Spending a year within Abaddon, not even pursuing their quest but just sitting tight in the a jungle, was not exactly how Lex wanted to spend his time. He had wanted to complete the quest as quickly as possible, but some things were not in his control.

Instead of worrying about it, he adapted his mindset. If he fixated on completing the quest as quickly as possible, this delay would have made him extremely agitated and frustrated, so instead he focused on gaining the most out of this quest, for himself and the Inn.

After a year in the jungle, all 500 of the staff members he had brought along were now ready to enter the Earth Immortal realm, but had held off on taking the tribulation because, well, anyone with any common sense could tell that no tribulation was going to be normal within Abaddon.

He personally had accumulated quite a lot of experience in manipulating laws, and he’d finally had that meeting with Luthor about creating a Hell in the Midnight Inn. As it turned out, the meeting was unnecessary, for Luthor was handling the matter on his own, and doing quite a decent job. He’d discovered something called Conceptual Torment, and it was somehow related to cryptic, overpowered jungles that ate monsters and horrors for breakfast. The Galactic Sovereign turtle would probably be able to help with that, considering it was a jungle and all, so Lex let Luthor handle things.

He would check in from time to time, but for now it was quite alright to let him take the lead.

He also managed the Inn remotely just fine, and found to his great relief that no major issues cropped up.

In fact, his dependance on external security was beginning to decrease. The Midnight Inn, itself, had a growing number of Earth immortals, and had a dragon with the body of a Heaven Immortal. That was, often enough, sufficient to deal with any problems that cropped up. After all, it was quite rare for Celestial Immortals to spend any

time inside the Inn, let alone cause trouble in it - especially with the tourney attracting more attention these days.

His harvest from this quest was already beyond sufficient, but the quest was nowhere near complete. Even so, Lex had changed his mindset. Since there was no urgent task, forcing him to rush and return to the Inn, instead of rushing through this quest, he would get the most he could from it.

If there was one thing he had learned from one year of practicing laws, it was that purpose and intention played a significant role in determining many things. Since Lex was practicing the law of supremacy, but he was clearly nowhere near being supreme throughout the universe, how could he be more in tune with his tenet? How could he improve his control of his tenet, and thus improve his power?

In life, where there were many things outside his control, the way he could practice supremacy was by taking control of his purpose and intention. The system had dumped him into Abaddon and given him a role to play.

He could act out that role because the system told him to do it, or he could take control of the situation by looking at it differently. He would make the most of his situation, and instead of being an instrument for the system to carry out Joint quests, he would make these quests instruments to strengthen him and his Inn. His Inn. Not an Inn given to him by the System, and controlled by his rules. His Inn, controlled and managed by him using the System as his instrument.

Sometimes, an alteration of perception was all it took to completely change a situation.

These thoughts were a condensation of all the realizations he had over a period of one year, making the most out of being trapped within the jungle.

As soon as he returned to the castle, he found that everything was normal, and Fenrir and Little Blue had not yet returned. Even so, he did not doubt what Nyan cat had told him.

"Kaemon, spread the word. The scouts are about to return, and we’ll need to leave as soon as they do. I’ve heard that delaying our departure might trap us in the jungle for a prolonged period."

The Magma Lion, who was hanging out with his Firefly friend, immediately stood up as soon as he got the news. He was both relieved, and a little dismayed. What was better than a forced vacation? But... was much as he hated the tension of being forced to fight on the edge of death everyday for years on end, he also didn’t like being away from a fight. After all, Magma Lions were not a docile race to begin with.

Kaemon wasn’t the only one Lex told. Orders passed quickly through the castle, and everyone quickly prepared to depart. They were not going to recreate Luthors impressive feat of dragging the castle into the jungle on a chunk of earth because, regardless of how impressive it was, it was also inefficient. As soon as everything would be ready, the castle would return to its snowglobe state and they would march out of the jungle, ready to face the challenges of Abaddon.

Many saw the purple crystal on Lex’s forehead, but none commented on it. After a year together, they were already used to his eccentricities - like that time his lotus tattoo started moving, and Lex started giving off a very dangerous aura. Or that time he tried growing facial hair using a spiritual technique so that he could sport a beard, but grew back hair instead. His body did weird things, and they knew that now.

An air of excitement filled the castle as everyone hurried up to pack things, with only the insects who seemed a little disappointed at their departure.

It was in this atmosphere that Little Blue returned to the castle, though his arrival immediately caused a halt. Although his body was still blue, he could not be called little anymore.

More importantly, he carried an aura of power that seemed to transcend the concept of realms. Fortunately the castle negated pressure by aura, or they all might have become suffocated by it.

Atop his back sat a wolf, lazily looking about. The only one missing... was Malfoy.

Before anyone could ask, the sound of heavy panting was heard from the jungle.

"Wait for me!" someone yelled from deep within the jungle. But instead of a beast, what emerged from the forest was... a teenaged human with blonde hair and a bad attitude.