The Innkeeper

Chapter 2118: Test me

There was a long, awkward silence in the room. Lex stared at the orb, and he had a feeling that the orb was staring at him. Neither of them said anything for a good few moments following Lex’s bicep manoeuvre. Truthfully, even Lex was beginning to regret it. It was too cringey.

"The download port on your system is broken," the orb said. "I can’t directly read through its files. Would you mind transferring them through a spirit connection manually?"

As he asked the question, a notification popped up in front of Lex.

New Notification: Send system logs to ’Unknown’ via spirit connection? (Y/N)

Lex blinked, and then selected no.

"You know, I’m not familiar with the etiquettes in Pentagal, but where I’m from people generally talk a bit, maybe even introduce each other before they begin downloading or uploading anything from each other," he said, looking at the orb oddly.

He would have tried to attack, tried to run away, tried to do anything if only he wasn’t completely trapped in this room. Besides, the orb was not all that powerful, and a simple scan through his spirit sense revealed that he could easily break it. Thus, he did not react too strongly just yet.

"Fine, fine. That’s fair. Umm, if you don’t mind, can you put some spirit stones on that table over there? It’ll power the room so that we can get some lights up in here, and I can host you properly. By the way, for the moment, you can refer to me as Regix," the orb said, sending a pulse of light towards a table showing Lex what he was talking about.

Lex scanned the table, but discovered nothing unusual about it at all, nor did he sense any formations. Just to be safe, he placed the weakest spirit stone he had on the table. Within a blink of the eye, all the energy in the stone was sucked out, and a warm, yellow light started to shine from the corners of the room, illuminating it.

A soft breeze picked up, beginning to circulate the air inside, slowly eliminating the gas that was prickling Lex’s skin. A small device akin to a roomba emerged from the corner and began to clean up the dust, while the furniture began to reorient itself.

However, a few seconds later, the lights shut down and everything stopped.

"Umm, if you have a few more spirit stones I’d appreciate it. But if it’s too expensive then never mind - it’s not necessary. I’m not exactly sure about the net worth of Heaven Immortals these days," the orb said again, sounding slightly awkward.

Lex placed a few more spirit stones on the table, and watched as they too were suddenly sucked dry in an instant. The most remarkable thing was that even though the room was cleaning itself up somehow, Lex could not detect a single formation at work, nor any techniques or anything of the sort. It was as if the very laws of the room were acting upon the room, cleaning up. Yet Lex had never seen laws that ran on spirit stones before.

"Right, umm, thanks. Please, have a seat. I would offer you some refreshments, but I kind of ran out of resources a few Ages ago," the orb continued. "Allow me to introduce myself. You can call me Regix. I... umm, how should I say this. I kind of hijacked the system network and uploaded a trojan virus in there long ago that would only initiate upon the highest level of success a system user can accomplish - I just never imagined that it would take so long."

Lex suddenly frowned.

"So you’re saying that the reason I didn’t get a reward for my quest is because you messed with my system?" he asked, a hint of anger and irritation in his voice. In truth, Lex was feigning his emotions. He would never let something as material as wealth distract him in the face of someone who could hijack systems!

If he could somehow learn how to take control of his system and control its rules... if he had the power of his system under his control...

"Oh no, you’ll be properly rewarded once you go back. All of this is not being recorded in your system logs. Besides, I called you here for help - do you really think I would ask for help and not offer anything in exchange?" the orb asked.

Lex shrugged.

"I don’t know. I don’t know you. Besides, what can you even offer me? You don’t even have spirit stones to power your own room."

The orb trembled, as if struggling to hold on after a savage burn.

"Yes, I lack material things, but I have sufficient knowledge. State a law - any law - and I can grant you an unimaginable level of comprehension regarding that law," the orb said casually. "Or if you have any professions you like, such as alchemy, formations, treasure manufacturing etc. I can teach you an immense amount about that too. Trust me bro, I know my stuff."

Somehow, Lex found the orb to be entirely untrustworthy. This was one of the worst swindling attempts he had ever seen.

"It’s entirely natural for you to be skeptical at this point," the orb said. "But that’s easy enough to fix. Go ahead. Ask me anything you want. I will impart some proper knowledge. The basis of any deal is mutual trust, so we can’t really discuss business until you trust me."

Lex narrowed his eyes, and thought of any number of important things he wanted to know about - systems included. However, since this was meant to be a test, he wouldn’t ask about his real interests up front. Instead, he’d see just how capable the orb really was.

"Alright, tell me how I can use a Dao body to influence the Dao," said Lex, posing an impossibly difficult question - something that should have no answer, at least as far as most of the people he’d asked. It was only recently, after the butter knife incident, that he even began to imagine something like that.

"A good question. A very good question," the orb said. "I won’t give you the full answer - not yet - but allow me to give you a tease."

The orb suddenly started to glow, and a spirit sense from within the orb reached out and touched Lex, asking permission to transfer some information. After giving it permission, Lex’s eyes widened as a stream of knowledge flowed into his brain at an unbelievable pace.

It barely lasted a few seconds, and yet Lex’s entire understanding of Dao changed!