The next time Lex woke up, he was feeling much better, and much worse at the same time. The entire time he was in the Void, he was more or less unconscious, so he did not know what state his body had reached in its final moments.
When he first gained consciousness, Lex actually felt nothing. He felt no pain, but he also could not sense his body. He could not open his eyes, breathe, or do anything else. He would have panicked if his mind hadn't been incredibly groggy.
He vaguely recalled Mary's voice, but he could not recall what she said. His consciousness faded soon. The next time he woke up, although the situation was not much better, he was lucid at least.
He could not feel any spirit energy in his body, or any of his other senses, so he used his spirit sense to explore the situation. That's when he discovered that he… had turned into a pile of goop!
He had turned into a vaguely spherical mush of shredded muscle, skin, fat, crushed bones and everything else that constituted his body! There was nothing about him that resembled a human!
The most alarming thing for him was when he used his spirit sense to investigate his 'body' he found that he did not even have a brain! For a moment, Lex thought he was dead, and had come back as a ghost!
But eventually he realized that his consciousness was still linked to the deformed meat ball he had turned into, and investigated further. While the rest of his body had been thoroughly pulverized, he discovered that at the very center of his being, his Golden core remained intact!
It looked dull, and as if it had suffered some wear, but otherwise was fine! There wasn't even a crack on it! But, beside his core, there were also a few items, and they had not survived unharmed the way his core had.
Pelvailins ring was covered in cracks, and seemed on the verge of breaking. So too was the case with his spatial bangle, though his necklace which carried the Silent Wanderer had fared better.
Nothing else in his possession survived, but Lex was not too disheartened. Unfortunately, search as he might, he could not discover Z anywhere near him.
Before he could converse with Mary, Lex's consciousness faded once again. When he woke up next, his situation was 'much' better. He no longer resembled a goop, and it seemed his body had regained some semblance of shape. The mass of tissue that made up his body had spread out a bit, resembling the vague outline of a newborn baby. He also felt his meridians being reformed, connected to his Golden core!
He tried to circulate his cultivation technique, but there was not even a single drop of energy in his body. All of it was being absorbed by his core passively and being used to restore his body.
"Mary, are you there?" he asked weakly in his mind.
"Lex! Finally! You're awake! I was so worried!"
"How long have I been ? What's going on outside? Did the battalion return safely?"
"Everything inside the Inn is very stable, though we only have around one hundred thousand guests still staying, and even they probably won't stay too long. It's been three weeks since the Inn shut down so no new guests are coming in, and things have slowed down.
"The battalion is fine! A majority of them spent only a couple of days resting before they were ready to go. A few of them are still in recovery rooms. It seems like those who have the Anachronistic Ignition bloodline all pushed themselves beyond their limits, and delayed the resulting exhaustion and bodily harm. They are now slowly allowing themselves to sustain it while the Recovery room helps them heal. Everyone else is fine. There are two major things…"
Before Mary could complete her sentence, Lex once again felt his consciousness fading. It seemed the little energy he had accumulated had all been spent in communicating with her.
Lex did not know how much time had passed, but the next time he woke up, he felt that a much longer time had gone by.
His body once again looked somewhat human, and he had reformed much of his muscles and inner organs. His bones were also reforming once again. His meridian network was by far the most recovered, and it even contained slight traces of spirit energy within!
If there was one thing that left Lex feeling a little remorseful… it was that his new body had a total height of 1 foot (30 cm)!
"Mary, how long has it been?" Lex asked, feeling tired even though he had just woken up.
"It's been an entire month since we last talked," said Mary, a hesitation in her voice.
"Lex, before you fall asleep again, there's something really important we need to discuss. It's about Velma and some devils…"
"What is it?" Lex asked, suddenly feeling alarmed. The Midnight Inn and the battalion had been targeted by devils, so he was especially sensitive to matters relating to them at the moment.
"Well… there's a group of devils who… who follow a comic series she writes, apparently. Even though she uses a pseudonym, they discovered her identity. Now, all of them, a total of 33, have come to the Inn and are constantly proposing to her!
"What's worse, she apparently had many hidden admirers. Once they discovered that the devils were trying to marry her, they all began proposing as well. Now, there's about a thousand guests following her around wherever she goes and proposing to marry her! It's.. causing certain problems.
"Velma was considering starting a harem, but fortunately Gerard returned and talked some sense into her, so she is holding off. But her suitors want to start a tournament, and claim that only the winner has the right to court her. But since you have been asleep, they can't officially start an event…"
Lex lost consciousness again.