Lex smirked as he felt the changes beginning to take effect. The upgrades would take years to finish, but already Lotus could feel a hint of the feedback from the realm.

The Crimson Horizon upgrade was expensive, and on the surface it did something pretty simple, but that was far from the case. The Midnight realm was an immature realm, with incomplete laws that were still forming. That meant that the realm was constantly consuming an enormous amount of energy and resources to grow, both from the energy reserves within the realm itself and from the Chaos energy it absorbed from the Void. Yet the process was slow and not efficient in the least because the realm itself would also lose a lot of energy to the Void.

The Crimson Horizon stopped that loss, automatically and drastically

improving the speed at which the realm would mature and grow. Moreover, because the main effect was to recycle energy, it created an excessively stable environment, thereby once again strengthening the realm.

There was one thing Lex needed to be careful of, though. While the Crimson Horizon perfectly recycled energy, there was no restriction on what that. energy was recycled into. Just as Harriot was sending out trillions of souls to avoid the production of excessive energies associated with death, and moreover mass death, Lex would need to keep an eye on the realm to make sure nothing happened that would skew the natural energy type of the realm into a different one.

His back to back expenditures had cost him 580 billion MT, but Lex had no intentions of stopping now. In fact, the reason he began with strengthening the realm was because he needed it to be strong and stable for the actual upgrades he wanted to implement later on.

After Crimson Horizon, Lex scrolled the panel a bit to choose between two upgrades.

The Frigid North upgrade would create a sort of massive frozen land in the north most corner of the realm, the purpose of which would be to nurture countless laws affiliated with the cold, using that as a basis to increase the affinity of all the laws in the realm, making them less likely to resist one another.

Contrary to that, the Molten Dawn would create an ocean of lava in the east most corner of the realm, increasing the laws related to fire and using that as the basis of increasing the affinity of existing laws. Both of them achieved the same end result but through different means. While technically speaking, he could choose both upgrades, but if he chose them both at the same time that would create a period where the realm was more unstable than stable. Choosing them one after another was fine, but simultaneously would go against his current goals. They both cost the same as well.

After a moment, he decided to go with Molten Dawn because... well, did he even need to explain? Lex's affinity with lava was predestined. Thus, he ended up spending another 29 billion MT.

A nice side benefit of Molten Dawn was that it would make it much easier for the turtle to grow plants that required higher temperatures or laws affiliated with heat.

Then, Lex picked the one upgrade he had been setting everything up for. He bought the Valley of Time, which would double the flow of time within that valley, for a measly 1 billion MT.

He set the Valley of Time within the Inn, and sealed off 1000 miles all around it so that no one could enter. Even if Lex bought the valley, it did not mean that it instantly appeared. However, it was true that the specific area around the valley began to fill with laws associated with time, which is exactly what he wanted.

After the Valley of Time, he bought another time associated upgrade called the Winds of Tomorrow and focused it on the same spot as the valley. The Winds of Tomorrow cost 750 billion MT, and was by far the most expensive upgrade he bought yet. That used up another ME, leaving the remainder of the cost as MT.

The Winds of Tomorrow did not, as one would expect, increase the flow of time in a region. Instead, it filled the area with a certain kind of wind which made the laws of time exceptionally stable. This had no effect on the flow of time at all. Rather, its purpose was to ensure that time did not become unstable, and created an area specifically suited to practicing time laws and techniques.

One of the most dangerous things about practicing time affiliated laws was that the slightest accident or misuse could threaten to directly eradicate the user himself. It was unspeakably difficult to resist or survive the backlash from such an accident, so much so that even Dao Lords seldom tampered with the laws of time.

The Winds of Tomorrow merely decreased the chances of making a mistake related to time that would have a severe backlash.

Lex did not buy this upgrade because he was intending on practicing with time. Instead, he bought this upgrade because besides permanent upgrades, the Midnight Realm Management Panel also allowed him to purchase temporary realm related upgrades. Unlike the permanent upgrades, the temporary upgrades would take effect very quickly, ranging from instantly to a few days. The Winds of Tomorrow and the Valley of Time, both together, made it so that Lex could buy a temporary upgrade related to time for much cheaper. While the drop in cost was not so great right now, as these two upgrades were completed the drop in cost would be worth it.

With everything set, Lex directly bought a temporary upgrade that increased the flow of time within the valley by ten times. Well, actually the range was between ten to fifteen times as the exact increase could not be confirmed.

To buy this upgrade for one month cost him 500 billion MT, which was a massive cost for such a short period of time. Once his two upgrades were completed, the price might drop down to 50 MT, but Lex couldn't wait that

long.

As for the permanent upgrade which would increase the flow of time in a certain area by ten times... Lex couldn't see the price, because he hadn't yet unlocked a currency high enough for it.