The Innkeeper

Chapter 1415  A thousand miles

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step," Lex said, mimicking the posture of the cartoon he was plagiarising the line from. "If you do not mind chatting with me and spending some time with me, we can do that. But a relationship built on business and utility cannot be a real business."

Of course, the thing he did not say is that it only works if the other party is already aware of his intentions. Since Mama Pari was the one who informed him of what to do, Lex would naturally not target her with the method she herself told him.

Instead, he already had a few targets picked out in mind. Specifically, he planned on building a relationship with the employees of the Versalis Bank. Their identity would be similar - just immortals working for an overwhelming power, and that would allow them to interact more easily.

"Hah! Child, a thousand miles is less than a step for me, and for many others. But I won't force you, though I'll let you know my intentions so that we don't end up having a relationship of utility. I wouldn't mind it at all if you visited the Holy Kingdom from time to time, meeting and spending time with the other Projections. Even if a hint of your good luck rubs off on one of my children, it could be a huge opportunity for them."

"Mama Pari, although your Holy Kingdom is very nice, I don't know how much time I will have or not to come here. I sincerely don't. That is why I asked if you'd like to send some of your children to the Inn. That way, they can explore the universe a bit, and whenever I have time, I can interact with them."

Mama Pari gave him a knowing look, as if she was aware of what he was plotting, but didn't reveal anything. But how could she know what he was plotting? He wanted to allow Mary's projection to appear in front of guests.

"That seems fine. Kids should also explore now and again, and not spend all their time at home."

Lex grinned. Things were coming together now. But before he left, there was one more thing he needed to discuss.

"I can leave some golden keys here for you, Mama Pari, and you can take your time to decide who to send to the Inn. But before I depart I want to ask you one last thing. Is there… any specific way in which I can hide my Karma from being detected? At least until I find a way to process it."

"Oh definitely," Mama Pari said. "However, are there ways that you and I can use? Probably not. You could probably look for some treasures that hide Karma, but their effectiveness cannot be guaranteed in front of the people who you really want to hide your Karma from. "Karma itself is too difficult a concept, one that even most Dao Lords cannot comprehend a fraction of. Only a few, very rare Dao Lords, such as the Innkeeper, boast unparalleled control over its intricacies. I still remember that day when a mere butter knife cut through the fabric of Karma across the Origin realm, without so much as a single side effect. "The most realistic solution would be for you to ask the Innkeeper to hide your Karma for you. After all, in the Origin realm the Innkeeper already has a reputation. But if you go somewhere people don't recognize the Innkeeper, it might invite trouble for you."

Lex smiled in disappointment.

"The Innkeeper will ask me to resolve this issue on my own," Lex sighed, hoping that Mama Pari would give him some other suggestion, but there was nothing she could do about it.

In the end, there was no more advice Mama Pari could give. But Lex was not in a rush to leave, and spent a few more hours talking to her.

It was actually quite dangerous since she was interested in Lex's life and experiences, but he had to be highly selective in how he told the stories lest he reveal any loopholes or obvious flaws.

Only once he had spent sufficient time with Mama Pari did he request to leave. After all, he could not just randomly teleport away from a Demi-Dao Lord as he did with others.

After leaving 10 golden keys with her, Lex returned to the Midnight Inn, and instead turned his attention towards his quest.

He needed to create 3 unique environments to support specific lifeforms. Of those 3, he could already think of 2, so he began working.

He recreated the spiritual field from the Holy Kingdom, but did not spread it across the entire Inn. Instead, he limited it to one city, as well as a few main areas of the Inn. Other than the spiritual field, he created the option for projectors to follow any guests who were projections.

This way, a special environment for projections was set. The second thing he did was mark out a special area inside the Inn, far away from everything else. Then, using the system he placed countless formations around that area to strengthen space on the borders of that area, before placing a final formation within that area.

Once the internal formation was activated, the space within was crushed, leaving a Void behind.

This was an artificial Void, created through a very, very expensive formation, and did not connect to the main Void. Having an opening to the Void inside his Inn would be a massive security flaw, and could leave him open to an invasion from Void beasts.

But by building an artificial Void, he created an environment for Void beasts to be guests - not that he was so certain that they had the capacity for such things.

The problem now was the third and final special environment he could create to host guests. The special environment had to be unique, so creating a lake or lava field for specific creatures could not count.

"Mary, any ideas for a special environment I can make for specific guests?" Lex asked, not that he expected her to answer outright. She was limited in how much help they could provide.

She appeared in front of him, dressed up in what looked like an aluminum onesie holding what looked like a plasma gun. She needed to say no words, because Lex understood immediately.

He thought back to the kind of environment that was suitable for ghosts, and what he knew about them. Ghosts were different from spirits, which were different from projections. Although sometimes, a very specific breed of ghosts had the appearance of people who were recently deceased, they actually had nothing to do with the dead.

Ghosts had their own souls, and their appearance was sometimes dictated by the appearance of someone whose spirit they devoured, which basically meant that they took on the appearance of someone they killed, not that they were a continuation of the dead somehow.

According to his latest study of energies, ghosts lived in places with high concentration of Yin energy.

After considering the matter for a while, Lex created an entirely new city, far away from the main area of the Inn. But this new city looked like they were ruins, with buildings covered in growing vines. The buildings had exposed beams and toppled walls, with the roads filled with abandoned cars.

It looked like the city had been abandoned, or had suffered through some kind of extreme event. This was the perfect setting for a ghost city, so he decided to enjoy it a little bit.

Once he was done setting the aesthetics of it, he filled it with Yin energy, though that was not enough.

Yin energy was just one of the energies that supported ghosts, but not the only one. The variety for ghosts was actually quite massive, and each of them required a different combination of environment and energies. He could not do anything half heartedly, or else the quest rating would be affected. Even if the quest reward was already determined, performing well would ultimately only benefit him.

Since this was a matter of allowing Mary to finally appear, he had to do it well.

A few hours later, when he was finally done, he officially stepped away from the city, thereby creating 3 special environments for specific guests.

Quest Complete: Create 3 new suitable environments to host a larger variety of guests.

Reward: Solid projection capability for Innkeeper.

Remark: So many environments, so many guests, yet still no friends.

Lex completely ignored the system's remarks. He was too used to it now, so it didn't bother him at all. Instead, he looked into the details of his reward.

A feature that he already had was that the Innkeeper's projection could appear anywhere on Inn property, but it would ultimately just be a projection. But now, finally, the projection would solidify, meaning that others would not be able to tell if it was the real Innkeeper or not.