hmm

While Lex was in his politics class, learning the basics of the relations between the Hum nation and the others, Amelia was sitting with her usual group of friends.

"You'll never guess who I ran into," she said excitedly, before sharing Lex's story. In this day and age, where everything in their society revolved around fighting the Kraven, the greatest celebrity was one who had fought a Kraven.

"Did he really face a Kraven though? Maybe he's just lying to get your attention," said Miscellaneous Friend A.

"No, this makes sense," said another one of her friends excitedly. "You said his name is Lex, right? I heard a story about a survivor from Gristol named Lex! It wasn't just a Kraven he faced. I heard it was the flesh of an Immortal! I heard he fought it off with his bare hands to save his fellow survivors…"

Unbeknownst to Lex, rumors of his unwitting endeavor had already started to spread amongst the student body, growing more wild and wonderful with each retelling. Whether it was by design or coincidence, the stars in Amelia's eyes and jealousy in others were a clear indicator that his story had taken on a life of its own. As for whether there would be any consequences for this… Lex would soon find out.

*****

After his politics class, Lex had some free time before his first basic combat class. He did nothing special during that time and just reviewed the information he had learnt today in case there was anything important he missed.

Once it was time for class, he went over expecting to arrive at a gymnasium full of people, since this was the one mandatory class amongst all professions, but the reality was quite contrary.

He arrived in a small room with only 9 other students as well as the trainer, who were all waiting for him, despite the fact that he was early. He expected the trainer would motivate them to learn to the best of their abilities, but his expectations were once again superseded.

"This class is the basics of the basics, and it serves only one purpose," the trainer said with the utmost seriousness. "That should you be in a life or death situation, you kill at least one Kraven before you die. As humans, killing at least one Kraven is your most basic responsibility to your nation, and to your race!"

The trainer did not look like he was kidding, and in fact looked a little disgusted with these students who could only fulfill the most basic requirements.

"I understand that not everyone is a soldier, and the Hum nation also needs more than just soldiers. We need farmers, we need scientists, we need teachers, we need accountants, we need all the cogs and gear in the machine that is this nation. And that is exactly who this class is for. You will not be burdened with more difficult techniques, you will not be burdened with relentless practice, you will not be burdened with elaborate attacks.

"In your life, as the lawyers and gardeners and anything else that does not require a soldier's training, should you come into a situation where you need to fight for your life against a Kraven, it is best to consider your life already forfeit! All you need to focus on is taking down the enemy with you. And, if somehow you manage to take down two Kraven instead of just one, then consider your nation proud of your achievements!"

Lex was shocked by how brutal and direct the trainer was in diminishing the value of their lives, but none of the other students were. In fact, many of them were nodding along. In moments like this, it would have helped Lex if he had actually investigated the motto of the academy and learnt about the meaning behind it. But that would come later.

For now, the trainer continued, "Of course, if you feel motivated to do more, to learn more, to be more, after completing this mandatory course, you can take more advanced combat classes. They do not focus on damage for sacrifice and instead train actual warriors who may have a chance of fighting longer and harder. But the rest of you should just hone your skills here."

Once the trainer was done with the 'pep talk', he immediately began the class. Each student received a personal trainer, with the main trainer supervising.

As soon as the training began, Lex realized two things. First, the thing their training was focused on was trading injuries and doing the maximum amount of damage in any exchange. For this, each trainer took special care in teaching them how to identify weak spots in the enemies defense.

They began, of course, with human targets because that was the body each student was most familiar with, and once the students showed some mastery of the skill, they would move onto Kraven, and even the other races.

The second thing Lex realized was this kind of combat was actually strongly suited for Lex. Obviously, at his current stage, it was not so evident. But later on, when his defense would be much stronger than the enemies he would most likely face, trading blows, when he was likely to not take any injuries, was a fast and easy way of winning fights.

Naturally, he would need to be better trained not only in combat but also judging the strength of his enemies before he could employ such tactics. But it was a good plan, for now.

After a long and arduous class where Lex learned as much theoretical knowledge as he practiced, it was time for his most unusually named class: strategic planning.

Did people normally perform non-strategic planning? Or did they normally make foolish plans on purpose? It was almost as if whoever named the class was doing some sort of mass naming of classes, and releasing them on the go, which caused this oversight. A sort of mass release, if you will.

But, even besides the name, this class had many oddities. There were only two other students in this class. Furthermore, usually Lex was the oldest or at least one of the oldest in his other classes, but this time he seemed to be within his own age group.

Lastly, the two students seemed to be wary of him. This was strange as Lex was sure he'd never met them, nor had he done anything too outrageous that he should develop some kind of reputation.

Just as he was about to greet the other students and inquire if anything was wrong, the professor stepped in.

"Welcome students," said the professor as she looked them over, a mature lady with a no-nonsense look on her face.

"I am professor Adelaide, and I will conduct your classes for this subject regardless of whichever level you take, so it is best if you get familiar with my way of doing things as soon as possible.

