Lightning Is the Only Way

"Stop!" Gravis shouted, out of breath.

"What's up?" Stella asked, equally out of breath.

"I need to do something else," Gravis said. "I can't do this all the time!"

Stella looked with a sad expression at Gravis. "Do you not enjoy it?"

Gravis' inner fire was immediately stocked again after seeing her cute expression, but he kept himself in check.

"No, that's definitely not it!" he nearly shouted. "I love you, and I definitely enjoy my time with you, but I also have to think of my Cultivation."

Stella's brows furrowed. "Hey, don't act like I'm not handing you any Laws right here."

Gravis nodded quickly. "Yes, I know, but that's not it. Mortis is already finished with the Soft Pure Law, and he has been for the last 2,000 years. He already contacted me and told me that he will focus on the Body Composition Laws."

"When I heard that, I've focused on comprehending your Body Composition Laws, and I already made a lot of progress, but I can't only focus on your Laws. Yes, your two level five Laws of Punishment Inferno and Frostfire are still immensely useful for me, but what after that? I need to set up my plan for the future," Gravis explained.

Stella frowned. "You're talking like you're only with me for my Laws."

Gravis' insides immediately shook in nervousness. "No, no!" Gravis quickly said nervously. "I'm not-"

However, Gravis stopped when he saw Stella giggling.

Then, Gravis sighed and also had to laugh at himself.

"I understand, Gravis," Stella said as she summoned a new set of robes. At the same time, she was also fixing Gravis' hair so that he didn't look so disheveled.

Gravis also summoned a new shirt and pants.

"So, you finally are ready to build the Gravitas Trading Firm, huh?" Stella asked.

Gravis nodded. "Yes, I've wanted to do that for a really long time by now."

Yes, this was Gravis' grand plan that he had come up with so many years ago.

Gravis needed resources and access to Law Comprehension Areas if he wanted to become more powerful. Having a home would also help.

So, Gravis decided to create something that he was uniquely qualified for.

A trading hub between beasts and humans.

Beasts had an overabundance of materials and Law Comprehension Fruits.

Humans had technology, Immortal Stones, Formation Arrays, Weapon Techniques, and so on.

It was essentially an exchange between resources and intelligence.

It sounded logical, and everyone with even the slightest mind for business would have thought about creating something like this.

So, had it been done before?

No.

Why not?

Because it simply wasn't possible.

So many humans with a mind for business had wanted to create something like that. Some of them even got the support of a Peak Sect. After all, Peak Sects would be very interested in the wealth of the beast territory.

The problem was the beasts.

No human had ever gotten the permission of the beasts.

The beasts knew that humans were very shrewd and scheming creatures, which was why they intrinsically didn't trust even a single word any human said.

So, even if the human told the whole truth and genuinely acted in good faith, the beasts still didn't trust them.

Yet, what about Gravis?

Gravis had a beast body, and Gravis knew exactly how he should talk with beasts and how he should talk with humans.

Additionally, Gravis' Battle-Strength alone would win him a ton of respect from the beast side.

Lastly, Gravis had gotten permission to go ahead with his plan from Arc, which also included permission from Narcissus.

Narcissus was one of the most powerful beings in this world, and he definitely had the power to represent the entire beast territory.

With Narcissus' permission, the beast side had been handled.

So, Gravis only had to get the permission of the humans.

Gravis had decided to go to the All-Matter Sect back then for permissions.

Why?

Because the main trading goods from the beast side would be ore, and the All-Matter Sect basically had a monopoly over all the ore in the world.

If Gravis' actions resulted in another Peak Sect getting a ton of ore, the All-Matter Sect would feel like its monopoly was under attack. This would quickly pull the ire of the All-Matter Sect towards Gravis, and some Immortal Emperors might appear to kill him.

Yet, if he directly went to the one with the monopoly, no one else would mind very much.

After all, the All-Matter Sect already had full control over the ore.

The prices would still stay the same, but there would be more ore to go around.

For the other Sects, it would make no difference.

Gravis had also planned on trading these Law Comprehension Fruits, but he wouldn't have sold them to the All-Matter Sect.

Law Comprehension Fruits would basically allow someone to comprehend a powerful Law in no time at all once. They couldn't consume them all the time since that would weaken their abilities for comprehending Laws, but only once was already incredible.

Imagine every genius in every Sect getting enough to comprehend Laws.

The Holy Sons and Holy Daughters would jump from two level five Laws to three level five Laws.

The Holy Son and Holy Daughter Candidates and Core Disciples would jump from one level five Law to two level five Laws.

That would be incredible!

Sadly, level six Law Comprehension Fruits were probably off the table.

The number of level six Laws decided the stability of this world.

The same thing was true for the core Formation Arrays and Weapon Techniques of humans.

These things secured the survival of humanity, and humans would never give them to the beasts.

In short, the two sides would exchange things to increase the power of their talented youngsters but wouldn't exchange things that were very interesting for the peak powers of a Peak Sect.

Yet, trading these Law Comprehension Fruits was still risky.

If any Peak Sect that wasn't in direct contact with Gravis heard about these fruits, they would either strongarm themselves into a trade agreement or would directly kill the Gravitas. After all, humans also had each other as enemies and rivals, and they wouldn't allow another Peak Sect to become powerful enough to rule over them all.

At some point, the entire representative force of humanity would trade with the beasts via the Gravitas.

Was that a good thing?

No, definitely not!

If the entire humanity had access to the Gravitas, not a single Peak Sect would be able to get a hand up over the other Peak Sects. The Peak Sects would quickly form an agreement, and Gravis wouldn't only have one Peak Sect as a trading partner, but all of them.

This meant that every potential human customer in the world worked together.

This meant that they could be much more forceful in trades and demand lower prices.

At some point, either the beasts wouldn't accept these prices anymore, or Gravis wouldn't make a profit anymore.

So, the Gravitas would go bankrupt.

Because of that, Gravis had never intended to trade the Law Comprehension Fruits easily.

However, now, everything was different.

Gravis had completely offended the entire human world except for the Purist Sect and Underworld.

His old plan of going to the All-Matter Sect didn't work anymore.

Originally, Gravis had already decided to abandon his plan. Without the help of a Peak Sect, no matter where Gravis decided to create the Gravitas, a Peak Sect would find it and destroy it.

Yet, Exar had come to the rescue.

Even though Gravis had offended all of humanity, Underworld and the Purist Sect would still trade with him.

This new development was even better than the original plan since Gravis could also directly trade the Law Comprehension Fruits.

The only two ways the other Peak Sects could get involved in this trade would be either via Underworld or via the Purist Sect.

Obviously, both ways wouldn't work for the Peak Sects.

The Peak Sects couldn't allow Underworld to gain even more power over them, and they simply would see the door slammed into their face when they went to the Purist Sect.

Underworld and the Purist Sect were cut off from the other Peak Sects.

As long as Gravis traded with them, there would be no danger of humanity uniting against him.

Like this, this horrible concept of a "union" wouldn't become a reality.

Gravis couldn't allow the Peak Sects to unionize!