Lightning Is the Only Way

"I've already planned everything out," Lasar said, "after all, that's my job."

Lasar then stood up and summoned several things. There were about seven blackish-blue shirts and pants, as well as an emblem. The two things floated over to Gravis, and he retrieved them. Shortly after that, his new clothes appeared around him. On top of his left chest hung the emblem that he had just received. With this, he could officially show that he was part of the Lightning Sect.

"Thank you, Sect Master," Gravis said politely. "How can I acquire a new weapon? Whenever I use my strongest attack, my sabers break."

Lasar looked surprised. "How? Weapons shouldn't break just because you perform an attack. They only break when you strongly hit something that's harder."

"He's speaking the truth," Old Man Lightning interjected. "I've seen the attack. You still remember that Rakshasa Saber he talked about? Instead of infusing it with Energy, he infuses it with Destruction Lightning. After all, his Spirit has an affinity with lightning. This creates a force that a Spirit Weapon isn't made to handle. That's why his weapons break down when he uses that attack. I think he needs at least a high-grade Spirit Weapon to use his strongest attack. Though, that would only work for his current level."

Lasar rubbed his chin. Then, he summoned a saber. "This is a high-grade Spirit Weapon. Take it as a present. After all, you are about to make the Lightning Sect rise."

Gravis didn't stand on ceremony and retrieved it. This saber looked similar to his previous ones but grey in color. Gravis didn't inspect it too much since he would surely destroy it in the future as well.

"Alright," Lasar said. "First of all, I need to negotiate with the Freya's Birch. When it agrees to help us, I'll get some people to modify the Lightning Tower. Currently, it's not made to withstand Destruction Lightning. On top of that, we'll also need access to Life Lightning. Cultivating Destruction Lightning is probably incredibly dangerous to the body. So, we also need to create a new circuit for Life Lightning."

"Want me to do it?" Old Man Lightning asked casually.

Lasar shook his head. "I'll oversee the changes personally. All in all, it should take around a week." Then, Lasar looked at Old Man Lightning with a smirk. "You should prepare yourself to greet our future guest."

Old Man Lightning furrowed his brows. "Future guest?" he asked, unsure.

"Did you already forget, grandpa?" Lasar asked. "A priest of the Heaven Sect will probably arrive in a couple of days, demanding Gravis' life."

Old Man Lightning snapped his finger. "Right! I totally forgot about that. No worries, I got this. After all, if they actually want to fight, I finally have a chance to get what I've waited for." Old Man Lightning laughed. "I wonder what's more important to them, Gravis' death or seeing me ascend to the Unity Realm?"

This reminded Gravis of something. "By the way, how come you are in the Self Stage, old man? I thought the Tree Stage was the highest that people of this world could reach."

Old Man Lightning had a complicated look. "It's not that the people in this world can't get to the Self Stage, but that they refuse to."

Gravis' brows flew up in surprise. "How come?"

"Let me just show you," Old Man Lightning said.

WHOOOM!

A powerful Will-Aura expanded outward, crashing into the ground and walls. Luckily, the walls were made to withstand such power. Gravis was overwhelmed by the sheer might of Old Man Lightning's Will-Aura. He also saw that it started violently affecting physical matter. Level suppression didn't exist for materials without a will, so this could only mean one thing.

"You also have a Unity Will?" Gravis asked in shock. "Why aren't you in the Unity Realm?"

The Will-Aura vanished again. "That's exactly the thing," Old Man Lightning explained. "A Unity Will is called a Unity Will because it is necessary to reach the Unity Realm. Yet, that only holds true for people stopping at the Tree Stage. A Unity Will is also necessary to reach the Self Stage. Contrary to what you might think, reaching the Unity Realm from the Self Stage is way more difficult than reaching it from the Tree Stage."

Gravis furrowed his brows. "So you need something stronger than a Unity Will to reach the Unity Realm from the Self Stage?" he asked.

Old Man Lightning combed his beard. "Not exactly," he said. "The required will is still considered a Unity Will, but it's a level two Unity Will."

Gravis lifted an eyebrow. "Level two Unity Will? There are levels?"

Lasar and Old Man Lightning both looked at Gravis in surprise. "You didn't know?" Old Man Lightning asked.

Gravis nodded.

Old Man Lightning sighed. "I guess that happens if you're not part of a Sect. Anyway, there's a way to categorize Will-Auras. At every Stage, Will-Auras have three levels. The first level is the initial manifestation of the Will-Aura. The second level is when you manage to compress the Will-Aura to about 50%. The third level is when you have compressed it onto a single person."

