As Lex watched Mary have a hundred Celestials drool over a ball of dirt that Z had picked up, he was completely convinced that the rest of the auction would go well. Life was unusual. They had picked up so many treasures from Abaddon, so many of them useful, and so many of them completely worthless to them and the Inn. Yet to those cultivators much stronger than Lex, they would be priceless. At the same time, they had a much easier time getting their hands on resources that were, relatively speaking, less rare, and yet they were what Lex wanted.

Initially, the auction had all been about MT, but now that Lex had gained so much, what he really wanted were items that would benefit him immediately.

At the moment, Lex was in need of two types of resources that he didn’t have access to himself. The first were the kind that would be used in the crafting of the Karmic bead, and the second were the kind that would expedite the formation of the bead itself.

Orin had been very particular that for a treasure on the scale of the Karmic bead, a thousand years was the absolute minimum time required to stabilize it. That was if it were left to stabilize on its own.

There were naturally things that could help speed up the process. The problem was that neither Lex nor Orin knew what they were.

Regardless, between his own system, the systems of all the members of Obsidian, and the guests in the auction one year from now, Lex was sure he’d be able to get his hands on something.

But, just to be sure, he wanted to make sure he made an impression. Well, Mary apparently having the presence of a Dao Lord was probably enough to make a strong impression, but since he’d planned everything else out anyway, he’d go ahead with it.

The dirt ball was sold for 1221 MT, and Mary moved onto some magical pollen they had collected. Lex didn’t pay attention to that, instead he used the 1221 MT he had just gotten, and opened up the Midnight Realm Management panel.

He’d been looking over the panel in great detail over the past few days, and he’d finally decided on some things he wanted to do. All the services would get their upgrade during the auction, but upgrading them randomly seemed so empty. It lacked ceremony.

So Lex would create a bit of ceremony. As the MT disappeared, faint clouds began to appear across the realm, and they began to drizzle.

Currently, the Midnight Realm had the environment equivalent to a 4 star planet. At that point, it was difficult for spiritual energy to get any thicker in the air. Higher star ratings only meant that certain, high leveled types of energy were available, allowing for the birth of certain treasures. It also reflected the strength of the laws, so for example, an Earth Immortal who could not control his strength could do a lot of unintended damage on a 1 star planet. But on a 2 star planet, they’d be much more comfortable.

In essence, raising the star rating was a good thing, and Lex naturally wanted the star rating of the Inn to be as high as possible. Or that’s what he used to think. Now, though, he’d come up with a new plan for the Midnight Realm.

A fully mature realm was much more stable. There were many reasons for this, but one key reason was that all the more chaotic or volatile energies had been used up in the development of the realm. Yet these volatile energies were also incredibly valuable, and had a certain primal power that stable energies just lacked. As an immature realm, the Midnight Realm had an entire Chaos Sea, not to mention countless other reserves of various energies that were used up to create laws.

Lex wanted to make the Midnight realm grow, but retain these primal energies that would otherwise be used up, so that even when the realm matured, they stayed. In a sense, Lex wanted a realm that had all the benefits of a mature realm, yet retained the specialities of an immature realm.

This was a part of his long term plan to nurture Dao level treasures - something he’d only attempt when he himself became a Dao Lord. Before that, though, he had to ensure his realm developed as he wished.

He earned another 1440 MT, which he immediately used up to add to the rain. If he went to the Token store, he could immediately buy a star rating increase token, but then he wouldn’t be able to fine tune the development of the realm.

Instead, Lex spent much more MT to make it rain a certain kind of energy that had long since been used up by the realm.

The rain never made it to the ground, as the liquid dissolved in the air, mixing with the environment. Even so, all living beings across the Inn felt a certain tingling feeling. Something was happening - something significant.

Another item was sold, and Lex immediately spent all the MT again. The rain was only the first step. Using the money he earned today, he was going to set up a series of weather events that would last up until a year, slowly and gradually raising the star rating of the realm up to 5 stars.

Like this, he was losing out on some benefits, such as the enlightenment and purification everyone went through with the rapid star rating increase. Yet in the long term, this was better. After all, only a newborn realm could provide the environment required for the birth of Mythical beings.

If he could recreate that exact environment, and then have it fixed so that it would become the natural environment of the Inn, he would achieve something entirely unique in the universe.

Today was the first step in trying to make that happen. While all the Celestials who had come to the Inn did not know his intentions, they could feel that the Innkeeper was up to something - and he had specifically waited till they came to make it happen.

Lex smiled. Yes, this was ceremony enough to launch the upgrade to all the Inn services that came with the functionality returning to 51%. He was actually quite interested in seeing how everyone reacted to the change.