The Innkeeper

Chapter 1834: A simple oversight

Lex reappeared within the Midnight Inn, with Axios still in his hands. The Nas race members body remained limp, with no mind to control anything. That did not mean that Lex treated him casually, or even as a true dead person.

Spirit death counted as a form of true death for almost all races, but Lex wasn’t familiar enough with the Nas race to determine if they could recover their spirit using energy alone. Let alone recover it, even forming a new one would be dangerous for him, and was entirely possible. Even if the Nas race itself couldn’t do it, he had a system fused with his soul. There was no promising that the system itself couldn’t somehow heal, or even replace his spirit.

The replacement would be the most terrifying outcome. A system, fused with the soul of the host, taking control of the body when its spirit was destroyed, could probably do terrible things.

Of course, Lex knew that the laws encoded within systems probably prevented them from acting independently, or from taking over a host’s body. He’d also been through enough to know that anything was possible, and that there was only one absolute in this universe: time.

Little did Lex know that what he was wary of was very incredibly close to describing It from Abaddon.

The next step was to weaken the soul as much as possible without killing him, and to leave the body with only enough energy to stay alive. In that weakened, suppressed form, it would be much safer to keep him as a prisoner while Lex studied his system and ran experiments on it.

Although it sounded a little evil, Lex did not intend to show any courtesy or mercy to someone who had tried to just randomly kill him.

But keeping and experimenting on a system was far from simple or safe, so Lex would have to do something he hoped Luthor never found out about. He created a secret prison deep underneath the Innkeepers office, completely isolated and insulated from the outside world using the system.

Inside the underground prison, Lex used countless system tools and services to isolate the space, but everything within he made himself using formations. He placed Axios inside a special pod with thin daggers, slightly poking into his shoulders.

One of the daggers would absorb all the energy inside the body, keeping it at the state where it had only enough to continue to live, while the other would weaken the soul. The pod was also lined with formations that restricted the body, locked the surrounding space to prevent teleportations and created multiple defensive barriers around him... including one that prevented any karmic tracing!

Although the Inn itself had a powerful barrier that would prevent anyone outside it to trace anything happening inside, Lex wanted to be even more certain of the security in this place.

Once everything was done, he began by first reading Axios’ memories. Although his spirit was erased, the biological body, as well as the soul to some extent, both stored memories that Lex could peruse.

First, Lex acquired some DNA for the system, hoping that the option to have Nas workers in the future would appear. Then, he proceeded to read Axios’ memories.

Lex had a plan. He did not intend on reading anything that seemed like it might relate to his system, for he expected that the system might be protecting such memories. His precautions weren’t deep enough, though.

Lex caught a glimpse, a mere fragment of Axios’ memories before his body disintegrated entirely, leaving behind only a dim, silver light floating in the pod.

Lex immediately grabbed the system, making sure it didn’t disappear, as he coped with understanding what happened.

It was merely a small miscalculation. Lex had thought about in detail how to avoid all the system’s triggers, but forgot to consider any protection on Axios from other powers.

In the slightest fragment of a memory that Lex had read, he merely saw a very private meeting between the Nas race and the Artica race, discussing the details of some war.

Axios was involved in matters that related to two powerful races, so it was naturally that failsafes had been left in his body and soul in case someone tried to pry on sensitive information.

"Seems I was a little too impatient," murmured Lex as he stared at the system in his hand. "Mary, any tips on how I can safely store this for use?"

Of course, the moment Lex touched the system, he got a number of notifications from his own system, asking him whether he wanted to absorb the Rank A: Game of Life system, but he ignored it.

He wanted to study the system, but storing a system in this form might be tricky - he wasn’t sure. If he discovered that he was unable to store the system, he could always give it to someone else.

John, a former system user, was a decent option. Alternatively, the Rhinocentaurs promised greater access to secret information if they could get their hands on a system.

Mary appeared on his shoulders, but she did not speak. It was clear: when it came to sharing her knowledge about how to manipulate and control systems, she could share nothing.

Lex turned his sight from Mary to the system, spending a few minutes to think. He’d just made a clearly avoidable mistake, and didn’t want to make another one so soon.

In the end, he decided to experiment, even if it might lead to the potential loss of the system. He had other plans originally for after he defeated that infernal Go board. He was going to go with the peacock warriors to check out Suera. He had to go hunt a Defiler with Giselle. Other things also filled his to-do list. Unfortunately, he would have to delay them for now.

Summoning his concentration, Lex focused on the system in his hands, and slowly extended his spirit sense. He would see what the systems were made of, one way or another.