The Innkeeper

Lex looked at the treasure responsible for giving him the system. Although he had many suspicions about what its purpose was, he had no real negative feelings for it. After all, Lex's current life was brought around by the system, and it had been responsible for so many amazing things happening to him. He just wished he could trust it.

Lex let go of his soul sense and allowed the treasure to return inside his body. Lex no longer felt like sleeping so, after scanning the Inn once to ensure there were no problems, he spent some time cultivating.

He expected that he would make little to no progress in his cultivation, due to the fact that he had entered a new, higher realm and that should have made it harder. But cultivating in a 2.5 star rank environment was really too much of a cheat. He literally felt the energy itself was eager to increase his cultivation.

Once he was done with that, he retreated to his office to mull over everything the figure had told him. One of the most interesting things he told him was about the chatroom for system wielders. It was something… he honestly never even imagined. Time travel… he honestly never even considered it. The whole hassle with changing timelines was too confusing.

He also had no interest in traveling to other realms at the moment. So the only two things left to do were to study the patterns and rules of the system, and get that treasure.

That would be an issue on its own. How was he supposed to get to a specific galaxy, and to a specific place in that galaxy? Even if he used tickets, the options he would get from them were random.

This would take some planning. Moreover, he could see through scans that many people were close to discovering some of the entrances to the Minor realms. That would also require a lot of his attention, for he really didn't know where those Minor realms led to.

*****

Larry Dershaw was in a great mood, or as good as he could be. Although he had gotten a hint about who was hunting him, he thought it would take a long time to actually track them down. But just a short while ago, Rafael had reached out to him to let him know that his father was sick of waiting, and was planning on taking matters into his own hands.

No matter how things were resolved, one thing was certain: someone was about to get hurt.

Other than that, his girlfriend, Irene, was having a few problems of her own as well, back on X-142. But, for reasons no one knew, the family that controlled the planet had suddenly started recruiting cultivators from civilians. She had been selected as well, not for military purposes but for her expertise in the pharmaceutical industry. Suffice to say, she had started earning really well lately, which had resolved a lot of problems for her.

So, with things going well in his own life, as well as his girlfriend's, Larry had every reason to be happy. The sun was shining, the wind was blowing, the rare metal ores were flowing in and…

From the corner of his eye, Larry saw his good friend, Lex, sitting in the Midnight manor with a group of strangers.

"Hey Lex, guess what?" Larry said as he walked up to the group, but the look he got back from Lex was an unusual one. He couldn't decipher what that look was supposed to mean.

"It's a good thing I found you, I was just about to message you anyway. Do you think we could talk for a moment?"

'Lex' looked at Larry for a moment, before looking at the group of guys around him.

"Excuse me," he said to his group after a moment and stood up, following Larry to the side.

"What's with your accent?" Larry asked, confused for a moment. But he didn't wait long enough to get a reply. "Well, it doesn't matter. You should prepare yourself, even though we had a plan, what we didn't account for was Marlo. Although you might have talked to him before, he doesn't want to wait any longer. I'll be joining him when he makes his move, and so will many of the others. I wanted to let you know in case you wanted to come as well, since you're the one who provided the lead."

'Lex' did not respond for a moment, and just continued to observe Larry. Just as Larry was beginning to suspect that there might be some issue, 'Lex' spoke.

"I think there has been some kind of misunderstanding, my name is William, not Lex. I didn't mean to listen in on your conversation though, you just didn't give me a chance to explain."

Larry was startled, and looked again, but the man standing in front of him was completely identical to Lex in every way. The only difference was the accent, which Larry suddenly realized was a result of the Inns universal translator converting some foreign language to english.

"I am very curious about this Lex you're talking about. If you mistook me for him, I'm assuming we share some resemblance. If possible, do you think you could introduce me? I think it would be quite interesting to meet a doppelganger."

Larry, despite himself, took a step back and looked at William up and down. What the hell just happened?

"I can understand why you'd be defensive, you think I cheated you," said William casually. "Why don't you join me for a bit, I was sitting with my brothers. You can see for yourself if you think I'm trustworthy. Besides, we're at the Inn. There couldn't be a safer place."

Larry turned to look at the group of guys William had been sitting with before, and they waved at him.

They all looked young, maybe a couple years older than him at most. With his own increased strength as of late, he doubted they'd be a match for him. That thought allowed him to relax considerably, and he decided to join him. Besides, he was also curious about why this guy looked exactly like Lex.