Gravis thought about it and realized that this made a lot of sense. A normal Will-Aura and a Unity Will were worlds apart. Not categorizing them further would make this more confusing.

Gravis also released his Will-Aura. He hadn't released it since his battle with Manuel, and he tried to compress it as much as possible. After all, he was interested in how powerful his will had grown by now. Due to his experience of compressing his previous Will-Aura, Gravis knew exactly what he had to do. The Will-Aura started becoming more and more compressed.

Old Man Lightning and Lasar watched with interest. They both felt that Gravis had a Unity Will, but they weren't sure about its exact level.

Gravis' Will-Aura became smaller and smaller until…

"I compressed it down to 40%," Gravis said.

WACK!

A cane hit Gravis on the side of his head, throwing him against the wall. This cane strike had not been weak.

"Argh!" Old Man Lightning shouted in frustration. "You infuriate me! Not only are you shooting through the Realms, but you also already have a Level Two Unity Will! This world really is unfair!"

Of course, Old Man Lightning knew that this had nothing to do with the world. He had heard how much tempering Gravis had gone through, after all. He only wanted to vent his frustration since he grew more and more envious as Gravis revealed one strength after another. Of course, he would never act on that envy. After all, Gravis was part of the Lightning Sect, and the stronger he was, the better.

Gravis stood up and dusted his new clothes off. He wasn't really mad at Old Man Lightning since Gravis could understand his frustration. Gravis would also be frustrated if his Will-Aura had stagnated for over a hundred years.

Old Man Lightning groaned. "Anyway, back to the topic. Have you ever wondered why no one in the Core-Continent went through the tenth Stage of Magic Gathering, even though we have multiple methods to achieve that?"

Gravis thought about it and realized that this was actually really strange. "Huh, that's actually really strange."

"That's because, as soon as you cultivate to the tenth Stage, you can't reach the Unity Realm without reaching the Self Stage first," Old Man Lightning explained. "It's incredibly difficult to find tempering at my level. I can destroy all Spirit Beasts in this world, and there is only one other Self Stage cultivator, except for the priests of the Heaven Sect."

Old Man Lightning snorted. "Unfortunately, that coward knows he's weaker than me, so he doesn't dare fight me. Of course, there are solutions to this. Some of our ancestors have reached the Unity Realm through the Self Stage in the past. They achieved that by requesting a tempering from a priest of the Heaven Sect. You should know that it's also the job of the priests to grant tempering to worthy people."

Old Man Lightning laughed slightly. "Of course, with the priests being Heavenborn and all, they are pretty damn powerful. Over 90% of our ancestors that requested this tempering died to the priests. That's why no one dares to cultivate to the tenth Stage of Magic Gathering."

Gravis rubbed the side of his head slightly. "Why didn't you request this tempering?"

WACK!

Another hit with the cane, though lighter this time. "You think I didn't?" Old Man Lightning shouted in frustration. "I requested it more times than I can count, but they never accepted! They still hold a grudge about all the face I made them lose in my youth. That's their way of taking revenge on me!"

Gravis rubbed the side of his head again due to the extra hit with the cane. "And I'm guessing that if you barge in, they will just pile onto you."

Old Man Lightning snorted again. "Of course! They're just waiting for me to do that! Taking on one priest is already a risk, but taking on all four? That's simply suicide! On top of that, if the High Priest gets involved, I wouldn't even know how I died."

"You think a priest attacking us because of you is bad?" Old Man Lightning snorted. "I was fucking ecstatic when I heard that! I would be so incredibly happy when a priest stormed in here, demanding a fight!"

Gravis looked at the ceiling in thought. "Disadvantages can become advantages in certain circumstances," he muttered to himself. He still remembered the issue with his weapon choice after he had reached the Spirit Forming Realm. A saber couldn't bring out the full power of loaded lightning, but that disadvantage had become an advantage with the help of his creativity.

The same had happened again with having a powerful enemy. Normally, having a supremely powerful enemy after your life would make it very hard to join an organization. Yet, this disadvantage had become an advantage.

Lasar had left to negotiate with the tree by now, leaving only Old Man Lightning and Gravis in the hall. After their talk, Old Man Lightning also started walking to the door, and Gravis followed.

WACK!

"And fucking unload your lightning!"