The Innkeeper

Estonia, Earth

In Tallinn, the capital of the country, a man entered an inconspicuous house. From the outside it seemed to match every other house in the neighborhood, and in fact, the interior seemed ordinary as well. But the facade was broken when the man reached a particular storeroom and, in a practiced fashion, unlatched a trap door in the ground and began to descend into a hidden basement.

He was not greeted by a dim hall or makeshift construction, but a brightly lit hall with remarkable ventilation considering its depth. The marble floors, the patterned wallpapers and beautiful paintings did not give the impression that the man had descended into a secret layer, but rather the lavish home of a rich man.

Further down the corridor were a series of doors, but the one the man entered opened into a large laboratory that had numerous computers as well as testing equipment, as well a chair hooked up to a number of medical equipment.

“How was it?” asked a middle aged man who had already been present in the room, talking to a number of scientists.𝒐𝑣𝓵xt.𝑪𝑂𝑀

“The transaction went through without a hitch. I have the program, and he made sure to destroy all the equipment used to design this in front of me,” replied the man as he produced an ordinary looking USB.

“Excellent. Begin testing immediately. Once we’ve run all the diagnostics, we can upload the program.”

With his orders given, everyone in the room began to work. Despite the secretive nature of the operation, nothing sinister was being done in this underground lab. The man giving the orders was called Adrus, and was one of Will Bentham’s partners in the Rose Society.

Despite his advanced age, the man was stuck in the early stages of Qi training. No matter how much money he had or spent, he was unable to speed up his cultivation. The matter became even worse when he discovered that his own kids shared his ineptitude in the way of cultivation.

Even the appearance of the magical Midnight Inn did not seem to improve his situation much, though if he had participated in the star rating upgrade ceremony things might have been different.

But he was not resigned to such a fate. As a highly educated man of means, he created his own solution instead of relying on others. Investing heavily in the medical and technological sectors for many years already, the man ultimately reached his end goal.

As he sat down in the chair attached to numerous medical equipment, he couldn’t help but feel excited. Soon he would be put to sleep, and when he woke up, his life would be completely different.

Using the most advanced technology earth had to offer, alongside the numerous advances inspired by alien technology, he had designed an implant that would be attached to his skull and linked to his brain. The implant would be run using the latest and greatest artificial intelligence on earth, ChatGDaddy!

The A.I. only had one directive, despite its advanced capabilities. It would run Adrus’ cultivation technique for him all the time, maintaining peak efficiency, allowing Adrus to raise his cultivation quickly.

This was completely a good thing, and couldn’t possibly lead to anything bad at all.

*****

The moment Lex exited the chamber of secrets, his connection to the Inn was fully restored, but at the same time he felt himself forget a lot of information. He remembered clearly what he had shared with the group, as well as the discussion about how they would all proceed next. Yet he forgot everything relating to whatever secret Anakin and Rafael had shared. Souta hadn’t shared much to begin with, Larry hadn’t shared at all. For Noman he could clearly remember his ability to tell the truth, as well as the fact that he had discovered a curse on him. This was because Noman himself volunteered to allow them to remember this information.

“Hey Lex, if you’re free, why don’t I introduce you to my girlfriend,” said Larry, whose usual grin had returned. No one was better than him at masking his emotions, Lex included.

“I have a few things I need to take care of,” said Lex with an apologetic smile. “But I definitely want to meet her. How about we all meet up when you find that spiritual treasure for me?”

“Sounds good,” Larry said, and waved goodbye.

Although Lex himself had forgotten many things, the rest had also forgotten about his identity as Leo. That did not, however, go against Lex’s plan to drop a few hints about his identity all over. Any hints he had to drop had to be extremely subtle, as if he had been genuinely trying to hide his identity. After all, anyone who would try to investigate his identity at the Inn would need considerable discretion as well as skill. Such people would also be very intelligent, and would detect obvious hints in a heartbeat. But if they had to work hard to discover a lead, they would not suspect that it had been planted, and instead would feel like they had outsmarted the target.

“Lex, there are some guests here who want to meet you,” told Mary as her hologram appeared beside Lex.

“They can wait a bit, I have a few things I need to do,” said Lex, before teleporting to his office.

While there were many things he forgot, he remembered clearly that the empire was no longer a suitable target for help regarding the matter on earth. Even if Lex found the fact that they had to give up on interfering with earth acceptable, which he did not, there were other things that required his attention. While he had forgotten Rafael’s secret, he clearly remembered the scale of importance he felt that his secret had. It was quite high.

Higher than Rafael, though, was Anakin. Due to his ostentatious personality and non-serious display, it was easy for people to underestimate him. But Lex had made too many mistakes to easily underestimate anyone. The fact that he seemed the most forgettable of the entire group… made him the most dangerous and valuable, potentially.

Lex opened up a diary and began taking notes. If he was going to analyze his entire interaction with the group to try and determine what their secrets were based on that, he would need to write down everything.