Chapter 2537: Step 1

The rain quickly turned into a storm that ended up blanketing a massive corner of the Inn. The Innkeeper stood there, without moving, his thoughts entirely unknown to all.

Internally, Lex was reflecting on how relieved he had felt that he’d have a few thousand years to develop peacefully, and how easily that dream had been shattered. With an unknown Dao Lord inside his Inn who had a reputation that caused everyone to avoid her, Lex’s situation was actually far from great, but there was little he could do about that.

Even if his goal was to be able to tolerate Dao Lords, and maybe even be able to fight one, before reaching the realm himself, he was currently far from that goal.

Until he himself became a Dao Lord, he’d never know true peace. Even then, he might not know true peace, for these days even Dao Lords could be killed easily. Of course, that ease was only relative. Unless the Dream Arena was available, most still found it to be basically impossible to actually kill another Dao Lord.

But who knew whether or not that would change once the universe advanced?

Lex certainly didn’t know what the future held, nor was he in the business of focusing excessively on prophecies or foretelling. He, instead, believed in shaping the future himself through the present.

The system interface opened in front of Lex’s eyes and he opened up the token section. He looked at the System Reboot token for a long time. He had, to a degree, been treating this as a sort of fun vacation. No longer.

He was not going to take it lightly anymore. Instead, he was going to maximise all the benefits he could get from the system to expedite his growth.

Based on what happened the first time around, the initial quest should have something to do with getting a guest inside the Inn, or setting up the Inn. Neither of those were relevant anymore since the Inn already existed, and there were literally hundreds of millions of guests inside the Inn.

So the initial quests would take some other form, while still being incredibly basic. He was more than ready to deal with them. But first…

Lex returned to his mansion, and entered his private meditation room where he began by unleashing the Sovereign realm. From now on, every deep meditation and cultivation session would take place within this realm to help Lex enhance his control over it and grow the realm itself.

He placed the Gabana fruit and set up the Innkeeper’s Scent Diffuser. From now on, the scent diffuser would constantly be on, and Lex was not shy about using any and all of his resources to boost his growth.

Lex even summoned Taro’s journal inside his own meditation room and diverted a portion of his attention towards it as he began his meditation. A clone made of nothing but spiritual energy appeared beside him and entered the journal.

Despite entering a state of cultivation, he left a majority of his focus available should he need it to deal with any quest.

Then, with that out of the way, the Innkeeper’s projection activated the System Reboot token.

The moment he did, his system interface disappeared and his connection to the system seemed to fade for a moment. Then the connection became even weaker, before slowly and steadily beginning to reconnect in an entirely new way.

New Notification: Initializing. Beginning host scan. Beginning system functionality scan. Reading error logs.

New Notification: 11 quest lines trigger failure detected. 41 new services trigger failure detected. 7 system operations logic flaws detected. Main quest line deviation detected.

New Notification: Initialization complete. System ready for complete reboot. Reboot commencing in 3… 2… 1…

Despite it seeming like the system was about to reboot now, Lex could tell that these notifications were triggered during the short period where the system connection was weakened. By now, the system had already rebooted.

New Notification: System reboot complete. Running fill operational diagnostic scan. Scan complete: All core features are running smoothly. 3 non-critical operational logic flaws detected – cannot be remotely corrected. Recommended action: nothing.

New Notification: Launching system operations. Welcome to the Midnight Inn. Host designation: The Innkeeper!

For a moment, the notifications paused, leaving Lex to read that one, nostalgic line that had started it all. A faint smirk appeared on the Innkeeper’s face, and Lex’s Dao Intentions nearly broke through the restraint of having his tenet sealed.

A moment later, the system interface that Lex was used to seeing changed, taking on the aesthetic style that the Midnight Inn had come to adopt, as well as changing the font color to a soft gold color.

Host Status

Name: Lex Williams

Age: 26*

Sex: Male

Cultivation level: Celestial Immortal level 1

Midnight Points: 999,999,999,999

Midnight Tokens: 639,989,676,103

Midnight Emblems: 4

Inventory: Instruction manual

Quest: Open instruction manual!

Remarks: There are no physical servers left on the planet earth as evidence, but your YouTube search history is hardcoded into system memory logs.

*: To preserve the host’s sanity, a false age has been mentioned in status. Click here to view actual soul age.

Within his training chamber, Lex’s lip twitched. The system really had preserved its knack for taunting. And here he thought it had learned to be more civil.

The Innkeeper shook his head, mostly amused and nostalgic, before selecting the inventory option to pull out the instruction manual. The inventory promptly disappeared after that, for the’system inventory’ was actually just a storeroom in Lex’s mansion’s basement. The system didn’t even have the dignity to carve out a separate space for the so-called- inventory.

The instruction manual was more of a leaflet, with an image of the Midnight Manor on the front, alongside some bold text.

Step by step guide on how to be a successful Innkeeper!

Lex raised an eyebrow and opened the pamphlet.

Step 1: In general, avoid inviting home the universe’s most notorious woman whose age predates the birth of your very race.