The Innkeeper

Chapter 1662 The gift of fire

Arrays used the energy of the universe to power themselves, but drawing the character required the user's own spiritual energy. Back when Lex started out, he had two great obstacles - his drawing speed, since each character needed to be perfect, and his energy reserves.

Neither of those had been a problem for Lex for a long time, yet as he began to draw the character from the Book of Changes, he found that the energy was practically pouring out of him as he drew it.

"Yeah, these are probably super normal characters," Lex said as he completed the character. Fortunately, he didn't need to draw an entire array just yet - simply identifying the correct character was enough.

After a long time of observing and monitoring the situation, Lex eventually discovered that the wrongness seemed to have a certain flavor to it. As it happened, the description of the characters in the Book of Changes described the perfect character to correct it.

Resolving the situation wasn't difficult - it was more about identifying the problem to begin with.

Once the character was complete, it resonated with the land, pulling energy that Lex immediately recognized as Chaos Energy. The result, however, was not massive. The wrongness simply faded away, just as the character did.

At first, Lex thought that was it, and was about to move on, but then he noticed movement. It wasn't in the city - rather the mural seemed to be moving. The characters in the scene were rearranging themselves, and the serpent man sat up straight in his throne - as if his mother had told him off for his bad posture.

Suddenly, the meaning of the mural changed. Instead of an overpowered being holding court, attending to his subjects, the scene depicted the serpent man as a great sage, teaching his disciples with the universe itself as the drawing board.

Lex did not look too closely. Getting the general gist of the mural was enough. What was most important was that… the initial meaning of the mural had been deceptive. Only after correcting the wrongness did the truth reveal itself. Was this what the challenge meant by looking through reality and fantasy?

His curiosity about the changes to the mural once again reminded him of the first mural, and he wondered what the real mural might have looked like. But curiosity did not mean that he would stray off the path.

He investigated the scene once more, trying to determine if he could sense any other abnormalities. The only wrongness he detected was still coming from the theater. Though he had no intentions of returning, he tried to see if he could correct it from where he stood.

Since he had already analysed the wrongness, all he needed to do was draw the correct character.

He turned around and drew another character, once again losing an immense amount of energy, but just like last time, as soon as he drew the character, it resonated with the space, and then the wrongness faded alongside the character itself.

Lex nodded, and then sat down to meditate for a while. His clone's energy reserves were nowhere near as limitless as Lex himself, and he needed to ensure that he retained as much energy as possible. If the energy level becomes too low, the clone itself might destabilise.

With a basic understanding of the ruins and the challenge established, progress through the rest of the ruins was much faster - though it wasn't exactly fast.

Every time he went from one section of the city to another, he would sense another wrongness, and would find another mural. After a few days of meditation, he would be able to resolve the situation without much of a hassle.

Through the murals, Lex found that the story followed the serpent man, though the female from the first mural never appeared again. The more it was like this, the more he regretted not being able to see what the actual mural showed. He had a feeling that the first mural, even among the others, was especially important.

The two sets of murals seemed to show two entirely different stories. The false murals depicted a tale of the serpent man's incredible power. He seemed to build worlds with a wave of his hand, and create laws with a flick of his tail, and ruled as a prideful yet powerful leader.

To be honest, there was nothing wrong with that. It wasn't as if any of the murals depicted him as a tyrant or anything. But the truth seemed somewhat different.

The same pictures underwent changes, somehow seeming much more detailed - not that Lex focused on the details. Instead, he learned the story of a sage who walked through the universe, waving his hands to mend broken worlds. The laws of the universe seemed weakened, and had no strength to uphold the integrity of the universe, so he created formations, laying the groundwork for how the universe would work.

Of course, that was merely Lex's interpretation at a glance, without taking in the deeper details. Moreover, even though he saw it, and even though the weight of the knowledge felt like it was the undeniable truth, Lex did not believe it. He did not believe that there was a being so powerful that it laid out the foundations for how the universe would work.

If such a being existed, then it would be the ultimate ruler, to this day, for this was a power level far beyond anything a mere Dao Lord could achieve.

The stories continued, and showed how he nurtured civilizations and taught them how to live. There was even a picture of him handing fire to what looked like humans, and that instantly caused Lex to think of the legend of Prometheus from Earth.

Lex wasn't an expert in Greek mythology, but he was pretty sure none of the other murals matched his stories or legends. He could confirm later on. For now, he continued to view the murals.