The Innkeeper

Chapter 2180: Change of plans

Lex had participated in many of the services and facilities inside the Inn, but he had not participated in this one before. He sat on the peacock, not opting for a saddle, and received an odd look from the bird. It seemed like a mix between disbelief and amusement.

"What? Can’t I enjoy myself every now and then?" the Innkeeper asked the peacock, who only shook his head.

Lex, as it happened, recognised this peacock. It was truly quite coincidental, but this was the peacock that Layla used to ride - the actual founder of the peacock warriors. After her withdrawal from the group, this peacock never took up a dedicated rider again, opting for supervising and training the other peacocks. Who knew it was working here now?

According to the rules of the playground, there were two ways of controlling the peacocks. One was to use simple, external gestures but that would require using a saddle and lead ropes. The other was to use a technique provided by the playground that allowed simple, instinctual communication between the rider and the mount.

Guests were strictly forbidden from trying to tame or control the peacock in any of their own ways. Of course, after witnessing how awesome the peacocks were, many people secretly tried. Those people were publicly punished and banned from the Midnight Inn. There was no tolerance for targeting members of the Inn, and that included the peacocks!

"Do you have the hang of it yet?" the old man asked as he expertly rode his peacock forward. He was used to riding a mount, so adapting to the peacock wasn’t too difficult for him.

"Yes, it’s quite simple," the Innkeeper responded. "Shall we begin?"

The old man nodded, leading the way to the start.

"I hear the challenges keep changing so there’s no way of anticipating what might happen," the old man said with a hint of excitement in his voice. Lex actually found it quite entertaining.

Just to make the challenge interesting, Lex decided to limit his reaction time to that of himself when he was in the Golden Core realm. Otherwise, the challenge might be too easy. He also decided to let the old man take the lead.

The Playground of Legends truly lived up to its reputation. From the very start, not only was it interesting, there were hints of a story hidden within for those interested in finding them. Each level of the challenge told a story of someone who had overcome tremendous obstacles, with help of course. What was supposed to be an impossible obstacle for an individual became something that could be overcome through teamwork.

Of course, through the process, Lex could not help but study the hidden lore with an odd expression. He, naturally, knew who this legendary character was. It was Z.

It seemed like Z had created an extremely strong impression on the Peacock warriors, although it also made sense. He had spent a great deal of time with them, constantly looking out for the kids.

Oh, and the person helping Z out on all his adventures was a certain ’Leo’.

Amused and entertained, Lex kept his silence on the matters of lore, though the old man found it curious that his unnamed partner was so interested in it. After all, there weren’t any benefits to learning the lore, as far as he knew.

To his great surprise, learning the lore was actually the secret to overcoming the challenges! In the eight challenge, which took the two several hours to reach, they were about to venture onto what appeared to be the correct path, until the old man noticed that it looked like a trap that the hero in the legends had once suffered.

Thus, using some rather creative means, they bypassed the trap which would have caused the space around them to collapse, dropping them into the ’Void’ which would have effectively killed them.

Of course, in this context although the space would have actually shattered, it would not have dropped them into a real Void, but rather another part of the Jungle Gym that would have been impossible to escape, causing them to lose.

Lex had suspicions that the Void wouldn’t have actually caused them to lose, and probably hid an even bigger easter egg, since that’s what happened in real life, all who had fallen into the gyms Void so far had failed the challenges.

Regardless, he continued to go through the playground alongside the old man, doing his ’best’ to support him so that the two of them could get through. The design, honestly, was quite ingenious and even encompassed special features of the Midnight Inn, such as making a few levels exist in 2D, using Realm Law replication to make it happen.

The application was... quite ingenious. Lex actually felt that it was a waste that he hadn’t personally thought of something like this, and instead Jimmy had done it. It wasn’t that he was looking down on Jimmy’s accomplishments, but rather at his own use of time.

While everything he did served a purpose, it also prevented him from spending more time inside the Inn, interacting with guests and improving the Inn himself. Of course, joint effort and collaboration would definitely improve the Inn, but for too long had Lex let the Inn run on autopilot.

He created departments to handle his work, and let his workers pick up his slack. Maybe... he was finally strong enough that he could spend more time at the Inn. Besides, it was unlikely that he would grow much stronger without properly digesting all the gains he’d accumulated.

He even had feathers and blood from Vinei he hadn’t used. He had a Dao Body to finish, and Profane cores to absorb. Admittedly he was running low on the cores, but how hard could it be to buy them?

As the Innkeeper and the old man went through the final stages of the challenge, Lex could not help but consider the fact that he might need to change his upcoming plans. Besides, a universe at war wasn’t the kind of place he should be casually running around in.

It was around the time that Lex came to that conclusion that they completed the challenge, finally ending it.