"This is not a class that is available to everyone, and if you have been selected for this class, you have displayed some sort of level headedness under dire circumstances. This class is, and will be, the most important class you will take. You may be wondering why I say that. It's because while every other class you take may be creating a foundation for your future, how you perform in this class will determine whether you live to see that future or not. After all, if you fail this class, that means you're dead."

Adelaide paused for a moment for her three students to absorb what she said before she continued.

"Unlike your other classes, this one will have a field test and the end of the course. The test will be different for each one of you, since you have different designations, and I will pass to you the details of that field test today, so you may already begin preparing. What will be the same for all of you, however, is that each test will contain some element of danger. If you are not able to overcome it, then that likely means you will die. In other courses, if you fail, you can get a second chance by applying again. In this course, the only second chance you will get is the one you create for yourself."

Before getting into specific details about her course, however, she looked directly at Lex and said, "Lex, the legendary survivor of Gristol that fought off an Immortal with your teeth, I've heard a lot about you already. If half the rumors I've heard are true, then I look forward to seeing your performance.

Lex, who was staring at the professor with a dropped jaw, was unable to respond. Fought off an immortal with his teeth? What the hell? Suddenly, he realized something, and looked at his class fellows, and their wary looks suddenly made sense.

What were these rumors his professor was speaking about? How had they spread so fast so far? Before he had a chance to ask, the professor began their class.

The course for the strategic planning class was a lot more abstract than his other classes, at least in the beginning. Instead of teaching him concrete topics, the class focused rather on the way of thinking. How to evaluate situations, how to juggle objectives, how to prioritize and so much more.

He was given theoretical problems similar to the famous trolley problem, only in this case, instead of people's lives, he usually had to compromise on his objectives. The professor told them that, after some theoretical practice, they would go through some drills to practice decision making under duress.

When the class ended, Adelaide, the professor, handed each student a folder with the details of their field test in it. Since Lex's designation was a combat zone consultant, his field test put him in the same position.

A month from now, there would be an expedition led by some students to some uninhabited lands within the territory of Hum nation. The group would be a mix of students of various designations, and the group would similarly have a mix of objectives.

The group had to not only explore these new lands; they had to scout for potential valuable resources, mark down areas suitable for new settlements, and finally establish a forward camp for future explorations. These were just the publicly stated objectives, for there was always the possibility of hidden objectives as well.

Lex would not only serve as the communication channel between the combatant students or 'soldiers' and the leader of the expedition, Lex would have to advise the leader in matters of security and combat.

As for what the territory they were exploring held, what kind of dangers could he expect, and what he needed to watch out for were all things he would have to research on his own. Conducting research and being adequately prepared were also parts of being such a consultant, so the quality of his preparation depended solely on him.

Lex felt a headache developing. From having too much time on his hands, he went directly to feeling like he was overworked.

Next, it was time for his arrays class. For once, the class was as he expected, and the study of arrays was very similar to what he read in the book given to him by John. But similar did not mean the same.

The a

Suffice to say, Lex's first month in the academy was extremely busy. Between his various classes, doing his own research for the impending field test, and cultivating when able, he barely had any free time.

That limited free time that he had was often spent in the company of Amelia and a few of her friends. Truth be told, she was as helpful, if not more, in bridging the gap between Lex's knowledge and common sense in the Crystal realm than many of his classes.

For example, the device that looked like a watch he was wearing today was called PT (personal terminal) which, for all intents and purposes, was like a mobile phone but with more features, given to him by Amelia. He was also better able to get accustomed to the day/night cycle here, as well as understand how the calendar in the crystal realm worked.

Each day was 25 hours long, with five days in a week and six weeks in a month. Since Sol-light did not have a fixed pattern, the plants, the people and the civilizations had adjusted to it accordingly. Not all, but many of the plants as well as insects were luminescent, and many animals had developed extra senses to accommodate for the long periods of time without light.

The humans here, in general, had much better eyesight than Lex, as well as a small degree of night vision. But for academy students, that wasn't an issue, as apparently the academy had its own dedicated Sol birds. Apparently, the dean had a flock of them as pets, so at least in the academy it was never dark.

Other than that, Amelia also helped him get accustomed to the social norms. As his geography class proceeded, and he began to understand how vast the area controlled by humans really was, he truly began to wonder why everyone suffered from such a sense of crisis when after hundreds of years of war, the Kraven had barely taken over 1% of their land.

The answer, once again, was Cornelius II. As a farsighted man, as well as one of the strongest, if not the strongest, human, he understood the threat of the Kraven early on. After that, well, it was merely a matter of might being right. He forcibly converged all the strength and resources of the humans, created the Hum nation, and organized a unified effort to defend against the Kraven.

Time had proved him right, as only with such a strong and dedicated approach were the humans able to prevent the Kraven from completely destroying them the way they had done to the Poliods. Eventually, human society became accustomed to such a ruthless style of existence – mostly because they had no other option.

