The Innkeeper

13 days after the incident, Lex suddenly woke up in his Recovery pod. Unlike his usual retreats, Lex did not wake up refreshed and well rested, but rather he felt like he was on the verge of dying from starvation! Although, he had indeed also healed. The Lotus seemed to have gone back to sleep as well, for the warm sensation of the Lotus healing him had already vanished.

Unable to bear the hunger, Lex teleported over some food and immediately began eating while a part of his brain tried to understand what was happening to him. The changes to his body due to the new cultivation technique were many, and he was still only just understanding them. Originally, his hunger could usually be sated just using spiritual energy, but now it seemed like he also needed to replenish his reserves with food, and not just any ordinary food.

The stash he was eating from now was a reserve he had created for himself, and contained extremely energy abundant foods, all procured from the emporium. Even then, this was only barely helping him slowly sate his hunger.

"Mary, what happened while I was asleep? Did Charles join the Inn?"

"Lex… a lot has happened while you slept. Yes, Charles did eventually join the Inn, but only after Polebitvy was completely teleported away, and all his accumulated wealth disappeared, leaving him broke…"

Mary began to inform Lex of all that had happened recently. The state of things had escalated so much that it had transcended just the Pendal galaxy, and, oddly enough, the number of guests had ironically dropped. No one was in the mood for a vacation in such a tense time. Everyone was returning to take care of important things that could not be put off.

As it turned out what had happened at Polebitvy was only just the start. Similar terrorist acts were carried out across the entire realm. Countless planets were then similarly teleported away using the same method.

At first, everyone assumed that causing massive tears in space was a way for the terrorist to hide his trail, but once the method was replicated multiple times, many began to suspect that there was still more to the matter than there appeared, and indeed a week later the suspicions were proven true.

Before the tears could completely heal, even under the efforts of Dao Lords, they became points at which the Fuegan infiltrated into the realm. If the Dao Lords wanted, they could have forcefully destroyed all the infiltrating Fuegan, but that would have further compromised the integrity of space in that region.

The entire realm had entered a state of emergency, and the Henali were finally beginning to take action personally. Only they knew the heavy investments they had put into ensuring the maximum organic growth of this realm, and if external interference ruined that then their losses would be immense!

These too were only the things Mary knew of because she had heard multiple devils discussing the matters openly. Speaking of whom, the devils had become the race to most frequent the Inn these days. If one did not know better, it would seem like the Inn was a devils retreat.

As if all that was not enough…

"Charles has been bothering me every day. He really wants to meet the Innkeeper. According to him, the medical treatments that the Inn offers are too 'subpar' and he wants to change the whole system. Moreover… he… his ideas extend far beyond just the field of medicine…

"Moreover, he's been pestering Fenrir non-stop as well. He has not even spared the Galactic Sovereign turtle, and keeps insisting that the turtle needs to obey him if it wants to maximize its growth.

"As if that was not enough, he thoroughly scolded Lady Anita, and gave her proper instructions on how to raise a baby Cthulhu, saying that the baby was extremely malnourished. In the past few days, he has also prescribed an extensive meal plan personalized to over 700 of the Inns employees, stating that their bodies development is stunted.

"Once he… he actually fought with one of the guests saying that they were doing their bloodline a disservice by becoming obese, and became a personal trainer for that particular devil. Although there were no complaints registered against him for that incident, I have thoroughly reprimanded him for it.

"Moreover, the Inn's mechanic, Xeon, heard that Charles was boasting extensive knowledge about bloodlines and medicine, so he approached him and asked if Charles could help him evolve into a true dragon. Charles agreed, and since then has been running various tests on Xeon. Since it's with Xeons own consent I cannot really stop him, but… I can't help but think he's trying to swindle the poor fellow.

"Those are just… those are just some of the prominent things Charles has done that I thought deserved mentioning. He has been extremely active, so he's done a lot more. He's been spending a lot of time observing the sleeping Mountain-man, though fortunately he hasn't done anything to him yet. But the way he keeps looking at him… it just makes me nervous for some reason."

The tiny floating Mary, who was dressed up in a toga, shivered for a moment, but then regained her composure.

"Other than Charles, there are many matters that need your attention. For one, there is a massive number of devils who wish to meet you and have been asking for appointments. Rocketfellow Rothsfather is also one of them, and he's ready to begin the 5 trillion MP event he mentioned previously, but just wants to speak with you first about a few things.

"John is also back from the Murder grounds, but he's suffered incredibly. His entire cultivation seems to have disappeared and he seems very… destitute. He wants to talk to you.

"Last, but not least, Alexander has left a letter for Lex, as well as a spatial ring. I'm not sure what that's about, but you can ask him whenever you want. Since he teleported over from Polebitvy, and the entire planet disappeared, he kind of got stuck at the Inn, like many other soldiers. Temporarily, they have been shifted to the Minor realm that the empire is incharge of protecting, but finding a way to send those people back somehow is also something you should think about."