The Innkeeper

Chapter 1381  Planting prep

Lex returned to the Inn, and fortunately, not everything had burned down to the ground. It seemed the realm could tolerate being disconnected from him temporarily, but it was definitely not something he should attempt regularly.

While he himself could not determine the extent of his damage, the notification he received as soon as he left the Sani Vortex was a clear indicator of just how much damage his absence could do.

New Notification: Midnight Realm has suffered from a destabilization of laws. Address the issue lest the realm growth is affected.

The odd thing was that it was only a notification, not a quest. Maybe the damage wasn't significant enough for a quest. The good news was that after consulting with Ripley, Lex already had an idea about training a certain batch of workers to help maintain his realm.

He hadn't expected much, but when he sent his workers to the Temple of Fasting to see if there were lessons on realm nurturing, to his immense surprise, there were!

It seemed like such lessons were only available to immortals, which explains why Lex didn't know about them before. They were also aimed towards larger powers who controlled various realms, and technically speaking the Midnight Inn fit into that category perfectly.

But they had not yet learned enough to contribute to the realms repair. Unsure of exactly what to do to repair the laws of the realm, he decided to delegate the task to the planning division and have them give him suggestions.

To be clear, Lex could find solutions himself as well, either by listening to his instincts or by asking others, but considering that the task wasn't urgent, he decided to use this opportunity to train his workers.

There were still countless things going on in the Inn to occupy his attention, so the days passed by quickly until it was time to return to the Emporium and get the remainder of the materials from Powell. Powell acted completely normally, handing over the remaining ingredients.

They had a short conversation, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Lex had assigned Roland the task of looking into associates, close friends or business partners of the owner of the Emporium, but there was no lead currently. Even so, Rolan was quite confident in his job.

Many years ago, he had formed a secret organization with all the kids who used to visit the Inn, turning them into agents for him, trading information. Instead of an intelligence agency, his organization was more like one that gave everyone the opportunity to discover what they wished, as long as they had contributed enough.

While that organization was not yet mature, it gave him many leads that he wanted or needed. For something like this, though, he would not be able to rely on them. Instead, he was working with this new A.I. friend that he made, apparently. Lex didn't ask questions.

He only focused on his current task.

With a seed for the Void Stabilisation Sequoia tree on hand, and the information about how to grow it quickly provided to him by the turtle, Lex teleported to the site he selected to grow the tree, and began his task.

One of the first things he had to do was set up a formation, which was easier said than done. Even though Lex had learned to set up formations already, not all formations were built the same. This one, in particular, was going to be a difficult one just because of the sheer number of ingredients involved.

Before that, however, he had to prepare the soil where the seed would be planted. He grabbed a hoe, and began to till the land, softening it while he sprinkled in some crushed ingredients, and watered it with Spirit quenching essence. Despite the pleasant sounding name, Spirit quenching essence was actually the blood of an unusual creature that was part animal and part plant.

Using the blood of such a creature to water his soil sounded quite barbaric, but… well, it was what it was. But this was only the very first step in preparing the soil. In truth, only the top few feet of the soil had been affected by Lex's treatment, which is why he had to transplant the treated soil and put it deeper into the ground, while bringing the lower layers up.

It would have been easier to just excavate the whole ground, and then one by one place the treated soil within, but the process did not allow for that.

Instead, the process relied on the random mixing of layers as the soil traveled up or down between layers. The science behind it was not very scientific, which is why Lex only memorised it for now, with the intention of understanding its intricacies later on.

Lex even summoned multiple clones to help him along with the process, for it was slow and tedious, and even with the help of his clones, it took him hours. But that was just the first step.

Then came the formation. For this, at least, he didn't require clones, for everything would be done with his spirit sense. The formation had to be accurate on a microscopic level, so he had to ensure that everything was done perfectly.

As if the scale and complexity of the formation weren't enough, their power sources were extremely delicate as well, and each layer of the formation required its own power source, since the formation would mix various energies while the plant grew.

In fact, the process of trying to grow the tree was also an immense learning experience for Lex. He was not too familiar with all the numerous kinds of energies in the universe, and now finally began to be introduced to them one by one.

There was the Yin energy, which had the corresponding Yang energy. Then there were the common Earth, Air, Water and Fire energies, as well as the less common Lightning, Darkness, Light, Malevolent, Reverent, Righteous and Evil energies. Yes, there was literally an energy called Evil energy!

What was interesting was that these were just the energies required to grow the Void Stabilisation Sequoia tree, and not a list of all energies. Lex didn't know why or how Evil and Righteous energy could work together, but it was certainly something to look into.

One thing he did learn was that energies seemed to be able to escape the influence of unaffiliated laws!

Then came the more esoteric energies that Lex struggled to even comprehend, but they came after the formation was already made. Creating the formation took an uninterrupted fifty hours, for Lex had to be extremely meticulous with all the countless ingredients. Well, technically, they weren't countless, for there were exactly 1.9 million ingredients involved. n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

Once the formation was complete, Lex needed to alter the Feng Shui of the environment. To be entirely honest, Lex read the instructions about what Feng Shui was and how to alter it countless times, but didn't understand what it was about at all.

Even though Lex was lauded for his amazing perception and comprehension, certain things eluded even him.

Fortunately, the instructions for how to alter the Feng Shui were precise, and he didn't need to rely on himself to do it. This part was actually interesting. He had never done landscaping before.

Who knew that taking out one's sword and literally carving the earth within a region could be so much fun? It was like creating a wood carving, but out of the ground in a region large enough to cover a city from back on earth.

He carved away any nearby hills or mountains, making the area look like a flat plain, and transplanted numerous trees within the region turning it into a forest. Lex even went as far as bringing the appropriate kind of wildlife that would inhabit such a forest, taking care to establish a well balanced, self-sufficient ecosystem.

But that only concluded the preliminary steps for the forest's growth. Next, he needed to alter the weather as well. Controlling the weather, for a short period, was still easy. One just needed to flex their cultivation a bit.

But what Lex needed to do was create a very specific, natural weather pattern, that is not something he could do with a single technique. Instead, he had to alter the entire geography of the region, forming natural patterns that eventually result in the desired result.

The next steps were a bit tedious, but he used the various ingredients he'd bought to create massive lakes, construct mountains of metal, carve out rivers, establish floodplains, and much more.

As he continued, Lex was able to sense that the Nature energy within this region was growing more dense, beginning to form naturally.

It took him a lot of work before the area was finally ready, and Lex could finally plant the seed. He approached the very center of the formation and looked at the still soft soil, and pulled out the seed.

Now, the size of the seed was large, but not too abnormal. It was about 5 feet( 1.5 meters) tall, or about 10 hot dogs tall, or approximately 1.6 washing machines tall. If one wants to be extremely accurate, they could also say it was the size of 26 M16 rifle bullets.

It was the weight of the seed that was surprising. At about 110,000 pounds, it weighed as much as 1 million hot dogs, 551 washing machines or 4.17 million M16 rifle bullets.

That was a lot, which was why when Lex placed it in the soil, the seed began to sink on its own.