The Innkeeper

"Scan complete, no anomaly detected," replied the system.

John let out a satisfied smile when he heard that familiar, monotone voice. He asked the system to scan instead of using his spiritual senses because the system was a lot more covert.

"Scan the target and formulate a detailed plan of action for eliminating the target."

"Scanning the target. Formulating plan of action based on gathered data. Presenting the data now…"

John looked over the plan and played it out in his head multiple times. Once he was sure he was ready, he took a step back and entered a void. The void existed in parallel to the existing universe and he could traverse it easily using the system's abilities, entering and exiting wherever he wished. He exited in the air above and behind the target, but when he exited he was surprised to see the man looking directly at him. Before John could respond he felt a sharp, painful rip in his neck. The next thing he knew, he was back behind the boulder, as if nothing had happened. In his mind, a countdown started. He had 59 minutes left to successfully kill the target without being detected.

*****

Lex found it hard to start meditating, but once he did he stayed in the state for several hours. When he was done, contrary to what one might expect, he felt mentally exhausted. Stabilizing his overactive spirit drained him, but he felt satisfied as he could feel himself making progress. It was slow, but it existed. He made a resolution to meditate for a few hours everyday. But for now, he needed sleep.

Sweeping the Inn with his mind once he made sure there was nothing that needed his attention, then went to sleep. He woke up the next day feeling refreshed and despite wanting to stay in bed for a bit longer, he jumped out and headed towards the shower while he ordered Gerard to deliver a hearty breakfast to his room.

Once he showered and dressed himself in his Host Attire, he sat down to a breakfast of eggs, bacon, hash browns, sausages, buttered bread, tea, cereal, poptarts, cold pizza (he had to tell Gerard specifically he wanted the pizza to be cold, as if just taken out of the fridge) croissants, bagels, donuts, cottage cheese, crackers, hummus, grapes and several other dishes that would make one wonder if the Innkeeper ad gone insane.

No, the Innkeeper had not gone insane. It was just that his appetite had exploded with his increased cultivation and while previously he could eat endlessly without gaining weight, now he felt like if he did not eat enough he would faint. This was actually an extreme case of what most cultivators went through before they started drawing spiritual energy into their body. The energy requirement of their body would increase, and since his only source of energy was food he would need to drastically increase his intake. Later, once his body developed the capability for absorbing spiritual energy, he would be able to reduce his dependence on eating ridiculous amounts of food. Not that he was complaining, it was a different kind of pleasure being able to eat so much.

While he ate, he opened up the System and took a look at what he could do. Currently he had 2,551,526 MP and there were many things he could do. He directly set aside one million MP for the event - he was actually expecting to spend around 500,000MP but he thought he would leave himself a buffer.

While looking at the system he was surprised to see that the rooms booked by Bastet and Falak were both free now. It had already been a month. Lex took a moment to reminisce about all the things that had happened the last month then got to work.

Lex was expecting a lot more guests at his Inn as a result of the upcoming event, so he needed to increase his capacity. Currently he had 7 regular rooms, so he purchased 13 more for an expense of 6500MP. He also hired 3 more A.I. whose sole job would be to take care of the guests in the manor. They would clean, take care of room service, act as a concierge or whatever else would be required of them within the manor. He naturally also purchased residences for them, for a combined expense of 10,500MP. He made Velma in charge of the new staff. Originally he was going to give Gerard the responsibility, but if he was restricted to the manor then the old man would be deprived of the joy of driving around the gold cart so decided to give the old man a different job. That job, as one can expect, was head chauffeur. He bought 3 more golf carts, and hired three new A.I. staff to be chauffeurs. Of course, it goes without saying, he bought them employee residences as well. His total expense for this was 11,100MP (each golf cart was 200MP).

Before he turned his attention away from the manor and towards the rest of the Inn, he also hired a final A.I. to be the chef at the restaurant and named him Ramsey. With that done, and no new required alterations to the manor that Lex could think of, he turned his attention to the rest of the Inn. The only two new rooms he could build at the moment were the Patisserie and the Guild room. For the Patisserie Lex had something special in mind so he didn't build it for now.

Lex bought the Guild room for the cheap price of 1000MP and placed it beside the barbershop, and then paused because of how insignificant the amount seemed right now yet how much it had intimidated him earlier. Yet he didn't dwell on it for long as the Guild room required more of his attention. It required another full time employee so Lex hired yet another A.I. and at this point it should be automatically understood that along with each A.I. camee its own room.

The Guild room, contrary to its name, did not allow guests to set up guilds. Instead, it allowed guests to more easily interact with other guests. They could submit tasks or requests in the Guild room along with a reward for completion of the task, which other guests could accept. Both, the guests who submitted and accepted the task could do so with their identity hidden or shown, whichever they preferred. On the surface this looked like a simple place where one could hire mercenaries or adventurers to perform tasks, but it could also serve as an excellent trading platform. For example, if one guest had a surplus of a certain resource, such as Zombie cores, they could put them in as a reward for a task that is asking someone to submit a corresponding number of spirit stones. Anyone who was in need of the cores could pay or 'submit' the spirit stones and receive the cores.

This eliminated the need for guests who wanted to trade with one another to coordinate timings and arrive at the Inn at the same time to conduct the trade. The guests also did not need to be at the Inn to receive payments as they would directly be sent to the relevant guest wherever they were in the universe.

Lex really wanted to open up armories so he could sell weapons, which he could in theory but then he would need to supply the weapons as the System had not unlocked the building yet. He also wanted to build a Library to store cultivation techniques, but did not have enough of those yet either. He had an idea to open up a movie theater, but it would be suspicious if he only had Earth's media on it so he had to delay that plan till he had movies from other places.

Then, while he was browsing the Midnight market he saw a tab he had never seen before called 'Employee Benefits'. Intrigued, he opened it and was immediately filled with excitement! Apparently the tab was unlocked when he hired Harry, but since he had given all of his A.I. staff employee residences, they also became eligible to receive these benefits. So why was Lex excited about the prospect of his employee getting benefits? It was because the first option under benefits was cultivation. All of his A.I. staff were absolutely loyal to Lex, as assured by the System, so he had no qualms about funding their cultivation. He opened the cultivation tab which presented him with a list of all his employees and which cultivation techniques were suitable for them. Without hesitation Lex spent 20,000MP and bought all the A.I. staff the most suitable cultivation techniques and told them all to start practicing in their free time.

He also told them to write them down and submit a copy of each to him. After all, he had to start his collection for his library from somewhere.