Lightning Is the Only Way

Gravis scratched his chin as he looked at Morus. He honestly had totally forgotten him. With Morus' new mindset, he wouldn't dare to speak up by himself without having a good reason to, which made him remain silent at a distance.

"Have you watched me for the past 95 years?" Gravis asked Morus.

"Yes, Master," Morus said deferentially.

"Did you, at least, learn something?" Gravis asked.

Morus nodded. "I have learned a lot about the Laws, Master. Your mastering of the Laws has given me insights into my own Laws. Your continual creation of heat, especially, taught me a lot more about fire and how to use it."

Gravis sighed. "Man, and I nearly had a bad conscience about boring you for so long. But, hey, it's good that you learned something during that time. Yet, I don't want to unnecessarily bore you," Gravis said as he fell into thought.

After some seconds, a light gleam appeared inside Gravis' eyes.

"Morus," Gravis said with authority.

"Master!" Morus said, realizing that Gravis had an order.

"Join the war from the side of the land beasts' camp and become a level three Emperor," Gravis ordered.

"I will, Master," Morus said as he immediately shot away into the distance. He didn't dare question his Master's orders.

Gravis rubbed his chin in satisfaction as he set another plan into motion. 'This will become interesting,' he thought.

Then, he turned back to the Grand Lake. 'I should continue with the Law of Heat,' Gravis thought.

And sure enough, Gravis went back to creating more heat.

15 years later. Gravis had been in seclusion for 120 years, his longest seclusion yet.

BOOOOM!

'Finally!' Gravis thought with excitement. It had taken him a full 45 years to understand the Law of Heat, but in the end, he succeeded. Another level two Law was added to the ever-growing pile.

'This will be of some help,' Gravis thought. 'With this Law, I can weaken someone else. The heat will make it difficult for my enemy to regenerate themselves, and they need to continually keep their defenses up. At least, that's how it would go against someone three levels above me. In order to use that Law effectively against someone four levels above me, I would need to keep them weakened with my other Composition Laws.'

'Sadly, keeping this Law running requires Energy, which is not a resource that I can use lightly in such a terrifying fight. So, I guess that this Law won't help me that much, actually. Yet…' Gravis thought as he trailed off, his gaze wandering to the sky.

Then, Gravis shook his head wildly. 'No! Not yet! One thing after the other. Let's first finish the other Mixed Elemental Laws. After that, I can take a look at the more exotic Laws,' Gravis thought as he smirked.

'Only the Mixed Laws involving lightning remain. This will be very fun!' Gravis thought.

BZZZZZ!

Gravis summoned some lightning in his hand and gathered some earth in the other. Then, he pushed them together, which was the same way he had learned about the Law of Liquid Metal.

CRRRR!

And the stone broke apart as it was destroyed by the lightning.

First, Gravis frowned, but then he realized the issue. 'Punishment Lightning is a level three Law while this is only the most normal kind of earth, which represents a level one Law. My Punishment Lightning is too powerful for a fusion.'

Gravis smirked. 'Well, I already understand the Composition Law of Lightning, so I can just use Destruction Lightning,' Gravis thought.

BZZZZ!

The Punishment Lightning transformed into Destruction Lightning as Gravis pushed the two things together once again.

CRRRR!

Sure enough, this time, the stone wasn't destroyed. Instead, the stone started to change subtly. After some seconds, all the lightning vanished as the stone remained.

Yet, with Gravis' affinity towards lightning, he could still feel the lightning. Currently, the lightning was inside the stone. However, the stone exhibited no sign of having lightning inside of it.

Gravis scratched his chin as he inspected the stone. The lightning was inside the stone, but the stone was not hurt in any way. This was quite surprising to him since the power of the two components had been about the same. With Destruction Lightning's destructive nature, the stone should have turned to dust. Yet, it remained unharmed.

Gravis grabbed the stone and threw it at a mountain.

BOOOOOM!

The stone exploded, and with it, an explosion of lightning suddenly appeared. There hadn't been much Energy inside the two components, which didn't make the explosion powerful enough to destroy the mountain, but it made quite a big hole.

Gravis' eyes shone when he saw that. 'That's useful!' he thought with excitement. 'I can think of some uses for that. I could throw a lot of normal stones with some of these stones mixed in-between. My opponent won't be able to feel the lightning inside of it and will be quite surprised when one of the stones suddenly explodes with lightning.'

Yet, even though Gravis found something rather exciting, he only sighed. 'Sadly, I can't use Punishment Lightning in the fusion. Even if I transform all my Punishment Lightning into Destruction Lightning and use all of it at once, it wouldn't even scratch my opponent. The power of Destruction Lightning is simply too weak.'

'Wait a second. I wonder…' Gravis thought as he grabbed another stone.

BZZZ!

Then, Gravis did the same thing again, but with Life Lightning. Sadly, the Life Lightning only made the stone harder, for some reason. It didn't actually get saved in the stone like Destruction Lightning.

'That's boring,' Gravis thought with a frown. 'Even if I continually infuse this stone with Life Lightning for years, it will only become harder. Sure, I could maybe create something even harder than my weapons, but stone is not as flexible as metal. As soon as I strike someone once with the stone, it will just splinter.'

Gravis crossed his arms in an evaluating expression. 'I mean, it could be useful to transfer my brute force to something else over a distance, but my power is not nearly enough to injure an opponent I actually care about with that. It can basically just count as a slightly more powerful punch with a longer range.'

Gravis had to chuckle as a funny image appeared inside his head. 'Honestly, being able to save Life Lightning into a stone would have been way too funny. Just imagine throwing a stone at the head of one of your companions to heal them. That would be the most passive-aggressive way of healing a companion.'

'Anyway, enough of that. I should try to comprehend this weird kind of loaded earth or loaded stone,' Gravis thought.

Gravis spent the next three years comprehending the stone, and surely enough, it didn't take as long as the other Laws.

BOOOOM!

'As I've thought,' Gravis thought with a smirk. 'As soon as something involves lightning, it's far easier for me to understand. This was my fastest Law yet ever since I entered my seclusion.'

Then, Gravis grabbed some metal and did the same thing with metal and lightning.

After one try, Gravis saw the result, which was just a piece of metal that had lightning saved inside of it.

Gravis' brows furrowed. 'Wait, isn't that just the same as the runes I use on my equipment to make it store lightning?'

BOOOOM!

Gravis blinked a couple of times. 'Sure enough, it's just the same thing. So, I was basically already using this Law without knowing it, huh? Well, now I know, I guess.'

In order to learn this Law, Gravis had only needed a couple of seconds. This was, by far, his fastest Law yet.

'Wonder if the other ones will also come so quickly.'