The Innkeeper

"My name is Leo," he finally introduced himself after deciding it did not matter if they were charlatans or real diviners. It wasn't as if he was there for that.

"Burgan," said the man who pulled out the Baizin charcoal.

"Harambe," said the old man with gray hair who was fishing.

"Are you guys planning on staying at the Inn for a while?" Leo asked, curious about their plans. There were only a few guests left at the Inn, so he could finally take some time to get to know his guests once more.

"Well, we need to decide what we're going to be doing first. Do we head back, do we wait, do we try to help in some other way," said Burgan while he stored his newfound treasure away.

"If it were any other emergency, I'd say we sit and take a vacation," Harambe chimed in. "But a realm war is different. If we don't report back at all, the realm owners may put bounties out on us and declare us criminals. It's very annoying."

Leo took this opportunity to ask many questions about realm wars, since the two of them seemed knowledgeable. It could help him a lot once his own realm was formed.

While they did not specifically name their realm, they did let him know that the highest cultivation level in their realm was Heavenly immortal, and the realm at war with them was similar.

Their war did not seem to be anywhere near the scale of realm wars discussed by Cassandra, but it was brutal nonetheless. Another interesting thing that Lex learned was that compared to the Origin realm, the time in their realm seemed to pass by faster!

Time difference was something had not experienced yet, but he wondered if his new realm would exhibit it.

Eventually, after a few minutes of waiting, Harambe too fished something out, but it was nothing more than a picture of an oversized gorilla. Burgan did not miss this opportunity to laugh at his friend, but Leo was not in the mood to do the same.

He took hold of the metal fishing rod and swung it around, getting a feel for the oddly flexible pole. The reel was attached to the tip of the rod, and at the end of the reel was a three-faced hook.

How far the reel went was completely up to fate. The only thing that Leo could do was move the fishing rod left or right, guiding the hook as it traveled through the unknown/

It had taken him much longer than it should have, but he was finally about to try the Fishing well. At 5000 MP per attempt, this well was not cheap, and yet it was one of his busiest services.

He wondered if he could pull out a system from it too. That would be pretty cool.

Without further ado, he cast the reel in the well. He expected to get some kind of feedback from the reel or the rod, but honestly, it felt just as if he were actually fishing in a well.

"Has anyone tried to peek in the well while fishing?" Leo asked the two, as an impulse struck him. But of course, he already knew the answer. If anyone approached the well, it would deactivate, and the attempt would be wasted. There was no way to cheat.

"Kid, the only thing that can help you is any fishing experience you have. I know a lot of old geezers who have created ponds in their own homes and have started practicing fishing just so that they have more expertise when their turn comes. I heard there was even a trend of trying to fish with a straight hook among fans of the well. They've sworn an oath to fish nowhere other than this well, so even when they practice, they don't intend to catch anything, as if it will be sacrilege to the well."

Ah, so the Midnight Inn had started yet another ridiculous trend. Excellent.

Leo was moving the rod left and right randomly, completely unable to tell where the hook was going. For a few minutes he felt nothing, and just as he began to wonder if something had gone wrong, the line became taut.

"Pull quickly! If you let it wait, the line will snap!" both the old men exclaimed and Leo did just that.

The resistance he felt was extremely familiar. It wasn't that of something resisting his line and trying to escape. Instead, it was spatial friction. He channeled his spirit sense through the line and eased its passage, until he finally managed to pull out… a book!

To his great and genuine surprise, the hardcover book he had pulled out was written in english, and was titled "the effects of concentrated spiritual energy on inanimate, soul dead, and crafted objects".

The name of the author was missing, but a quick search through the pages revealed that the book was extremely well formatted, and seemed to discuss things in great detail.

"Hey, hey, hey, that's a good find," Burgan said, as he looked at the book in Leo's hand with interest.

"From the looks of it, that's a book from the Library of Heaven!" Harambe exclaimed.

"Hey kid, if you manage to return one of their lost books, you could potentially even get a free membership!"

For a moment Leo thought they were just consoling him since all he found was a book, but the envy in their eyes seemed all too real, not to mention that their gaze was fixed on the book.

"What's the Library of Heaven?" he asked, wondering if Vera meant for him to find this book, or get access to that library. Maybe the reward was actually both.

"It's a living library. It has the largest repository of knowledge in the entire universe. It moves from place to place, so I can't tell you where it might be. But if you ever come across it, and return one of its books, you'll at least get a reward if not a membership. Once you're a member, you can access the library from anywhere in the universe."