The Innkeeper

Based on his previous experiences, Lex was prepared to face some kind of hurdle. But, unexpectedly, he faced no problems. He used the teleportation formation normally, like every other paying customer.

When he arrived at his destination, he traveled for a few more days on his ship before once again arriving in a neighboring territory where he could once again use a teleportation formation.

Such a trend continued for one more month. Not only did Lex not encounter any unusual problems, but he even came across a few people who were quite helpful. For example, he stumbled into a large caravan that was heading in the same direction as him. After paying a nominal sum, he accompanied them on their airship, which brought him to his destination a week ahead of schedule.

Another time, he reached a city to discover that the teleportation formation of that city had recently been upgraded, and could take him much farther than was in his original plan. Moreover, the owner of that city seemed to be married to one of Jasmine's siblings. As such, upon discovering Lex's token, not only did he expedite his journey, he took no money from him either.

Paying was not really a problem for Lex. As a result of his many trades at the Inn, he had accumulated well over a hundred million ordinary spirit stones. Paying a few thousand here or other made no difference to him.

During his long periods of traveling, he would send a clone to study various topics at the library so as to increase his knowledge. Since the Innkeeper was perceived as a powerful entity, Lex had to learn as much as possible about as many things as possible.

Fenrir could not do such a thing, but he was not bored either. Although Lex offered to leave him at the Inn, he wanted to travel as well. Even when he could do nothing else, he enjoyed looking out at the passing scenery.

During this period, Alexander once even asked Lex for help. Unfortunately, Lex could not afford any delays until he reached the Crystal realm, and so had to tell him he was currently unable to help.

He also got regular reports from Mary about the ongoing rumors at the Inn, as Velma still compiled the files she used to submit to the Innkeeper. The thing that interested him most was that apparently the war on earth had temporarily stopped, because apparently everyone was afraid that Marlo would destroy the planet.

There were no details to that rumor, yet somehow Lex did not doubt the authenticity of it.

At the same time, he discovered that Roland, the once newspaper boy back in the Crystal realm, had developed an extremely wide and vast information network that he used to supplement the Midnight Newsroom. Apparently, the entire realm was heading towards turmoil as no one was at peace.

Lex did not pay attention to such things, as he had other concerns. The several month long event that he had held was coming to a close, which meant that naturally he would lose all the security the event brought with it.

That naturally meant Lex needed to think of a new event. For now, he had the planning division propose some ideas, as he was too occupied to come up with and oversee a new event.

The good thing was that the Inns income had been quite steady, and during this period his savings had come to 350 billion MP once again. Basically, there was more than enough MP to continue doing events for a long time.

He also had to continue expanding the Inn, as more and more guests were starting to come. Lately, developing a large underwater city had been added to his agenda, as a lot of aquatic beasts were beginning to visit, and the small lakes and rivers he had across the Inn were beginning to get crowded.

But these were just on the agenda for now. He would deal with all this once he had enough time. At the current rate, it would only take him a couple more weeks at max to reach the Crystal nation, and then from there he imagined getting to Valesco should be easy. After all, he was expecting them to have a comprehensive transport system within their own territory.

The reputation of the strongest and most developed race of the realm required at least that much.

But it seemed that Lex's good luck eventually ran out. One day, while they were traversing a grassland in some unclaimed lands, during his last long distance journey for this trip, something happened.

The ship could not fly too high, and was traveling about 10 feet from the ground. Normally, that was enough to get them clear of any obstacles, but the grass in these grasslands was unusually high so Lex's visibility was null.

But such a mundane problem could not stop Lex as he just used his spirit sense to keep an eye on his surroundings, ensuring they were traveling in the correct direction.

But the distance his spirit sense could cover was ultimately limited, and he could not see too far away from himself. As such, he did not notice that he was heading directly towards a wall of rolling fog which seemed to be covering the grasslands. Perhaps, if his visibility was not blocked, he could have seen it coming. But even so, what could fog really even do? He could still navigate with his spirit sense, so it was unlikely he would have done anything.

But the odd thing was, even when he got close enough for his spirit sense to interact with the fog, he was not able to detect it. In fact, even his instincts failed to warn him that anything was approaching him, whether it be harm or not.

It was not until the ship flew into the fog that he actually noticed it. Immediately Lex became alert, though Fenrir looked at him with confusion. There seemed to be no threat, so why was Lex reacting like this?

The answer was simple. Although Lex was heavily dependent on his instincts, he was well aware that his instincts could not react to things related to systems, so he never dropped his guard. Naturally, if there was one thing that his instincts failed to interact with, there could be others.

Although the fog did not seem threatening at all, the fact that he was taken by surprise was a very alarming matter. In fact, even as he continued to travel through the fog, his spirit senses were unable to detect it.

"There's something wrong," Lex began to tell Fenrir, when he noticed something else, which was even more alarming!

The lenses could not detect the fog at all! In fact, even his right eye could not see the fog. Only and only his left eye, which had mutated, could see it.

Lex raised his alertness to the maximum level even as he turned the ship around to immediately head back. He was not concerned for his safety, as he could always retreat to the Inn. But if he retreated to the Inn, every time he would return to the Crystal realm, he would still be here. Ultimately, his quest to reach the Crystal race would suffer.

Yet despite his quick response, he was too late. The ship had been moving too fast, and even in the split second it took him to respond, it had already traveled through the fog, and come out the other side.

The sound of a massive crowd surrounded Lex, as a bright light blinded him for a moment. When he recovered, he discovered that they had entered a completely new area. An artificial 'sun' seemed to be shining a bright light, illuminating a vast, dry bowl shaped canyon filled with millions of beings.

In a single glance, Lex was able to spot humans, sentinels, poliods, trelops, the crystal race and even the Kraven among the crowd. There were a few fights going on, which was extremely natural when hated enemies were suddenly brought together.

The Kraven themselves had a warring nature, so every single Kraven was already fighting, and the extreme fighting prowess made it so they seemed to be winning. But even at a glance Lex knew that they would not survive long, for they were too outnumbered.

After all, among the millions here, there were so many races that Lex had never even heard of. The Kraven were just a few compared to all the beings here.

In the center of the canyon stood a massive tower built from white marble, and it was the only distinct feature here.

Lex had no idea where he was, or what was happening, but the first thing he did was to check his connection to the Inn. As expected, the connection was still there, for he heard the sound of a notification before he could even check.

New Notification: Host has entered a space sealed by a Destiny rank space lock. Teleportation facility unavailable.