The Innkeeper

When Lex disappeared, he teleported directly to his room. He told Mary to let him know if something required his attention, for example if all the rooms were booked and he needed to create more rooms, but otherwise he should not be disturbed. He realized that he was having severe mood swings, and needed to calm down. He sat down cross legged on his bed and started trying to meditate. It was not a skill he had mastered yet, and it usually took him some time before he could enter a state of meditation. Yet whenever he was able to meditate it helped his mental state tremendously.

Back at the coliseum the guests had split up. Will and his party retreated to Hugo's room, although not before Rorick took down their names and contact information. The mother and daughter left the Inn entirely despite Vera's best efforts to stay a little longer. Blane, Chen and Lily also left the Inn as they had a lot of things they needed to take care of. The Morrison's, along with Marlo, left to the room Alexander had rented earlier on.

"What are we going to do?" asked one of the members of the Rose Society. This one trip, which was originally just supposed to be about catching up with Will, had turned out to be beyond anything they had ever expected. All the members of the society were very old according to mortal standards, but as cultivators they were only middle aged at best. It was not unusual for a Foundation realm expert to live up to two hundred years old, especially when even mortals occasionally lived past a hundred these days. So with their long life ahead, they did not want to court death by messing with the Morrison family, even if it was for the purpose of the Rose Society. Their passion to challenge the world had been worn out with age and experience.

"We can completely forget about the battle portion of the event," said Will. "But we can make preparations for the cultural aspect of it. For now we don't know what the details will be, so just organize your forces. Pick out people with various talents and prepare a cultural exhibition. But do not underestimate the impact of this event, or the Midnight Inn. If we play our cards right, the Midnight Inn can become a great source for all the resources we need. We can trade directly with the guests here, or the Inn itself, and distribute the resources on Earth. We just need to be careful about how we do it."

"We can form a new company," added Hera. She had little to no knowledge about cultivation, but she had been a business major and had recently entered the workforce, which made her realize that she had a skill for these kinds of things. "The company will be the front but we can distribute the work amongst ourselves. We'll pool our resources and develop distribution channels all over the world. We would need a list of resources available at the Inn, and what kinds of resources we can trade with guests. It will take time in the beginning, but if we can establish a stable source for multiple unique resources, we can use them to establish our brand recognition…" The meeting continued for a few hours while they all discussed their ideas on how to expand the influence of the Rose Society. Only Hugo stood in the corner in silence, watching the cabal. He did not care about these things, but if the influence of the Rose Society grew his chances for learning who harmed his family would increase. His fist tightened and his nails dug into his hand, but he did not feel that pain. His entire focus was on revenge.

*****

"Why I know these things, or how I was involved, I cannot tell you," Marlo said up front. Even though he had rejected the job offer from the Inn, he had a feeling that he should keep those things a secret. The Innkeeper already told him that he would not be persecuted for his choice, but it would not be good to antagonize the man. "What I can tell you is that I have witnessed a battlefield on another planet against these zombies, and they number in the millions. They have thousands of Golden Core zombies and hundreds of Nascent ones as well. In an up front fight, Earth would completely be decimated with no chance at survival. Which is why I don't think the fighting will be directly putting us in the battlefield, nor can I imagine a tournament style one on one with the zombies. Whatever it may be, I think collecting the zombie cores will be an important aspect of the event."

"Once we return I'll head directly to Earth and call for a meeting," said Brandon as he played with Audrey's hair. "We will need to organize most of our forces, but we also can't leave Earth and Mars completely unprotected. We'll have to figure out those details. But even so, based on what Marlo said and what we learnt from those kids on Vegus Minima, the chances of us winning the combat portion of the event are slim. Our focus should be on the culture aspect of it. Earth has been relatively peaceful for the past few decades and has developed well in that regard. I think that's where our advantage lies."

"Are you going to bring the other 4 families here?" asked Alexander. Right now, as far as he knew, his family was the only one who knew about the Inn and had an advantage over the rest. Even if they lost the events, he thought it was worth it to maintain the advantage of keeping the Inn a secret so that they could develop their own family. He expected that the others would eventually also learn about the Inn, since even Marlo had come here somehow, but until then he wanted to maintain whatever advantage he could keep.

"Yes, there's no point in keeping it a secret," said Rorick. "I've told you this before, but all 5 of the families do not have a competitive relationship. We all have the same goal of maintaining the peace of Earth, and working together on this will be beneficial for all of us. Do not be short sighted."

Alexander sighed. The relationship between the five families that secretly controlled the Earth was unusually cooperative. Not that Alexander had a problem with that, but in such a cutthroat environment it simply didn't make sense. But he was not privy to the details of their relationship, in fact even his father was not in the know. Only his grandparents knew the exact details of why the families cooperated.

The discussion continued for a few more hours before the Morrisons left, leaving Helen and Marlo behind. Helen could not leave yet as she would return to Egypt and would be exposed, so until Alexander returned to Earth and secured her exit she would have to stay. Marlo stayed behind because while his old injuries had been healed, his problem with his blood made him vulnerable and he did not want to leave until that was taken care of. He winked at the young girl once with a grin, then exited the room.

He found Gerard and asked the old man, "I need to cultivate a bit. What would be the best place for that? Should I rent a room?"

"No, we have a better place especially suited for cultivation. Please follow me," he said cheerily and hopped into the Golf cart and drove to the Meditation room. As soon as the former behemoth entered the Meditation room he felt its effects and smiled in satisfaction. Wasting no time he sat in a meditation pose and started focusing on tempering his blood. He had a strong feeling that when he succeeded, the results would be staggering.

After a few hours of hubbub, the Inn returned to its usual calm. John took this time to explore the ground of the Inn, with Doe following closely behind. Doe was equipped with all the knowledge the regular staff of the Inn automatically received and so served as an adequate tour guide for John. Most of the things John saw did not surprise him, as it was no big deal for someone of the Innkeeper's status to be able to provide such services. The array in the forest drew a bit of his curiosity, as although he could recognize the array he could not break through it. The thing that attracted him the most, however, was the Mystery Trial.

Even though John's cultivation was sealed, his intuition was sharp and well honed, and he immediately felt attracted to the Trial. Once Doe told him the first attempt was free, he did not hesitate and walked in.

As soon as he stepped through the ancient door, he felt his surroundings change. He was not standing or walking, but crouching in the shadow behind a rock. The peculiar thing was that the rock was at the far end of a white, rectangular room that was extremely well lit. There was no furniture in the room, no windows, nothing to distract the eye at all except the rock at one end, and a man standing at the other end looking directly at the rock. The only other shadow in the room, besides the one John was taking a refuge in, was at the feet of the man who was looking at the rock.

John smiled as he learnt the condition to pass the trial. He had to kill the man while remaining undetected. It would have been difficult for anyone else, but as his cultivation had somehow been restored in this trial, he found it to be extremely simple.

"System, activate perimeter scan and check for traps," John said mentally.

"Instruction received. Activating scan," replied a robotic voice in his head.