The Innkeeper
chapter-608

The glass bottle that Lex took out was only a very mundane glass bottle. It was not made from any spiritual material, nor did it have any mystical abilities. The reason Lex took this out first was because he wanted to get an idea for how quickly the liquid worked, and if it worked on ordinary materials as well, or was it restricted to living beings.

In scientific terms, if Lex were conducting an experiment, then the glass bottle would be the control. Once he had an understanding of how the liquid, which Lex had started to call Holy water temporarily, behaved, then he could find a suitable container for it..

Using his spirit sense, he grabbed the bottle and lifted it into the air. Slowly, so as to not cause a splash, he dipped the bottle into the Holy water and filled it to the brim. Then he lifted the bottle up in the air, holding it directly above the pool in case the bottle also dissolved.

But Lex did not even have time to properly get in position. Even just as he was about to begin waiting, the glass cracked, and then shattered. The pieces fell into the pool alongside the extracted liquid and quickly settled to the bottom. Suffice to say, the Holy water was not harmless.

Next, he took out a jade bottle. It had some medicine Lex had stored for emergency situations, in case encountered someone who was hurt, and removed it. Even as far as special containers went, this jade bottle was still not the best, but it contained a trace of a spiritual attribute, used to retain the medicinal potency of whatever it held. It was also sturdier than glass, and not as easily broken.

He repeated the process, but did not get much better results. Although the jade did not immediately shatter the way the glass bottle did, it was immediately covered in small cracks, which eventually grew until the jade broke apart.

Next, Lex took out something he hadn't used in a long time: a bottle of Botlam Dew! It was not the dew Lex was after, but rather the bottle it came in. Regardless of all its shortcomings, the one thing Lex could never accuse the system of was giving him low quality items.

If this bottle didn't work, then Lex would officially run out of containers. It wasn't as if he went around with his spatial bangle full of bottles to use for various situations.

Once again, he repeated the process, but although the bottle resisted for a little longer, it too eventually broke.

By now, all the shards of glass and jade that had fallen into the Holy water previously had disappeared, and Lex detected the slightest increase in the size of the pool. The increase was so small he would not have noticed it if he weren't looking for it.

Lex paused for a moment and considered the situation. Although he planned on conducting a few more tests, it seemed fairly certain that anything he would use to try to contain the liquid would dissolve. That was an issue, for if he wanted to submit the liquid into the Gift shop so that he could discover what it was, he would need to at least contain it for a few minutes. After all, returning to the Inn from the Crystal realm took quite a bit longer than normal.

If he had to go on by what Toro said, the only thing that could contain the liquid were his tenets, but that was only because they interacted with laws.

Based on that, he could think of two ways to contain the liquid. Either he could use arrays, or he could try his own spirit energy since he had suspicions that it had something to do with laws.

But it was best to be sure first, so he continued his tests of trying to contain the liquid. Since he had run out of containers, he tried other things. He tried soaking the liquid up in some cloth. He tried storing it in the curves of some metallic armor. He tried freezing it so that it would become solid. Nothing seemed to work, as any material it interacted with would dissolve, and temperature seemed to have no effect on it.

In the end, Lex became too impatient and began to devise a way to trap the liquid using an array. His plan was simple: he would store a single drop of liquid trapped inside an array which kept it floating in the middle so the liquid would never actually come in contact with the array. The array itself would then be fit inside a container so that Lex could move it around.

He would make the array so that it would last for at least 30 minutes, which would give him plenty of time to send it to the gift shop and read its description.

Coming up with the relevant array was pretty easy. Lex had long divised his own way to create arrays by implementing structures similar to functions in programming languages. Of course, this was only true for simpler arrays; if the array had to perform complex actions, or bring about extremely powerful reactions, he would still need to spend more time working on them.

A minute later, he finalized the array and activated it. At first, it seemed to work. The drop of liquid was suspended in the air, kept there by a gentle yet constant push generated by the array. Even Toro, who was watching from afar, seemed surprisingly hopeful.

But then something happened that Lex had not foreseen. The array ran out of power all too quickly! According to Lex's design, the array should have lasted for 30 minutes, yet it had not even lasted for 3 seconds! What's more, as the drop fell back to the pool, it turned into two drops right before Lex's eyes!

This… he couldn't believe it. This time, he tried again, but with an array designed to last much longer. This time Lex spent well over 20 minutes to design the array, making sure there were no flaws and that it would last at least a couple of days.

He did not mind brute-forcing a solution, but the premise was that the consumption of the array's energy stayed constant to what Lex had already witnessed.

He tried again, and once again a single drop was suspended into the air.

1… 2…. 3… Lex counted in his mind. When he reached 10 seconds and saw that the array was not destabilizing, he felt himself relax. If the array lasted at least a few minutes…

Before the thought was even complete, the array collapsed, and this time, the single drop turned into dozens of drops, causing a ripple in the puddle when they fell back.

"Don't do that again," warned Toro. "It's increasing the size of the pool too fast. The more the liquid accumulates, the stronger its effect becomes on the surrounding creatures."

Lex frowned.

The more troublesome this liquid was, the more he wanted to get his hands on it. But he was running out of ideas. The only thing left to do was try out his own spirit energy, or perhaps his own body.

There was a reason Lex hadn't tried directly using his spirit sense on the liquid. Since it could corrode even an immortal, chances were it would do the same to him, and he really didn't want to face the hassle of recovering from another injury.

He wasn't really concerned about any significant damage to himself, though. Although healing was very annoying for him, he had all the benefits of a body cultivator and more. That meant that, at this point, even if he lost a limb, with enough time and energy, he could grow it back.

With a sigh, Lex steadied his mental state. He assumed that, even if the liquid did not corrode him, once he touched it his desire to drink it would multiply. But until he verified what this liquid really was, and what it did, he could not take that risk.

He used the technique Impervious Hands and slowly dipped the tip of his finger in the liquid. As soon as he felt any harm he would immediately pull out, but he was not at all ready for what happened when he touched it.

The Lotus tattoo on his back stirred. The Lotus had fallen asleep after the immense effort it put into refining Lex's body when he was previously injured, but the moment Lex touched the liquid it began to wake up.

It wasn't that the Lotus was attracted to the liquid. No, instead, it felt great danger!

But even before the Lotus could fully wake up, and respond to the danger somehow, a stream of information rushed into Lex's head from a very familiar source.

Regal Embrace had identified the liquid, and immediately told Lex to drink it up! This was the kind of resources that he desperately needed to evolve his cultivation technique, but could never hope to actually encounter!