Lightning Is the Only Way

SHING!

Gravis appeared inside Arc's clearing. It was just as peaceful as always, except…

"Who's that?" a deep voice asked.

Gravis looked around and noticed that there were about ten beasts present, all having different sizes. There were small beasts, and there were beasts over a hundred meters tall. One, in particular, was over 500 meters tall.

Of course, such sizes appeared gigantic to humans, but for beasts, this was still considered rather small.

Funnily, all other beasts sat on the back of the huge one, which was an elephant. The tall beasts sat on his tusks while the smaller ones sat on his ears. Some also sat on his head.

Gravis had to admit that all of this looked rather adorable.

Adorable?

Cultivators and humans, in general, wouldn't call something like this adorable, but Gravis had been inside a Natural World for a long time. He could tell the age of most beasts, and he saw that all of them were relatively young. They were probably all under a century old.

All the beasts looked at Gravis with a questioning look. They hadn't seen him before.

"Oh, Gravis," Arc said with a smile. "You came at just the right time. I am currently teaching these young fellas here, but another class is waiting for me. Would you be fine with taking over for today?"

Gravis was surprised when he heard Arc's words, but he quickly realized the truth.

Arc had probably foreseen that Gravis would come here and had prepared this class just for him.

Gravis had to sigh at Arc's foresight. Gravis hadn't talked to himself when he decided where to go. Everything had only happened inside his mind, which meant that Arc couldn't have known what Gravis had planned.

However, Arc was still able to predict that Gravis would come here.

"Eh?" one of the smaller beasts, a snake, uttered from the elephant's tusk. "But we don't know him. How can he teach us?"

Arc only showed a friendly smile. "Aeri, don't be rude to our guest," he said. Then, he gestured at Gravis. "This is Gravis, and he is the most powerful Immortal. He is more than qualified to teach you."

"The most powerful?" Aeri asked with surprise. Then, she looked at Gravis and squinted her eyes. "The most powerful Immortal of what?"

Arc laughed a bit. "We don't need a quantifier. He is simply the most powerful Immortal, period."

Gravis felt a bit awkward when Arc talked about him like that.

"Even more powerful than oldest brother?" Aeri asked.

"Aeri," Arc answered with a smile. "Your oldest brother is an Immortal Emperor, not an Immortal."

"Oh, right," Aeri said.

"Is he more powerful than Big Johnson?" another beast asked.

"Pfft!" Gravis sputtered involuntarily, eliciting several confused looks. What was so funny about Big Johnson?

'First, Long Johnson, and now Big Johnson? Why do I keep running into sizable Johnsons?' Gravis thought.

Arc rolled his eyes when he saw Gravis' reaction. "Yes, he's more powerful than Big Johnson."

"Wow," every beast said. Even more powerful than Big Johnson? That had to be really powerful!

Gravis had already realized that all these beasts were at the Unity Realm, which would have been called a Lord back in the middle world.

"What am I supposed to teach them?" Gravis asked Arc.

Arc laughed a bit. "Oh, you don't need a teaching plan. They will simply bombard you with questions. You can answer all of them but be honest about everything. As long as it doesn't involve your past or your secrets, just answer them honestly."

Gravis felt like he had been put on the spot, but Arc simply walked away, leaving Gravis alone with the class.

Some seconds of silence passed.

"Why are you so powerful?" a small monkey called from the elephant's ear.

"That requires a lot of explaining. Do you want to hear all of it?" Gravis asked awkwardly.

Everyone started to nod, but as the elephant began nodding, the others had to cling to dear life so that they wouldn't fall off. All of them could fly, but they still acted like children. Gravis found that spectacle adorable.

"Sure," Gravis said. "Depending on if you're human or beast, there are seven or six categories that determine your power. These categories also become fewer the more powerful you get."

"Seven categories?" a fish asked. "I thought there were only two categories: Realm and Battle-Strength."

Gravis scratched his chin. "Well, yes, but I was being more specific. One is your Realm, and the other six all relate to your Battle-Strength."

Gravis paused a bit and noticed that the younglings were listening intently.

"Your Realm is the most significant factor, as you probably already know. No matter how powerful your Battle-Strength is, you can't fight someone an entire Realm above you."

"Not even you?" Aeri asked.

"Not even me," Gravis answered.

"How powerful are you?" the elephant asked with a deep voice.

Gravis smiled awkwardly. "Didn't you want to know what makes someone powerful? Did you already get bored of the question?"

The elephant moved back a little bit like he had been admonished.

Gravis was confused for a second, but then he realized that his tone had been far more aggressive than he had wanted it to be. "Oh, I'm sorry," Gravis said quickly. "I hadn't meant to sound so aggressive. You see, I just came out of a Law Comprehension Session, and I hadn't had much contact with others during that time."

"So, please bear with me if I sound more aggressive than normal. I will try to keep it in check," Gravis said.

"Oh!" the monkey said as he jumped up. "You are like Big Johnson!"

Gravis blinked a couple of times. "What?" he asked.

"I haven't seen it myself, but I heard that Big Johnson is always easy to anger when he returns after a long time. Everyone warned us that we should be careful when talking around him. Big Sis always told us that it's simply an effect of comprehending Laws for too long."

Gravis was a bit surprised. 'So, I'm not the only one who has that issue?'

"I guess so," Gravis said. "You know, when you constantly comprehend Laws for so long, you easily get lost in them. You lose focus of who you are and only see power. You start becoming easily irritable and start attacking others after the slightest sentence that could be seen as a provocation."

"Wow, that sounds bad," Aeri said.

Gravis was surprised again. These were beasts, right? Weren't they supposed to chase power above everything else? If Gravis said any of these things to a beast, the beast wouldn't see any problem with it. After all, they didn't have many feelings of attachment.

This was definitely weird.

However, for now, Gravis simply accepted that these beasts were different from normal ones. They seemed more akin to humans in a beast body, based on their conduct.

"So, which question do you want to be answered first?" Gravis asked them. He tried to keep his tone as friendly as possible.

The younglings looked at each other. "How powerful are you?" the elephant asked.

"Well, right now, I can fight four levels above myself safely, but I might also be able to win against someone five levels above me. However, I haven't tried it yet," Gravis answered.

"Woooow!" the group said.

"How are you so powerful?" the monkey asked.

Gravis smiled a bit and began telling them about the categories that determined Battle-Strength: Body, Energy, Spirit, Will-Aura, Laws, and Creativity. Creativity included techniques and the usage of Laws.

After several minutes of teaching, Gravis got the hang of it. Arc had been right. Gravis didn't need any teaching plan. The questions just kept on coming, and Gravis simply had to answer them.

Time passed, and the younglings warmed up to Gravis.

They talked like this for several days.