Jack opened his eyes to the sight of his crew all lazing inside mounds of loot - the complete personification of decadence. The Jolly Rancher was parked on top of a mountain in an extremely visible place, making it easy for it to be spotted by any invading forces.

A hint of realisation dawned on him. No wonder the statue allowed him to retain enough consciousness to control Jack - the thirteen statues had probably been protecting it while they worked on Lex.

Well, now that he had regained control, it was time to set them straight. "Looks like you guys have done a good job of looking after my loot," said Jack as his aura spread across all the items and absorbed them into his own Back of Atlas, leaving the crew stunned and unable to adapt to the sudden change. "Now, as a reward for your service, I think I'll allow you to flex your muscles a bit and get to work," Jack said with a fairly ominous voice.

The crew all trembled as chills went down their spines. Yet before they had a chance to explain, the chains that tied to the two gravity eels pulling the Jolly Rancher flew up in the air and attached themselves to the crew.

An unquestionable force pushed them all to the front, right along the cels, leaving only Jack and Bob on the ship. The gravity eels began to fly, and the crew were forced to fly alongside them, pulling the ship.

Jack, meanwhile, allowed himself to evaluate the situation all around him. Lex was not the only one who had benefited from Regix - so had Jack. While he did not have a Dao Body, he did have Fairy Dust, which was the most adaptable magical material he'd ever encountered.

His use of his Fairy Dust had improved considerably, and now he could finally see a path for him to grow from the Earth Immortal realm to the Heaven Immortal realm.

While the suggestion given to him was to add his own name to the Cosmic Ascendance Spectrum, that was easier said than done. Fortunately, he had encountered a unique set of circumstances that allowed him to progress in spite of the curse.

The greatest issue he faced now was how to exit this realm and continue searching for the Nexus point. That was his most urgent task at the moment.

As the Jolly Rancher took to the sky, Jack could not help but look towards Bob who was still tied to the mast. It seemed like desperate times called for desperate measures.

Back in the Temple of Fasting, the Nuwa statue began imparting the technique to Lex, causing consciousness to be consumed entirely by the technique, and its incomprehensible complexity.

However, a small part of his mind, or perhaps his soul, remained free, allowing him to not only resume controlling Jack, but also to check up on his system. While normally he would not use his system in the presence of Dao Lords, since Nuwa knew about his system, he assumed she'd keep his matter a secret even from these Dao Lords.

After all, they had come into direct contact with his body over the past few months so it would be impossible that his system remained a secret from them - not unless Nuwa herself hid it.

Thus, while Lex learned the technique, he could at least use the system to summon a projection of the Innkeeper inside the Inn and manage things that way. The very start of the technique, as difficult as it was for him to understand, gave him the impression that the mere imparting of the technique would take a long time, let alone learning it.

Fortunately, he had left behind a Karmic clone inside the Midnight Inn. If anything troublesome happened, he could use that to defend himself. More importantly, the thing that allowed him to calm down was that the Butter Knife had been repaired!

Although he would need to sacrifice another Dao Material to charge it up once more, since the previous material had been used up in the repair of the knife, the mere fact that it was usable again gave him great reassurance.

At the same time, it seemed that for the foreseeable future, he could only focus on sitting quietly inside the Inn, managing it - not that such a thing was an issue.

Lex summoned Mary, and his ever reliable assistant reappeared, this time wearing the gear of an astronaut.

"Well look who's back. I didn't think I'd be hearing again from you any time soon the way you disappeared unannounced like that," she said, complaining to Lex.

Lex had naturally not informed anyone of his plans inside the temple. Even though he trusted Mary, some things were better kept secret.

"Sorry, couldn't be helped," Lex said with a resigned expression. "Good job looking after the Inn these past few months. Now that I'm here, I'll take care of things. Send someone to summon the Henali representative. Also, schedule my meeting with everyone waiting to meet with me, I'll be here for a while now."

Besides just the Henali, there were a few other matters that needed to be addressed. The turtle had made some minor progress in nurturing his Heaven, but had run into a problem he could not fix since it wasn't related to gardening.

There was also some minor progress in the development of the realm under the influence of the Midnight Realm Management Panel.

Oh, and Pierre and Brenda's wedding had gone without too much of an issue. The two of them had then gone on a small vacation, exploring some Minor realms, before returning to work.

In a work environment, Pierre managed to handle Brenda just fine. It was outside of work when he was completely dominated by her unexpectedness. Despite how much wealth the two had accumulated, nothing changed in their lives, and they continued to work in a tavern's kitchen - but the issue was that the taverns hadn't been deployed yet.

That, and a few other minor problems he needed to take care of had piled up, so now it was ultimately time to deal with them all. After that, who knew, maybe he'd stroll inside the Inn as the Innkeeper again. It could be fun. Only time would tell.