"There's news," Mary said as she appeared in the Innkeepers office.
The Innkeeper sat at his desk with his eyes closed, almost as if he was asleep, though she knew that wasn't the case. He was watching over the Inn, and the dozens of taverns that had been deployed across the Origin realm. Although, considering the Henali's recent stance, he didn't really need to oversee them personally, the Innkeeper had taken to doing that more and more often.
Over the past year, Mary had seen Lex beco more and more quiet. To call him a recluse would be inaccurate - he made sure to appear inside the Inn or one of his taverns every day. But he talked to his guests, spent ti with them, and even oversaw the Inns operations with greater care than many years prior.
Yet when they were alone, she noticed he spoke less. If it were anyone else, she would have assud that they were depressed, or maybe they felt demoralised. It would make sense - a whole year had gone by, and though hundreds of thousands of random beings had been rescued from the Dream realm, very few actual Inn workers and guests had been rescued.
It couldn't be helped - they were searching randomly across an entire Major realm. Considering that anyone could be moved anywhere across the realm at any mont, it actually made sense that it was tough to rescue specific people. It also made sense that after a whole year like this, one would get demoralised.
However, Mary knew Lex better than that. It would take a whole lot more than this to affect him. That was exactly why she could not explain his off behavior lately.
The Innkeeper opened his eyes, and looked towards Mary, a silent question in his eyes.
"One of the new guests we rescued at the tavern saw Piere and Brenda two months ago. They were fine last the guest saw, without showing any signs of having their life signs depleting."
The Innkeeper nodded, as if expecting such an answer.
"They are both resilient. When they are found, I'm sure you'll discover that they have grown trendously during this period," the Innkeeper answered calmly. Yet it was exactly that perfectly maintained calm that unnerved Mary. This was not how Lex normally was. She wanted to ask him what was wrong, but at the sa ti felt like she shouldn't.
She thought about Almira. It had been a whole year without any sign of her. Was that why Lex was affected? But as far as everyone could tell, she was alive and unhurt. Anita and Lex both had left protective charms on her that would break if anything happened to her, so they would know if sothing happened. Seeing that Mary had nothing else to say, the Innkeeper shut his eyes once more, which only served to increase her concern.
In truth, she didn't need to be worried. Lex was not ntally affected. If anything, he had drastically improved the guest satisfaction rating of the Midnight inn over the past year, proving that he was running the Inn
extraordinarily well. In fact, he hadn't paid this much attention to the Inn in a long ti.
The Midnight Inn and the Henali appeared to have ford a temporary alliance, at least as far as the universe at large was concerned. This was because if anyone wanted to exit the Dream realm of the Midnight Inn, they had to do it through one of the taverns located in the Origin realm, where the Henali had created processing centers to process anyone who arrived via the tavern.
The guests would travel to the Origin realm via the tavern, and then have to cooperate with the Henali while they exited. To secure such an amazing deal, the Henali had offered the Innkeeper an amazing deal - or at least that's what everyone thought.
The exact details weren't public knowledge, so everyone could only speculate.
As a result, the Path of Chaos tried to pressure the Midnight Inn to create another exit elsewhere, to which the Inn responded with a public letter from the Innkeeper!
The Innkeeper had stated that the whole reason that the Midnight Inn was sealed, with its only exit through the Origin realm, was because the Path of Chaos had targeted the Inn to begin with. Even so, the Inn itself remained neutral, allowing mbers from the Chaos path to use the tavern to exit, or stay as guests within the Inn.
If anyone wanted to threaten the Midnight Inn further, it would completely seal all exits, and stop rescuing guests from the Dream realm altogether.
The letter did not explain why the only exit was through the Origin realm, and no one else dared to inquire either.
Such a bold stance put imnse pressure on the Path of Chaos, who decided to take a softer tone and began trying to negotiate with the Midnight Inn. In the anti, the war in the Origin realm had actually ended!
It was not a result of the Path of Chaos taking a step back. Instead, the Henali had unleashed an unprecedented amount of power! Each one of the Henali mbers suddenly experienced a boost in strength that no one across the universe could explain!
Overnight, they had beco one of the most significant races in the universe. Many could not help but speculate that the Innkeeper had inside knowledge about the reasons, which is why he had chosen the Origin realm as for his temporary alliance. Or maybe he had sothing to do with it to start with! Ever since then, no one tried to threaten the Midnight Inn, and instead tried to do their best to form alliances and agreents too. Heck, so even tried to probe the reason behind the Henali's sudden growth through the Midnight Inn. What no one realized, or no one would even believe if they were told, was that the Inn did not make a deal with the Henali. Moreover, Lex had not put in any special attention towards improving the Inn.
Instead, he had done the exact opposite. Over the past year, he had reduced use of his brain and spirit as much as possible, bringing the levels down to 0.0001% of his actual awareness, all so that the speed of him mastering the Masterless technique would increase,
It was actually his decreased activity levels caused by his reduced spirit allocation which was causing Mary to be so concerned.
In truth, Lex had made a plan, and he was following through, even if it required
a few drastic asures.
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