The Innkeeper

Lex looked up at the dragon as countless feelings filled his mind. A part of those feelings had to do with the fact that he was still receiving information about the realms, and was bewildered to learn that there were unique kinds of volcanoes found within the Midnight realm that, instead of spewing out molten lava, erupted with a strange blue viscous liquid that rapidly froze whatever it touched.

He just knew that, since it was a kind of volcano, sooner or later he would find himself right in the middle of one. Such was his fate.

But that entire thought process did not at all interfere with the strong feelings of horror and loss at feeling the dragon tremble! His meditation mat! He didn't want to lose it!

Yes, although as a newly born soul, it would be loyal to the Inn. Perhaps it would be better to gain a loyal and extremely strong follower now. It could possibly prevent many troubles in the future. But at the same time, the development of his own strength was something extremely important as well.

Yet desire alone could do nothing, and his aura suppression did not seem to work either. Vaguely, he felt through his soul sense, a fragile soul form deep within the dragon's body.

Subsequently, relevant information about his new worker reached Lex, causing him to sigh in lament.

The body of the dragon trembled again, but it did not move beyond that.

Lex focused on the information about the latest worker he got. Previously, only a single tyre from a golf cart had come to life. What were the chances that instead of the entire dragon, only a small piece of it came to life? Like one of its teeth or maybe its scale?

But that was not the case. It was indeed the entire dragon that had gained a new soul. But… a strange situation had occurred. Feeling a tinge of doubt, Lex reached out towards the soul with his soul sense and tried to communicate with the newborn.

"He- help!" an alarmed squeaky voice said as it sensed Lex. "I-I… I… I'm stuck!"

Considering the level of fear in that voice, Lex should not have felt amused, but he could not help it. The voice was too adorable. More importantly, Lex gained an immediate understanding of what was happening!

In short, it was the exact reverse of what was happening with Zen!

Zen was a patch of grass in the Midnight Inn that had gained sentience and immediately reached the Earth Immortal level as well. But it's body was as frail as ordinary grass, meaning that it's body was that of a mortal. Due to the massive discrepancy in levels between its spirit, soul and body, Zen could not really display any strength and was constantly just worried about keeping itself alive. At least, at the time when it was born.

Now, the exact opposite was happening, meaning that this new soul that was born was at the mortal level, but was trapped within a body that far surpassed it. As such, it couldn't control the body at all, and instead became trapped within it!

"Do not panic," Lex said, as he quickly thought of a plan that seemed almost perfect. But… but wasn't this too easy?

"I can't move!" the squeaky voice said once again, in a panic.

"Yes, I can tell that you can't move, but fear not. I have a plan to help you," Lex said in a soothing voice, as he considered another conundrum. He already called the ring which contained a part of the dragon's soul Pel, short for Pelvaillin. But now that the dragon itself had a soul as well, he couldn't reuse the same name right? Should he add Jr. in front of the name? Or come up with a different one?

"A plan to help?"

"Yes, yes, worry not. My name is Lex, by the way. Let me explain to you why you're stuck. Actually, you might not know this, but before you came to life, you were actually my cultivation mat."

"Cultivation mat?" the sound repeated innocently.

"Yes, my cultivation mat. It's very important to help me cultivate, which is why your body is so strong. But now that you have come to life, the burden of controlling your body is too much. You cannot take it."

"So… so what can I do?" the soul asked, still afraid, but much more calm now.

"There are a couple of things we need to do. Although it'll be slow, I'll absorb the strength of my cultivation mat, reducing the pressure you feel. At the same time, I'll teach you a soul training cultivation technique so you can also absorb the strength of your new body to cultivate yourself. Like this, eventually, there will come a day where you become strong enough, and your body becomes weak enough, that you can finally control it."

"But… but then your cultivation mat will be ruined!" the soul exclaimed, on the verge of crying.

"Do not worry," Lex said, his tone extremely noble. "We are colleagues now, working for the Midnight Inn. Helping each other is only natural. After you gain control of your body, you can help me find a new cultivation mat."

"You… you… I don't know what to say. You're so nice."

Lex smiled and scratched his head. He felt just a little guilty. Why did it seem like since he got the Inn, all he had done was take advantage of newborn babies?

Before he could craft a nuanced and perfectly reasonable defense for himself, he learnt of others 'newborn workers filling the Inn and his pupils shrinked.

"Listen, Pel Jr., you have just been born. You need rest, so don't panic and try to sleep. I'll find you a technique to help you out. But I have some things I need to take care of, so I need to run. If you need anything just call out to someone called Mary. She'll take care of you."

Without giving Pel Jr. a chance to respond, Lex teleported away. When he reappeared, it was as the Innkeeper, in front of the Midnight mountain which was trembling. Of course the mountain had come to life.

The problem was, a few hundred of the pine trees that covered the mountain had also come to life. Were they fighting one another?

"What's going on?" the Innkeeper asked, ready to quell any disagreements. Although it was not uncommon to see birds prey on insects and such while being workers, that was still a manageable situation. But if the literal geographical features and the flora began fighting, it would not be so easy to overlook.

What kind of a problem was this anyway?

"They- they're tickling me!" a hesitant yet thunderously loud voice boomed, shaking the ground itself from just sound alone.

"No we're not!" another voice screamed out in self defense. "It's just really crowded here, we're just trying to move."

"YOU'RE TAKING PLEASURE IN TICKLING ME! I KNOW IT!" the mountain boomed once more.

A number of trees yelled back, in perfect harmony, "we are not!"

Lex had to suppress his lip from twitching, and from facepalming. Was this really the issue he was resolving?

He waved his hand and the trees that had gained life teleported to the foot of the mountain, forming a forest of their own.

'"Oh this is much better!"' they exclaimed, once again in perfect harmony. Was the Inn about to gain a choir of singing trees?

But he did not have time to dwell on this. The massive spaceship had, of course, also gained life. The problem was…

Lex teleported over to the sight of the massive ship hugging the ground and wailing. Upon investigating what the situation was, he learned, to his great dismay, the ship had come to life while it was flying. But the new life that inhabited it had a great fear of heights, and was incredibly startled when it learned it was flying, resulting in the current situation.

He was dumbstruck. How could a ship be afraid of heights?

There was no answer for such a question, nor did he have the time to ponder it. One after another, more and more items from the Inn were gaining life, and each one was creating some kind of scene.

The lazy river had woken up, and had a severe dislike for anything living riding its waters. Well, Lex couldn't blame it for feeling as such, so he just moved it somewhere remote, and recreated a new, identical lazy river to replace it.

A number of Geeves' suits had become sentient, and had run away from their display cases. Lex was only grateful that none of the suits being worn had come to life, or he would have had the harassment scandal of the century on his hands.

Somewhere around the Inn, a wisp of wind had come to life, and was running wild. Elsewhere, a number of peacocks were undergoing an evolution, and the ones who weren't were protesting out of jealousy.

In all his days, Lex had seen many unusual things, but none of them could match what he was seeing now. The worst part was, the day had just started.