The Innkeeper

Bluebird Portal

Even though Lex was at the peak of his physical fitness, he felt exhausted when he got home. He’d picked up an inordinate amount of Chinese take out on his way as well as a pack of cigarettes. He wasn’t really a smoker, he’d paid extra attention to ensure he never got addicted, and never kept any on him. He’d only occasionally buy them when he was feeling stressed, and would quickly discard the pack after smoking a few.

Setting his food down on a table and turning on Netflix he quickly set the table with plates, juices, some water and chopsticks. But before he started his feast he pulled a stool by his open window, lit his cigarette and took a long, deep drag. It had been a few weeks since he last smoked, it felt nice. He took this time to look out on the traffic below, the people coming and going, the sounds of the city and everything else in between. Even with all its hustle and bustle, viewed from a distance the rhythm of the city seemed so peaceful. When he finally finished his smoke Lex quickly blew whatever smoke he could out of the window and sprayed some air freshener.

He washed his hands and sat down, ready to consume more food than was probably healthy and let his thoughts wander. So far there was limited progress towards making more MP, meaning there was none. He couldn’t complete any quests right now, and since Bastet and Falak hadn’t left their rooms there was no opportunity to try and sell them stuff from the gift shop. If his luck panned out someone might find the golden key he left behind and actually be able to use it, but there was no telling when that might be. He could try and see if there was some way he could give keys to cultivators. Or at least find an opportunity to have them ‘discover’ it on their own, since he felt it was unsafe to let anyone know he had any connection to them._.

In cultivation novels the protagonist always auctioned items off or sold them to some giant trading company but that was unlikely here, as he literally had no idea what technology, typical or spiritual, could be used to trace the key back to him. Not to mention, he was absolutely sure the ‘token’ he was given had some kind of tracking function as well so he didn’t want to take any unnecessary risks. If nothing changed, the best opportunity he could see was to wait a week and travel to the new world to see what opportunities it presented. But he would have to prepare for that as well, in whatever way he could.

At some point through his meal he scanned his token and entered the Bluebird online portal to investigate it’s features, and they were numerous. There were forums, chat rooms, news that wasn’t available to the public, trading platforms and much much more. He took his time going through the portal the rest of the day. Every few hours he’d ask Mary if Bastet left her room, and the answer was always no.

He also learnt a lot of basic information that he’d been missing for a while. The first and most important thing he learnt was the first few cultivation levels:

1. Mortals (normal people)

2. Body Tempering (using spiritual energy to temper the body so it could absorb spiritual energy at later cultivation levels)

3. Qi Training (beginning to absorb spiritual energy in the body)

4. Foundation Realm (use the absorbed spiritual energy to create a foundation)

5. Golden Core (form a core in the body to store concentrated spiritual energy)

Cultivation levels above Golden core were not mentioned at all, and even Golden core themselves were mentioned with extreme reverence.

Something interesting he encountered was a cultivation version of the social media platform Twitter called Tempest, where many high leveled cultivators had huge followings, along with various companies and organizations. Most cultivators, he discovered, were at body tempering and Qi cultivation, with the numbers dropping drastically when it came to Foundation realm. Any random Foundation cultivator had at least a few million followers from over the globe.

Another interesting thing he discovered was what was normally referred to as spiritual equipment in novels was called Spirit Tech, and had a huge variety. The prices varied too, so he found household spirit tech for cleaning, tidying, laundry and even cooking for relatively cheap. But he also found body armor and weapons the prices for which went in the hundreds of thousands even at the cheapest models. Furthermore one had to present one’s token when receiving such items and undergo some verification. Some random but interesting spirit tech Lex saw included fully functioning prosthetics, bioengineered nanobots that the user injected in his or her body that automatically healed the user whenever they got hurt, a various assortments of flying devices and fully immersive VR!

He also saw various seminars that were held monthly for multiple organizations. Lex checked a few to see what kind of organizations there were, since he’d heard about them so much, and broadly categorized them into three different groups: ones that conducted R & D, those that procured various resources and those that simply banded people together to protect themselves and their interests. Most organizations only gave very loose descriptions of their activities and purposes, such as developing the latest on spiritual farming technologies or mining for Blue Teltaro (whatever that is). For more details you would have to join, but what they did provide was a very detailed list of benefits they provided for each member. None of this specifically sounded illegal to Lex, but the level of secrecy made him cautious.

Another thing he found, something that interested him specifically, was a self-defense class for beginner cultivators. For someone going to another planet, this sounded essential. He tried to find the closest one to him and signup, and his first class would be in a couple of days.

The last thing that he discovered, and the thing that completely surprised him, was the fact that cultivators were already inhabiting the moon and mars! And not just a few! Apparently there were quite a few cities there already, with extensive travel between the celestial bodies! Considering that he could travel between worlds this should not have been such a huge surprise, but this completely changed a fundamental truth he maintained about the world he lived in. It came as a bigger surprise than he could have imagined. But traveling to either the Moon or Mars wasn’t easy, he had to meet a few requirements, but he was kind of excited about that possibility as well.

Just a few days ago he thought life was so boring, and now suddenly it was so exciting!

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