The Innkeeper

Instead of continuing to worry about the hopeless child, Morrow channeled some of his energy into James. The exhaustion the cane felt wasn’t only mental - it was a very literal exhaustion caused from using up a tremendous amount of power to delay Lex’s Dao Body tribulation.

James himself, however, didn’t even seem to notice the energy flowing into his body, helping him recover from the fatigue of pretending to be someone powerful and mysterious. Instead, he pulled up his holographic interface - something he had built himself after spending endless years within the library studying its books.

The interface was tapped into the laws of the universe, and delivered information to the library much in the same way Dao Lords stayed in touch with whatever was happening in the universe. Of course, the only reason James could build something that touched upon the laws in such a way was due to the inherent power of the Fable of Time.

"Look, this is what I’m talking about! Lex, the Bulldozer, Williams, an S tier worker of the Midnight Inn," said James as he pulled out a picture of a collective card. The image was a picture of Lex holding a missile and threatening the soldiers of the Henali alliance from back when he went to rescue the Midnight Battalion.

Besides the picture, and the title, the card contained bits of other information. For example, the card gave the user +4 strength, +3 endurance, + 2 speed, + 1 intelligence as well as a ’forever alone debuff’.

There was also interesting flavor text which was a direct quote of something Lex said to a guest inside the Inn during the early days of the Inn: ’You can take a man out of a suit, but then the man would be naked.’

Morrow looked lamely at James, and said nothing, mainly because he knew that when he got like this, James wouldn’t listen to anyone.

"He’s one of the only characters from the Midnight Inn series of the Mages Gather cards that has multiple versions. There’s Lex the Bulldozer, Lex the Wrecking Ball, and finally, Lex the Bombastic Bazook! But these cards are incredibly rare - according to the Mages Gather forum, only 20 Lex cards have ever been opened across the universe!"

Morrow, the cane, flew away to the bar and made himself a very strong drink. By the time he returned, James was still talking and geeking out about Lex without ever realizing that he had ever left.

"James, you should really go and stabilise some more Fractured time. At this rate, it won’t be long before Lex unlocks the seal on the Fable of Time so you should make the most of this time," said Morrow when he eventually couldn’t take any more.

James, who had been rambling on and on, finally broke free from his excitement.

"Good point. But I’m going to go nap first - all that acting really wore me out," responded James as he waved to the cane and made his way to the corner of the library he treated as his bedroom. As he walked, he could not help but lament his own sorry state, and how different it was from a celebrity like Lex.

Once upon a time, James was a normal teenage human who used to write online fanfiction for his favorite books. Then one day he wrote a fanfiction called the Fable of Time, and, well, somehow provoked the actual Fable of Time.

As absurd as it sounded, that’s the story of how he got trapped inside this book, except that the Fable of Time wasn’t really a book. It was a legacy left behind by some dude known as the Timekeeper. This legacy was made from the remnants of his Dao before he died.

The original purpose of the Fable of Time was to act as a sort of trial. Anyone who mastered the legacy, even a little bit, could become the master of the book Fable of Time, and inherit everything else the Timekeeper left behind inside the book.

Unfortunately, the Timekeeper was from a universe known as Pentagal, and time worked differently there. Thus, within this universe, his Dao didn’t work properly, causing a glitch in how the book worked.

Thus, James had been stuck inside this book for hundreds of years already, his age, mentality and even cultivation frozen in time, unable to grow. The only way to fix the legacy was to smuggle a certain amount of the trapped, fractured time within the book.

When, many years ago, Lex stumbled on the Fable of Time, Morrow convinced James to pretend to be the Timekeeper and strike a deal with Lex to help them smuggle out the fractured time. They just never imagined that Lex, who had somehow managed to resist the book’s inclination to avoid people, would grow to become so powerful.

Fortunately, his uniqueness allowed them to use him to smuggle out much of the stabilised, fractured time trapped within the book.

James himself was just a mortal, so pretending to be a secret badass in front of an actual badass like Lex was quite tough, and he had to rely on Morrow’s power for that. Morrow, being the original Timekeeper’s cane, was naturally super powerful.

Once the issues with the Fable of Time were fixed, James too would be able to cultivate. He couldn’t wait till he had his own adventures across the universe, and the Mages Gather did a series on him.

Unfortunately, he could not get his hands on any of the cards in here, so he had to resign himself to just looking at their pictures.

Just as James retired to his ’room’, he received a notification from his holographic interface. One of his online friends had pinged him. Apparently there was a new set of Mages Gather cards being released!

James quickly opened the live stream and watched him unpack the latest pack. The first card he saw was that of a fairy! How rare!

"The Pocket Calamity? Sounds intimidating," he said as he lay in bed and watched the rest of the unpacking.

From a different corner of the library, Morrow sighed once more. There was a time where his very presence inspired awe and terror. Now he was a babysitter to a perpetual teenager. How times change.

Lex suspected nothing close to the truth about his doppelganger, but he had a strong feeling that his copy wasn’t being entirely honest, nor was he as formidable as he claimed to be. That did not mean he did not wield incredible strength, for Lex felt tremendous pressure coming at him from the pipe and the cane he carried.

At least it was good to finally know a bit of what was hidden in his forehead. Only a few seconds after he left the library, he found himself back in the Joro realm. Although it wasn’t the location he had entered the Gilded Hollow from, he recognized the laws of the realm at least.

For a moment, he felt the laws of the realm - no, the laws of the universe lock onto him almost as if a tribulation was about to be triggered. The feeling, however, did not last.

Lex nodded. It seemed that his doppelganger really had the means to delay his tribulation. Maybe he really was very strong, and it was just his personality that was a little... off.

Lex took in a deep breath, taking in all the fresh air from his own universe, allowing himself to feel the touch of familiar laws. It felt great!

"I’m back!" Lex yelled in excitement, not expecting how great it felt to be in his own universe. It was the kind of thing one wouldn’t realize that they would miss until it was gone. Now that he was finally back, he felt that the spiritual energy from this universe was cleansing him out, as if he was filled with contamination!

No sooner had he had that thought that a whirlwind of energy started to form around him as it flooded into his system, washing out all the energy he absorbed from the Hollow. Fortunately, replacing the energy did not make him any weaker, and kept him at his peak strength.

Lex began sensing his surroundings as he began considering when and how to return to his main body. Almost as soon as he began, Lex felt the familiar aura of River and Pearl, and saw that they were in a bit of a bind.

He could not help but smile. Since he was living out the cliche of guiding them from the necklace, he might as well show up at the last moment to save them.

He began to chuckle as he imagined it, but then froze. His expression, his thoughts, everything froze alongside of him as he tried to make sense of what he was sensing.

This... didn’t make sense. This had to be wrong. Why could he sense the aura of... Z’s blood?

His bright eye began to slowly darken, and the grin on his face began to slowly withdraw as he checked again, and again, and again. Unfortunately, no matter how much he checked, the result was the same, so he summoned his Karmic Bead, and tried to activate the Karmic Clone he left with Z.

It wouldn’t activate.

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