This was because King Cornelius II had a personal motto which, as dean of the academy, he implemented here as well.

The motto was simply 'I don't give a shit'. You don't want to fight? No one cared. You don't like the style of government? No one cared. You think the world is round instead of a flat, endless mass of land? No one cared. The only way to get people to care was to first fulfill your minimum responsibility to the war efforts, one way or another. Then your opinion became relevant, to a degree.

Slowly, and steadily, that motto as well as the singular mentality of doing everything to defeat the Kraven had seeped into the minds and habits of everyone. So long as you cooperated with the system, it was fine, but the moment you stopped cooperating… well, Lex finally understood why no one cared at all about the village that had been destroyed during his assessment. He suddenly realized how dangerous his rant to Vernan about not joining special forces had been.

Even the generally compassionate and understanding Amelia showed no reaction when he mentioned the destroyed village to her, nor did her friends. It chilled Lex at how normal death was here.

During this time, he also focused on managing the Inn when he could. Surprisingly, the husband and wife duo still had not finished their test to join the Inn. But, in a way, it made sense. Since they were the strongest to join to date, they had the toughest test. The one issue he was unable to solve was getting access to more worlds for the incoming expo hosted by Earth. There were some options he could use if push came to shove, but those would be last-minute options. Furthermore, he would also need to use some accumulated energy by the system to access the more advanced features.

He had also given his all to his part-time job, even if he could not understand the forging methods his boss employed.

With all that on his plate, despite Lex managing to deal with his stress, he had an increasing urge to smoke. Unfortunately, smoking did not seem to be a common practice here, and without anything to smoke, Lex could only make do. That did trigger an old habit of his, of playing with something in his fingers.

Since he had no cigarettes, nor pens to play with, without realizing it, Lex had begun to play around with the Inns golden key in his fingers. He was passing it from finger to finger, twisting and turning it around his hand, while not really paying any attention to it. That is, until one day, it occurred to him… to try to use the key to go back to the Inn!

Unfortunately, since this realm had not been anchored to the Inn, the teleportation didn't work. Furthermore, as the Innkeeper, the system restricted him from using the key himsel

The expedition party had 120 students, each a part of a subgroup that had a certain purpose. Only 30 of the students had combat related designations, with the remaining having their own reasons for joining the group – from prospectors, to cartographers, to wilderness explorers and more.

Despite their various fields, Lex was still the person with the lowest cultivation level here. Although he had made sure to spend time cultivating, and the rich spiritual energy of this world helped speed up his growth, he had still only reached Qi training level 5.

But, as a consultant and advisor, he would not be on the front lines should they encounter any danger. Well, that was what was technically supposed to happen, but once Lex reported to the leader of the expedition, and confirmed his role, his grimace let Lex know exactly what the man thought of him.

Ptolemy Woodman, the leader of this expedition, had worked ridiculously hard to have this expedition organized. This was not a mission from the academy for him, this was something he had to convince the academy to let him do. He proved himself time and time again, and did endless research and preparation to show the academy that this expedition would be profitable. Not only that, he had to sign a contract, stating that should the expedition end up a failure, he would work for 10 years for the academy to make up for it.

Yet, in the end, they stuck him with some consultant to help him advise on security measures? He was not an amateur who had never seen combat! He had gained experience doing time on both the front lines during such expeditions and in the command center during army drills. This was an insult. But, as someone who understood the rules, he knew throwing a tantrum was pointless. If this is what it took to lead his own expedition, he would tolerate it. For now.

"We're leaving in three days," Ptolemy said, handing Lex a list. "In this time, become familiar with the roles of everyone in the expedition. Also, if you have any requests in terms of gear or personal equipment, turn it in by today. Since the academy is funding the expedition, there is a certain allowance for equipment needed for it."

Lex was surprised by the fact that he could request gear, as he had spent most of his personal earnings during the past month to purchase all sorts of stuff for this expedition. If he could request more for free… Well, as a New Yorker, it went against his personal code of conduct to refuse free things.

The most expensive things he needed were ingredients for a special kind of ink he could use to form arrays even in the Qi training realm, so he did not hesitate to request as many of those as he could. Ptolemy was confused by the request, but didn't care enough to inquire about their uses.

Over the next three days, Lex spent all his time getting acquainted with the students on the expedition. This is where the skills he had picked up at the Inn shone the most. Lex had become charismatic enough to strike up a conversation with anyone he met, and make a favorable impression when he left. Of course, this was not what he was normally like, but in this instance where he was trying to get to know everyone, and build a positive relationship so that the expedition wouldn't be affected, he could turn on the charm like a switch.

In fact, internally, even he was a little surprised by how easy it was. The contrast between how easily he had ingratiated himself to the members of the expedition, and how much of a loner he had been for the past month was drastic. It seemed sometimes, making an effort was the only difference between two entirely different outcomes. That, and the fact that no one had yet connected Lex to the rumors about him that had spread.

