Lightning Is the Only Way

After Gravis had his fill of looking at Stella, he turned back to the Gravitas with burning eyes.

"It's time to make some money!" Gravis said with a wide smile.

Stella giggled a bit as Liam only rolled his eyes. It was only money. Who cares?

"I will now commence with the first phase of my plan," Gravis said. "For the first phase, I don't need you, Siral. I will take care of the beasts personally."

"Yes, Master," Siral said.

"Just watch and learn," Gravis said.

"Yes, Master."

Gravis went to the beast side of the Gravitas and waited at the entrance.

WHOOP!

Gravis transformed into his beast body. Since he had to deal with beasts, using his beast body was better.

Liam was on the other side, and he didn't have the luxury of knowing the Law of Freedom. This meant that he sadly couldn't look at the other side.

"Narcissus," Gravis said.

"Yes?" Narcissus asked.

Sure enough, Narcissus was everywhere, even here.

"The Gravitas is now open," Gravis said. "For the first couple of customers, I'll have to trouble you. After all, the beasts don't know about the Gravitas yet."

"And why should I do that?" Narcissus asked.

"You want the beasts to become more powerful, right?" Gravis asked. "It's also in your own interest to send them here."

Some seconds of silence passed.

"What do you intend to sell them?" Narcissus asked.

"It's not really selling," Gravis said with a smirk. "I will forge equipment for the beasts with whichever ore they bring."

"Plate armor, metallic claws, metallic teeth, tail blade extensions, spikes, whatever is useful in a fight, I will forge for them. The payment will simply be the ore they bring. If they bring enough for two sets, I will give them one set and keep the remainder for myself," Gravis explained.

"I don't think the beasts will be interested," Narcissus answered. "Beasts are not really interested in external power."

"And that's why a human is on average more powerful than a beast, Narcissus," Gravis said. "Could you imagine fighting against a human if they don't have a weapon or armor?"

"You can't strip the enemy of their equipment, but you can create your own equipment. Won't this cancel out the advantage of humans?"

Narcissus thought about these words for a bit. "You are correct in your logic, but that doesn't change the mindset of the beasts."

Gravis only smirked. "That's because no one is cheating yet," Gravis said.

"What do you mean?"

"Imagine a tournament among beasts," Gravis said. "The prize is something valuable, like a couple thousand years in a level five Law Comprehension Area. There is a clear favorite amongst the participants, but suddenly, one unknown beast wins by relying on armor and weapons forged with ore."

"Everyone will become enraged since they believe that this beast has cheated. Yet, they can't change the results. The one that relied on external power has won, and that win allows them to increase their intrinsic power by comprehending an additional Law. In that sense, a momentary reliance on external power increased their intrinsic power."

"So, after this tournament, the winner doesn't even have to rely on armor or weapons anymore. They would win on their own, regardless."

"Then, the next tournament rolls around, and even though most beasts are against relying on external power, a couple of them have been swayed. So, now, there are three with armor and weapons."

"This continues, and, at some point, every beast has to rely on armor or weapons if they want to get these juicy rewards."

Gravis lifted his right index finger.

"And the most important thing is that the beasts have not become weaker but stronger."

"So, in the end, the beasts become more powerful, and I get more customers. Win-win- right?" Gravis finished.

Narcissus thought about Gravis' words for a while.

"You humans truly have an impressive ability to look far into the future," Narcissus admitted.

"Fine," Narcissus said. "I will send a couple of beasts."

Gravis nodded. "Thanks. If you want to see the greatest result, I would advise you to find beasts with a metal affinity. Beasts with a metal affinity like to fight in close combat the most, and equipment makes the biggest difference with them. Fire and water affinity are also good."

"Okay," Narcissus said.

Gravis nodded with a smile and then simply waited.

A week passed.

CRRRRRRRRRRR!

Stella was talking with Liam on the human side when she looked towards the beast side. "I think our first customer arrived," she said.

Liam didn't really care.

In front of Gravis, a ten-meter-tall, silver tiger was pulling a long mountain of ore behind him with his tail. This was what created this grating noise.

'Oh!' Gravis thought. 'Yes, the entrance to the beast territory is a bit too thin. This could make it troublesome to pull these ore mountains into the tunnel.'

'Well, luckily, this tiger has a metal affinity, and he simply changed the shape of the ore mountain into a long cylinder.'

BANG!

As the tiger reached the actual cave, he pulled the ore out of the tunnel and let it hit the ground in front of him.

The tiger looked around but only saw two beings, Siral and Gravis.

When he saw Siral, he snorted with disgust. 

However, he had been told that he should simply ignore the human.

So, the tiger looked at Gravis.

"I'm here to test the effectiveness of your so-called armor and weapons," the tiger said neutrally.

He didn't talk respectfully but also not disrespectfully to Gravis. 

The tiger was a Peak Immortal King.

