The Innkeeper

Ripley was in the middle of questioning the Marzu when the Mountain-man, formerly known as Ming Jie, opened his eyes. Aura's had no effect on anyone, not to mention that the Mountain-man was sitting far enough away from everyone that any abrupt movements on his part would not cause any other guests harm. That did not mean that others would not sense any harmless aura fluctuations, which is pretty much everyone in the Inn felt it when Ming Jie woke up.

Admittedly, there was a very brief period wherein mortal guests had taken up climbing the Mountain-man unassisted by tools or techniques as a method of training. But seeing as how that might be interpreted as harassment and invasion of personal space, the Inn had quickly put an end to that. At most, they could only allow guests to pose and take pictures in front of it.

So when the Mountain finally did move, there were countless witnesses and guests there, who were momentarily stunned by the unexpected change to one of the Inn's oldest tourist attractions. Then, the excitement of something novel filled them as they began taking even more pictures.

"What is that?" Ripley, who finally paused his unusual survey, asked as he looked towards the towering figure far in the distance.

"An old guest who has been sleeping for a while. I might need to take a momentary leave to go talk to him and ensure there are no issues."

"If he is an old guest, then I think he qualifies well for the survey. I'm just about finished here anyway. Jidore, thank you so much for participating in the survey. May you find the Midnight Inn meeting if not exceeding your expectations."

The angry looking Marzu, who was ready to go to war, merely nodded dismissively. Luthor and the others finally got a chance to go talk to them and clear the air to ensure there was no misunderstanding.

The attack on the Midnight Battalion back then had been orchestrated by a number of beings, as they had eventually gathered, but they were unable to discover the identity of all those who acted against them. Fortunately, there was at least one person, or rather Deity, whose participation was confirmed and so could act as the target for the Marzu's hatred.

Lex had already beaten Ra, but the Deity was not dead, and now had another Demi-Dao Lord daughter appearing out of nowhere. Having allies in the form of angry magical dinosaurs occupy the Deities' time and attention was not something Lex would just give up.

Speaking of Ra's children, he wondered how Bastet was doing. Compared to her family, she had been a lot more friendly. At the same time, he had no desire to meet her any time soon.

Lex and Ripley approached the groaning mountain, who seemed like he was confused and drowsy.

"Hello Ming Jie. My name is Lex - a worker at the Midnight Inn. I am here to check up on you as you have been sleeping for a long time. How are you doing?" Lex asked through his spirit sense.

"Sleeping?" the confused mountain responded. "No, no that doesn't sound right. I just took a small nap while my sys- I mean, I merely closed my eyes for a moment while I thought about my future path. How could I have fallen asleep? No way, what are these notifications?"

The mountain was clearly not in the best state of mind, as it nearly divulged the existence of its system - something the Innkeeper had warned against. But it couldn't be helped, for a lot of unexpected things had happened during its nap.

"I'm here to answer any questions if you have any," Lex said, as he waited for Ming Jie to reorient itself. Ripley, meanwhile, just waited and did not listen in on their conversation as that would be rude. He still wanted to conduct the survey once the Mountain-man was awake though.

The Mountain-man quickly went through his notifications, and finally figured out what the hell had happened to it. He had decided to follow the system's quests, as it concluded that it was the fastest way to grow stronger. The system had told it to plant itself and claim its territory, something that was not easy considering it had been effectively kicked out of its old planet. But the system also informed it that more quests were incoming if it merely waited for them in what was called semi-hibernation mode.

That's what Ming Jie had decided to do, but did not realize that the time scale it was going by was that of a mountain. A couple of decades really were just like a few seconds to a mountain, so it had been sleeping for years and years.

As if that was not all, it had experienced the baptism of the new realm being born and its abundant energy, causing it to undergo a mutation in the type of mountain it was.

Originally, it was a normal mountain, made up mostly of dirt, rock and trace amounts of various ores in its body.

Now, it was a Spirit Core mountain, meaning that a high quality spirit stone deposit had formed inside its body, acting as its Golden core, which changed the nature of the dirt, rock and ores inside of its body. It had grown stronger without doing anything, yet now the requirements for its growth had also changed. Unless it found another brand new realm in which it could plant itself, it was probably going to end up having to plant itself in the Midnight Inn.

That greatly troubled Ming Jie, for more than one reason. It had wanted to once again become human, as well as go back and search for its original planet, as well as the princess he had sworn to protect.

Now… now it had to face the fact that the princess was most likely already dead, and he had nothing to go back to. What was the meaning of its life? What was it…

"Excuse me, I hope I'm not interrupting anything," said Ripley after he felt like the mountain had finally worked off its drowsiness.

"I was wondering if you'd like to participate in a survey?"

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