The Innkeeper

Chapter 1686: The cringe is strong with this one

The teleportation between realms was perfect, so if it had happened anywhere else, Jack might not have immediately noticed. Yet the moment he was teleported into the Challenge realm, he knew it and his eyes flashed open.

The reason was simple. The reeking, rancid smell that plagued his karma disappeared. Jack had not been expecting that to happen, but the moment it did, he fell to his knees and tears started welling up in his eyes. So overwhelmed was he that it actually took him a moment to gather himself back up.

Jack didn’t know what to expect from his trial, mainly because, based on his understanding, all trials were personalised and there was no predictable pattern to them.

Jack, for example, had lived a short but eventful life, but he was probably not using his power to its full potential. The way fairies used spiritual energy was so overpowered that it seemed a little broken to Jack, and even after living as a fairy for so long, he often discovered that he had underestimated the scope of his abilities.

In essence, a majority of his power came from his fairy dust, which came from his wings. As long as he had the intention to do something, he could produce fairy dust with the appropriate properties to make it happen. This was such a broad concept that Jack could not cope with it sometimes.

For example, as a human, before Lex could teleport, he needed to become aware of space, and then learn to use it. He needed to gain an affinity for it, and then use various spiritual techniques that allowed him to use space in multiple ways.

As a fairy, there was no such thing as an affinity for space, or anything else. As long as he willed it, his fairy dust could take on the properties of space, and then how he used that fairy dust is what limited the scope of his abilities. The possibilities were endless.

The way he saw it, with such frightening abilities, fairies should be one of the most revered races in the universe, because that versatility of will was eerily similar to a dragon bending the universe to their will.

But the difference was that this was what the fairies were capable of after suffering a severe karmic curse that killed off any chance for fairies to grow stronger, and just generally live either oppressed or enslaved lives. He could not even imagine what the fairies were capable of at the height of their powers.

Jack looked at his surroundings and found himself standing alone on a concrete path, with no real surroundings. It wasn’t as if he was standing in darkness, but instead as if the things that should have surrounded him had been ripped away. In fact, even the path before him seemed to meander around, finding a way through, however narrow, between all that had been ripped away around him.

Jack wore a solemn expression as he took his first steps, for he had a theory about what he was seeing. His theory didn’t come from himself, but seemed to emanate from his surroundings, as if the absence of things was communicating to him. Or maybe it was the inherent instincts of a fairy.

Jack felt like surrounding him should have been the natural endowments of a fairy - all the things that the race should have been entitled to, or was born with. Their abilities, their strengths, their uniquenesses. All of them had been ripped away from them at the very core of their existence, leaving them with nothing.

No, not nothing. They were left with less than nothing, for some kind of karmic curse was left to weigh them down, as if to ensure they could never rise up to take back what was rightfully theirs.

Jack, from the very core of his being, felt the unprecedented depth of cruelty from the absence all around him. Even the path that he was walking now was only barely left behind - if only because the universe did not allow it to disappear.

He did not know if walking this path counted as his trial, for it wasn’t hard. Then again, maybe he wasn’t actually walking the path. Maybe he was just being made aware that his path to progress hadn’t been entirely eliminated - just that it existed as a bare sliver.

As soon as he had that thought, his surroundings changed, and he was no longer walking the narrow path. Instead, he was sitting with legs folded in front of a very, very old fairy - as could be determined by the many wrinkles of his face.

"Are you ready?" the old fairy asked.

"Yes I am," Jack said. "Wait, am I ready for what?"

The old fairy looked at him like he was an idiot.

"For your marriage, of course. You’re about to marry old man Simons."

Jack froze. What the hell kind of trial was this?

The old fairy picked up his wooden cane and bonked Jack’s head.

"Idiot, I was talking about your trial. Are you ready to hear the details of your trial? What else did you expect from the Challenge realm?"

"OH! Oh, I mean, yes, yes. I am ready to hear about the details of the trial," Jack said, feeling unbelievably relieved that the old fairy had just been pulling his leg.

"The fairies are one of the oldest races in existence, and our affinity with the Path of Order is so immense that we were actually one of the founding members," the old fairy said, his expression softening back to his original state. "But that is old news now, and there is no point in living in past glories. What you need to know is that nothing resonates with a fairy more than joy. Nothing. It is for that reason that the curse upon us is specifically designed to deprive us of joy, and our ability to provide joy. In your path ahead, you must stick closely to joy. It is at the core of fairies more than anything else, and so long as we exist, this is a truth that can never be changed."

Jack nodded, memorising the old fairies words. Maybe this would be his path in the future. Or maybe it was a hint in his upcoming trial.

"What lies ahead for you is not illusory, nor is it artificial in any way. The difficulty of the challenge may seem entirely unfair or unjust, but it is proportional to the difficulty of the enhancement of your cultivation realm."

Jack shrugged.

"I’m used to things being hard. It’s okay."

The old fairy nodded.

"There is another fairy by the name of Tinker. She is one of 3 existing Earth Immortal fairies in all of existence. Your trial is to rescue her from her prison, and help her find joy once more. As soon as you do those two things, your trial will be complete. There is a door behind you. Once you pass through it, you will enter his prison. Be warned - that prison is specifically designed to contain fairies, so your fairy dust will not work there."

Jack was... stumped. Although he knew that trials had no fixed pattern, his trial seemed a little unusual.

"Is there anything else you can tell me?" Jack asked.

"No, I cannot. Go when you are ready."

Jack looked at the old fairy, and then at his surroundings. He seemed to be inside a wooden cabin.

"Thank you for your guidance, then," said Jack as he bowed to the fairy and stood up. "Will I see you once I complete the trial?"

"Once you complete the trial? That’s a lot of confidence in your tone, young man. I suppose that’s a good thing. You can worry about that once you actually complete the trial."

Jack nodded and then turned around. There was no point in waiting. He walked through the door without hesitation and found himself in hell.

It was no exaggeration. He was literally in hell, and he knew it the moment he entered. Fortunately, though the stone corridor he was standing in did have thin channels of lava-falls to serve as a source of light, the air itself was not on fire, nor was there any army of devils present to torture him.

That didn’t mean that everything was peachy. Just as the old fairy had stated, Jack could feel that he was unable to produce fairy dust. There was something about the stones that the corridor was made from that acted as an inhibitor. Fortunately, his wings still worked.

Normal fairies would be unable to fly using solely their wings since it was actually fairy dust that allowed them to fly, not their wings.

That didn’t work for Jack though - the most jacked fairy in existence.

"Do you even lift, bro?" Jack said, and started flapping his frail wings. The sheer force packed within each flap of his wing pushed him into the air. "Yeah, I lift."

Jack could not help but chuckle at his pun as he started to explore the massive corridor, unaware that there was an invisible hellion wraith behind him who was about to attempt possession of his body. His joke, however, had been so cringe, and so torturous, that the wraith literally went into the fetal possession and began to rock back and forth.

It suddenly began to doubt which one of them was supposed to torture the other, because the fairy had done a better job in one line than the wraith could have done all day with actual possession.