The Innkeeper

The original Impervious Hands might seem weak, since the defense was focused only on the hands. But if Lex used it, it would not really be an issue since the naturally defensive capability of his body was more than enough to suffer most attacks coming his way unharmed. In exchange, the gain his hands would get was absolutely phenomenal. In fact, his hands became even harder to hurt than when he would be using the normal version of his new technique Harden.

Considering the fact that the technique gave such great benefits without any serious drawbacks already made it amazing. Once it was upgraded, however, the technique entered a whole new level.

To start with, the cost of the technique went up manifold. His spirit energy running out had not been a concern for Lex for a long time, but this technique made it a real concern. At his current capacity, Lex could only use the technique three times before he'd be completely drained of all his energy.

But the expense was worth it, as once he activated the technique it would stay active for a duration of 10 minutes, or unless he deactivated it himself or unless someone managed to break it.

It need not even be mentioned that the defensive capabilities of his hands shot through the roof. If Lex denoted the natural defensive capability of his body on a scale as 10, which would be pushed up to an approximate 15 when he used Harden, then using Impervious Hands would directly push it to a 100. That increase was quite literally an order of magnitude larger than his bodys' natural capability, which already borderlined on being broken.

To top it off, the defense was not limited to the physical aspects only. When using his hands, he could make them 'impervious' to any influence, meaning he would be able to block soul attacks, spirit attacks, and much more.

Simply just that made it so that this would become one of Lex's favorite defensive techniques. But was it enough to push the technique to an S rank? Lex would have thought so just based on how strong it was. That was not actually the case.

Despite its now enhanced base capabilities, the technique could be further augmented. If Lex augmented his hands using his soul sense, Lex could touch and influence souls with his literal hands! Although it was a defensive technique, it allowed Lex to literally b*tch slap someone's soul right out of their bodies using his ridiculous physical strength!

If Lex augmented it using his spirit sense, then he would gain the ability to touch and influence spiritual energy! He could not even begin to wrap his head around what such an ability would allow him to do.

Unfortunately, he could not channel his intuition in the way he channeled his senses or else he was sure that too would have resulted in something amazing. But another thing he could channel was his spirit energy!

Once he augmented his hands by further channeling his spirit energy, his hands would manifest the ability to interact with whatever his affinity was geared towards. Although Lex did not know what that was yet, his intuition was clearly telling him that this was the most significant change this technique could undergo.

Last, but definitely not the least, his intuition was telling him that he could use this technique in coordination with the ability in his left eye to achieve something great. He did not know what that was, as of yet, but if his intuition said it was great, Lex only had high expectations.

With plenty of new techniques not only to defend himself, but others who might be around him, Lex was finally satisfied, and turned his attention to other techniques.

That did not include any offensive techniques, unfortunately, since learning those was a very time-consuming process for Lex and he had already decided on relying on arrays in the future.

Instead, he began pursuing other techniques that could help him out. For example, he saw a number of techniques geared towards his spirit sense. He saw techniques that served as training mechanisms, permanently enhancing various aspects of himself, such as his mind and his multitasking ability.

He saw techniques that specialized in speed. Others were designed to clean him up. Some were focused on searching the environment for anomalies. Some were techniques that could be used in emergencies as first aid. A few techniques were purely cosmetic, and made the user look better.

The list was endless, and like an online store, Lex kept adding techniques that caught his eye to his 'shopping cart'. Unfortunately, he could not learn these techniques at a glance, and it would require countless hours of practice to simply learn them, let alone master them.

Still, it was a good idea to have a list ready and start practicing as soon as possible.

He was only in the library for a single hour before Mary called him. Not only had someone from London shown up at the Inn, finally, but there had been other developments as well.

Marlo had finished his first encounter with the aliens. They were incredibly strong, but did not have an overwhelming advantage which was good news. Right?

More importantly, whatever the aliens were doing in Estonia, they had completed. As a result, they did not retreat and leave them alone, as a few desperate people had hoped. No, the outcome was the much more predictable beginning of their invasion.

War had finally broken out, and it was starting in Europe. According to the council's reports, they were losing almost every skirmish immediately. The only few instances they had been able to give some pushback was where they had defensive formations already set up.

If things kept going this way, the earth would be conquered in a matter of days.

The meeting room was a mess as every council member seemed to be yelling to have their voice heard. All pretense of civility had been shed as no one could decide on a unified response. The as yet untested council of new order was collapsing at the first sign of real trouble.

Suddenly the sound of knocking eclipsed all sound in the room, and a hush fell over. It was not that the people had stopped screaming, but somehow their voices were suppressed.

Everyone looked towards the door with eyes filled with confusion, fear, anticipation.

A few moments went by where no one did anything. Then Bernard got up and walked towards the door.