Lightning Is the Only Way

Years passed. 

After around five years, the Gravitas' profits stopped growing and evened out. There were many customers coming in and out per minute, and Yersi had to keep up with all of them. Sometimes, Orthar even had to help out. 

Sadly, the fact that Orthar had to help out distracted him from his main job, which was to procure new materials and inspect all the visitors. Because of that, some wrong calls were made, and some customers left displeased due to not being treated correctly.

Gravis quickly saw the potential damage this could cause over the long run and changed the policy. Now, Yersi was only responsible for the trade while Gravis took over the exchange. Before that, the customer would talk with Yersi, exchange materials, the weapon would be delivered to Yersi, and Yersi would hand over the weapon to the customer.

The last two points were taken over by Gravis to make it easier on her. This basically cut Yersi's work down by 40%, which allowed her to keep up with the customers. 

With this change, Orthar could return to his normal job.

Yet, constantly interacting with customers was stressful. Sure, all of them were powerful Cultivators, but dealing with customers for years on end without a pause still put a drain on Yersi. Because of that, Yersi got a day off every couple of years.

This would seem like pure exploitation for mortals, but one had to remember that powerful Cultivators had a far more resilient mindset and could regenerate their concentration far faster. Just one hour would have been enough, but Gravis gave her a full day nonetheless. 

Orthar was rising up to the challenge and was handling it with his full power without running out of Energy. Yet, he also never overexerted himself. He was basically functioning like a Formation Array, perfectly at 100% without going below or above that number.

In comparison, Gravis was underworked. Creating the equipment took less time than finalizing the trade. This meant that Yersi was the bottleneck of the financial flow of the Gravitas.

Yet, Gravis didn't really care. She was doing her best, and she was doing an excellent job. Sure, if he wanted, he could hire an additional helper to increase the money earned in the shop, but he didn't even consider it.

If Gravis hired someone new, there would be a huge issue with the distribution of profits. 

A good receptionist could be hired for 20,000 Immortal Stones per century. This was excellent pay for that job. Someone in the Immortal Realm, with a soft longevity of 50,000 years, only needed to work 100 years to buy two appropriate weapons for them. 

Yet, Gravis couldn't hire someone like that with that pay. After only ten years, they already made tens of millions of Immortal Stones. Yersi would already get several million Immortal Stones for only working as a receptionist for ten years. This would transform to tens of millions in a century.

This would mean that Yersi would earn a thousand times the amount of Immortal Stones as the second receptionist for the same work. Obviously, this wasn't fair at all, and Gravis would feel like he was exploiting that person.

What about giving the receptionist the same pay? 

That would be ridiculous. The only reason why Yersi was getting that much was that she was Gravis' daughter and that he wanted to help her. Giving that much money to someone else for being a receptionist was ridiculous. Gravis was not a saint.

So, in the end, no one was hired. They would simply continue on like this until the lease of the shop was finished. 

The years continued passing.

After 34 years of running the store, the Gravitas sold its first World Weapon. Additionally, since it was the Gravitas that provided the Middle World Core, an astonishing profit of ten million Immortal Stones came out of that one exchange alone. This was the equivalent of more than one year of work.

After 50 years, they sold their second one.

After 83 years, they sold their third one.

And after 90 years, a big client arrived.

A Star God walked into the Gravitas. 

With his power, he was able to keep himself hidden from everyone, including Gravis. He only observed how everyone worked for several hours and watched how Gravis forged the weapons. This store was not made to resist Star Gods. After all, why would a Star God be interested in such a small store? Because of that, the Star God could do whatever he wanted in the Gravitas.

"Looks good, doesn't it?" a voice transmission reached the Star God, who nodded.

"You were right. The weapons are good, and the speed is also incredible for an Immortal," the Star God answered.

"So, do you agree?" the voice asked.

The Star God only smirked. "Even without coming here to check, I would have accepted either way," he said. "Your words are always trustworthy."

"Thanks," the voice said to the Star God.

"Well, time to meet them," the Star God said.

After that, he exited the Gravitas and entered as a normal customer. Surprisingly, he didn't skip the queue and waited like everyone else. 

Meanwhile, Orthar informed Yersi that he couldn't get any read on that guy, which meant that this was, at least, an Immortal.

Gravis also checked him out and was shocked. 

He also couldn't get a read on the guy!

One had to know that Gravis was able to even feel the power of an Immortal King. So, this person was, at least, a high-rank Immortal King.

'Interesting!' Gravis thought. Then, he immediately contacted the new customer and introduced himself.

After a bit of testing each other out, the Star God confirmed that he was a Star God. He was actually quite surprised when Gravis had said that he was an Immortal Emperor. Usually, not even highly ranked Immortals would come here. A good guess would have been the Immortal King Realm, but Gravis guessed the Immortal Emperor Realm.

Gravis almost couldn't believe that a Star God was inside his store! What would someone with such an impressive power want with the Gravitas? 

"How many Middle World Cores do you have?" the Star God asked.

"You can see them at the back of the store," Gravis answered.

The Star God looked at the chunk of Middle World Core and frowned. "We can only equip one and a half teams with that," he murmured. 

'Teams?' Gravis thought. 'This is obviously a higher-up of some big company, looking to equip several teams with World Weapons.'

"Let's try two teams," the Star God said. "Please reserve the World Core you currently have. I will provide three more later."

Gravis saw a metaphorical wave of Immortal Stones drowning him when he heard that. "Sure!" he answered.

"Can we book you out for tomorrow?" the Star God asked. "We want the weapons to be perfect, which requires you to work with the recipients of the weapons. We would like the weapons to be done in one day. I have heard that you can do that," he said.

Gravis nodded. "No problem," he answered.

The Star God smiled, and a jade token appeared in front of Gravis on the second floor. "Please come to this address tomorrow and show the receptionist the jade token. She will bring you to the correct place."

Gravis nodded. "Will do," he said with an excited smile.

The Star God said his goodbyes and left while Gravis activated another Formation Array. This Formation Array showed a deadline when the shop would close and for how long it would be closed. 

It would close in 15 hours and would remain closed for 48 hours, just to be sure. 

The customers noticed the change but didn't really care. 15 hours was more than enough to finish their business. 

Yersi and Orthar were also surprised. What had happened?

"We are going to make a huge amount of money tomorrow," Gravis said with a smirk. "I was just contacted by a Star God for an order of ten World Weapons!"

Yersi and Orthar were shocked.

A Star God?

Meeting a Star God was actually even rarer than meeting an Ancestral God due to the Opposer's actions around a century ago. This meant that every living Star God was either related to the Opposer or had reached that Realm in the last century. Obviously, there were not many of them.

Luckily, due to the incredible amount of higher worlds, one Peak Immortal Emperor after the other arrived in the highest world. The higher worlds were shitting out Peak Immortal Emperors like crazy! Because of that, the population of Star Gods was also recovering.

"Which company is he from?" Orthar asked. The fact that he ordered several World Weapons for Immortals meant that he was inside some big company.

Gravis looked at the jade token and was shocked.

He knew that place!

This was the Research Company, the company that he had been part of!

Additionally, the jade token had one addendum at the end.

"Your brother says hi!"