The Innkeeper
The Innkeeper - Chapter 98: Spoiler Title at the end of chapter

It took some time for Lex to stabalize his emotions this time around. His mind kept slowly inching him towards feeling guilt towards Little Blue for what had happened to it. He had to constantly stop himself from having wandering thoughts and focus back on meditating. Eventually, when he finally stabilized his mood and meditated. When he was done, he discovered that while it was harder for him to meditate this time around, the benefits had also been greater.

With his mood calmed down and his thoughts clear, he firmly came to the conclusion that he cannot take ownership of guilt on behalf of others, even if they were from the same race as him. He only had to focus on his own actions and act according to his own conscience. Even if others were saints he would get no credit, and if others were devils he would get no blame.

With that out of the way, Lex turned his attention back towards his event. He was feeling a little excited now, and it was only a couple days away from the arrival of all the leaders.

He looked at his MP and had around two million one hundred thousand. Originally he kept a budget of only 1 million MP for the event, but with the scope of what he was planning it was not enough. He had been waiting till the last moment to spend his MP as he did not want to rent stuff for too long, as each day would cost him more. But now it was time. First, he had to get the big stuff out of the way.

He had already decided on the awards for both portions of the event, so he spent 250,000MP on each. The amount might seem like a lot, but considering that the prize was for a whole planet, it was actually very cheap. In fact, it was one of the cheapest options available in the event management panel under rewards for an entire planet. Before the prize was actually awarded he would be able to upgrade them if he wanted, but Lex would only do that if he earned an enormous amount during the event itself. Right now it was difficult to judge the earning potential, so he would have to wait and see.

His next expense would be the extra staff for the event. This cost him only 50,000MP. In this package he would not get any actual new staff, but each individual guest would get a private hologram assistant when they arrived at the Inn during this period. The assistant would be able to answer all their questions regarding the Inn or the event, and if they needed any actual service they would be able to use the power of the System to automatically provide them.

His next two expenses were the ones that strained his budget the most, but were one's he absolutely could not do without. The first one was event security. He was expecting a lot of guests to attend the event, not only because he would tell the various leaders who were going to attend to bring as many guests as they wanted, but he was going to distribute silver keys throughout the three worlds that would automatically activate when the event started. Due to the massive number of guests, he was absolutely sure that someone would disturb the peace. Parents fought each other during their kids talent shows let alone crowds during such a large event that would be representing worlds. So Lex put a heavy hand on his heart and spent 450,000MP on security.

This would get him 200 peak Golden Core guards, 50 peak Nascent realm guards, and 10 guards at the peak of the realm above Nascent. Lex found it slightly humorous that he could hire guards at that cultivation level, but his authority with the Inn was not enough to view the name or learn details about that realm. Still, he felt that these guards should be adequate to maintain the crowds. He wasn't sure what the highest cultivators on the other planets were, but he was hoping none of them were on the same level as Bastet as he was sure she was much more powerful than even his strongest guards. Though, based on public knowledge of cultivators on Earth, his guards should be more than enough to handle any trouble. All the guards that appeared seemed to be wearing suits, fashioned after the style of his own Host Attire. Lex absolutely did not mind having tough but well dressed guards keeping the discipline.

In total, the two awards, the extra staff and the event security cost him exactly 1,000,000MP! He had already spent his entire original budget. Keep in mind, so far he had not purchased any event related items to be sold, any decorations, any consolatory prizes, not to mention keep an emergency fund for unforeseen expenses.

Still, he had 1,195,526 MP left. That should be more than enough to cover any unexpected expenses. Or so he originally thought. Although Mary did not give him any advice whatsoever, he would often tell her his plans while he was drafting them. The holographic assistant, unbeknownst to herself, had a terrible poker face and Lex would often find it easy to read her thoughts. So when he saw her hesitant and worried look after he finished his plans, he realized he was missing something. After a little trial and error, he came to a single conclusion: he was missing a private bodyguard. A private bodyguard was different from the event security. Their attention would be divided amongst the entire crowd all throughout the event. His private bodyguard would focus solely on defending himself.