Though, that did not mean he regretted having a small social circle. His focus was on making the best use of his time at the academy, not making friends. Only a small part of him admitted that his time during this past month would have been absolutely miserable if it hadn't been for Amelia's company.

Finally, on the day of departure, Lex stood alongside the 120 other members, his backpack filled to the brim, and a small duffle bag on the ground beside him. Of everyone, he had the least luggage, mostly because he skipped out on bringing many spare clothes and focused only on the essentials – a decision he would soon come to regret.

They did not have to wait for long, as soon Ptolemy arrived alongside some school staff. They would have no chaperones during their excursion, and would have to rely on themselves, but for them to reach their destination, they would require the academy's help.

It need not be said that the Crystal realm was massive. The equivalent of a million Earths would not even cover the amount of land held by just the Kraven's, let alone the other races. This explained why so much land was left unexplored, even in established counties.

They followed them to the teleportation terminal, one of the most important and most well supervised regions of the academy. Trying to move around Hum nation on a vehicle would take exceedingly long times, which is why teleportation was such an important feature.

Teleporting a few individuals around, like it had been done to Lex during his assessment, was relatively easy. But to move 120 students far off, all at once, would require them to use the teleportation formation.

"Lex, to me," Ptolemy said commandingly, summoning Lex to his side. Lex did not like his tone or demeanor, but he listened nonetheless.

"From here, we'll be teleporting directly to Karom city, the nearest settlement to our excursion zone. From there, we will head out, and it will take us a few days to reach the boundary of the explored lands. Since you're here on an advisory role regarding security, do you have any suggestions?"

Lex had already done plenty of research on where they would be heading, so he was not surprised by the mention of the city or their route. He was, however, surprised that Ptolemy asked for his advice.

"The outskirts of Karom city's domain is a dense forest, which we will have to travel through unless you have planned some kind of air transport. Moving on foot will be exhausting and difficult, considering the difficult terrain, so I recommend we rent some Delaim lizards as mounts.

"Furthermore, it'll be difficult to set up camp in a forest, so before we enter, we should send scouts ahead to check any for areas suitable or defensible. Considering the fact that we don't know what we'll be facing as we proceed, it's a good idea to always be as rested as possible. For now, that's all I have."

Delaim lizards were a six-legged species of lizards that were as long as alligators and as large as bulls. Despite their aggressive nature, they were commonly used as mounts in Hum nation as they had mastered the art of subduing them. Admittedly, a forest was not the kind of terrain where they could show their advantage, it was better than nothing. Also, despite being somewhat tame, they could also serve as good guard lizards for when they set camp or rested.

Lex had already noted down this suggestion while he was doing research, along with a few other things. Unfortunately, since the place they were going to was unexplored, there were only so many things Lex could prepare in advance. Any other advice he had to give would have to be as things developed. Luckily, he had his Fancy Monocle to help him out in case they encountered something they didn't know about, so he wasn't too worried.

Ptolemy did not comment on whether he was satisfied with Lex's advice, nor did he let show what he really thought. He simply accepted what Lex said, but showed no indication of whether he planned on listening to Lex.

Going through the procedure to teleport so many people took a couple of hours, but it was still nothing compared to TSA.

"Brace yourself," a student advised Lex as they walked into the formation. Lex thought he knew what to expect, but the moment the teleportation formation activated, he knew he was wrong. His previous teleportations had hit him with a whiplash, but this time Lex felt like a sledgehammer smashed into his chest.

Barely managing to keep himself from falling over, Lex managed to prevent embarrassing himself as soon as the expedition started. But, he was not prepared for the chill that hit him next.

He looked around and found himself in a small chamber, along with all the other students who were quickly putting on some sweaters and gloves. A moment later, he identified the sounds of an unabating gale. He looked out the window and saw what seemed like dunes of snow, and a snowstorm that threatened to freeze Lex to his very core.

What was this? His research never said anything about snow. A moment later, he realized he hadn't packed anything thicker than a T-shirt!

For a moment, Lex watched the raging snowstorm, he suffered flashbacks of being surrounded by millions of Kalter Flug. But instead of fear of anxiety, Lex only felt curiosity. He had long since learned that much of the weather patterns in the Crystal realm were dictated by ridiculously strong beings.

For example, the way Sol birds brought sunshine and warmth, he was convinced the snow storm he experienced during his assessment was the result of that massive Kalter Flug he saw at the end. Which caused him to wonder if the weather here was also a result of some massive snow creature. Considering this was an established city, they should have some defenses against creatures like that, right?

But before he had an opportunity to sate his curiosity, he felt a look full of disdain fall onto him. He turned to see Ptolemy, fully dressed in winter clothing, watching him. Though his face was neutral, Lex was 100% sure he was internally mocking him. How could Lex serve as an advisor if he couldn't even manage his own wardrobe?

This matter went farther than just needing a sweater, as normal cold would not influence Lex at all. But the cultivation world always added layers of complexity to everything. If Lex normally experienced temperatures such as 0 degrees celsius without trouble, once the chill was enhanced by spirit energy, it was no longer a matter of simple temperature. It was the spirit energy itself that chilled him rather than the weather.

