Thirty minutes. It was not a long time, though if one was waiting on someone's arrival, it would feel a little long. For Dao Lords, such a period felt even longer. Throughout the conversation, Lord Idres felt nothing wrong at all. He did not feel his wealth affected, and now that he was keeping an eye on his wealth within his temporal space node, he was sure that nothing had been lost.

Even so, the more time he spent with Wu Kong, the more he started to feel like he was losing. The instincts of a Dao Lord were hardly ever wrong, which basically meant that the loss was a given at this point. The only issue was figuring out where the loss was occurring. Fortunately, at least his Dao was protected.

Eventually, Z showed up and was told to deliver the letter. Z shrugged, grabbed the letter and went on his way, once again stunning Lord Idris. How had a mere immortal just grabbed the Letter of Intent as if it was nothing? Then it occurred to him that Wu Kong must have sealed its power - all without alerting Lord Idirs.

Scorpions could not get goosebumps, but Lord Idris got them anyway!

"Lord Sun Wu Kong, it has been an absolute pleasure, but now I must depart!" Idris exclaimed before standing up. He barely gave Wu Kong any time to respond before he teleported out of the Inn, leaving his Celestial guards to follow a step too late.

Wu Kong had been smiling all this time, but as soon as the scorpion left, his casual smile turned stern. He had flexed some of his power on purpose to keep other Dao Lords away, but who knew how long that would work?

Now that war had been started, and the Innkeeper was thought to be involved, many more would come to investigate. While it wasn't Wu Kong's job to act as the Innkeepers guard, he wanted to make sure others met the Innkeeper as little as possible.

If even Wu Kong was impressed by the Innkeepers strength, the others would be too. By then, his chances of cooperating with the Innkeeper would drop since the Innkeeper would have more options.

He really wanted the Innkeeper to send him to the Primordial Garden, but more than that, Wu Kong wanted the Innkeepers help and, or, protection should Wu Kong really get in trouble. It wasn't like he could blow his cover and ask Mother Nuwa for help, in which case the Innkeeper was a good option.

But for that, he needed to do a good job and create a favorable impression of himself in the Innkeepers eyes. That meant blocking any unnecessary trouble. Wu Kong pulled out a memory from his pocket, and saw the exact briefing Lord Idris had gotten. This scorpion was not nearly as docile as he appeared in front of Wu Kong. The only reason he became like that was because Wu Kong stole his courage, but in a few hours or days at best, he would regrow some more.

That should serve as a warning, hopefully leading the scorpion to behave when it met the Innkeeper. But such preparations weren't enough, so he thoughtfully left a hair behind in that scorpion's temporal space node. As for whether he would use that to steal from him, spy on him, or rob his descendants blind, or maybe milk some scorpion poison, who could say?

Wu Kong most certainly wouldn't say what it was for.

While he was lost in thought about what to do next, yet another Dao Lord appeared at the Inn. This time, Wu Kong grimaced. It seems his deterrent effect was fading. He needed to step things up.

Primordial Garden

Lex fell to his knees, his Jorlam form forcibly deactivating as he ran out of Jorlam blood in his body. Fortunately, it had lasted long enough for him to attack the tribulation strike.

When he returned to his human form, Lex lacked his head, as well as his left arm, shoulder and neck. All of it had been incinerated by the last attack. Even so, he had survived. More importantly, the nurturing energy was coming up.

When this tribulation started, that energy would burn Lex, but after ten rounds, he was not at the level where he could barely absorb it without getting hurt. As a result, that energy came in handy to heal Lex's body, before reforming it.

It seemed that the Primordial energy was somewhat changing Lex's human subrace. He was going from a normal human towards becoming a High Human - just like Almira.

Many races in the universe had noble bloodlines. The Kraven royalty, for example, were smaller, but despite the smaller size they were stronger and smarter. In dragons, the color golden denoted royalty, and the concept of noble bloodlines existed even among Elves, Dwarfs and Celestials.

The humans, too, had something similar. While the original human kings were not considered to be of any human subrace, many of their descendants were High Humans. The High Human subrace was just the one that, through the course of history, was considered to be the strongest version of the human species.

It wasn't anything too special - they just had longer lives, could control energy better, were more easily able to control laws, and so on. The difference was not so significant that the human race as a whole considered High Humans their natural leaders. They were more likely to become soldiers or warriors because of their enhanced strength.

Lex couldn't understand why Primordial energy would help him slowly turn into a High Human, and he didn't care. At this rate, he would 100% die by the 13th or 14th strike. He needed to pick up the pace of strengthening himself. Fortunately, the gap between strikes was longer as well.

He would first heal up his body, and then think of how else he could increase his strength. He was slowly running out of resources that he had piled up.