The Innkeeper

Chapter 2490: Prepare for uncertainty

"You mean... I won’t be able to leave the Midnight realm... until the universe completes its transition period, right?" Lex asked cautiously, unsure if Mary had picked up on something he had missed, or it was just a slip of the tongue.

Mary took a moment to respond, not because she was thinking, but because she was enjoying swirling the boba in her mouth. Years of watching everyone eat, but being unable to actually taste or feel the texture of food wasn’t exactly torturous, but it was still deeply uncomfortable.

Now, at last, she could enjoy herself. For a very brief moment, she even forgot to respond to Lex because she was busy swirling the boba with her tongue.

"Well, based on what you know now, this process will only last until the universe successfully transitions. But... I have my own theory about why realms have been tagged by the universe for consumption, and why systems have been tagged, and they’re both for different reasons."

Lex suppressed the urge to remind Mary that they were on a time limit, and instead relocated the two of them to a patisserie he booked out completely. The workers would bring them all kinds of treats. Though they all had positive benefits, owing to the high level of Mary’s body, Lex doubted she’d gain any actual benefit. They were mostly here for the taste of banana bread.

"I’m forgetting a lot of things, but basically the development cycle of the universe has been studied for countless years, and numerous predictive studies should have been carried out. You can learn about it pretty easily. In short, the main thing the universe will be going towards is stability.

"So when it consumes energy, that energy will be directed towards building a stronger, more cohesive framework within which universal laws operate. At the same time, laws will become more rigid and less flexible. That’ll make it easier to use them in certain ways and harder to use them in others.

"But everything is not about energy. That framework needs to come from somewhere, and immature laws are not completely stable, hold concentrated energy and have bits of law frameworks that can possibly be used as references for the universe.

"By absorbing immature realms, the universe solves an instability problem and gains two very significant benefits. But what do systems - specifically rank A system and above have that the universe could be interested in at this juncture? There’s been no study on it, but I can venture a guess. It’s the framework."

Lex was not too surprised to hear the answer. It made sense. He’d never encountered anything else quite as complex, and yet able to handle as many situations as a system itself. If it weren’t for the inherent nature of Primordial energy messing things up, systems might have been the closest things to being flawless in the universe that Lex could think of.

"I think, at this juncture, what the universe wants from systems is a framework. But once it absorbs a system once, I think it will discover that the systems have a more mature processing capability than anything else the universe has seen. The energy conversion, the priority scaling, the way it handles multiple operations seamlessly on the load of a single soul...

"Honestly, I can’t accurately predict what might happen, but I have a gut feeling that once the universe absorbs a system, it won’t stop any time soon. Maybe the system network itself has realized this issue which is why it gave out such an absurd quest to all system users at or above rank A.

"It is preparing for a threat that hasn’t appeared yet, and I think you should do the same. While waiting the universe out might not be the worst idea, I think you should instead begin to prepare for a vastly different universe once the transition is complete. After all... we’ve been living in what is a video game equivalent of an early access game so far. Now, the full release is coming, it’s bringing a whole lot of updates with it without providing any patch notes."

Lex blinked, and did not know how to respond. Why was Mary giving video game references? It was incredibly clever and seemed to work quite well in this situation, but he had just not been expecting it.

"I’ll keep that in mind," said Lex as he stood up from his seat. There were quite a lot of things that he wanted to talk to Mary about, but now wasn’t the time.

"By the way, if possible, I’d like you to coordinate with Velma on extracting the remaining members of the Inn," said Lex before leaving. "Since we don’t know what the universal situation is about to be, it’s best if we get everyone home."

Mary nodded, and then closed her eyes as she ate some of the banana bread Lex had ordered for her. Okay, she had lied. Missing this was not just tortuous, it was a violation of basic rights.

Lex wondered if he should ask her to rest in case she needed it. Then he looked at her expression while she ate and just shook his head. She was probably fine. At this point, there were few things that Lex couldn’t easily see through, and Mary’s mood was one of them.

At the same time, he thought about his own predicament. While he could not come up with a way for others to hide, Lex had a feeling that if his mastery of the Masterless technique rose high enough, he’d be able to go out of the Inn once more.

But staying within the Inn for the foreseeable future might not be a bad thing. It wasn’t just because the universe was about to change, but because he’d spent too much time outside of it, and had gained too many things.

Although he was stronger now than he had ever been before, too many of his opportunities remained under utilized. He had the body of a Sovereign, a system that had aided said sovereign in hunting down Lex, a fake realm that wasn’t fully developed, a Primrodial Dao Body that needed to reach maturity and too many other things.

Staying inside the Inn and honing his strength... sounded like a wonderful idea.

Meanwhile, within his still developing Hell, Luthor watched as the Midnight Inn finally had a decent number of prisoners to hold. He’d discovered very quickly that their misery and despondency accelerated the development of the Hell, and influenced the development direction of the Hell, so he needed to carefully decide what direction he wanted it to go.