Other than Larry, there were a few other people Lex wanted to check up on, but meeting everyone in person would take too much time. He gave everyone a call and left a few voice messages, all the while making his way to a park. Finding a remote area, he hid between some bushes and teleported back to the Inn.
His mood was somewhat better now and only improved when he learnt that someone had completed his commision for information about London. He wasted no time and retrieved the report, expecting a situation similar to New York.
But the situation in the UK was actually quite different. Even though the council had vast influence, basically feeding off of the original connections, they could not influence everyone. As the Queen's place of residence, her palace was full of her closest followers. In many places around the world, armed forces were directly neutralized by turning their own defensive formations against them by spies, yet the Queen's guard was exceptionally well trained.
Even under such strenuous circumstances, they put up a fierce fight and escaped. The palace was destroyed and a few other fights broke out all across the nation as the elite guards made their escape.
The good news, for Lex anyway, was that while many soldiers and cultivators suffered casualties, there were minimal civilian casualties, and those too were only near the palace. The bad news was that the entire nation was in a strict lockdown. The official news being spread to the public was that there was an assassination attempt on the royal family orchestrated by terrorists and rival nations.
A decent number of those experts had escaped and there was no information of where they might be, so it could not be determined when the situation would change. But since his family had nothing to do with any such matters, he felt that they were probably safe.
With that stone off his shoulders, he suddenly realized how effective the Inn could be at collecting information.
"Hey Mary, can I ask you for a favor?"
"What is it?"
"Can you keep an eye on my guests? I'm thinking of building a news collection service, and need someone who would be good at something like that. But I need someone with a real knack for something like this, as I'll want him to collect sensitive information in every world we connect to."
Before Mary could answer, the familiar ting of a quest rang in Lex's mind.
New Quest: Find an employee who can run a news service
Quest time limit: none
Quest Reward: Midnight News building
Remarks: For the first time, the host has taken a decent initiative. Now take the initiative to take a bath!
After a long, long time, Lex lost his self-control, and his lip once again twitched! The twitch! It had returned! Lex could not help it, it was a reflex to the lethal remarks of the system. What embarrassed him the most was… he had been so busy lately that… he forgot, and it had indeed been a few days since he showered.
Taking in a deep breath, he pushed down his agitation and looked back at Mary.
"I'll keep an eye out. For something like there, there are a few races that are better suited than others. It'll be your luck if you run across one, and you'll be luckier to find one suited to work for you. All I can do is pay attention."
"That'll be enough," he remarked.
The new quest reminded Lex that he had quite a few quests racked up, and he had not even checked the reward for the quest to expose the devil's planting trackers on his guests.
He went through the quests list, just as a reminder.
Quests:
1. Prepare an event for your guests to participate in
Status: Ongoing
2. Build a connection to Dunya!
3. Develop a permanent guest district
4. One of your guests wants to use the Inn to host a secret society. Aid your guest.
5. Host refugees
6. Find an employee who can run a news service
Many of these quests could not be completed in the short term. The permanent district was too difficult for him at the moment, and the world Dunya he had encountered while using a Golden Ticket was too dangerous for the current him. The secret society meeting he had decided to complete after the Midnight Games ended, for the refugees, he had already spread the word and as far as finding an employee was concerned, it was up to luck.
Shaking his head, he decided to look at his quest reward. Surprisingly, it was pretty good!
Security room:
As a prominent establishment, the Midnight Inn must ensure the safety of its guests. But as an Inn for the entire universe, even a trillion guests at a time are too few. The security room can be used by the Inns security guards to monitor malicious intent among the guests, to protect them as well as prevent them from making trouble!
This was an incredible, incredible reward, probably one of the best and most practical he'd received yet. It improved his mood tremendously.
Lex made a plan on how to install it and what to do about security now that he had a decent amount of MP, but all that could wait till after the games.
Speaking of which, a quick scan of the Inn let him know that the second game had already begun. Not for all parties though, only for Pramod and 99 of his zombies. They'd entered the map 2 hours early. The secret advantage they had received was invincibility!
For one minute, they would be able to activate the ability to be completely invincible to any and all external influence. This was a tremendous ability that could aid them in attacking as well as defending, but other than themselves, no one knew what the ability was. That made them even more dangerous.
Pramod used the extra time he had gained to alter the terrain. The map this time was the side of a mountain covered by a forest, with a castle carved into the mountain at a certain point. The node was, naturally, inside the castle. Pramod immediately controlled the zombies to start cutting down trees and building various walls and digging various ditches. He could not do anything too insidious, as all the guests outside could see everything on the screens, but still, he manipulated the environment to give himself an advantage.
At first, Lex thought of watching the match outside again, but then disregarded it. The system could take care of everything and at least this did not need his supervision. With that, he had some free time on his hands. Now it was time to do something he had been putting off for a while.
Lex lay down on his bed and summoned the bottle of Purified Wraiths blood. This little reward would help him strengthen his soul, but also put him to sleep for a few hours. Now, more than ever, he was anxious to raise his cultivation. Watching a 17 year old Foundation cultivator was only a part of the motivation. As cliche as it sounded, he realized how little power he really had. Sure, normally on Earth, he could survive and thrive with his skills by earning a decent living. But that was only if he operated inside a working system that governed society. During exceptional times, such as war, when that system could not influence anything, he was powerless. Strong personal connections and strong personal strength were the things he decided would help him.
Without waiting anymore, he gulped down the Wraiths blood and lay down in bed. Sleep did not suddenly come to him, but slowly and steadily his mind slowed, until he fell asleep without even realizing when.
Just as Lex fell asleep, at the front of Midnight Manor, a light flashed and a bleeding Larry appeared. His body was covered completely by a thin layer of metal that rippled as he fell to the ground. It was as if his skin was made of mercury.
But despite the metal skin, several gunshot wounds littered his body. His legs, especially, had nearly a dozen bleeding holes in them, though somehow he was not bleeding as much as he should have been.
He looked around for a moment, confused and muddle headed, but could not understand where he was.
A moment later a few panicked A.I.s approached him, followed by Velma.
"Dear guest, you are gravely wounded. Do you give me permission to take you to the recovery room?"
Larry looked at her, and nodded, only hearing the word 'recovery', but then collapsed right after.
"Quickly, call Gerard! We cannot let a guest die on our watch!"
The A.I.s scrambled to do as they were told, and Larry quickly found himself in a recovery pod. Just by happenstance, as he was being taken in, Marlo was exiting another room, and happened to see his bleeding student. His eyes went red with fury.
