The Innkeeper

Alexander Morrison was waiting for his next deployment, still at the Midnight Inn. After immense effort on his part, he had proved himself worthy of undergoing special training by the empire. Due to his unique situation, regardless of what he did it was more or less assumed that Alexander would never have full loyalty to the empire.

As such, he could not get in touch with their unique or specialized training, reserved for their most trusted elites, but he had managed to improve his situation nonetheless. To test out his new capabilities, he sparred a few times with his family's strongest. In an upfront fight, he still could not defeat his grandfather, but the old man admitted that Alexander put a lot of pressure on him.

Of course, that could not be a true test, for both Alexander and his grandfather were holding back immensely as well. Alexander knew that if he were going for the kill, he would have behaved differently. Still, being unable to overwhelm his grandfather disappointed him somewhat.

He had learned much of the empire, and learned about noble families. While it could not be claimed that such feats were common, it was at least not unheard of for the scions of noble families to be able to completely overwhelm even those at higher realms.

A part of him wondered how far he was from their level. He even pondered what the difference was between himself and his old teacher Marlo when he was at the Golden Core realm. A part of him told him that he would lose a spar, but in a fight to the death anything was possible.

Instead of being proud of his achievements, he felt frustrated that even after everything he went through, he was still only on par with the peak of those from his home planet. Then again, he had not been cultivating for very long.

Speaking of which, had his birthday passed? He couldn't remember. The empire obviously followed their own calendar system, and he never really put any real effort into remembering it. He'd never really paid attention to any of his birthdays, except his 15th for obvious reasons. It was always Helen who…

"Captain Alexander!" a soldier called out, breaking him free from his reverie. On instinct he stood to attention as he saw a small group of soldiers walking towards him, holding what looked like a backpack. His eyes shone. That was…

"You have new orders, captain," the soldier said, as he presented Alexander with a tablet. Familiar with what was happening, Alexander put his hand on the tablet as it verified his identity. The empire's technology was heads and tails ahead of earth, so even though the device looked similar to stuff available on earth, its actual functionality was far beyond anything he had ever seen.

It was a spirit tech device that verified Alexander's identity using things such as his finger print, DNA, spirit energy signature, the specific meridian patterns in his hand and many other things he had no idea about.

Once his identity was confirmed, though, the soldier passed him the backpack and began briefing him on his new orders.

"The specific details are on a need to know basis, but essentially high-level empire officials have entered into a partnership with the Midnight Inn to take control of a specific Minor realm. Your new orders…"

Across the Inn, countless other empire officials were receiving similar orders. As of now, very select few were being informed about the minor realm and exactly how much importance the emperor put on it. The seemingly laid back emperor had decided that he had spent enough time away from his empire. Once his latest mission for the Henali was over, he would return to do some house cleaning. Unlike Ragnar, who was more lenient of humans, the emperor was not so clement in his treatment. The reason why the empire was so strong, and had never suffered from any rebellions, was because basically anyone with any rebellious tendencies was dead. He did not expect others to be grateful for all that he worked for, but if they thought to take advantage of him, they had another thing coming.

*****

"Mr. Rothsfather, for the last time, although I can give your business my full support, I cannot force anyone to participate. Besides, my workers have their own duties to take care of."

"Innkeeper, you have to understand, the influence of celebrities is massive for events like these. While we can obviously hire or attract external celebrities for the event, if we leverage the growing fanbase of local stars such as Gerard, Leo or Z, not only will we have an easier time gaining a loyal fanbase, it will even benefit your own Inn."

Lex smiled. For the past 15 minutes, they had been going over the same argument. No matter how much sense he made, he was destined to win because as 'Leo' he was never going to participate in a fashion show. As entertaining as it sounded, he had better things to do.

Ultimately, the devil relented and promised that he would soon return with a full plan for everything he had planned for the event. Then he would work with the Inn to see how much of his vision could be accomplished.

After the meeting, the devil exited the office, and then disappeared from the Inn. He appeared in a room where a few devils were waiting for his return.

"So? How was it?"

"Plan A for bringing the Inn's workforce away from the Inn has failed. I'll continue with the show regardless as it can benefit many of our other plans. In the meantime, begin plan B. The Midnight Inn employees are the perfect canvas to turn into demons, we have to get our hands on them."

"I told you it was too easy," replied one of the people in the room.

"Regardless, it was worth a try. Here's a list of our primary targets. Other than the Inn's employees, begin tracking their location."

*****

Once the meeting with the devil was over, Lex spent some time planning out his next few actions. Since the Grand Prix was over, it was time to get ready for the next event which would start tomorrow.

He still did not know what to think of this event, for compared to the exciting amusement parks and races, it was a far cry. But it was good to shake things up.

One of the features the Inn unlocked, but almost no one paid attention to, was the Fishing well. The well was connected to worlds that the Inn was linked to, though the Inter-realm broadcast spread that to the entire realms that the Inn was connected to. Through the well, guests could fish for unowned items.

Basically, any item within the domain that was connected to the Inn, and which had no owner, could be fished for through the fishing well. Of course, what item a person fished up was completely random and based on luck. So you could get something simple and mundane, such as a random rock or a seashell. Or, you could get a phenomenal treasure that could change your life around.

It sounded amusing, but at the same time, it sounded like a scam. That, alongside the fact that Lex had priced each fishing attempt at 5000 MP per attempt, led to the fact that no one had ever tried to fish at all.

He figured this unusual feature required some marketing, so the next event would be a fishing attempt. Participants could fish for free, and whoever pulled up the best reward could move forward in the rounds. Each round would eliminate half the participants, or as near to half as possible, until there would be one winner. How successful or exciting the event would be was… well it left a lot of room for speculation. Still, it wasn't as it hurt to try. On the off chance that one of the participants pulled out something spectacular, the attention due to the event would raise the well's popularity. If not, then it could be a prop that Lex could use to look like he was wise and enlightened by fishing in it, like the teachers in kung fu movies.

While he was making preparations for the event, the Inn was still celebrating the end of the race. Although Gerard had ultimately lost, he took his defeat gracefully. Strangely though, his defeat did not negatively affect his popularity at all. If anything, his popularity shot through the roof.

The fan club which had originally started out as a group of grandma's who liked to be driven around by Gerard now had tens of thousands of legitimate fan, and with each moment, that number seemed to be growing. In fact, Leo, the actual winner of the race, seemed to have been forgotten to the side while the crowd tossed the old man in the air and cheered for him.

As for Gerard himself… he was lamenting the negative side effects of his bloodline. Although he became more powerful every time his bloodline evolved, a negative side effect of his bloodline was that it would make him increasingly beautiful as it grew stronger, without taking away from his masculinity.

The worker sighed in his heart as he could not let the guests see him lament. Beauty was such a burden.