It would be absurd to assume that the flow of time could be so easily changed, yet the days leading up to the tea party seemed to fly away faster than anyone anticipated. The venue was set, and so was the time. There was only one, missing component in the tea party.

While Lex could theoretically have the party without addressing that final component, it might lead to the Innkeepers reputation falling. At a time when he was doing his best to raise the Innkeepers reputation as high as possible, such a thing could not be afforded at all.

Yet, solving the problem seemed outside the limits of what he could do.

The issue at hand was a simple one. Although Lex did not know the habits of Dao Lords, for mortals and immortals, at least, the concept of a tea party without tea or food sounded absurd. The issue, then, was that he did not know what he could feed Dao Lords that would satisfy them!

Lex thought of countless possible ways to address this issue, but found no solution. Even the Galactic Sovereign turtle could not produce tea that would satisfy Dao Lords in a short frame of time, and especially not in a realm like the Midnight Realm that was limited by its upper ceiling of what it could make.

Lex considered asking Wu Kong to steal him something, or maybe make his payment in some Dao level food. But if he did that, everyone would know that it wasn't the Innkeeper who got the food, it was Wu Kong.

He tried baiting the system into giving him a quest that might reward him with what he needed, but that didn't work either.

Lex asked Mary for solutions, hoping that maybe he could use his Amber Chaos Resin to make, or maybe even trade for some food that Dao lords might like, but it was for naught. It seemed that, for once, Lex was truly going to fail... as if.

"Aura farming 101 with Professor Williams," Lex said to Mary once all options were proven pointless. "There is no situation in which you cannot pose. If you can't get your hands on top grade stuff, then purposefully go for the most basic things possible!"

Mary resisted the urge to roll her eyes, and instead continued to listen to Professor Williams' lecture on posing.

"Since I can't get my hands on top level Dao ingredients, nor do I have a way of preparing them either, I'm going to have a mortal prepare the simplest possible meal for them. In fact, when I say mortal I mean mortal. Now all we need to do is find a chef who has absolutely zero cultivation, but is a great cook.

"At the same time, we need to think up the most basic and mundane dishes and prepare a menu including only them. We don't have much time, so this is going to be close. If we can't find a decent chef in time, then I'll just have to buy one from the system."

Thus began a manhunt for a literal man, or woman, with no cultivation at all and highly appraised cooking skill. It was simultaneously harder and easier than Lex expected.

It was easy because within the realm that the humans had migrated to, the legendary Chef cultivator known as Gordon Rumplestilskin had started a show in which kids who had not yet cultivated competed with their cooking skill for a chance to get admission into his Cooking Based Cultivators Sect called Master Cultivator Chef.

So, in a mere matter of minutes of beginning his search, he found countless children with no cultivation who could cook.

The difficulty came with the fact that they were kids, and while they were technically decent cooks, the pressure of cooking for actual customers intimidated them greatly.

Thus, Lex, in partnership with Gordon, arranged for a competition. 200 children took part, each of them acting as a restaurant chef for an exact 100 guest dinner party.

Nearly two weeks of intense competition, drama, emotional moments and revelations, unexpected breakthroughs in cooking abilities, and general festivities later, a winner was finally selected.

The winner, and this was no joke, was someone called Cole Sanders, and he had won the competition because of his famous southern style fried chicken which won over anyone and everyone who tasted it.

As far as Cole was told, he had won the opportunity to cook a meal for some important guests, after which he would gain admission into Master Cultivator Chef Sect with a full scholarship and a few other prizes besides.

The kid was excited, but not overwhelmed. He had no idea that he was actually cooking for nearly a hundred Dao Lords. Oh well, what was the worst that could happen, right?

Lex had recently adopted a positive thinking mentality so he saw no issues with this arrangement at all.

Gerard had returned from delivering his letter, and though he requested some time off to rest after his mission, Lex noted that he was showing signs of breaking through. Soon, he would be one step closer to the peak of the Earth Immortal realm.

Ripley had confirmed that the Versalis Bank would send a representative, and the Governor had also sent word that he would personally lead his delegation to the party. Wu Kong had been ready to go since he got the key, though unfortunately, the key didn't work at the time so he couldn't teleport over. Almost everything was ready. Now, it was finally time for the Innkeeper to make an appearance once more.

Sitting in his office, Lex spent the last twenty four hours leading up to the tea party meditating, and getting mentally prepared for the most critical party of

his life.

Lex always thought that his wedding would be the most important party of his life, but nope, there was no way in hell his wedding could ever beat this tea party with almost a hundred Dao Lords in attendance. It just wasn't possible.

A few hours before the party began, Lex finally opened his eyes, not a hint of doubt or concern in them. He was totally focused, and was more "in the zone' than even the Flow state could put him in. He was ready.