Lightning Is the Only Way

It took Gravis about three months until he understood all the materials he could find inside the river. The river didn't have even nearly as many materials as the mountain range. Another reason why Gravis only took three months to understand all the materials was that he had already seen a lot of them on the mountain range.

Yet, he spent an additional six months inside the river to look at the water. This was already the more powerful kind of water, which meant that this became relevant to the Soft Pure Law. He didn't manage to comprehend the Water Composition Law, but he was sure that he knew enough about the water to fulfill the water-requirement for the Soft Pure Composition Law.

Splash!

Gravis came out of the river and hovered above it as he threw one last glance at it. 'Sure enough, there are a lot of Medium Pure materials at the bottom of the river, but basically no Soft Pure materials. By now, I'm also pretty sure that I know what constitutes a Soft Pure material.'

'It's gas and liquids,' Gravis thought. 'This means that the Soft Pure Law probably has parts of the Water Composition and Air Composition Laws. But there are still more liquids and gasses that I haven't seen yet. I might need to go to a Law Comprehension Area for wind to understand that one since I've already taken care of the water-requirement.'

Then, Gravis looked at the desert and the forest. 'Let's first finish the Medium Pure materials I can find here. The earth part of the Medium Pure Law should all be here while the wood part isn't. The forest only has Spirit Plants, which means that to find the correct wood, I probably need to visit a place with Unity or Nascent Nourishing Plants.'

After planning his future stops, Gravis went to the desert and checked out the different kinds of sand he could find. The desert was way hotter than Gravis had expected. It was so hot that probably no Spirit Beast or weaker could survive there for more than some minutes. No wonder he found so many skeletons.

The Energy and Spirit Beasts had probably seen the river in the distance and tried to get there. Sadly, they didn't manage to survive the journey through the desert.

Gravis immediately went to experimenting. He even inspected the different kinds of bones he found. Right now, it didn't matter to him that these bones were not part of the Law that he was trying to understand. He only wanted to learn as much as possible. At some point, he had to learn the Laws regarding bone anyway. It made no difference to him if he learned about bones now or later.

Understanding all the materials in the desert only took Gravis around three weeks. A lot of the materials had already been on the mountain range and the river. Sure enough, the more he learned in other places, the faster his progress became.

After that, he went to the forest and checked the different kinds of earth and stone he could find. It only took Gravis one week to go through all materials he could find. Yet, Gravis spent another two months checking out the plants inside the forest. They weren't Unity Plants, but understanding weaker plants might help in understanding stronger ones.

Gravis flew high above the Law Comprehension Area and looked at it. Right now, the Law Comprehension Area looked completely different to him. He saw the forces and workings of all the present materials just by glancing at them.

Gravis remembered the time he had reached the Unity Realm and how he had just looked at the world. As soon as he had reached the Unity Realm, his Spirit had become powerful enough to actually take a glance at Laws. Back then, everything had seemed new and interesting to him. Right now, Gravis felt very similar to back then.

Gravis looked at the area for a full hour until he had his fill. 'I've been here for over four years. The passing of time had felt so fast that I almost can't believe it. It feels like I came here just yesterday. Well, about 96 more years to go!'

Gravis searched for Ferris with his Spirit and quickly found him looking at some butterflies with interest.

"Ferris, I'm done with this area," Gravis transmitted.

"Oh hey, Gravis!" Ferris said happily as he appeared in front of him. "I didn't want to disturb you. You looked so engrossed."

Gravis smiled. "Yes, the more I learned, the more engrossed I became. Did you manage to understand more Laws?"

Ferris scratched his ear with one of his hind legs. "One more, but my understanding has slowed down significantly. I think I've also learned as much as this area can give me.'

'Another one, huh?' Gravis thought. 'If this is a level one Law, Ferris has managed to comprehend three level one Laws, one level two Law, and one level three Law in just three years. Meanwhile, I've not comprehended even a single one. Comparing myself to him feels depressing.'

Yet, Gravis smiled. 'But I've made a lot of headway. Ferris is over 3,000 years old and has experienced more than I can even imagine. I guess this is the difference between all these old Emperors and me, experience. I need to consciously search for comprehension while they have seen a lot of that stuff on accident already.'

Ferris didn't know why Gravis was smiling to himself without saying anything, but he also smiled. Gravis looked happy, and Ferris felt happy for him.

"So, where to next?" Ferris asked.

Gravis' goal was the Hard Complex Law. The missing components were wood and air. Wood was relevant for the Medium Pure Law, and air was relevant to the Soft Pure Law. He decided to finish the Medium Pure Law first.

"Is there a Law Comprehension Area for wood or powerful plants?" Gravis asked.

Ferris was a bit taken aback. "Wow, no matter how much I try to anticipate your next goal, you still take me by surprise. Why do you want to understand plants so suddenly?" he asked with interest.

Gravis explained to Ferris his goal of comprehending the Composition Law of Hard Complex Materials and told him that he needed wood and air for the remaining two level one Laws.

Ferris was incredibly interested in what direction Gravis had chosen. Ferris, obviously, already understood the Composition Law of Fire, but he would have never thought that the understanding of different elements could be combined like that. It was incredibly weird to him that two entirely separate elements, like earth and wood, could be combined into one Law.

No beast had ever attempted to combine elements like this. Why? Because it made no sense. Fire was fire, and water was water. How could one combine water and fire? How would that even work?

Yet, after Gravis' explanation, Ferris saw that it made a lot of sense. He even asked himself how he hadn't noticed such, now seemingly, obvious connections before.

Well, to be fair, Gravis probably also wouldn't have realized the connection between the elements if he hadn't already known about the Composition Law. One could say that it was thanks to his father's teachings that he was able to make the seemingly obvious connection.

"That sounds awesome!" Ferris said with excitement. "But I can see the advantage! If you make your armor and weapons even harder, it's like your claws and scales become harder. This Hard Complex Material Law sounds like it's part of the metal element, but you're using that to make your body more powerful. So, you want to learn more about wood?"

Gravis nodded.

"Wood is a bit weird for beasts," Ferris said. "There are so incredibly few beasts with the wood element that I have maybe only seen fifteen of them in my entire life. The wood element can normally only be found in plants."

"So, logically, there is basically no Law Comprehension Area for wood."

Gravis furrowed his brows. "So, that's a no?" Gravis asked.

"Hmm," Ferris muttered as he fell into thought. "Not entirely."

"Oh?" Gravis uttered as he perked up again.

"We don't have a Law Comprehension Area, but we can use something else!" Ferris said with a smile.

"What is it?" Gravis asked.

"We can travel to the bulwark!"

Gravis blinked a couple of times in confusion. "What's that?"