The Innkeeper

1346  Totally not a mental breakdown

"SCREW YOUR GRANDMOTHER!" the sentient planet screamed, making use of the power it had long been reserving to escape its galaxy wide prison. Sure, the planet had more than enough lives to consume within that galaxy, and didn't need to escape. But it was the thought that mattered. It didn't like being restricted.

But it didn't like being toyed with even more, so it unleashed its hidden powers, and teleported as fast as it could, finally touching the golden door. It wasn't even curious anymore about what the door held. It just wanted it destroyed.

That is why the sentient planet was taken by surprise when the full force of its 278,229 USAs wide body slamming into the door didn't break it. Instead, from the door, the sentient planet felt a request for a teleportation. Feeling intrigued once more, it gave the permission.

"What's the worst that could happen?" the planet asked itself, thereby raising a massive red flag for itself before venturing off to go meet the human who made a living out of doing the absurd and the impossible.

Just before it disappeared, the planet heard a very familiar sound. It was a new notification from its system.

*****

Lex threw himself into the hot tub, hoping for it to squeeze out the fatigue in his soul. It wasn't literal fatigue. As an immortal, it wasn't easy to exhaust him. But man, even having an immortal mind did not make it any easier to go through days of extremely tedious investigations.

Actually, it did. Lex had long lost the ability to feel bored since his mind could be occupied by a billion other things without affecting his ability to function at all. But it was more the thought that counted than anything.

He did work that felt like it should have been mentally and emotionally draining, so that's how he was going to act. It was a luxury he had as his own boss - sort of.

Besides, it was only a little more time before the auditing resumed, so the only real work Lex could end up doing was continuing his negotiation with the system. That could be done in his office, or from the hot tub. Who was going to complain?

"Mary, it's been long enough so let's get right to it," Lex spoke directly in his mind. Even if the system would keep everything he said safe, with a Dao Lord within the Inn, he wasn't going to take any chances.

Actually, Lex had no idea if the Dao Lord whose name he had erased from was still inside the Inn. Although he had not tried looking for him, he discovered that scans of the Inn did not reveal him at all.

This was one more danger he had to just ignore and hope nothing happened - a habit he was hoping to break by becoming stronger. But it would be a long time before he could face a Dao Level problem straight in the face, so he had to be content with ignoring and hoping for now.

"I'm sure the system can see now why my precautions are necessary. If we don't resolve this issue soon, then things will get only worse."

"There's a problem," Mary said as she appeared in front of Lex.

"Since the system can't detect you-know-who, it has no way of knowing that a Dao Lord is here, and is still behaving reluctantly to change its rules so straightforwardly"

"It can't detect him at all?" Lex asked, surprised. That probably explained why he hadn't been able to get any MP. It's because the system was not actually treating him as a real existence.

"Well whether it acknowledges it or not, we have to restrict the teleportation before-"

Before Lex could complete his sentence, the notification sound in his head went off and the system interface suddenly appeared in front of his face! Yet that was far from all.

It wasn't just that the notification sound was deeper and louder than he had ever heard, but that even when the quest appeared in front of his face, its style and format were unfamiliar.

More importantly, as an Immortal now, Lex was a lot more sensitive to certain things. He noticed immediately that time around him seemed to slow down, and even Mary herself was affected.

Emergency Quest!: Aberrant system detected! Reintegrate the aberrant system into the System network using superior authority and status.

Quest details: You have come across an anomaly incapable of self correcting through ordinary means. Correction is not required. Simply integrate the anomaly into your own system without compromising its current state to complete the quest.

Quest reward: 1 instance of temporary authority to rewrite system operations.

Quest failure punishment: Unable to determine.

Lex read the completely foreign format of quest multiple times, and took in a few key points. First, he was absolutely sure that this quest was not given to him by the Midnight Inn system because the quest actually provided him with details and explanations - even if they were vague. Compared to what his system did, this was way too nice.

Second, he basically confirmed that all systems were connected! The quest literally stated that there was a system network that he needed to connect this new system to. This was not too much of a revelation though, as Lex had his suspicions when he discovered the upgraded version of the Fancy Monocle in the Infinity Emporium.

But confirmation of it didn't feel as good as he would have thought. He had only just begun to trust his system. What was he supposed to do now that he was aware that there was a damn system network constantly monitoring all systems, and was even able to hand out quests?

In truth, Lex fully intended on doing nothing. He had come to terms with the fact that, for now, the system was his biggest reliance. It was his greatest source of treasures, and was what allowed him to get in contact with so many extraordinary things. Without it, his growth would be stunted.

All he needed to do now was just ensure nothing went wrong, try to control the situation as best as he can, and become insanely strong. Lex had a feeling that even systems could not so easily affect Dao Lords.

He was also keenly aware that the system network, if that really was the thing that gave him this quest, had definitely been spying on him. How else could it so conveniently offer him the one reward he really wanted at the moment. The only positive he could see from this whole situation was that he could get rewards out of the system network, which seemed to have a higher authority than his system, and that it didn't seem to mind him wanting to do things differently. Oh, and also that he had a high authority and status, though he had no idea if that was due to himself or his very high level yet broken system.

It was not that Lex had suddenly become more trusting. It was just an inescapable effect of becoming an immortal. Lex was less anxious about potential problems, and more confident in his own ability to face them.

Time did not return to its normal state of flow, and Lex suddenly received a bit of information as the quest panel disappeared from in front of his eyes. It was not that time had slowed down, but that his perception of time was being artificially accelerated to help him complete this quest.

Speaking of which, he even received information on the quest itself. The "aberrant system" or rather, the being who had it, had entered the Inn, but instead of being teleported to the Inn itself, it had instead been sent to the Innkeepers office.

That was the extent of the help he received. Lex smiled, put on his Host Attire, and teleported to his office. He was smiling because he was looking forward to facing this brand new, unprecedented and possibly extremely dangerous challenge, and not at all because he was having a partial mental breakdown from constantly having to face beings of unimaginable power. No, no, why would that bother him? Whether a Dao Lord could kill him, or a strong Heavenly Immortal, or an average or even weak Celestial immortal, that was an equal amount of death he would be getting. It wasn't like one death was more serious than the other - as far as he knew.

So it was perfectly fine treating all beings above a certain threshold of power as exactly the same, because Lex was equally powerless in front of them all. Of course, he could also write them a strongly worded letter using the Innkeepers pen and ink. That would show them.

Lex woke himself up from his random thoughts as he laid eyes on the newest guest in his office. It was a planet, and somehow the size shrinking ability of his office turned the massive planet into roughly the size of a disco ball.

But just because its size had changed did not mean it could be taken lightly. No, this was a being at the peak of the Celestial immortal realm!