The only reason why the tiger was talking to Gravis at all was that Gravis was a Black Demon, and Black Demons were always very powerful. So, even if Gravis was two levels below him, the tiger still treated him like he was on the same level.

Gravis inspected the ore, and his eyes shone.

'Early Minor Circulation Immortal Emperor ore, and so much of it,' Gravis thought. 'Beasts sure are rich!'

How much was this long cylinder of ore worth?

Too much!

Hundreds of millions of Immortal Stones!

Gravis smirked. "Sure," he said neutrally. Being polite to beasts would only damage one's own reputation.

"What do you want?" Gravis asked.

Nearly every human customer would see such a comment as a passive-aggressive taunt.

Luckily, beasts liked talking without anything unnecessary added.

Glug! Glug!

The tiger shrunk until he was only four meters long. Then, a part of the ore mountain behind him began to liquify. In nearly an instant, the ore enveloped him.

The ore hardened again, and now, the tiger was completely encased in powerful, make-shift metal armor.

"Is your armor better than this?" the tiger asked neutrally.

"Yes, it is," Gravis said.

"Show me!"

"Create a two-by-two-meter wide, thin plate," Gravis said.

Beasts didn't know what meters were, but since Gravis was talking with the tiger via voice transmission, the concept immediately got translated into words the tiger understood.

The tiger looked to the side and created a metal plate according to Gravis' specifications.

"I'm going to create a plate with the same size by using the ore you brought," Gravis said.

The tiger nodded.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Three bolts of Divine Lightning hit the mountain to liquefy a part of it.

The tiger's eyes widened when he felt that this was Divine Lightning!

How!?

Gravis was four levels below the power of the ore, which meant that he needed to use a ton of Energy and Divine Lightning to manipulate and liquify the ore. Punishment Lightning wasn't enough.

If this were a human customer, Gravis would have never used Divine Lightning in front of them.

However, when beasts saw someone with such a powerful Law, they wouldn't think about how they could obtain it but would respect the beast due to its power.

This ore was already the limit of what Gravis could use. An additional level higher, and Gravis wouldn't even be able to melt it.

After some minutes, Gravis created an identical plate and put it beside the other one.

The two plates leaned at the edge of the cave, beside each other.

"Attack my plate. Then, attack yours. Increase the power after each second attack. Then, you can feel the difference," Gravis said.

The tiger became interested and did as he was told.

BANG!

He lightly attacked Gravis' plate with his claws, but that casual attack was already very powerful.

The plate didn't bend or break.

The tiger was surprised and did the same to his own plate.

CRK!

Part of the plate cracked, but it wasn't a crack that someone expected to see out of metal.

When one said that metal cracked, they generally thought about a crevice or crack going across the surface.

However, one had to remember that the tiger hadn't tempered and purified the ore. This meant that the ore was acting more like a stone than metal.

So, there was no crack in the plate, but a part of it fell off like someone had hammered a pickaxe into a mountain. 

The plate was still there, but it had lost a part of itself.

The tiger noticed the difference, and his eyes shone.

BANG!

He attacked Gravis' plate again.

Nothing happened.

CRACK!

Another huge chunk of the tiger's plate was broken off.

BOOOOM!

Gravis' plate vibrated, but it was still fine.

The tiger became even more interested when he saw the vibration of the plate.

The tiger had a metal affinity, and he had been around metal its entire life. 

Yet, he had never seen metal vibrate like this.

CRACK!

With the next attack, his own metal plate broke into two pieces.

"You can continue attacking my plate," Gravis said with a smirk. "If you manage to break it, I'll give it to you for free."

The tiger looked at Gravis for a short moment and continued attacking Gravis' plate.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

'How is this so hard!?' the tiger thought with disbelief.

The tiger even transformed into his metal form and used his full power. Of course, it didn't use any Laws. These were simply physical attacks.

Sadly, even after five minutes, it managed to only create some minor dents in the plate.

The tiger looked at his own claws that had nearly been ground into nothing. 

Then, he looked at Gravis in wonder.

"Interested?" Gravis asked with a smirk.

"What can you create with the ore I brought?" the tiger asked directly.

Gravis' smirk widened.

"Anything you can imagine," Gravis said.

Then, Gravis gave the tiger a run-down of everything he could imagine for the tiger.

Powerful armor, sharp claw extensions, tail-whips, hip spikes, defensive horns, and many more things.

The tiger's eyes burned.

"What do you want in exchange?" he asked.

"However much ore I use on you, I want from your ore mountain as payment," Gravis explained.

The tiger looked at the ore mountain he brought.

That's it?

The tiger had a ton of that stuff, and he really didn't need this entire thing.

This Black Demon was about to transform him into a bringer of death, and he only wanted some of his metal?

"I agree," the tiger said.

"So, what do you want?" Gravis asked.

"All of it!"

Gravis' eyes transformed into crescents as his smirk widened even more.

"No problem."