The Innkeeper

Just like that, the night passed quietly and quickly. Most of the guests had no need for sleep in the short term due to their cultivation, and thus spent the entire night awake. Some of them enjoyed picnics, some of them stargazed, some of them waited for their turn in the Battle Ax of the Mystery trials. Those last two had quickly become the most popular attractions of the Inn.

Most guests from Earth, however, spent the night in their rooms, cultivating. The rooms did not have the amplification effect of the Meditation room, yet for the Earthlings cultivating here was already amplified enough. In a single night there had been various breakthroughs in minor and major realms.

Lex himself stayed awake for quite a while. For some reason, he found it very peaceful watching his guests enjoy themselves at his inn. No, he was not awakening his inner voyeur! It filled him with a sense of pride and accomplishment that people were enjoying his hard work.

Eventually, though, he went back to his room to sleep for a few hours. He could, of course, continue to stay awake and he would still be fine the next day, but there was no reason not to be well rested._.

Early in the morning, Lex woke up and checked on all the winners for the qualifying round. There were ten qualifiers, but he learnt that one of them – the ballerina he had seen yesterday – had dropped out for some reason and so only nine were left.

Of the nine, Lex had already seen a few. The orchestra of birds was included, naturally, along with Igishima’s display. The last performance to be included into the qualifiers was by a single, unusual Beast that Lex must have missed. It’s body’s shape was like that of a jaguar, yet it’s body was made out of a silverish liquid. Every time it moved it felt like looking at water moving in a sealed bottle. Lex must have missed this performance, and was quite interested in it. He had never seen something like that. He was so intrigued he even checked its status.

Name: Rezin

Age: 1

Sex: –

Cultivation Details: Initial Foundation realm

Species: Mercury Gloubin

Midnight Inn Prestige Level: 1

Remarks: Extremely, extremely toxic! Do not touch (or date) under any circumstances!

Lex raised an eyebrow as he wondered if this Beast was actually made out of mercury, or was that just a name? Whatever the case, since it managed to be a finalist, he was sure it would put on a good performance.

Other than the Beasts, there was one other qualifier that was composed of two soldiers, while the remaining qualifiers were all from Earth. Lex honestly did not know whether to be surprised or not when he recognized one of Earth’s finalists as a youtuber.

She was a… Lex almost blushed when he recalled the first ever remark he got from the system about his YouTube history. She was an ASMR artist but also had another channel where was a solo vocalist and did covers for songs. Lex had never heard her covers…

Lex quickly gathered his thoughts and began preparing for the qualifying rounds. He needed to step up on the sales and earn more MP before the next round began. There was a reason for this. Due to his unexpectedly high cost for his bodyguard, he had actually not finished paying for the combat portion of the games. This was the real reason he was so focused on selling merchandise. As of now, he had enough to ensure that the games would actually happen, but considering that Mary told him he needed to ace this quest, he wanted to go all in. The more MP he had to spend, the better he could make it out to be.

During the night, he had sold three more suits and made another 3000 MP from the Battle Ax alone! The rest of the services and the coins, along with the items from the gift shop generated 4000 MP, making his overnight total to be 34,000 MP. That brought his total to 249,733 MP! By the end of the day, he should have crossed 250,000 MP, which was his minimum requirement. It was unlikely, but if he sold enough suits and brought his total up to 500,000 MP, then that would be ideal.

Something that must be noted was that the three suit purchases last night were not from humans, but Beasts who were impressed by Little Blue’s own suit. Somewhere around the Inn, three rams were walking around wearing a suit.

At 9 am, fireworks went off at the coliseum, letting the guests know that the event was about to begin. Many of the guests came, but most watched the event from their rooms. This time, each performance would happen one at a time to let everyone appreciate them completely. As such, they didn’t need to be at the coliseum and watched in the comfort of their privacy.

Soon the event began. The birds gave the first performance, and their light but sweet voice was a refreshing way to begin the day. Most of the guests enjoyed the performance thoroughly, and since they performed a new music piece this time, even those who had already seen them before were entertained.

The birds were followed by the duo of soldiers. They wore some dress that Lex assumed was traditional to where they were from, but on Earth was recognized as a sundress most commonly worn by women during the summer. Their performance, despite their unusual image to the Earthlings, was genuinely entertaining despite being simple. They were fighting.

Each held a massive and unwieldy looking blade and clashed head on! It was a display of unfettered strength, yet at the same time, had the elegance of a sophisticated dance. As far as Lex could tell, this was not a rehearsed skit. They were genuinely fighting, and often, genuinely getting hurt. Massive cuts and gashes were carved into their bodies, but their traditional dress quickly wrapped itself around each wound, preventing it from bleeding. As the performance progressed, the dress went from looking like a sundress to skin tight sportswear.

The two soldiers had the ability to dodge or block, but they didn’t do that. Each attack was met only with another attack, and the one with greater strength or technique would come out as the winner. Eventually, the show came to a close when one of the soldiers could no longer hold on to the blade and it went flying away.

Contrary to other performances Lex had seen, this was not pleasurably entertaining but thrilling instead! It received loud applause despite its simplicity and received greater crowd engagement than Lex had seen before.

The next performance was Igishima’s. Like before, his performance was filled with a lot of visual stimulation. The colors of various flowers as they moved and aged melded with one another to give birth to a living, moving piece of art. That, along with its stimulation of the sense of smell, gave a performance that many members of the audience enjoyed. Unfortunately, it was not as engaging as the soldiers, so this was likely the trees end in the performances.

Next was the YouTuber. Hers was a very simple performance. She sat on a stool at center stage and sang softly. There was no accompanying music, just her voice as she sang her own version of Hallelujah.

As simple and straightforward as it was, Lex had to admit that he was surprised by how much he enjoyed it. He doubted that she would win the competition, but there was no question about the fact that she would gain many fans today. In fact, a part of him wondered if he should hire her as a singer for the Inn. Her singing, along with live music, would really create a special ambiance at the restaurant.

That was followed by another performance by the Earthlings. It was a band. They played a few songs, and the insanely quick tempo and rhythm of the drummer as well as the masterful performance of the guitarist who was playing an electric guitar won the praise of much of the audience – even the Beasts.

After that came Rezin, the liquid Jaguar. Lex himself was very interested in seeing just what this unique Beast would do.