The Innkeeper - Chapter 1822

Chapter 1822: Deep fried ‘chicken wing’

“It’s done,” Orin said weakly, his entire being completely spent. In front of his eyes, the Karmic bead floated in the lava, its structure finally stable enough to exist even without any external support.

For a few minutes, he did not move, simply watching. It was out of both genuine awe at what he had accomplished, and sheer exhaustion.

The bead would now continuously move towards stability, yet as it did, the bead would absorb a little of the lava, once again making it unstable. At that point, the absorption would stop until the bead once again regained stability.

This was bound to be a slow process, one that would last centuries. Fortunately, Lex had prepared time dilation formations to speed up the process.

“We can leave now,” Orin said, turning towards Lex, who lay limply at the bottom of the volcano. Lex did not have the energy to talk or respond in any way.

He directly teleported them out of the volcano using the system, teleporting himself to his personal Recovery pod within his room. With the last of his will, Lex activated the time dilation formation and spent the MT he had set aside to buy artificial, system generated time dilation around the volcano through the Midnight Realm Management panel.

Then, he passed out.

The fluctuations caused by time dilation spread throughout the realm, attracting a lot of attention. Many guests at the Inn from the auction were particularly intrigued by the fluctuations, but since that area of the Inn was cut off, there was nothing they could do to sate their curiosity.

Lex’s healing was generally pretty quick, even for immortals, which was especially impressive because the rule of thumb was that the stronger any aspect of a cultivator, whether it be the soul, spirit or body, then injuries to that part would be much more difficult and resource intensive to heal.

But that pretty quick was only relatively speaking. The injuries Lex suffered this time were not necessarily lethal, but they had damaged him pretty badly. His cultivation, as well as the results of the forging meant that his weaknesses had been addressed, and that this temporary damage would grant him permanent boons in the future. Still, his recovery took a long time.

Six months later, Lex opened his eyes, still not feeling fully rested. He was feeling lethargic and weak, as if recovering from a great illness. This was a consequence of his actions with his heart and the necklace, but he did not regret it for a moment – to be more specific, Lex didn’t even think about it, as if it had never happened.

As someone who had been studying karma, he understood well how to avoid leaving any traces of his actions.

The Recovery pod only allowed the body to heal itself, augmenting the body’s own ability by a few magnitudes. However, some injuries were beyond the body’s natural ability to heal. Lex, in his current state, could technically still heal completely if he relied only on his body, but it would take a long time. Fortunately, he had prepared for this as well.

Lex first checked up on the volcano and was somewhat surprised to find that right outside it, a small town consisting solely of Inn workers had formed. What was once a random picnic spot had suddenly become a dedicated relaxation spot.

But the town did not grow towards the volcano, for the region around it was clearly off limits. Besides the time dilation formation, there was also a restrictive barrier preventing entry. This was because if any living soul entered the time dilation, its speed and duration would be drastically reduced. Time dilation with souls present was a lot more expensive than without.

In the past six months, about 300 years worth of time had passed in the volcano, with the bead absorbing about twothirds of all the lava. Soon, it would be complete.

Since he had a little time to spare, though, Lex left and entered a small restaurant run by an elf that he had once sponsored.

“Hey Kenta,” said Lex as he walked into the restaurant absolutely bubbling with energy. The crowd inside was massive, and all of them were extremely eager to eat the food they were about to get.

When Kenta Haru, the heir to a Celestial Immortal level elf organization, ran away from home with Lex to start a restaurant, his cooking sucked. It couldn’t be helped – his ideals were too vast and grand, his experience too limited.

He wanted to be able to cook delicious and nutritious food for any and all races, causing him to use all kinds of ingredients, resulting in all kinds of flavors. But years of trial and error had gradually improved his skill, allowing him to have the success he had today. He was an unofficial employee of the Inn, but that didn’t stop him from being a damn good chef. More importantly, one that was exceptionally skilled at cooking with exotic ingredients.

“Hey Lex, it’s been a while,” said Kenta through his spirit sense. Naturally he could not step out with his real body since that was cooking in the kitchen. “I caught your dance in the competition. Good work there.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it,” answered Lex as he grabbed a seat. “Sorry I couldn’t come sooner to visit, I was occupied. But I’m in severe need of a really good meal. You got those ingredients I sent you right?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve been marinating that chicken wing for months now. I’ll get the deep fryer ready now that you’re here. You’ll have to wait a bit, this bad boy won’t cook so easily.”

Lex shook his head, but said nothing, his weariness keeping his social battery low.

The ‘chicken wing’ that Kenta was talking about was actually the wing of a Heaven Immortal beast that had a 50% pure phoenix bloodline. He had gotten it during the auction months ago, as one of the items he had requested was something that could heal deep wounds.

Phoenixes were much rarer than Dragons, but were almost just as famous because of how notoriously difficult they were to kill.

Sometimes, even killing them wasn’t enough to keep them dead as their fires of rebirth would just bring them back to life and full health, stronger than ever. Their existence took immortality to a whole new level. For that reason, finding beasts with impure phoenix bloodlines was a lot easier than actual phoenixes’ In fact, many mature realms might never give birth to a single pureblooded phoenix, that’s how rare they were.

Even this beast with 50% purity was more than enough to help Lex recover from his injury. It wouldn’t be instantaneous, since the rule remained that the stronger he was, the harder it was to heal. Yet it would be quick enough that he’d be back in top form before the bead was complete.

Cooking the wing took a few hours, but when the tray came in with a single ‘chicken wing’ that was the size of a human toddler, Lex couldn’t find it in himself to complain.

The deep fried chicken wing, accompanied by a specialty dipping sauce made of the highest level elixirs, was absolutely divine. In fact, Lex could actually physically feel himself returning to good health with every bite he took.

It was just that the chicken wing came with one single unexpected side-effect. Lex suddenly developed a potbelly!

As embarrassing as that was, especially since Lex was definitely not conscious about his weight which was now over 9 tonnes, it was temporary. The belly would go away once Lex absorbed all the healing capabilities in the chicken wing.

So, with that out of the way, Lex returned to his Recovery pod from where he oversaw the Inn for the next few months.

Although the system allowed everything to run on autopilot, there were still many things that needed his oversight. The auction, and subsequent Dance Off, had really increased the Inn’s popularity once more.

Now, at any given time, the number of guests present inside the Inn were in the billions. That, unfortunately, forced him to do something he had been trying his best to avoid: he had to hire more workers directly from the system!

While there was a constant recruitment process going on inside the Inn, not to mention that some of the older workers were starting to get married and have families, with their children being ideal targets for recruitment as workers, the process was too slow, and their growth was too quick.

Moreover, the extent to which the system allowed him to predefine the qualities he wanted in his workers was incredibly useful. It also made him feel incredibly guilty, because it was like he was manufacturing humans to work for him.

But, well, he would have to soothe his guilt with the knowledge that he never treated them poorly and gave them all incredible opportunities to live amazing lives.

The new batches of workers were, naturally, all mortals. Their cultivation and growth would come with time. Fortunately, since his main target guests were under the immortal realms, such workers were perfect to suit his needs.