"Currently, the Cold Brood Empire controls an entire galaxy. But such a statement is quite deceptive. In truth, my reach does not even extend to 1% of the entire galaxy. It’s just that my influence is spread in tens of thousands of star systems across the galaxy, and none are strong enough to wrest off my control, and so they pay a nominal tax.

"We also do routine explorations of the galaxy, searching for new star systems that can be colonised, or ones that already support life. Most importantly, we also search for valuable resources and unique biomes. I’ve come across quite a few such resource rich biomes, and cultivated them to produce materials that can help even Heaven Immortals. That’s the reason why my progress is so quick among Immortals. I’m not even 10,000 years old and I’m almost ready to become a level 4 Heaven Immortal."

Lex felt that, somewhere in KD’s words, was an attempted brag. Unfortunately, Lex didn’t understand. He was not even 50 yet and was struggling to keep himself from becoming a Heaven Immortal so... they were operating in entirely different conditions.

Lex continued to ask KD questions, asking more and more specific questions as he touched upon topics interesting to Lex. He didn’t rush, instead taking his time to fully understand all that KD’s declining empire could offer.

By now, even KD had understood that Lex was interested in his empire, yet he didn’t care. Either way, he was set to lose out on a lot, and if he could use his resources to defer or even completely avoid some kind of punishment, he’d happily take it.

Several hours later, just as the auction was about to end, Lex made his decision.

"I think, KD, you can tell by now that I have full discretion in how I handle your situation," Lex said.

"I have gathered as much," said KD plainly.

"Good, so that will make it easier. Since you ’technically’ didn’t break any rules I won’t be too harsh. After all, technicality aside, what you did can be considered espionage, not to mention acting with malicious intention. All things considered, I think we can settle this matter quite simply.

"First, you will pay for the full recovery of the four agents you sent to the Inn. The Inn will handle their treatment, but you will bear the costs. For someone like you, I don’t think that should be worth much at all.

"Second, what I want is the Astral Pebble Field you mentioned, as well as the Azure Ocean Forest. Yes, I think that will do nicely."

For the first time, KD actually seemed pleasantly surprised.

"That’s doable. If you tell me exactly what quantities you need, I can have the..."

"Oh no," Lex suddenly interrupted. "I think you’ve made a mistake. I don’t need the pebbles from the field, nor do I need the wood from the forest. I need the field itself, as well as the forest."

Upon hearing Lex’s clarification, KD froze.

"But the field is as large as a medium sized planet, and the forest is even a little bigger!" he exclaimed, but Lex only shrugged.

"The size is irrelevant. I think in terms of value, taking these two is a small penalty at best for provoking the Midnight Inn. Compared to the punishments others have received, being able to buy your way out of your predicament is truly fortunate. You only need to bring them to the Inn - the rest we will handle on our own. I will give you one month’s time inside the Inn to deliver."

Indeed, even ignoring the Inns ability to shrink things down to size, with the Midnight Realm being 0.25 lightyears wide, it had more than enough space to accommodate a couple of planet sized resource biomes. More importantly, the realm was undergoing a growth spurt as a result of the ’Innkeepers dance’. So fitting a couple of planets was not a problem. In particular, both of those items were going to be helpful for Lex during his forging, so he was looking forward to them.

KD stayed still as Lex left. Initially he thought that Lex was going to abuse his authority to claim some resources for himself. Now, he no longer had that misconception. There was no way an Earth Immortal could utilize such vast resources, let alone handle them.

As for the task of figuring out how he could bring those two unique resource biomes to the Midnight Inn, KD would have to resolve it himself. It obviously depended on using a golden key, but people use golden keys all the time - that doesn’t mean the planet they’re on gets teleported with them!

Most likely he would need to wrap the entire planet in his spirit sense or something along those lines. KD sighed, and then just paid the bill he had for healing the four system users.

The reason he was getting involved in the war was because he needed the help of the groupchat to hide from the influence hunting him down.

Surrounded by giants as a little guy, it really wasn’t easy to survive. Little did he know that Lex was in an even more precarious situation, but he was thriving.

While KD was struggling with figuring out how to make his payments, Lex was focused entirely on something else. The reason he had ended his meeting with KD abruptly was because the auction had finally ended! More importantly, as a result of the Innkeepers performance affecting everyone and causing them to spend way more, he had gotten all the items he had requested, and more!

"Orin, we have everything on hand. We can begin soon," Lex told the drunk dwarf as he teleported to the crystal volcano. "I’m going to set up the Time Dilation formation as well as the Fortune Funnel formation. As soon as I’m done, we can begin."

In response to Lex’s excitement, the drunk dwarf continued to snore.

Lex’s lip twitched, but instead of waking him up, he got to work. He couldn’t afford to mess up the Time dilation formation which is why he had gotten his hands on a lot of research and study material beforehand, allowing him to familiarise himself with the theory.

As soon as he set up the formation, the cost in the Midnight Management panel for artificial time dilation would decrease drastically, which is what Lex was truly after. A formation could never produce the same results as the system. With everything set, in a few more months, he could have the bead on his hands. And then...

A dangerous light flickered in Lex’s eyes. Then it would be time to remove an irritating pest.