I’ll need some time to study everything - I can’t give you a definite timeline any time soon. But even with the acceleration, I doubt I’ll be able to complete the body in less than five decades."

Lex couldn’t help but purse his lips. He wondered if he could have sped this process up a bit if he had access to his mothers knowledge, but then dismissed it. Five decades meant that she probably wouldn’t be able to help him any time soon. But oh well.

"Alright, you focus on developing your body from now on. Hand over any tasks you’re doing to someone else. I’ll hold off on improving my system until we pull out your soul so that it’s not any tougher than it needs to be."

Mary simply nodded. She understood better than most the kinds of dangers Lex was facing. If his current threat caused him to even speed up the development of her body, then she could only imagine what his actual problem was.

With this taken care of, Lex focused on his other plans. The first thing he needed to do was understand what was actually happening inside the Dream realm. Once his new tavern inside the Humanoid Alliance’s headquarters was opened up, Lex got to witness a unique scene that the Inn had never witnessed before.

Various humanoid races passed through the tavern, and a few even stayed in the tavern itself as guests, but looking at how they behaved, Lex had a feeling that even they had been ordered to stay as guests by the alliance. Meanwhile, at any given moment, there was one, continuous line of humanoid beings from the door of the tavern to the door leading to the Dream tavern.

They moved in an even and orderly fashion. However, contrary to Lex’s expectation, they weren’t all Celestial Immortals. Instead, their cultivation range varied all the way down to the mortal realms.

By paying attention and overhearing the conversations of other guests in the tavern, Lex learned that the sole purpose of these soldiers passing through was to search for anyone related to the Inn. The alliance was taking the rescue efforts incredibly seriously!

However, Lex guessed that this couldn’t continue for long because the alliance wanted to use it to send in Dao Lords, and that was the main purpose. They were currently only sending others to fulfill their obligation to the Inn.

One day later, the Henali also provided all the materials, and began sending in their forces directly from the Origin realm. Similar to the Humanoid Alliance, they opted to send weaker cultivators first for the sake of sheer scale. Sooner or later, though, they would also send in Dao Lords.

A couple days later, Velma sent back some information she had gathered working for Ur. According to the trends, the Humanoid Alliance had diverted nearly all of its spare focus towards the Dream realm. The only reason they weren’t dedicating even more was because doing so would make them vulnerable during the war.

She didn’t get the details of why exactly something like this was happening, but based on what she was able to gather, she concluded that some exceptional resources for Dao Lords had become available in the Dream realm. She didn’t look into this too much because she figured that the Innkeeper would be able to find out directly, since apparently all Dao Lords had been able to sense the change.

The information provided Lex with a little perspective, but that caused him to only redouble his rescue efforts. Soon enough, more and more Inn related people started to get rescued.

Daekol also noticed the trend, but he wasn’t alarmed. He had already anticipated that since he was targeting one of the Inns most prominent workers, a dedicated search effort might take place.

It was for that reason he had used most of his spare credits in the Path of Chaos to get help, specifically hiding his activities from other Dao Lords. He wasn’t sure how it would be done, but the Path of Chaos hadn’t failed him yet, so he trusted them.

In fact, this was one of the things he was waiting for. He needed Lex to get desperate. When he realized that even Dao Lords could not find the child, he would slowly become more prone to taking risks. The moment even a hint of a lead relating to her showed up, he would be forced to jump in head first. Waiting or being cautious might cause him to lose the lead forever.

It was not easy conspiring against powerful immortals. It required several layers of setup. Fortunately, he had the patience to follow through.