Lightning Is the Only Way

Nearly half a minute of silence passed as Gravis was stuck cursing Arc while Stella was uncertain on how to proceed.

"So, my mindset is okay?" she asked carefully.

Gravis' head jerked to her as her voice interrupted his frustrating thoughts. "Oh, sure! It's more than okay!" he said quickly. "This mindset is one of the integral parts of making you immune to external interference. To be honest, it has taken a lot for me to understand it myself."

Gravis sighed. "Meanwhile, you understood all of this on your own."

Stella remained silent for some seconds. "Can you tell me about it?" she asked.

Gravis looked with a complex expression at Stella, and Stella quickly gestured that she didn't want to intrude with her hands. "You don't have to if you don't want to," she said. Then, her fingers intersected, and she twiddled her thumbs as she looked to the side. "But I want to know more about you."

Gravis' heart beat faster as his breathing quickened. 'How is she so cute!?'

Gravis quickly shook his head to regain his bearings. "I can tell you some about it, but I have to keep a lot of details secret," he said as he looked at her. "Don't take it the wrong way, but some of my secrets may elicit greed in others."

"I'm not saying that I don't trust you," Gravis said, "but I am saying that I don't trust the people you trust. I can't bet my life on something like this."

Stella completely understood where Gravis was coming from and nodded. "That's okay."

Gravis nodded too.

Then, he told her an abridged version of his meeting with the middle Heaven. Gravis simply replaced the middle Heaven with someone much more powerful than him that was interested in maliciously playing with Gravis. That was kinda true.

After relaying the middle Heaven's words in an abridged form, Gravis told Stella about his encounter with someone incredibly powerful. Of course, this being was the Black Magnate.

"So, in short," Gravis said. "It has required two different, extremely powerful beings to literally punch that truth into me. Without either of them, I wouldn't be able to have this mindset."

Stella combed her hair as she fell into thought. "These two people sound powerful. Can you tell me their names? They should now also be in this world. By the sound of it, they should have already made a name for themselves."

Gravis had a complex expression on his face again. That was why he didn't want to tell Stella much about his past. The reason was questions like these. These were not beings that would reside in a higher world, but since Stella believed that Gravis came from a middle world, it was only logical to assume that these two were now in the higher world.

"Sorry, I can't tell you," Gravis said as he looked to the side. He was not a fan of keeping all of these things secret. He much rather preferred directly telling someone.

However, this world was full of humans, and the humans have already shown their hypocrisy and greed. If Gravis had been as open with his secrets in this world as he had been in the last world, several Immortal Kings would have already kidnapped him.

Gravis was already treading on thin ice with his incredible Battle-Strength. Anything further might motivate someone to become active.

On top of that, Gravis didn't forget the lesson he had learned in the lower world. Back then, Gravis had told Wendy all his secrets without knowing that someone from the Darkness Sect had secretly listened in.

What if Immortal Kings or Immortal Emperors were watching him?

What if they had some kind of method to intercept voice transmissions?

"Oh! That's okay! Sorry for asking," Stella said quickly.

"It's okay," Gravis said. "Anyway, that's everything you need to know. I will try to create a situation that might give you insights into the Law you need. You won't notice when these situations appear, which is the tricky part."

"In short, you can't prepare yourself," Gravis said with a sigh. "I can lead you into the situation, but I can't make you understand. Everything depends on you."

Stella nodded. However, she was still in wonder about this mystical Law.

Gravis had demonstrated Laws that she hadn't even known to exist. These Laws also worked in such mystical ways. Manipulating the perception of the opponent? Something like that was possible?

On top of that, understanding these Laws worked utterly different from understanding other Laws. She had to comprehend a situation and change her perception to understand these Laws? It almost sounded too magical to be true.

"So, what now?" Stella asked.

Gravis shrugged. "Nothing much," he said. "I can't just create these situations. We can only continue cultivating and wait for a good opportunity to present itself."

"So, just continue as usual," Gravis said.

Stella nodded. "Okay," she said. "So, do you want to talk about something else?"

Gravis smiled a helpless smile. "Honestly, I would love to talk more with you, but I need to get on cultivating. I want to create my Saber Intent."

Stella's eyes widened. "You don't have a Saber Intent!?" she shouted in shock.

Gravis smiled bitterly and nodded. "I haven't really come into contact with Weapon Cultivation until I arrived in this world. Until recently, I didn't even know what Weapon Cultivation was and how it worked."

"Wait, so you managed to fight with me without even having your Focus?" Stella asked in shock.

Gravis noticed that Stella used the word Focus. This probably meant that the more powerful Sects in the world also used this word. "Yes, I don't have a Focus yet."

Stella stared in wonder at Gravis, making him feel uncomfortable. "Then, how powerful will you be when you create your Focus?"

Gravis shrugged. "Dunno. Probably more powerful than now. My Battle-Strength is already lower than before due to my two breakthroughs."

"It has been lowered!?" Stella nearly shouted.

Gravis nodded. "When I arrived in this world, the chances of me killing someone five levels above me was about 10%. Right now, it's 0%. I hope with a Focus and the Major Law of the Elements, I can boost it to 50%."

