Lightning Is the Only Way

Gravis' eyes widened in shock.

A level seven Law?

One needed a level seven Law to become a Star God!?

Sure, Gravis knew a level seven Law, but something like this was basically unachievable for nearly everyone that reached the highest world. After all, the first tribulation would pit them against a Star God directly.

How were they supposed to survive something like that!?

However, the more Gravis thought about this, the more he felt like he was missing something.

Usually, reaching the highest world sooner should be seen as an advantage, but in this case, reaching the highest world sooner would be worse.

Cultivators in the higher world had no idea about the requirements for becoming a Star God, which meant that a lot of them would simply chase the next world and then get blindsided by this ridiculous requirement.

Even more, a lot of them should have nearly exhausted their longevity since they expected that they could reach the next Realm without any big issues as soon as they ascended.

Effectively, this change would hit all the Cultivators out of nowhere, not giving them enough information to plan their future.

That didn't seem conducive to creating a lot of powerful Cultivators.

Gravis knew that Orthar wouldn't have overlooked something as obvious as that, which meant that there had to be more to this.

"There must be more, right?" Gravis asked his father. "Something must have been changed to allow Ascenders to realistically comprehend level seven Laws. Otherwise, it wouldn't make any sense."

By now, Gravis' friends basically knew everything that Gravis knew about the Cosmos except for the real secret things, and they nodded when they heard Gravis.

It wouldn't make any sense like this.

Of course, they already knew that there was more to this.

"There is more," the Opposer said. "If the requirements were exactly like this, reaching the Star God Realm would basically be impossible."

"Two other things are also different from the norm regarding Immortal Emperors," he said. "One of them only affects Ascenders while the other one affects all Immortal Emperors."

"The first thing is the reset of longevity."

Gravis lifted an eyebrow.

"When Ascender reaches the highest world, their longevity will be reset, which means that they essentially start from zero," the Opposer explained. "This means that every Immortal Emperor that reaches this world has 200,000 years before their tribulation arrives, no matter how long they have lived before that."

Gravis scratched his chin and nodded. That would, at least, give them enough time to make a plan for everything and start on their Law Comprehension.

However, 200,000 years still wasn't nearly enough for Peak Immortal Emperors to comprehend a level seven Law.

Even more, the difference between a Peak Immortal Emperor and a Star God should be at least three levels, if not four. This meant that every Peak Immortal Emperor would immediately die as soon as their first tribulation hit.

200,000 years to comprehend a level seven Law as a Peak Immortal Emperor.

That was too little.

Exar had comprehended the level seven Law of the Dead World, but he had needed nearly 500,000 years to do so. Sure, the Law of the Dead World was far more difficult to comprehend than the True Hard Pure Composition Law, which was also a level seven Law, but the chances of Exar comprehending that Law in just 200,000 were still minuscule.

One had to remember that Exar was a legendary genius. He managed to comprehend the Law of the Dead World in a higher world, which was absolutely insane. Gravis even expected that Exar was about as powerful as the Heaven's Magnates have been when they had been on his level.

Yet, Exar would most likely die if he hadn't known the Law of the Dead World and was forced to comprehend a level seven Law in only 200,000 years.

This meant that the other change of the rules had to be just as significant as this one.

"And the other change?" Gravis asked.

"The other change concerns all Immortal Emperors, Ascender or not. Additionally, this change of the rules does not only concern the Immortal Emperors in this world but also everyone stronger than them," the Opposer explained.

"Everyone?" Gravis asked. "So, even Star Gods, Ancestral Gods, and Divine Gods?" Gravis asked.

The Opposer nodded. "The True Laws are no longer as easy to comprehend as the derivative Laws. From now onward, every Law you comprehend will be the purest and highest version of that Law. These Laws represent the very basis of how the Cosmos works. Time is no longer the most important factor for comprehending these Laws."

"For most people, the True Laws are impossible to comprehend, even if you give them infinite time. The only way to comprehend these True Laws for these people is to seek enlightenment in tempering, but even that can fail."

"If you want the Cultivators to become powerful, rushing them with tribulations of ever-increasing power is no longer the right way. After all, time is not the most important factor anymore."

"Because of that, the soft longevity has been amended for every Cultivator at the Immortal Emperor Realm or higher in this world," the Opposer explained.

"Do you mean the time or the tribulation? Probably the tribulation since the time is no longer the most important factor, right?" Gravis asked.

The Opposer nodded again. "Tribulations will no longer increase in power. Instead, tribulations will always pit you against someone that is exactly as powerful as you. The Old Bastard can see through everyone, and he knows exactly how powerful everyone is. This means that all tribulations will be bitter battles to the death, no matter if it is your first or your tenth."

Gravis' eyes shone as he realized the effects of this change.

Gravis' friends might think that they knew the real reason for these changes, but they didn't.

This change wasn't because of the time it would take to comprehend a level seven Law, but because of the Brand.

Every Brand took a massive chunk of Energy out of the Cosmos, which meant that Orthar had to choose carefully how easy or difficult he made the ascension to becoming a Star God.

If Orthar made it too easy, he would need to invest so much Energy that the Opposer might strike him down when he was weak. On top of that, if the Cultivators didn't manage to become Ancestral Gods, they wouldn't be able to repay the Energy they had consumed by receiving the Brand. This would reduce the Energy in the Cosmos in total.

Yet, if Orthar made it too hard, there wouldn't be enough Star Gods, Ancestral Gods, and Divine Gods to push each other further. Without tempering, even a supremely talented Cultivator wouldn't be able to become a Divine God.

So, the smartest decision was for reaching the Star God Realm to be more difficult than reaching the Ancestral God Realm but easier than reaching the Divine God Realm. This meant that every Cultivator had the talent to become powerful enough to repay the debt while keeping the number of Cultivators still relatively high.

The change regarding the tribulation was also because of the Brand.

Orthar had invested a lot of Energy into every Star God, and he wanted for as many of them to survive. This was no longer the lower world, where Orthar didn't care what happened to Cultivators.

From now on, Orthar was invested in every single Cultivator, and every single Cultivator was important.

This meant that Orthar would push equally powerful Cultivators against each other until one of them elevated to a new level of power. Orthar had to make every single tribulation a perfect opportunity for tempering.

If one of them was a bit more powerful than the other one, the more powerful one wouldn't be under enough pressure to force the comprehension of a new Law. Only the weaker one would reach that position.

Orthar needed to force both of them to reach that state, which meant that Orthar had to create a fight so close that there was a 90% chance for both of them to kill each other if no one suddenly became more powerful.

It had to be perfect.

There were bound to be some accidents, like both opponents killing each other, but there was no way around that. This method would still be the most efficient way for Cultivators to become more powerful.

At first glance, one might think that this system could be abused. Simply comprehend a level seven Law and stay as an Immortal Emperor.

However, Orthar knew the power of everyone perfectly.

If there were no equal opponent left, only someone of a higher Realm would do.

And surviving that was basically impossible.

In short, someone that tried to play the system would still die.

They had no choice but to participate.