The clothes everyone was dawning surely had some protective functions to protect against such a spiritualized chill. One of the other students, who was on good terms with Lex, noticed the latter wasn't changing his clothes. Realizing he might have not brought anything to protect against such an environment, he offered Lex a spare.

Perhaps if Lex wasn't suffering from the mocking gaze of Ptolemy, he would have simply accepted. That was the simpler solution. But he didn't want to give Ptolemy the satisfaction of knowing he was right and that Lex hadn't brought clothes. Instead…

"Thanks, but weather like this doesn't mean much to me," Lex said with a smile.

Lex wasn't just putting up a brave front. If there was one thing Lex had learnt during this one month at the academy, it was that he had seriously underestimated the worth of a SSS+ rank award. While his defense was steadily increasing, and now at level 5 Qi training, he could face most Qi training level cultivators without fear of being killed, it had not yet veered into the realm of overpowered.

Instead, it was the immense ease with which he picked up any kind of defensive technique, and the ridiculous mastery he had over each one of those techniques that amazed him. He remembered once, during his job with the weaponsmith, she gave him a technique that would allow him to negate cold so that he could dip his hands into a liquid so cold it made liquid nitrogen look like fresh soup.

Strictly speaking, it was not a defensive technique, since its actual purpose was to concentrate all the cold he would have felt on his hands to the tip of his fingers, which he could then channel into another object, forcefully dropping its temperature. It was an auxiliary technique used during crafting special equipment.

But Regal Embrace begged to differ. To it, this was a technique designed to protect Lex from element based damage, and so with a glance he learnt it. Even still, Lex did not realize the treasure trove he had until one day, while he was in the library, he encountered a section with various cultivation techniques.

One could not learn those techniques at a whim, as not only did you need proper qualification, you actually needed to pay. Yet, so long as it was a defensive technique, just the introductory paragraph with a vague description of how it manipulated Qi to give birth to various effects were enough for Lex to learn it. As if that wasn't enough, he even managed to learn the techniques that seemed to originate from completely different forms of cultivation!

So, in this moment, when Lex was being assaulted by the passive effects of chilled spiritual energy, he activated one of the many techniques he had learnt – one of his favorites, actually.

Immediately, Lex stopped feeling the chill and, in fact, felt a little warm, while an array character that represented ice appeared on the back of his right hand in a blueish-silver light.

It was important to note that while the character that formed on his hand was used in arrays, the characters themselves were symbols born of the universe and represented its power. Even those who did not study arrays had some basic knowledge of such matters, and so, when the character appeared on his hand, and Lex moved around as if truly unaffected by the chill, some of the students who knew his role during this trip suddenly had a better impression of him. As an advisor, he did not need to be strong, but instead versatile.

While he received a few acknowledging nods, he flashed a smug grin at Ptolemy. Sometimes, being petty felt good.

The expedition leader snorted, but quickly turned his attention back to important matters.

"The presence of Frio birds complicates things a bit, but we have already planned for this as well. We'll be riding Delaim lizards to cross the terrain and we'll have to get some Hover coaches. We…"

Ptolemy did not bother giving everyone the briefing on what they had to do, only let them know that things were under control. It seemed that, even before Lex's suggestion, he had arranged for the lizards to be their mounts.

As the expedition prepared themselves to move out despite the weather, Lex looked up into the sky. There were no giant monsters, and clouds covered the sky, but sometimes Lex felt like he vaguely saw the shape of birds.

After asking what seemed to be common sense, he learnt that Frio birds were the counterparts of Sol birds. A Frio and Sol bird each formed a couple, but they would only meet during mating season, which usually spelt disaster for the weather.

Both these species of birds, while ridiculously strong, were not usually aggressive, as they did not feed on food to sustain themselves, only spiritual energy. Of course, if someone tried to provoke them, they would show that they were far from harmless.

After exiting the teleportation hall, they made their way outside the city, where 120 saddled Delaim Lizards were waiting for them, with another 30 harnessed to several floating carriages. After loading most of their luggage into the carriages, and purchasing some supplies locally, they left immediately.

Ptolemy had arranged for guides, so the poor visibility and the harsh weather did not seem to slow them down. Other than that, they had also employed some of the city's local guards as an escort – just to avoid any unnecessary problems.

These were just some of the visible things Ptolemy had done, for Lex, who had been accompanying since they set off saw for himself how he kept preemptively preparing for any trouble.

As annoying as Lex found Ptolemy, he found himself learning a lot by following him. Maybe that was the real test, not to effectively advise, but to learn as much as possible.

But, while Lex was having this epiphany, and was considering trying to mend their relationship, Ptolemy knew from the very start that he was not in need of any advice, but rather he was being used to groom this new and upcoming student, which is why he resented Lex even more. While Ptolemy himself worked to gain everything he had, the path was being carved for Lex even if he did not realize it.

