Chapter 1853  Important decisions

Once Giselle left Lex, and the Inn, her expression turned extremely solemn. Lex had managed to get a Defiler core, as per his needs, but she had gathered Defiler Essence, which was equivalent to the more refined bloodline of a human.

She would now baptize her body in that essence, slowly building up a resistance to the effects of their unique brand of Profane energy. Although it seemed like she was immune even now, that was a misconception. She was not even resistant to stronger Defilers, let alone immune, which is why she constantly had to enhance her body's resistance to Profane energy.

That did not require her to be in any specific place, so she hurried back to the Champions tourney, and did a quick search for Marlo and Lex's friends. As it turned out, they were all together.

Marlo was still in the Nascent Soul realm, but the others had all become Immortals now, and were doing fairly well considering they were now on a mission to eradicate a colony of plague ridden space bugs from an asteroid field containing valuable ores.

It would take her a few days to reach them, but it should be manageable. Although not the strongest bunch she had ever seen, all of them were fairly strong, not to mention that they all had various skills. It was hard for her to imagine them getting wiped out so easily, but she didn't question Lex's judgment that they would.

She supposed that she would just have to find out what the danger was when she faced it. Until then, there was no shortage of her own tasks she had to complete.

*****

Lex sat outside the cabin, thinking over various things. As much as he would have liked for Giselle to be one of the things he was thinking about, he had very little time left. Decisions needed to be made, and so it was time to make some critical decisions.

He thought back to the meeting Wu Kong had with the Innkeeper, the one in which he revealed his affiliations with Mother Nuwa, and his secret mission to protect one of the Inns workers - though he never revealed who that specific worker was. The very meeting in which the monkey proposed that the Inn and he work together - in secret. The very meeting in which Wu Kong told him the secrets regarding the Primordial Garden.

The Primordial Garden, the major realm which belonged to Ventura, was supposedly one of the few places left in the universe where Primordial energy was abundant, as the laws of that realm caused the energy to replenish by transforming other energies.

The Inn could potentially be linked to the Primordial Garden if Lex went there and bought a key, which was easy enough since to enter there, all he needed to do was undergo his tribulation in the Crystal realm. The rules of the realm would automatically send him to the Primordial Garden since the Crystal realm could not accommodate Heaven Immortals.

Or he could also link with the realm by using the Gabana fruit, a gift from the monkey that contained the aura of the Primordial Garden.

Lex could go there, but the monkey was supposed to get him assurances that Ventura won't be offended if Lex connected the Inn to that realm. He did not have those assurances yet, but some things had changed. He was now more certain about keeping the connection between the Inn and any target realms closed, or suppressed, until needed due to the improved teleportation systems.

He had another reason to connect to the realm, though. The system had given him a quest to absorb more primordial energy, though that quest came with ominous remarks from the system telling him to avoid that quest.

In his pursuit for strength, Lex had decided he needed to be more proactive. He could not avoid dangers, and instead had to use them to gain valuable resources and unlikely opportunities.

Gaining access to the Primordial Garden without using the Gabana fruit was a great opportunity, especially since the fruit itself was valuable. Moreover, he could use realm law replication to copy the laws which allowed the Primordial Garden to create primordial energy. That way the Inn itself would have an unlimited supply of an otherwise rare energy.

But to complicate matters further, there was also that mysterious owner who oversaw the Primordial Garden. If even Ventura needed his permission to use his realm, Lex did not want to imagine how strong he was. Going to his lands was a risk.

Now Lex had only a few days to decide whether that was a risk he should take now, or if he should wait, and eventually use the Gabana fruit to get access to that realm.

As if this wasn't enough, there was one more thing that Lex had to oversee.

Vera walked up from behind him, looking at the familiar scenery.

"You have a habit of meeting me on this mountain, you know that?" she asked as she walked up to him.

"I like the view," he answered simply, still looking out in the distance.

"Well, can't argue with that - the view is nice, even if it's not as good as a view of me," she said, smiling.

"I have a few urgent things to take care of, so I hope you don't mind if we jump right into things," Lex said as he erected a barrier around them, isolating them from the rest of the Inn. "I've taken care of your little problem with your future. It should no longer go off track. You can check for yourself, though."

Vera raised an eyebrow. She had erased her memory of herself revealing the details of her problems, so she wasn't quite sure what he knew and what he didn't.

"There's no point in checking. That future is hidden, so I'll have to take your word for it."

Lex nodded.

"Well, it's done. So now… do you remember what we talked about? About what you would do if you knew the timing of the Nexus event. You said you'd do some research. Well, that's a conversation I cannot delay any longer."