The Innkeeper

How their movements remained undetected by not only the forces of the families but the ICPA’s, which were supposed to be independent organizations, was a total mystery. Even if they somehow managed to take control of the Earth before the return of the Nascants and their forces, how they would deal with the raw power of the five strongest humans on Earth was another mystery that yet had no answer.

While on Earth the chaos was only on the edge, hiding from the view of potential informants, on Nibiru there was no such case. Various territories had been brought to war by sudden invasions from their neighbors. The absence of the territory leader, such as Igishima, or of a large chunk of combatants, made the territories vulnerable.

In Red Nation, a lazy looking brown fox stood, or rather, lay groggily at the head of the invading forces. The real villain behind the scenes, the enigmatic head of the Iron Mountain, was as of yet absent. Though despite his own absence, his forces were definitely present._.

Yet, even without Igishima present to command its Beasts, Red Nation, which was heavily reliant on human management, had an organized army which managed to hold off the invading forces.

Even the 13-year-old Tiffany, who had been awarded a strengthening fruit for her brave actions of delivering the letter, fought valiantly at the front lines. She had assumed her good friend Lex had died so that she could escape, which filled her with a sorrow and anger she had never felt before in her life. It was even worse than when Father Henry was captured, because at least she still knew he was alive.

It must be pointed out that eating a strengthening fruit did not technically count as cultivation, which is why it did not adhere to the general rule that humans cannot cultivate before the age of 15.

Even then, the rule that one cannot cultivate until they were 15 was not a hard and fast rule. Can you imagine someone waiting arduously for their fifteenth birthday, and then on their birthday they have to wait for some specific hour, such as 2 pm, because that was the exact hour they were born in? The moment the clock hit 2 pm, that person would start cultivating – only to fail miserably. Turns out they were born in a different time zone and needed to wait a few more hours till they were exactly 15.

No, the 15 year old age limit was more of a guideline, because that is the age by which a human body would have developed enough to withstand the arduous journey which was cultivation. Using special treatments to strengthen the body was one of the ways a person could get ready to cultivate in advance. It just so happened, eating strengthening fruits was one of those ways.

On Vegus Minima the Devils really started treating the planet if they were about to lose it, and sent all their zombie hordes to attack human settlements. They also deployed a special kind of demon known as Grubber worms, which specialized in recovery. The worms recovered not only the dead zombies, but the dead humans as well. What they intended with those bodies, besides the zombie cores, was as yet unknown.

Of the three planets, Vegus Minima was the most chaotic, yet somehow it was also the one dealing with the situation best. But the chaos had only just begun, and there were many opportunities to make mistakes.

Lex, the person who could be said to have indirectly caused all three situations, was completely unaware. He had seen various performances already, but there were many more left to go. Fortunately, the first part of the cultural event would go on all day, and the second part would only begin the next day.

At a certain point, Lex decided to depart, and come back in his Leo persona. He noticed quickly that any time he would approach a stage as the Innkeeper people would either move away or hush up, scared to offend him.

When Lex, or rather Leo, returned his attention was caught by a stage where he saw a single ballerina dancing. So far Lex had enjoyed the Beasts performances more, but maybe that was because those were novel sights, whereas he had some knowledge of Earth’s culture already. Yet this ballerina was different.

Suffice to say, she was breathtakingly beautiful. Lex felt a little shallow, thinking that the first thing that caught his attention was her looks, especially when her performance was extraordinary. Yet at the same time, he would be a hypocrite if he did not admit that the best and most apt description of this woman could be summarized in a single word: beautiful.

Lex was not paying attention to her gorgeous phoenix eyes, her thin pink lips, her sleek jaw, her smooth cheeks or her flowing brown hair. No, he was mesmerized by her entire visage.

The various silk layers of her tutu flowed in the air like dancing birds as she twirled on a string so thin it was invisible to the naked eye. The gray see through cape she wore sparkled, leaving behind a trail of images of dancing butterflies, following her wherever she went.

Lex had never seen a ballet before and so did not have an understanding of what it was supposed to entail, but he was pretty sure that the enrapturing performance being put on by this one woman was only possible because of her ridiculously high cultivation of Peak Golden core!

Yes, unexpectedly, this woman was a soldier from Vegus Minima! Maybe Lex should not have been so surprised, as even soldiers were human, but he was just not expecting such a spectacular display from a soldier.

It took a while for Lex to wake from his trance. At this point, the ballerina was no longer simply dancing on an impossibly thin string. She was dancing vertically and horizontally as the strings went in every direction. At some points, she even danced upside down. This was an experience he would have missed had he been wearing the Host Attire as it would have prevented him from fully falling into a trance.

Finally, when Lex started feeling embarrassed from staring at the beautiful woman for too long, he decided to leave. Instead of heading towards another display, this time he walked towards the Empire’s recruitment stall. He was very curious about what their intentions were, and wanted to experience it for himself. The Inn was not facilitating transport from one planet to another en masse yet, and Earth was determined to stay hidden, so what were their intentions?

What Lex did not know was that Ragnar had completely dropped all of his plans and intentions for Earth after discovering that it had some secret. He did not want to get involved, nor did he care enough to distract himself from his mission.

Still, when Lex arrived at the stall there was a small line. At the forefront was the smallest beast Lex had seen so far. Generally, once beasts started cultivating their size would grow. This one was roughly the size of a hamster. It had six legs, a scaly body and a face that looked like a dogs. What it was, Lex had no idea, but it was in the Golden core realm, so it definitely wasn’t weak.

Lex was unable to hear the discussion between the Beast and the soldiers, a result of a small formation they set up on their own. Yet from the looks of it, they both were very satisfied by the result.

A few people were ahead of him in line, but Lex waited patiently. When it was finally his turn he spoke first, not giving them a chance.

“What kind of performance are you guys doing? How come your stage is different from the rest?”

“Ours is not a performance,” one of the soldiers said amicably. “We’re here representing the Jotun Empire, the largest human force in the universe. Our job here is to provide you with information not just about the universe, but about how to grow individually as well as bring growth to your own society. After all, the prosperity and growth of humans is in both of our interests.”

“Oh, how so?” Lex asked, completely ready for the upcoming barrage of propaganda.