Lex quickly returned to his office and put a Celestial grade resource in the scent diffuser. His intention, this time, was not to enter into enlightenment or to meditate, but to enhance his mental state as he considered the future of the Inn.

The lockdown on the Inn came too abruptly, and the situation in the universe was evolving much too quickly. He needed to reevaluate some plans, consider his future, and prepare for certain troubles. Even now, in the midst of so much, Lex had not forgotten that hint of danger he felt back when he was leaving Arch-Heaven.

There were also some of Jack's matters to consider, including the fact that his cultivation level seemed incapable of rising any further.

He was surrounded by opportunities, yet at the same time, danger lurked behind every shadow.

As the subtle scent emerging from the diffuser filled the room, Lex became more in-tune with his instincts, and his mind became even sharper. Plans began to form in his mind, and he envisioned a new future for the Midnight Inn, even inside a time of war and turmoil.

However, he was certain that no matter what reputation the Innkeeper had built, someone would test it at least once before this war concluded. Most likely, it would be tested again and again. The butter knife would heal soon enough, but that was not all he could rely on. He needed to think of other contingencies, and form deeper alliances.

He looked at the Sun Crow in the air, and then thought of the trillions of guests inside the Inn that the Primordial Garden would send. When he thought of the final destination of those guests being the Origin realm, Lex was reminded of the gift Hiran Kokan had given the Innkeeper before leaving.

Previously, he had not paid too much attention to it. With everything he had going on, how could he be expected to focus on every little gift some Dao Lord gave him? He had too many of them.

Yet now, he had the time to investigate. More importantly, his instincts, which were enhanced by the scent of the diffuser, subtly hinted to him that the gift was far from ordinary.

Lex took out the wooden box given to him by the Governor of the Origin realm and was about to open it, but paused. After a moment, he stood up and put his back against the wall. How awkward would it be if he was blown away just by opening a gift container once again?

Yet when he opened it, there was no overwhelming aura that blasted him. In fact, there was no aura at all. There was a silver ticket of some sort, seemingly made out of trillions of silk like threads.

At first, the ticket was blank, but after being exposed to the spiritual energy in the air, some words began to appear on top of it.

Glaticus Necropolis

The words seemed familiar, as if he had heard them somewhere before, but he could not recall. It was not his fault. Back during the confrontation between Hiran Kokan and Sekhmet, Hiran had screamed at her about betraying the secret of the Origin realm. His voice had been heard by many, yet as a Dao Lord how could he make a careless mistake?

The voice itself carried the power so that all non-affiliated listeners would automatically forget, and that included Lex.

Before he could ponder the significance of the Glaticus Necropolis ticket, he heard the familiar yet unexpected sound of a fresh notification.

New Notification: A realms Axis Eternum aura is detected. Initiating automatic connection strengthening!

New Notification: Permanent connection to the Origin realm established. Access to the Origin realm can no longer be artificially blocked through external means.

Lex's eyes widened his eyes. He knew what an Axis Eternum was, as that was actually not such a great secret - at least amidst a certain level of beings. Once, when he was in the Crystal realm, studying in the academy founded by Cornelius, he had undertaken a special mission to go and establish a connection to a Minor realm. That involved taking control of the core of the Minor realm which appeared in the form of a special item. Forming a connection with the Minor realm provided a huge feedback in terms of spiritual energy which helped raise the cultivation level without affecting the foundation or harming the cultivator.

But that was only a Minor realm. Lex had often wondered if larger, proper realms also had similar cores, or even Mature realms. If he bonded to it, he could not imagine what kind of feedback he would get.

He had even looked into it, and for a long time he found no answer. It was only when he started rubbing shoulders with Celestial Immortals, welcoming super powerful guests and then paying attention to all of them through his system that he had first heard of the term Axis Eternum. Once he heard the term, finding out more about it was not such a difficult task.

Much to Lex's disappointment, most normal realms did not have cores in the form of items, providing a convenient way to bond the realm. However, there were exceptions to everything.

Some unique realms, such as the Folklore realm, were not formed normally. Their birth usually occurred through complicated and irreplicable circumstances, and as a result they were likely to give birth to something called the Axis Eternum, which in simple terms was the core of the realm!

In truth, it was far more complicated. It was the physical hub housing all the laws which operated in the realm. Now normally, the laws of a realm were omnipresent throughout the realm, and there was no such thing as originating from a hub, which is why the existence of an Axis Eternum was actually an

anomaly.

It was a long complex explanation, but in essence it could still be called the core of a realm, right? Bonding with it should still give control over a realm and provide whoever bonded with it a tremendous boon of some sort? One would think, but Lex could not get a concrete answer no matter who he asked. Even Mary claimed to not know, or not remember. However, his instincts as well as his logical deduction stated that this was far from the truth. There were some secrets related to it, of which he was sure. He'd had enough exposure to universal secrets to be able to detect one when he encountered one.

In fact, if Lex wanted to take his time and deduce what the secret might be, he was fairly confident that he could come up with an explanation that was at least 50% accurate. He didn't know where that feeling came from - maybe it was the scent from the diffuser - yet his gut told him it was true. But that

hardly mattered.

What was more interesting was that the system could create a permanent connection to realms merely from the aura of an Axis Eternum.

Lex did not ponder over why Hiran would hand over a ticket to an Axis Eternum to another Dao Lord. Maybe he was confident that no one could steal

it from him, or maybe there were other secrets involved.

What mattered for now was...

Of the 32 billion guests inside the Inn, cultivating with the energy of the

Primordial Sun Crow, most could return to their homes if he reopened the connection. Yet that would also invite many guests from the Origin realm into his Inn, not to mention it would make the other guests unable to leave to their respective realms dissatisfied.

Thus, the moment the permanent connection was formed, he bought a Lockdown token from the Token Shop and put the Inn inside a lockdown. Normally, that would also prevent him from coming in and going out, but with his new increased authority over the Inn he could avoid that restriction. This was also a convenient excuse to keep all the guests from the Primordial Garden inside the Inn a little longer. While the tiny increase in growth percentage might not seem like much, in effect it could save millions of years.

The expense for the token itself was nothing to Lex, not with so many ME left, not to mention so many MT and MP. That was also why when the Primordial Garden bought so many keys to send their guests over to the Inn, Lex decided to keep it at cost, meaning they bought it for the exact price that the system offered it for, giving Lex no profit.

It was a small act, but he believed that the Dao Lord purchasing the keys would

be able to sense if Lex was profiting from him or not. In that case, he'd rather focus on establishing a better relationship than profiting a mere few MT from

keys sold.

He was one of the big boys now, with a lot of money. He didn't need to quibble over this small stuff. Speaking of which, he could now begin to upgrade his Inn using the Midnight Realm Management Panel as well. He had sufficient funds

for it.