What neither of them knew was that the circumstances of their meeting had been carefully orchestrated behind the scenes by a certain department in the academy. They were not meant to be friends, but rather somewhat akin to rivals. Lex would learn from Ptolemy, while the latter was supposed to be egged on by the favor being shown to Lex and work even harder to prove himself. Currently, as things stood, they were playing along perfectly.

Slowed down by the storm, they trod along for almost 12 hours before they reached their first campsite, which, as it turned out, had already been prepared long before their arrival. This camp was right outside the forest, and they would rest here until their path forward had been properly mapped by the forward team.

Moving a small team through the forest might have been easy, but with so many people and carriages to take along, a proper path would be required, and it would take some time to plot such a path.

Just as Lex was beginning to admire Ptolemy, and almost made up his mind to mend their relationship, the latter looked at him and said, "you sure you can keep yourself warm like that for long? It would be a shame if I need your advice, but I find my advisor frozen in a corner somewhere."

Lex was suddenly struck by Ptolemy's sudden outburst. While it could not veer into the domain of an actual insult, up until this moment, the man had kept his disdain in check. He behaved professionally and did not let his personal feelings affect how he was supposed to behave. So then, why the sudden change?

After a moment, Lex realized what had happened. Once they reached the first campsite, they were officially on their own, as even the escorts from the nearby city had begun to retreat. Now, Ptolemy was the true leader, and did not need to put up on a front. This did not spell well. But Lex was not one to back down so easily.

"Even if I maintain this technique for a thousand years, it won't tire me," he replied, as if he was talking about something mundane, like a crease on his shirt.

But he had not lied. The only Qi required on Lex's behalf to use this technique was the one required to activate it. Once activated, and the character on his hand formed, the technique would continue to run so long as there was ambient chilled spiritual energy, as it was that very energy that powered the technique.

At a glance, this seemed like a very powerful technique which could make him immune to all cold elemental damage, but that was just a facade. Absorbing the cold was just the auxiliary purpose of this defensive technique, as its true purpose lay elsewhere. Therefore, while it could absorb the energy seemingly endlessly, such absorption was only focused on the ambient energy that passively surrounded Lex. In the case of an attack, this effect would not be able to absorb any of the energy, and the true purpose of the ability would be triggered.

Although he had mastered this technique, it took a while for Lex to understand the concept behind this technique itself.

This was because the definition of cold on Earth was the absence of heat. Since cold in itself was nothing except the relative distribution of heat, absorbing cold actually meant distributing heat away. Yet in an environment colder than his body temperature, the technique was 'absorbing' the surrounding cold, therefore making him feel warm. Where was this warmth coming from?

Eventually Lex understood. The heat was coming from the physics class he decided to drop in college. With that, he stopped thinking about it.

His current focus was on Ptolemy, who was looking back at Lex with mild disgust.

"I think it's time we figure a few things out. To me, your aid is unnecessary and your presence is an irritation distraction at best. To you, this expedition is your passing grade. So, you can stick around, but stay out of my way and everything will go smoothly for the both of us. Stick to the middle of camp where you'll be safe, and treat this like a vacation and soon it'll all be over. Dismissed."

Not bothering with Lex anymore, the man left. Lex, on the other hand, felt extremely aggravated, but at the same time, considering the circumstances, being ignored was the best thing that could have come from the situation. Had Ptolemy decided to do more… dastardly things to express his discontent, life would have become very difficult for Lex.

This still did not mean that Ptolemy wouldn't decide to take out his frustration on Lex again later, that was still a possibility, so Lex did not let down his guard.

But, freed from responsibility, Lex could now spend more time learning arrays. Not to mention, there was another purpose this expedition happened to fill for Lex. Since they were soon going to enter unexplored lands, there was a possibility of Lex running into untapped energy sources.

Although rare, it was not unheard of for an expedition to discover spirit stone mines, energy wells, natural formations and more wonderful things. In fact, searching for such things was a big part of every expedition.

With nothing left to do, Lex returned to his tent to get some rest and chat with Mary. While things had not been all sunshine and rainbows, at least there hadn't been any major events at the Inn to worry him, which was nice.

*****

In front of Avallon building, Midnight Inn

A small group of 6 aliens called Raskals appeared and immediately started looking around, assessing for any threats. They were wearing regular clothes, or so it seemed, for under their clothes they were all wearing skin tight combat armor.

Unlike in the old days, when Lex or one of his workers would greet new guests, personal holograms did that these days. These Raskals received the standard welcome and explanation, but that did not diminish their wariness towards the Inn.

The Raskals were an aggressive, war prone race with limited intelligence. The upside to this was that, when trained, they followed their training dutifully without any extra thoughts – mostly because they had no extra thoughts. Not to mention, their intelligence had no detriment to their combat prowess, and so they served as excellent soldiers and scouts.

These four feet tall, leathery aliens were humanoid, but had four arms, two facing forwards and two backwards, as well as retractable wings that had coiled on their backs. The closest thing on Earth that resembled these aliens were skin rats. But, just because they looked weird, did not mean they would be refused service.

