The Innkeeper

Helen chuckled as she thought about it, and continued on her journey. She was quite noticeable as she was followed by an ostentation of Peacocks wherever she went. She received a few glances from the new guests, but the glasses gave her the confidence to ignore them. When she finally arrived near the training room, she was surprised to find that the new building was a barbershop. She didn’t even need to guess, the spinning barbers pole outside was very distinctive and telling.

This surprised her, as she was expecting something more exciting. Everything at the Inn so far seemed targeted towards cultivation. The Meditation room, Training room, Recovery room and Mystery trial were all good examples of this. Compared to their utilitarian purposes, this seemed almost mundane. But she didn’t underestimate it just because it seemed normal.

She went inside to see a young man, probably around her age, excitedly looking through all the cupboards. When she entered the shop a bell hung above the door rang, alerting the young man of her presence. He was startled at the noise, but quickly his excitement returned as he looked at Helen.

“Welcome!” he said jovially as he pulled her in. “Welcome to Harry’s! Or wait, Harry’s Barbershop! No wait…” he became distracted and started mumbling to himself about the name.

“Is this your shop?” Helen asked, analyzing the young man.

“Yes! Yes, of course it is! Have a seat, what would you like? Since you’re my first customer, there’s no charge!”

“No I don’t want to have anything done,” Helen clarified, “I was just curious about the new building and wanted to see what it was.”_.

“Oh,” said Harry, his excitement dimming noticeably. “Are you sure you don’t want to try anything? Trust me I’m very good. And I won’t charge, promise!”

“Eh,” Helen suddenly felt awkward. It was clear to her that Harry really wanted her to have something done, and was looking at her with longing eyes. She didn’t want to offend anyone at the Inn so she reluctantly said, “Fine, why don’t you give me a little trim. Not too much, mind you!”

Helen’s hair was already short, barely reaching her shoulders, and she didn’t want to cut it much shorter, but she thought there wouldn’t be much harm in trying out the shop. Something at the Midnight Inn clearly couldn’t be normal.

She took a seat and Harry stood behind her excitedly as stared at her face in the mirror. He was deciding what sort of look would suit her most, but he did not realize that his eyes started emitting a purple glow as he did. Under his glare Helen didn’t feel uncomfortable, and instead seemed to enter a trance. She started hearing her own previous thoughts in her head, as if they were being replayed.

At some point Harry decided what he wanted to do and grabbed a spray bottle and sprayed her hair. No one noticed that the spray bottle seemed to just appear in Harry’s hand, or that as the water touched her hair it seemed to wash away some of the thoughts full of self doubt that she was hearing in her head. A floating comb appeared and started brushing her hair. As if by magic or some sorcery, not only did the brush untangle all her hair in a single stroke without having to pull or tug, it rearranged her thoughts so that they became more organized. Lately her thoughts would bounce from Alexander to her family to the assassination attempt to her unkown future. Everything was full of uncertainty and she had trouble thinking straight, but now the randomness of her thoughts started disappearing.

Harry himself did not notice that as he worked he started mumbling incantations or that two pairs of scissors appeared in the air around him. Both the scissors started cutting rapidly, yet very little hair was actually being cut. If someone could peer into Helen’s mind and visualize it as a garden, then they would notice that anxiety was growing in that garden like weed. Yet each time the scissors snipped some of that anxiety was cut away.

Slowly and steadily, Helens appearance started to change and if this were a video game instead of real life ‘+1 charm’ would be seen floating above her head every few minutes. Yet the biggest change was in her mind. Mortals called it mental health and cultivators called it inner demons, but regardless of whatever one called it, Helen’s state was improving. Slowly and steadily, she was receiving a makeover that would change her entire life. She was achieving both outer beauty and inner peace.

*****

Lex was chuckling to himself as he walked out of the forest. He had gotten the gardener and turtle to agree to working with each other, but even as he left the greenhouse he could hear them bickering. It reminded him of his youth, when he was a kid and used to fight with his elder sister, Belle. Despite her feminine name, she was a real tomboy and the two used to fight a lot.

He had also given the turtle a name, which the turtle completely ignored and did not acknowledge at all. No, he did not name the turtle Leonardo or Michelangelo. He was not about to follow that cliche. He was determined to follow in the footsteps of all the main characters of all the cultivation and system novels he had read before, and named the turtle ‘Little Black’. The turtle was neither little nor black, but those main characters never seemed to care and neither would Lex. He was slightly annoyed when the system didn’t reflect that name in the turtle’s status, but he would call it by that name regardless.

Lex was in an unusually good mood, and suddenly he felt even better when he found out even more guests were about to enter the Inn. He teleported to the entrance just in time to see Alexander appearing with two men and a woman behind him. The entire group looked quite young, he guessed they were his friends or classfellows. At least until he read their statuses.

Name: Rorick Morrison

Age: 48

Sex: Male

Cultivation Details: Golden Core Mid

Species: Human

Midnight Inn Prestige Level: 1

Remarks: This fellow seems to have accidentally tucked his shirt into his undergarments

Name: Brandon Morrison

Age: 104

Sex: Male

Cultivation Details:

Spirit Cultivation: Insufficient Authority

Body Cultivation: Golden Core Peak

Species: Human

Midnight Inn Prestige Level: 1

Remarks: The real OG!

Name: Audrey Morrison

Age: 101

Sex: female

Cultivation Details:

Spirit Cultivation: Golden Core Peak

Body Cultivation: Golden Core Peak

Species: Human

Midnight Inn Prestige Level: 1

Remarks: Extremely, extremely dangerous! Host must maintain distance at all times! The system will not associate with the host if he falls in love with someone four times his age!

Lex felt his lips about to twitch but he controlled himself. He could no longer let the system’s remarks affect him! Yet as he was ruminating over the system’s remarks and the difference between their looks and their actual age, the three Morrisons who had entered the Inn for barely a second froze. Then they looked at each other with disbelief and excitement in their eyes, as if to confirm what they were feeling wasn’t just an illusion.

Alexander noticed his family’s strange behavior and asked, “what is it?”

“I can break through to the Nascent realm here!” replied Rorick.