Still, considering the great deal he got for 450,000 MP, it should not be a problem to get a good deal on a private bodyguard. He mentioned the amount he was planning on spending to Mary, but discovered that while she still did not say anything, her appearance did not get better. Lex frowned, thought about it a bit, and decided his own personal safety was worth splurging on. After all, if he were dead, what was the point of saving MP? So he resolutely decided to spend 500,000MP on a personal bodyguard! Just as he was about to make the expense, he noticed that Mary still looked worried.

That stopped him in his tracks. This was no longer a simple expense. The fact that such a large amount still did not assure her meant that he was clearly underestimating the strength of his incoming guests. But it did not make sense, all three planets were 1 Star, and should have had the same level of cultivators. He was not expecting cultivators on the level of Bastet because she clearly stated that she had been put on Earth as punishment by her father, meaning someone of her level should not have been on such a planet. She was an anomaly, not a norm. In that case 500,000 MP on a single bodyguard should have been overkill. But the fact that it wasn't meant that he was missing something.

Lex thought about it a little, and went back to everything he knew about each planet. It only took a little contemplation before he remembered something incredibly obvious that he had overlooked. When Blane, Chen and Lily had come last time he had spied on their conversations just a bit. He had learnt that the Jotun Empire was reclaiming their planets. Lex did not know the Jotun Empire, but clearly an Empire that could colonize other planets from completely different galaxies could not have been simple. Since he invited the leaders on Vegus Minima, they would have learnt about the Inn. It was completely possible for them to send some very powerful cultivators to investigate.

Realizing his mistake, Lex no longer hesitated. It hurt his heart to spend so much, but he ultimately decided to spend 1,000,000 MP on a body guard! That left him with only 195,526 MP but Lex could make it work..

*****

Somewhere on the opposite end of the universe, far beyond the reach of simple entities such as the Jotun Empire or Demons or Bastet and Falak, a cultivator was practicing a new attack skill. He needed to practice only once to learn an attacking skill to its highest level, but for all other types of skills he would require extra effort. Yet he did not mind, he firmly believed that offense was the strongest offense, and had learnt various attacks that ranged from physical to spiritual to even soul attacks. He could attack using elements, he could attack using dreams, beliefs, thoughts, and most recently he had learned to attack even with laws. He was blessed when it came to his combat capabilities. To be more exact, he had Mo's Blessing, a cultivation technique that could destroy the universe itself when he reached the highest level.

Yet what he was practicing right now was not an attack but a stealth technique, so it would require some time. Still, he did not mind as he had all the time in the universe.

"Host, you have a new Limited Edition Quest. You can choose to accept or reject it. You have five minutes to decide," he heard a feminine voice in his head.

"A Limited Edition Quest? I haven't encountered quests like that before, what's the difference?"

"Checking host authority…host authority insufficient to learn details…using special bloodline clearance…host authority partially accepted. A Limited Time Quest is one that comes with certain conditions. You have the option of accepting or rejecting without any consequence, however if you accept the Quest and fail you will be punished heavily. Yet if you succeed in the quest you will be rewarded correspondingly."

"What are the details of this quest?"

"You have to act as someone's bodyguard for a week. The special condition for this quest is that after you finish, all your memories of the duration of the quest will be erased by the system to protect the identity of the person you were protecting."

The man smiled in amusement.

"Interesting. Can I decide the reward for the quest? I want to change the quest reward to simply raise my authority as much as possible. The level of the system is too low, it cannot benefit me at my strength right now whatsoever."

"Negative, the reward is fixed…using special bloodline clearance…reward changed. If you accept the quest your authority will be raised by 10 levels, if you fail you will have 0.5 bad hair days while you are in public. Do you accept?"

The man's smile grew. The system was too amusing. If he didn't know better, he would say the system was in love with him.

"I accept."

CHAPTER TITLE: Mo's Blessing