The six Raskals exchanged looks, and then split up, each heading in a different direction. They had arrived here using golden keys provided by Jeckal, Heidi's father. Their preliminary purpose was to study the Inn and gather as much information as possible, as well as anything on any forces that might be backing them, and the strength of their members.

Jackal was a very vindictive man, but he was extremely useful for his organization, and so many of his desires were fulfilled. That did not, however, mean the organization would recklessly kill everyone the man wanted killed. They would at least do some background research first.

They had no information about the Midnight Inn in their database, which dropped their evaluation of the Inn by a lot. After all, if they were important, they would be known. Sending the Raskals at this point was just a formality.

A few hours later, when the Raskals returned and submitted their report, the organization assessed it to be a lot of unverifiable claims. The staff that the Raskals encountered were pathetically weak, and though there were rumors of the Innkeeper being a hegemon of the universe, it appeared that currently he was away from the Inn.

The organization determined it was nothing more than bolstering and bluffing, and deemed the Midnight Inn inconsequential. Of course, one flaw in their report was that they did not mention arriving at the Inn via teleportation across space activated using a key. Since it was not mentioned, the organization assumed it was a place reached by more regular means, and one of the things that had intimidated so many others who visited the Inn became overlooked.

In the end, to satisfy Jeckal, an execution order was sent. A team of 500 Raskals was organized, with the strongest few being in the Nascent realm. The original team of six distributed enough keys for all of them and then, the first ever invasion of the Inn commenced.

*****

John clenched his fists as he kept himself from screaming out of frustration. He had come so ruddy close to finishing the Mystery trial, but once again failed! The most frustrating thing was that this time, his failure was all his own fault.

For the first time, he executed his own assassination plan without his systems help, and actually succeeded! He had stabbed the enemy in the neck, and the moment felt so great that he momentarily forgot that at higher levels, that was not enough to kill. The single moment he took to celebrate his victory was all his target needed to kill him in return.

Just as he was writhing in bitter agony, four short guests appeared before him. He groaned internally, and just as he was about to put on a friendly face, they attacked him!

The two nearest to him threw what looked like metal nets covered in spikes at him, while the two further back launched blow darts at his face. Before the attack even landed, they considered the man dead, for they could feel no cultivation from him. They were already looking for their next target when the two Raskals holding the nets were yanked into the air.

Grabbing the two metal nets with his hand, he pulled the enemies towards himself with no regard for the spikes. As the two Raskals flew towards him, a simple backhand slap cracked their skulls and knocked them unconscious.

He grinned at the remaining two Raskals, his teeth conveniently holding the darts that shot at him. Then, as if they were candy, he sucked the darts into his mouth and started to chew.

Fear and horror gripped the Raskals as they realized they had encountered a formidable foe, a sharp contrast to the delight on John's face. He was just happy he had someone to vent on. After all, the Innkeeper couldn't blame him for playing a little if the guests attacked him first, right?

Rafael was sitting in his wheelchair, sunbathing. Since he had woken up, he barely returned to Earth for a few days before returning to the Inn. Not only was the Inn safer, considering Earth's volatile political situation, it was better for his recovery as well. Not to mention, he had thoroughly confirmed that most of his information about the future in the near future was useless now. Only events further out in the future, or events unrelated to the situation on Earth itself, were still relevant. This meant he had to spend a lot of time figuring out what he needed to do.

Just as his internal monologue was going on, two ugly, leathery rat monsters appeared in front of him. No, wait, that was insensitive. Rat aliens appeared in front of him. They took a look around to get an understanding of the situation, and then their sight landed on Rafael.

As an experienced war veteran, he immediately recognized the look in their eyes, but instead of being alarmed, he raised an eyebrow in curiosity?

Really? They were going to attack him? The answer was yes.

The closest ugly, skinny, leathery rat monster immediately lunged at him with a frail-looking spear, aiming towards his skull. Given his current condition there wasn't much he could do anyway, but Rafael did not as much as flinch as he watched the spear closing in on him with a smirk.

From the initial distance of a few feet, the spear closed in on him in a flash. As it drew close, aiming somewhere towards the middle of his face, he even took the time to observe the craftsmanship of the spear. It was made of some kind of white material and he could not tell if it was something synthetic or a kind of material he'd never seen before. It had green colored lines running up and down its body, as if the odd material had some kind of disgusting veins sticking out of its body.

Even as the spear was a few inches from his face, he did not move. Even as the squeaky battle cry of the rat monster hit him, his smirk did not disappear. The tip of the spear was but a few centimeters from his face.

Then it hit him. That is, the gust of wind carried by the spear hit him, but the spear itself was held firmly in place by a vine that suddenly emerged from the ground. To be clear, the vine had wrapped itself not only around the spear, but the ugly, stinky, disgusting rat monster as well as its counterpart.

