Lex and Mary chatted for a couple more hours after that. While they talked quite regularly, it was not often for them to have such conversations. From talking about hunting down Damian and torturing his soul for eternity, to talking about how the system would find a way to screw Lex over in terms of system rewards, to Mary's fashion sense and how she should try on outfits that were very specific to certain time periods on earth rather than always just trying different cultures, they talked a lot.

Lex, briefly, even asked if Mary wanted to talk about her previous life. Besides the fact that she was a Celestial, he didn't know much. Yet there was a system restriction preventing her from sharing. He couldn't really understand why, but he guessed that maybe the system didn't want him looking into her life and determining what kind of system she had.

In exchange, Mary asked him about his future. Expanding and protecting the Inn, getting revenge and raising his cultivation levels were all well and good, but did he have any personal goals?

Had he considered dating? Or had he thought about starting a family at all? Being immortal basically meant living for ever, but that didn't mean he had to wait an eternity before he started living his life.

Lex stated that he would always be in danger because of his system, and that he didn't want to start a family till he was strong enough to be sure that he wouldn't get killed, or that he could protect them. There were some mistakes his parents made that he did not want to repeat.

For the most part Mary did not negate nor did she approve of his plans, only listening. She did however mention that not even Dao Lords were perfectly safe - not with what was going on in the universe these days.

There would always be danger, but that did not mean that he should stop living life entirely because of that.

Of course, she did not pressure him or tell him to do anything soon. She merely gave him food for thought since, after all, they were having such deep and honest conversations.

Due to the intensity of the conversations, Lex actually ended up requesting the kitchen for some snacks they could munch on while they talked.

They ended up getting nachos with various dips such as guacamole, salsa, and sour cream that Brenda had tasted to make sure it was not the white glue that was used in preschools.

From there, the conversation shifted to the Inn. They talked about Qawain, Anita and their daughter, Almira. They talked about Velma, who had been missing from the Inn for a while, and about Z.

Lex was well aware of the fact that Z had a small crush on Moon, and thought it was kind of adorable. However, she was more or less destined to become a Dao Lord, or at the very least, a Demi-Dao Lord. On top of that, her life experiences were destined to be unusual.

The first half of her life was miserable, quite frankly, and when she would wake up she would be the literal definition of overpowered. He had no idea how that would affect her psyche, or any relationships she might have in the future. Thus, pursuing Moon was destined to be a tricky endeavor. As such, he had not interfered at all.

Whatever happened, it would be up to the people involved. All he could do was provide them a safe space in which to explore their feelings. Of course, that was considering if Z's crush lasted as long as Moon was asleep. Who knew how long that was going to last?

Then there was Liz. Mary found it highly amusing how thankful Lex was that Liz had decided not to leave the Midnight realm because she had gone entirely mad with power. It was as if she had turned thirteen, so all she wanted to do was cause mischief and prank people with her newfound powers.

Then, the conversation slowly turned to other, random things until eventually the two ran out of things to talk about. They had spent hours, just sitting there talking, and not a single Dao Lord had exited a single meeting - all of them too focused on planning for the future.

Thus, eventually, Lex decided that it would be best to use this opportunity to head on back to the Inn and meditate for a while to recover.

Just as the first time Lex came back, his meditation ended up using some of the Wisp that he had absorbed in the Arch-Heaven. It took all the Dao aura that Lex had been affected by and perfectly allowed him to absorb it, not to mention it helped him grow the extent of his Primordial aura as well as Dao Body percentage.

If he continued at this rate, he'd be able to form a complete Dao Body in less than a year. Heck, even six months would be enough. Unfortunately, he did not have nearly enough of the Wisp for that.

By the time Lex finished his cultivation and returned to the tavern, it was the middle of the fourth day. None of the Dao Lords had exited, which left them relatively free. It was quite refreshing, actually, to not have to worry about everything going wrong at any given moment.

That, unfortunately, was Lex's mistake. To be specific, his mistake was thinking that so long as the Dao Lords were inside their meetings, planning for the future, nothing would go wrong. He had not anticipated that it was within one of the meetings that a major issue occurred - one that went beyond a verbal

squabble.

It was early on the fifth day, and Lex was sitting on the balcony with Mary. He was avoiding going down to Eclipse because he felt like any random

conversation with her could end up causing trouble.

Then, without warning, the top half of the tavern blew up.