The Innkeeper

Chapter 2510: Surprising notifications

Watching his system devour another, and trying to comprehend anything from it was like trying to look at an apple fall from a tree and using that to understand quantum physics without any other context whatsoever. In short, it was a little tough.

In the back of his mind, Lex kept an eye on the rest of the Inn to ensure there were no problems. Fortunately, pretty much everyone in the universe was too busy to bother the Inn these days, so time passed by peacefully - relatively speaking.

One thing Lex did notice was Hera going to Z to ask for his help concerning her son, Jimmy. It was not an emergency or a huge problem or anything of the sort, but Lex took note of it to check up on once he was done with his current task.

Fifty five hours in, it was finally time for Lex to intervene in the process! The system seemed to be absorbing some of the Debt systems existing features that had to do with debt forgiveness. That was something Lex could absolutely not accept!

Lex had long deployed his Sovereign realm, taking advantage of the waiting time to push out as much of it as possible to enhance his own strength. Thus, when the system began its heretical actions, he did not hesitate to unleash Domination, guiding the system towards the correct path of capitalism.

Debts could never be forgiven! At most, they could be worked off via a combination of bartering and exchange of services. Debtors would have to wash dishes if that’s what it came to!

Lex did not speak - the conditions required for the system to absorb the right or wrong features were too complex to command accurately with a few words, and Supremacy was best used with as few words as possible. Instead, Lex used his spirit sense to direct or divert the system’s actions.

As far as Lex had seen, Sovereigns never concerned themselves with the ’how’ of things and instead simply declared their wish but he was hesitant to try that right off the bat. This was too important a task to simply declare his wish and then sit back to observe whether it came true or not. He would first ensure the most optimal conditions for his wish to come true!

Due to Lex’s interference, the systems repair and absorption process slowed down quite a bit, but there was no rush to begin with. Only around the 71 hour did Lex finally succeed in navigating the system away from debt forgiveness, using up a surprising amount of energy and effort.

Even though he had only worked a few hours, Lex was beginning to feel mentally fatigued and physically strained from employing the Sovereign realm for so long.

"Absorb the Debtor Tracking ability," commanded Lex, doing his best to use Supremacy to replicate a Sovereign. It wasn’t completely accurate simply based on how he’d seen the Sovereign turtle do things. Then again, to be fair, the turtle’s Sovereign ability seemed far stronger than Nemo’s or even Daekol’s when the cultivation realm was taken into account.

He felt the system drop its resistance as its functions slowly shifted in the right direction, though he still did not drop his guard.

The entire process took 91 hours to complete, in spite of the system claiming a 72 two upper limit. Lex’s interference was the reason for the delayed completion.

As soon as the process was complete, Lex dismissed his Sovereign realm and finally allowed his body and spirit to relax. It had been a long time since something other than a tough fight exhausted Lex the way this had.

Lex turned out the Innkeeper’s Diffuser to reinvigorate himself while summoning a cup of Midnight Brew before he began looking at the series of notifications that had popped up once the system came back online. Most of them were as he expected, though a couple came very unexpectedly, and gave him pause.

New Notification: Debt system absorbed! Current system functionality: 97.8%!

New Notification: New service unlocked: Seasonal Credit!

New Notification: New service unlocked: Debt financing!

New Notification: System feature ’Murderer’ malfunction detected. Murderer trigger point detected. Please manually activate Murderer to initiate the feature.

Warning: Please refrain from upgrading system rank during transition period to avoid the chance of unexpected consequences.

The warning is what concerned him most, though Lex was also curious about Murderer. That was a system feature which allowed him to absorb an enemies trait if he killed a stronger opponent outside of Inn territory.

Back in the day it was quite useful, and was how Lex gained the ability to turn himself into thought and enter his opponents minds. Later on, Lex became strong enough to see how the ability worked. It basically ’encoded’ a set of law changes within Lex’s body, allowing him to trigger those changes when and as he wished, triggering the ability.

It was useful, but the part Lex found most insightful was studying how changes in laws could cause certain abilities to manifest. That allowed his understanding of laws in general to grow stronger.

All things considered, these days the ability was no longer at the level where Lex could gain anything from it. However, in this case, that might not be true. Recently, the only person Lex killed who could be considered stronger than himself was Daekol.

But when Lex was fighting him, he had been disconnected from his own system, so Murderer should not have triggered. Maybe that’s why there was a malfunction. It was certainly worth looking into.

Besides that, the two abilities were not what Lex had expected, even though he guided his system in the direction he wanted. That proved that Lex’s understanding and comprehension of the inner workings of various systems was not as advanced as he thought. It would probably be very useful to have a chat with Mary about that, but she seemed very busy these days with something.

On and off, Lex had noticed her deploying a formation to hide from him. He did not pry into what she was doing, though his instincts told him he would find out sooner rather than later.