For a moment everything was still, as the monsters tried to struggle within the vines, but could not. Then the vine pulled the two into the ground, the grass quickly covering up the area the vine had come from, as if nothing ever happened.

*****

Crystal realm, Karom Forest, Lex's tent

Lex had been sitting on the ground, chatting with Mary about the Inn and the Crystal realm, when suddenly he received the loudest system notification to date.

He did not need to go and check the notification because, for the first time, in a robotic yet disgruntled voice, the system directly read the notification out to him.

Quest: MIDNIGHT INN IS BEING INVADED! WARD OFF THE INVASION WITHOUT ALLOWING THE GUESTS TO SUFFER HARM

Quest time limit: IMMEDIATELY

Quest Reward: Gamblers coin

Quest failure punishment: REDUCTION IN AUTHORITY!

For a time that seemed to stretch to eternity, Lex was frozen as he suddenly panicked! This was exactly what he had been fearing! Not only was the Inn under attack, he was far away and could not do anything.

But Lex was not inexperienced anymore! He managed to recover from his panic and his mind went into overdrive!

From the moment of the system's announcement, to him panicking, to his eventual recovery, exactly one second had passed. The system had given the quest before the Raskals even appeared, but by the time Lex had recovered, they were already in the Inn.

Working faster than his mind had ever done before, he scanned the entire Inn with his mind, identifying the various locations of the invaders. Whether it was fortunate or unfortunate, most of the invaders appeared in three different places.

Most of them, around 300, appeared near the gate built into the boundary wall of the Inn. This was a common place for new guests to appear, but as there was no attraction near it, it was fortunately empty of guests. The second place a lot of them appeared was on Main street, near Avallon. Around 100 well equipped Raskals had just appeared, and unfortunately, it was a crowded spot. The third place they appeared in a large group was in front of Midnight manor, a couple dozen or so of them. This place also had guests around, though not as many as Main street.

The remainder appeared in random locations throughout the Inn. Once Lex understood their locations, he scanned them for their strengths. The strongest Raskals' status was:

Name: K-789465

Age: 110

Sex: Male

Cultivation Details: Nascent realm middle

Species: Raskal

Midnight Inn Prestige Level: –

Remarks: He's cannon fodder for the universe, and a boss for you.

He immediately understood the division in power levels. 400 of them were at various levels in the foundation realm, 80 of them were in the Golden core and 20 of them were in the Nascent realm.

This was an army that could decimate the Inn! He didn't have any workers in those realms and the vine was only in the Initial Golden Core realm. What could he do? If the husband and wife duo had managed to pass their tests by now, he could have used them, but currently they were both away, conducting their respective tests. There had to be a solution.

Another second passed.

He had to think of solutions fast, and he had to protect his guests and workers as well! He had over 4 million MP at his disposal, as well as 0.1% energy accumulated. If this wasn't enough to eradicate his enemies from the face of this universe, then as the Innkeeper he should just retire.

Lex's overworking mind suddenly entered a state of flow and he began doing multiple things at once. He immediately identified the Raskals that were near guests and workers, other than the ones on Main street.

There were 12 such situations, including the ones near Rafael. Of these 12 situations, most guests were faced with foundation Raskals, one guest was faced with a Golden Core Raskal and the last one was Gerard and Velma, who faced a Nascent realm Raskal!

'Mary, control the Vine and stop these Raskal immediately!' Lex said as he mentally sent her the image of the locations as well as the Raskals that needed to be stopped. He was not aware if she would be able to multitask and control the Vine in so many places at once, so he sent her images in decreasing order of urgency. The first image was of the Raskal closest to harming someone, then one slightly further off and so forth.

In the meantime, he spent 100,000MP to create a teleportation circle on Main street and teleported all the Raskals away, directly to the front gate with the rest of the Raskals. Unfortunately, this was not targeted teleportation, as he was able to do when he himself was at the Inn, so anyone within was also teleported along, Raskal or not.

He quickly scanned the Inn again, to understand what was the most pressing situation, expecting it to be Gerard and Velma but, beyond anything he could have expected, the situation was under control. In fact, the circumstances of those two and the Raskal were so peculiar Lex actually lost 0.4 second in shock, despite the state of flow!

But he moved on. The situation was far from handled, as a couple of fights had already broken out! Fortunately, the two fights involved John and Fenrir. He should have been worried for Fenrir, but in the single second he had not been observing the dog, it had already killed all the Raskal near it. John, on the other hand, was… eating darts?

Not wasting any more time, he bought a formation for the sole purpose of trapping an army for 1.5 million MP and then started buying smaller, targeted teleportation circles to teleport his guests out of the formation one by one. Despite being smaller, each circle cost him 10,000 MP, but he couldn't be picky right now.

Another second passed. By now John had taken care of his Raskal and Rafael had been rescued. But some guests were still being attacked. Fortunately, a couple of the guests, being warriors themselves, didn't wait for a rescue and directly retaliated as soon as they were threatened.

As another second passed, the most immediate threat had been handled, but the battle had not yet even begun.