The Innkeeper

Chapter 1827: The weight of karma

Since the bead did not check the karma of Dao Lords, and it didn’t even detect that mysterious man who showed up in his Inn, Lex relaxed. That was probably the worst of it, right?

He was wrong. The karma that wrapped itself around the dragon Pelvailin, and the entire planet Frigra in fact, was not only immense, it was ancient. That karma had, apparently, wrapped itself around Lex too, considering all the treasure he’d stolen from the dragon.

The bead once again began to trace its origins, trying to understand it fully.

Fortunately, this time the karma did not go back so far, only a few billion years. Even so, it contained a terrifying aura, as if it originated from something especially menacing. Even as Lex tried to observe the karma, he could not get any clues.

But anything which felt terrifying to even him had to be at the very least in the Celestial level. It only made sense, after all, the soul death of a Heaven Immortal dragon like Pelvailin is not a thing simply accomplished.

As the karmic trace continued to go back in time, it reached a period in the history of the Origin realm long before the arrival of the Henali, when the Origin realm could merely accommodate Earth Immortals.

At that point, the karmic trace simply vanished, as if the karma had originated out of this air. Such a thing was basically impossible.

There were a few esoteric concepts similar to karma in existence, such as fate and causality. Fate and destiny were interchangeable, usually, and as long as a thing existed, it would have some fate or destiny - life and death having nothing to do with it.

Karma, on the other hand, originated in action. Every action that happened created karma, and every subsequent action that occurred because of the first action carried a trace of the karma forward, while creating new karma as well. More importantly, all karma was intimately tied to and fused with whoever or whatever created it.

For example, if Lex were to plant a tree, and it grew and survived for one hundred years, not only would the tree itself be attached to Lex’s karma, but everyone who rested under its shade would be connected to Lex, everyone who ate from its fruit, everyone who even so much as used the trees leaves as mulch would all be connected to Lex by a thin strand of karma.

In essence, all karma originated from something, and for this karma to just vanish clearly meant that someone had hidden. Such a thing was not too surprising. After all, even at the Earth Immortal level, Lex knew how to prevent traces of his actions being detected or leaving behind karma. Others could naturally do the same, even if their methods were different.

The bead moved on, but it was also at that point that Lex realized that he truly carried immense karma, and its pressure would only grow.

True to his expectations, the weight of the karma absorbed by the bead grew so much that even mortals could now sense it. Yet it couldn’t be helped. The Temple of Fasting carried immense karma, none of which could be traced by even a fraction.

Cassandra, too, had a lot of karma. Anyone of Lex’s random adventures carried so much hidden karma that Lex genuinely began to wonder if his understanding of karma was actually incorrect. What if everyone carried a lot of karma, and the only reason the weight of it could be felt now was because of the special nature of the bead?

But he quickly dismissed that thought. Whether it was because he was particularly talented at running into problems, or because of the subtle interference of the system which wanted to put him into entertaining situations, he was destined to get pulled into such matters.

In that case, once he sufficiently understood karma, Lex would have to take out some time to study causality and destiny. Considering the fact that he was planning on going to the Nexus soon, it wouldn’t be a bad thing to have a deeper understanding of such things.

One by one, Lex’s karma was all fused with the bead, whether it was from small, daily matters, or massive events like the Champions tourney. The Temple of Frozen Dawn was yet another place that tied its karma to him, with its origins entirely untraceable.

As for the Fable of Time, the book which caused Lex to disappear for a few minutes, only to come back with a seal on in his brain, a seal he could open at any time, but dared not, well it contained more karma than any single thing Lex had ever encountered.

Without exaggeration, whether it was his family’s origins, his system, the mystery with Pelvailin, or anything else, that book contained greater karma than any of them - and that before considering that his bead didn’t even try to look into its origins. It didn’t even try.

Lex was stumped. To have encountered something with a greater karma than his system was... was... well, it was no big deal, apparently, as Lex would soon learn.

The bead continued. His tribulation, his encounter with the lightning beasts during his tribulation, his fight with Jeffery, his encounter with Sekhment, with the golden Dragon King, with the Governor of Henali...

One by one they passed, and it was not limited to just those. Even Jack, and each and everyone of his experiences, as well as the strange racial curse, his bead fused with all that karma and more.

Just when Lex thought that he had witnessed just how profound the karma wrapping around him was, the bead reached the point when he entered Abaddon.

Abaddon, the cursed lands, the graveyard of secrets, where every inch of land had been washed in the blood of trillions, and where time seemed to lose meaning... those lands were rife with karma, many of which were greater than his system. Many.