The Innkeeper

The girl who had been irritated with Lex saw the pensive look on his face and made another 'hmph' sound.

"Why are you pretending like this is the first time you're hearing of this? Even toddlers know this history," she said, for some reason feeling annoyed at him.

"My spirit was injured in an encounter with a Kraven while escaping from Gristol, so my memories are messed up," Lex gave the excuse that had become his standard explanation for everything the past few days without really thinking of it. His mind was currently occupied wondering how he was supposed to investigate the origin of the Kraven.

His absent minded words, however, shook the girl. In her mind, she suddenly connected his odd and absent behavior to damage to his spirit, and suddenly felt guilty for being so aggressive with him.

"I heard about Gristol, I'm sorry for your loss," she said, her voice suddenly soft and caring.

"It's fine," Lex said, not sure how else to reply. He literally knew nothing about Gristol or the events that took place there, so it was best to avoid talking about it.

"I have to head to my next class, it's geography. I wouldn't want to miss out," he said as he got up.

"Oh, I'm taking geography too. Do you know the way?"

"Nope, but I'm sure we can figure it out between the two of us."

The girl, Amelia, was very talkative once she became familiar with Lex. Or maybe she was just compensating due to guilt for her attitude earlier. Either way, Lex found her company enjoyable as they found their way to their next class.

Lex was looking forward to geography since he wanted to learn more about active volcanic regions, or really any place that seemed like it would have abundant spirit energy. Unfortunately, the class was just as dry as history was enjoyable. He learnt about city placements, settlement patterns, defensible locations, and so on and so forth. Nothing in the class seemed useful to Lex's predicament. Worst of all was the fact that Lex could not even slack off out of fear that he would end up missing what he was actually awaiting.

Yet, in their first class at least, Lex discovered nothing useful to him. After geography, he and Amelia split, as his next class was politics, plain and simple.

There were seven major races in the crystal realm, and each of those seven were mostly and conveniently within their own regions. Of course, there were some from each race that traveled far and wide for various purposes, but as far as nations were concerned, these were only stragglers.

As a whole, humans mostly only had relations with Sentinels and Varns. Throughout history, there have both been periods of war and peace between the humans and these two races, but most of the time, they minded their own business. This was because, when matters came to conflict between races, internal conflict would always be suppressed. Two constant potential threats had a way of ensuring that even when humans warred amongst themselves, they never weakened themselves too far.

The Varn were a reptilian race and could assume two forms, their ordinary form and combat form. While their combat form never lasted too long, making them unsuited for long combat, their strength was disastrously strong. Furthermore, the Varn all shared a strong affinity for earth and minerals, and so fighting them on the ground was usually akin to suicide.

Unexpected to Lex, the humans and Varn shared a long history of cooperation and friendship, mostly because there was hardly ever a conflict of interest. The things humans found valuable, especially for cultivation, were usually poisonous to the Varn, and vice versa.

The Sentinels, instead, who were a humanoid species, often had conflicts with humans. The Sentinels were a unique, spirit-based species, meaning their bodies were their greatest weaknesses. As it would happen, the resources they required to strengthen their bodies were also strongly suited for cultivation amongst the humans.

There was no need to discuss deeper reasons or divisions. All discrimination originated from a conflict of interest. While the two races sometimes traded or even worked together, they also often waged war for resources wherever they shared a border.

Of course, this was mostly old news now. Since the Kraven war, everyone was desperate for any kind of victory, which had resulted in unprecedented cooperation between the races.

Before the professor went to discuss more recent relations, he took a pause to take note of a particular race - the Crystal race. They were the true hegemons of this realm, and far surpassed all the other races. In fact, it was a popular opinion that if they took this war seriously, the Crystal race alone could end the war.

Yet, for reasons unknown, they settled for defending their lands and not interfering beyond their borders. The reason the professor made a special note of this race was not to inform the students about them, for who truly didn't know of the crystal race? No, it was to let the students know never to blame them, or accuse them of ignorance or arrogance for not protecting the other races from Kraven. He ensured that each student knew that should anyone be caught cursing or insulting the crystal race, the lightest punishment was life imprisonment.

This drew Lex's curiosity. Such a strong punishment should not have been warranted for a race so far away - especially one uninterested in the affairs of the world outside their own borders. But Lex had a broader view of things than most people. He knew full well that, once a cultivator reached a certain level, even talking about them could draw their attention.

That actually reminded Lex of Ballom, Loretta's father. He wondered if that being would still be able to tell if Lex was thinking about him from a realm away.

Just as quickly as the thought occurred to him, he put the thought behind him, for he didn't believe that Ballom would. In this instance, as in so many others, Lex was wrong. Ballom, who had been searching the fringes of the universe for whatever attracted the Innkeeper's attention, felt a pull from beyond the veil of the Origin realm. That caused him to pause.

That was strange as the attraction he felt was from another realm. Yet the only realms he had ever visited were Garvitz, the realm from which the devils originated, and the origin realm where he currently was. Why would he feel an attraction from yet another realm?

Suddenly, something occurred to him, and he used the golden key. A few minutes later, he returned from the Midnight Inn to his original location. It seemed his suspicions were true. The Innkeeper had gone to another realm. This complicated things, as the Innkeepers origins became even more mysterious. But wasn't that for the best? Life would be too boring without a little mystery.