The Innkeeper

Chapter 2518: Push his plans back

"We’re in uncharted territory," said Mary, shaking her head. "Tribulation Fiends... I feel like I’m forgetting some information, but the history is somewhat irrelevant. What matters more is that from the information we’ve collected, they were sent out to kill, and that’s exactly what they did. The universe experienced a cleansing of sinners at a low and mid level range - sinners specifically towards the universe.

"I cannot determine the exact underlying reason for why they’re relaxing inside the Inn, even though we’ve established that it has something to do with Primordial sunlight. I think the best possible thing you can do is form a symbiotic relationship with them. Allow them to live here, and then whenever you have trouble, let the Suncrow disappear, causing them to attack the troublemakers."

Lex shook his head. It was a nice idea, but it was too risky. If the fiends went and attacked his guests instead, he would have two disasters on his hands.

Mary was right though in the sense that it was a waste not to make use of them. He kept feeling like there was something he could use them for which would benefit his Inn greatly, but he hadn’t figured out what that was just yet.

The two of them discussed a few more ideas, but then eventually gave up on for now. There were too many other things for them to deal with to focus solely on this task.

"By the way, do you want another system?" Lex asked. This was a question he had already asked before.

As suspicious as he was of systems, it made sense. Mary was someone who had experience pushing her system to incredible levels. With another one, who was to say she couldn’t push her system back to the same height, or possibly even higher?

Yet, just as last time, Mary shook her head.

"No. At least... not until I improve my Dao. I know system quests can really help out and the resources they give access to are incredible, but I spent so many years trapped inside a system. Right now, I just want some personal space. Maybe once my Dao has been improved, and I’m back to my full power, I will consider it. But for now... definitely not."

It was quite unfortunate she didn’t want one - she could have been an incredible ally empowered by a system of her own, but Lex already knew that. The reason he asked that question again wasn’t to try to persuade her otherwise. Instead...

"Yeah, I hear you. It’s no fun being forced to take orders from something that lives inside your soul. That’s why I was thinking... maybe you’d like to be the one giving the orders for once."

Mary raised an eyebrow, clearly intrigued by the suggestion.

"I feel like I’m not really using Obsidian up to its full potential," said Lex as he opened up a projection, showing her the segregated area of the Inn used explicitly to host system users. For now, I leave them mostly to their own devices, and only occasionally put up quests. I’m usually too busy to oversee it continuously. But if someone took the identity of the Obsidian Sage, I believe there’s a lot we can achieve through them."

Mary looked over everything Lex had done with Obsidian, and could not help but feel like he was right. There was a lot of potential being wasted here.

"There’s a lot I can do with this," Mary said with a nod. "But before that I need to know any goals you have. There’s no point in using them randomly. If I know what to aim for, then I’ll be able to best make use of them."

That made sense. Instead of reaping random rewards, a targeted effort may yield the best results.

"I have two current objectives, and I think they might be able to help with one," he said, not really opting for any external interference in his goal to be able to deal with Dao radiation as a Celestial Immortal. "I want to raise the Midnight Realm all the way to a Mature realm, without alerting anyone, and I want to do it before the universe matures. Anything that might be able to help with that would be useful. Oh, and you can get their help with anything you need to help develop your body."

Mary raised an eyebrow. Mature a realm without alerting anyone? Such a simple task? Why didn’t he try for something more challenging?

She shook her head. Lex had experienced too many abnormal situations in quick succession, now leading him to always opt out of the normal way of doing things. Then again, she was never fond of normal either.

"Most of the people inside Obsidian are too weak, and their system ranks are too low to help with a task like that," Mary said as she considered the challenge. "But I’ll figure something out. How about an Obsidian event? Yes, an event for system users might trigger a mass shared quest, and that might..."

Mary began mumbling to herself as she planned out how to manipulate the system exactly how she wanted. Although she claimed she didn’t want another system, the way Lex saw it, she loved nothing more than scamming systems and their users.

"We need to schedule some classes between you and me as well," said Lex interrupting her thoughts. "Now that you have no restrictions, I want to learn everything you know about how systems work and how I can influence them. Even if I can’t make use of most of that before becoming a Dao Lord, I still want to learn."

Lex thought about sharing his experience with Regix with Mary as well, but not now. He needed to be in a situation he was sure he couldn’t be spied on, which was easier said than done with a system in his soul.

At the same time, Lex resisted the urge to sigh. He had so much to learn, so much to do. It seemed that he would need to push back his plans on finding a date.