Lightning Is the Only Way

The Metal Ultimate was surprised when he noticed that Gravis paid attention to him first. Didn't Gravis have a lightning affinity? According to reason, he should first take a look at the Lightning Ultimate's display.

The Metal Ultimate didn't know much about Gravis since they were of different camps. Additionally, he hadn't seen Gravis fight anything. The Metal Ultimate had seen the competition between the land Kings, but Gravis hadn't fought in that. Instead, everyone had already accepted that he was the most powerful King.

Then, the Metal Ultimate saw Gravis going through his different kinds of ores and experimenting with them. That was when the Metal Ultimate finally saw the reason for Gravis' power. Gravis had already comprehended a level three Law, the Law of Punishment Lightning!

This situation felt unreal to the Metal Ultimate. A King shouldn't be able to understand such an advanced and powerful Law. Yet, even though the Metal Ultimate was very interested in Gravis now, he decided against contacting him. They were from two different camps, after all.

Gravis continued looking at the ores, and after some hours, the Metal Ultimate got used to Gravis' presence and started ignoring him. The Metal Ultimate needed to use all the available time to comprehend other Laws.

Gravis stayed at the Metal Ultimate's side for 14 years until…

BOOOOM!

'Finally!' Gravis thought with excitement. 'It took me so long, but I finally managed to comprehend the Hard Complex Material Law! Additionally, I didn't even need to temper myself. It just came naturally.'

This was a pleasant surprise for Gravis since he had expected that he needed to temper himself and comprehend this Law inside a battle. Yet, all his understanding just naturally flowed together and created the complete Hard Complex Material Composition Law.

'The list of alloys that father has given me has helped me immensely,' Gravis thought. 'All the diagrams about the makeup of the materials helped me to visualize the movement of the Energy inside the complex materials. Without the list of alloys, I probably would have needed another fifty years or so and might even have needed to go through tempering.'

Gravis had had the Hard Complex Material Composition Law as his goal ever since he had started his Realm-Stop over a hundred years ago. Back then, he had been only 60 years old.

Now, with Gravis having spent 100 years in the Law Comprehension Areas, 23 years tempering his will, and 14 years staying here, Gravis was already around 200 years old. He was now just as old as Old Man Lightning when Gravis had met him.

Gravis had dedicated 140 years to build a foundation to finally comprehend the Hard Complex Material Law. If someone had told Gravis that he would need 140 years to understand this Law, he would have despaired back then. His entire life had only been 60 years long, and he would need more than double that again to comprehend a level two Law? This sounded horrifying!

But, by now, Gravis saw that it was only natural that something like this would take that long. In actuality, his progress was quite fast. One level two Law per 140 years would come up to ten level two Laws in 1,400 years, which was about the average age of a level one Emperor. Yet, level one Emperors mostly only knew one level two Law.

This showed that Gravis' speed in comprehending Laws was insanely fast compared to this world. Of course, since Gravis had no idea how fast humans were in comprehending Laws, he couldn't judge his progress compared to them. Humans, logically, should be able to comprehend Laws much faster than beasts. Sadly, Gravis didn't know how much faster.

"Hey, can I have some of that ore?" Gravis suddenly asked the Metal Ultimate.

The Metal Ultimate was taken out of his comprehension as Gravis talked to him. He got a bit annoyed by a King interrupting him, but he couldn't be bothered right now. "Take what you want," the Metal Ultimate said quickly as he went back to comprehending other Laws.

Gravis smiled. "Thanks," he said.

And the Metal Ultimate got taken out of his comprehension state again as he got confused by Gravis' words. The Metal Ultimate looked at Gravis with confusion. Obviously, Gravis didn't show any kind of subservience to him with his tone and gestures, but he had kind of showed his subservience by saying thanks. This confused the Metal Ultimate.

Gravis also realized what he had done. Then, he scratched the back of his neck in embarrassment. "Oh, sorry. I didn't mean it like that," he said.

And that shocked the Metal Ultimate even more. Why was Gravis saying sorry now!? What was going on!? Why did Gravis' whole behavior not make any sense at all!?

Gravis rubbed his forehead in frustration. "You know what? Forget it! Just take it like I haven't said anything at all!" he said. Speaking to beasts was weird.

The Metal Ultimate looked at Gravis in confusion some more, shook his head, and then went back to comprehending. He had no time to deal with such useless stuff.

Gravis quickly grabbed a massive chunk of different ores. By now, Gravis was 1,250 meters tall, which was more than an entire kilometer! In comparison to the Ultimates, he was absolutely tiny, but to him, he felt far too huge.

So, even though Gravis took several cubic kilometers of ore, the absence of the ore almost couldn't be noticed. The Metal Ultimate had produced just way too much ore.

Then, Gravis forged his new equipment by fusing appropriate materials together. There were far more Complex than Pure Materials in the world, which allowed Gravis to choose the properties of his equipment with more freedom. Thus, he decided to go all-in with physical defense.

Gravis' knowledge about the Composition Laws regarding the elements, together with his Spirit and Will-Aura, would counter nearly all elemental attacks. The only things that could truly hurt him would be physical attacks.

Additionally, Gravis' saber was forged with absolute attack in mind. He never intended to block any attack with his saber, which allowed him to entirely focus on attack.

Gravis looked at his new saber with fiery eyes. 'This saber is so incredibly sharp that I could probably severely injure a level two Emperor with only my comparably weak strength. I don't even need to use my Punishment Lightning anymore to kill a beast three levels above me.'

Gravis' eyes narrowed. 'This is a problem,' he thought. 'As I am right now, a level two Emperor won't even be able to put any pressure on me. Yet, a level three Emperor seems far too terrifying. My Will-Aura is quite terrifying right now, which would suppress a level two Emperor by over 50%.'

'Yet, a level three Emperor would only be slowed by around 10%. This is still far too fast for me to even react. I couldn't even attempt to dodge. Additionally, my Lightning Crescent's power doesn't increase with the quality of the saber. My Lightning Crescent is just as powerful with this saber as with a stick, assuming the stick can withstand it.'

'This means I literally don't have any possible way to kill a beast four levels above me. It's impossible,' Gravis thought.

Right now, Gravis was precisely in the situation that he had warned his children and his River Tribe members about.

He was in an awkward tempering spot.

Level two Emperors were too weak, while level three Emperors were far too terrifying.

Gravis had known of the possibility of such a situation occurring for a long time. So, he also knew the three choices he now had.

First Choice: Try to fight a level three Emperor and die miserably. This wouldn't even be a fight. The level three Emperor would just charge at Gravis with their unparalleled speed and slap him into paste. Sure, his armor might be able to resist, but his body would be transformed into chunks inside the armor.

Second Choice: Increase his Realm by fighting against beasts three levels higher than him until they finally became a challenge again. Sadly, this choice would be like throwing Gravis' advantage away that he had worked so hard for.

Third Choice: Try to fight several beasts three levels above him simultaneously. That would still be considered tempering since Gravis couldn't win a one-on-one fight against such powerful beasts quickly. This would make it hard for Gravis to react to their attacks, and they might be able to overwhelm him with attacks. The problem with that choice was finding these opponents.

'All these options are shit!' Gravis thought with frustration.