Stella still almost couldn't believe what Gravis was saying. That was insane!

Fighting three levels above oneself was already the stuff of legends!

However, Gravis could fight four levels above himself!

And he wanted to go even further beyond!?

However, something else piqued her interest. "Do you actually know how hard it is to understand the Major Law of the Elements? You need to learn so many other-"

"I know them," Gravis said as he interrupted her.

Stella was taken aback again. "All of them?"

"All nine, yes," Gravis said. "Our fight has given me a lot of insights into this Law. In actuality, I was banking on understanding exactly this Law when I attacked you. I wanted you to force me into mortal danger so that I would comprehend a Law that would increase my defense against the elements by so much that you would die, and I would survive. That Law would have been the Major Law of the Elements."

Gravis frowned. "Sadly, I didn't manage to learn it."

"So that's why," Stella said quietly to herself. That was why Gravis had been so willing to enter a situation of assured mutual destruction. He specifically created a situation where he would definitely die unless he became more powerful.

Stella found that mindset a bit too extreme.

However, Stella also couldn't deny the fact that Gravis' Battle-Strength was insane. She might think that this mindset was too extreme, but maybe that's exactly the reason why her Battle-Strength wasn't as extreme as Gravis'?

In her mind, it was like Gravis was continually going all-in on a coin-toss, one time after the other. This was incredibly risky, and he would lose everything at some point.

However, Gravis was still alive.

Stella sighed and looked to the side. 'I wish I had his luck.'

"I'm going to comprehend my Focus now," Gravis said. "You can do whatever you want, but try to remain somewhere I can contact you. A fitting situation for you might turn up."

Stella nodded. "Okay. I will be reflecting on what you have told me. Call me if you need anything. After all, I'm still in your debt since you are helping me."

"No problem," Gravis said.

Stella turned around to leave but stopped after a step. Then, her head lowered as she scratched her chin.

"Gravis, wait a second," she said.

"Yes?" Gravis asked as he turned to her again.

"You demonstrated something incredible to me. So, in return, I want to demonstrate something incredible to you."

"Hm?" Gravis asked.

Stella turned to Gravis again with a smile.

"Look closely," she said.

Then, one of her fingers went to her chest.

WHOOOOOM!

As she pulled her finger away again, some kind of light-wheel appeared. An about 30-centimeter-wide wheel made of light floated in front of Stella. The wheel had nine shiny jewels embedded near its edges in a circle. All of the jewels had different colors.

Gravis felt the aura of the wheel and noticed all of the level three Law elements were present. These nine jewels represented the nine base level three Law elements. Gravis knew all of these Laws already, but he wasn't able to unleash them since he was missing the Law.

Stella obviously already knew the Major Law of the Elements, which was why she could unleash them.

"The Burning Sky Slash is a technique from the Seething Inferno Sect," Stella said. "However, as you already know, I come from a different Sect. My Sect is called the Nine Elements Sect, and we only accept disciples that know the Minor Law of the Elements. We are not many, but all of us are very powerful."

"This is our core Weapon Technique, the Nine Elements Wheel," Stella said. "I thought you might be interested in seeing it."

Gravis nodded and looked at it closely.

"Let me show you," she said.

Clink! Clink! Clink!

Stella moved her right middle finger to the red jewel, then to the purple jewel, and lastly to the light-green jewel. These three jewels vibrated, and something appeared on Stella's middle finger.

It was a concentrated ball of Punishment Lightning and Inferno. The Storm Element was used as support and added speed and power to the other two elements.

Judging by the reverberations of Energy Gravis was feeling, he was sure that Stella had just used around 50% of her entire Energy storage. That was a bit much for a demonstration.

Suddenly, Stella's smile transformed into a severe expression. Her eyes became narrowed as her Will-Aura activated.

Gravis was taken aback by Stella's sudden shift, but his Law of Safety and Danger didn't get triggered.

Then, Stella turned around and pointed at a location.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Insane destruction wreaked havoc as a mushroom cloud of fire and lightning seemingly consumed the world. Over a hundred kilometers of land were destroyed as the forest around them stopped existing.

Stella had just unleashed the combined power of three elements that had had their powers elevated to the power of level five Laws. In addition, she had used them with a Weapon Technique. This meant that this attack had power even stronger than an average level five Law. Lastly, she had also used around 50% of her Energy.

The destruction Stella had shown was absolutely insane. If this were the middle world, the entire world would have been destroyed by such an attack.

Gravis' eyes widened in shock.

Plonk.

Half a head fell to the ground in the distance.

Gravis felt the remaining aura of the dead Cultivator and concluded with shock that they had been a Peak Immortal, someone two levels above Stella.

"Someone has been listening in on us for quite a while now," Stella said. "I wasn't sure if you knew them or not since it could be that you simply wanted to protect yourself against me by having someone more powerful stay near us."

"However, I'm pretty sure now that he wasn't someone that you knew. After all, his Spirit shook quite a bit when he heard that you didn't have a Focus. Someone you knew would have known that about you."

Meanwhile, Gravis looked at the remains of the head.

'Stella is far too powerful,' he thought with a sigh.