The Innkeeper

Chapter 2076: Naptial present

Lex’s eyes flashed open, feeling an unusual sense of clarity. He felt incredibly refreshed, as if he had just woken up after the perfect night’s sleep, but that didn’t make sense. He had been expecting that it would take him a whole lot longer to recover after he had been so thoroughly exhausted and overwhelmed, yet here he was, just fine and dandy.

Due to his connection with the system, he knew that within the tavern, only a few hours had passed since he left. That meant that he had taken a little over a day within the Midnight Realm to recover.

Was it because he was merely mentally drained, or was it something else? He wasn’t entirely sure.

What Lex remained entirely unaware of was that some of the Dao gas he had absorbed inside his body within Arch-Heaven had been used up. He could not be blamed for his ignorance, because he could not sense it to begin with.

Lex checked his body and found that he had made some minor progress in both his Primoridial aura and his Dao Body. He had barely used up the slime so he sealed it back up and got ready to return.

Every little bit of progress he made with his Dao Body would allow him to tolerate more and more Dao aura, which is exactly what he needed at this point.

Lex stretched his body, feeling his newfound power course through him. Despite his limited progress, he already felt the familiar tug of another tribulation slowly coming his way. Fortunately, he could suppress it otherwise he would have needed to take his tribulation elsewhere. There was no way he could undertake a tribulation with an audience of over a hundred Dao Lords.

Once he was sure that everything was fine, Lex had a few things he could do. For one, he could return to the tea party, which he would, but just not yet. Second, he could go to the temple of fasting and check out that technique Nuwa told him about, but that was also something that could wait.

Instead, he went to the Galactic Sovereign Turtle to request him to make another flower, and also to inform him about Crusty.

He quickly put on his Host Attire and teleported over to the turtle, and found that it was once again working on its Heaven, tending to the small Bodhi tree sapling.

"Oh dear, I feel like you have some troubling news to share with me today," the turtle looked at the Innkeeper with a wary expression.

Lex was taken aback, not expecting such a response. He thought that the turtle might be excited to learn of another from its race, but he hadn’t even started talking and the turtle was already upset.

"Troubling?I hope not. I met another Galactic Sovereign turtle, a mature one, and thought to ask if you wanted to meet with him. I expect there is much you can... learn... from him... What’s the matter?"

The Innkeeper had to slow down his words, and eventually gave up on asking the turtle if he wanted to meet the mature one entirely. Instead, he became concerned about the turtle, as for the first time he witnessed it showing an expression of what could only be described as horror and distress!

"No! No, you cannot bring him here! He will snatch my garden from me! You must never bring another Galactic Sovereign turtle into this garden!" the turtle exclaimed. "Oh dear, oh dear, this is too troubling. Don’t you worry little Bodhi, no one will take you from me."

The turtle, as if tending to an upset child, began to caress the small sapling.

Lex, on the other hand, did not know how to react. He supposed... it made sense. The turtle had always been... passionate about his gardening, so it only made sense that others from his race would be equally so. In that case, if two from the same race were to meet, they would obviously clash.

So... uhh...

Lex looked at the turtle who seemed extremely distressed, and was relieving that distress by planting strawberries near the Bodhi tree and going ’oh dear’ repeatedly. Since the turtle didn’t want to accompany him, Lex returned to the tavern.

Yes, he could have taken this time to do things outside the tavern and catch up on some work, but honestly nothing took as much priority as a tavern full of Dao Lords.

"Mary, I’m back. How are things?" Lex asked in his mind as he teleported over to the tavern. Since he did not want the system to be detected, nor did the system want to be detected, it dared not spy on the Dao Lords. As such, he had no idea what had happened during his absence.

"Things are going good, except that someone is trying to poach me from the Inn using a percentage ownership of a Major realm as a nuptial present. It’s a good thing my actions are restricted by the system or I might have slapped somebody," she responded.

Lex froze, unsure of how to respond to that.

"Please don’t try to slap a Dao Lord. If you’re finding this unsettling, you can return to the Inn now that I’m back," he said as he began to walk towards the kitchen. It seemed there was a problem there. Lex had been replacing the waiter every half an hour, not risking any over-exposure to the Dao Lords, even if the system protected them. The kitchen staff, however, never interacted with any Dao Lords so they were fine.

"No, it’s fine. It’s best if I stay here consistently in case you need to go back to rest," Mary said.

Lex nodded internally. Mary was just as reliable as always.

He entered the kitchen to the sight of absolute chaos.

"For the last damn time Brenda," yelled Pierre at the top of his lungs. "This cooking batter - not a dipping sauce! Stop sending it to the guests alongside the fried fish! The tartar sauce is the dip! That’s the white one! What do you mean you’re color blind? Everyone can see white!"