The Innkeeper

Chapter 2087: A salesman’s smile

Lex had to look at the situation from multiple angles. One of his main goals in this tea party was to build up his reputation as much as possible to try to deter any possible plans of targeting him. He did not expect to survive this way forever, but he aimed to buy as much time as possible.

He was already growing strong far quicker than anyone had any right to. If he could just maintain his deterrence of danger long enough, maybe even just a few thousand years which was nothing to Dao Lords, then he was certain he could find ways to keep himself safe. The problem was buying those few thousand years to begin with.

Since his main reliance for that was his reputation, any secret he revealed had to be of sufficient quality. The way that Eclipse reaffirmed her power, influence and strength was by dropping random bomb shells with every other sentence she said. Her nonchalance and disregard for matters that others could not even begin to imagine clearly defined the difference in their levels.

The Innkeeper needed to do something similar. Now, Lex had learned a bunch of interesting things in Abaddon, but the problem was that he could not verify how true or false they were. The fact that there seemed to be an age in history that apparently no one remembered was too unbelievable, and was not something he could casually claim in front of Eclipse, who seemed to have been alive since the dawn of time - or at least something close to that.

The existence of Abaddon itself was quite shocking, as was proven by the fact that even Voidmaw remained unaware of it, and that Ventura himself was taken aback by the Innkeepers mention of it.

But now, he had already mentioned it once. If Lex had known that he would need to share secrets, he would not mention it so quickly. He could bring it up again, but then in the eyes of Ventura and Voidmaw, it would seem like the Innkeeper had limited knowledge or exposure. That even slight weakness was something he could not afford.

So what other secrets could he reveal? There was that hidden forest within Abaddon, but considering how the residents of that forest had been so helpful to him, it seemed wrong.

There was no way Lex would reveal any secret that would harm his own interests - such as knowledge of how to calculate the Nexus events time, and location of the Nexus. He planned on utilizing those two, so there was no way he would reveal them.

What else was there? A few things, actually, not to mention he still had access to the Heavens Puppet. While the puppet itself was still inside his Inn, the reward was from the system, and the system was inside his soul. While he didn’t want to activate it now just in case he didn’t need it, that was still one option.

"So then, how do we want to go about this?" Ventura asked, looking at the whole crowd. "I’ll tell you now, I’m going to go last. My contribution will be based on everyone else’s contribution - just in case anyone was thinking of getting a free ride out of me."

All the Dao Lords looked at one another, each of them with their own thoughts.

"Gentlemen, I have a proposal," said Ballom, attracting all the attention. Instead of being intimidated by the attention, he merely smiled like a salesman who was about to take home a big fat cheque.

"To gain an understanding of how easy or difficult it is to activate the Enigma Pillar, why don’t we all contribute a simple and relatively meaningless secret. We’re all connected by karma anyway, so combined with a harmless secret, it will give us a much better understanding of what we’re willing to contribute down the line. I must admit that I, for one, am quite tempted by the possibility of a genuine Primoridial souvenir - especially a high quality one."

Ballom’s proposal seemed reasonable, and all the Dao Lords basically agreed after a few moments.

"In that case, since I am the one who proposed the idea, allow me to go first. Dao Lord Burnthall of the Ifrit race has been in hiding since his Dao fractured some time ago."

Lex did not react, but he just realized how insidious Ballom had just been. The secret he revealed had nothing to do with himself, and put one of his enemies at great risk. A weakened Dao Lord could become a target for many. Maybe. Who knows what Dao Lords do to other weakened Dao Lords? Certainly not Lex. He was, at the very least, certain that Dao Lord Burnthall wouldn’t benefit from this.

In this way, he could benefit from others acting on this information. Similarly, Dao Lords could reveal information that could end up as a trap for anyone who acted on it.

Yes, there were no simple characters here. In that case, since they were doing ’light’ and ’insignificant’ secrets, Lex knew just what to contribute that would not harm his interests, but also demonstrate his insight. Also, it might make his life a little easier, for Jack was having a real tough time getting out of that realm and the Nexus event was closing in.

"A small, harmless secret?" the Innkeeper said outloud, while others were still contemplating the ramifications of Ballom’s secret while also studying the Enigma Pillar. It seemed that Ballom’s secret was not enough to activate it just yet.

"I’m not too familiar with secrets since I spend all my time inside my Inn. But, if I must say something, then I have noticed that someone seems to be artificially attempting to speed up the occurrence of the Nexus event."

The black pillar suddenly started to shine brightly, indicating that it was suddenly activated, and possibly more than once. While everyone else was looking at the pillar, observing its changes, Ventura and Eclipse locked eyes before turning to look at the Innkeeper.

He was supposed to be on good terms with Nuwa... so why did he have such intimate knowledge about Destiny’s domain?