Lightning Is the Only Way

Gravis waited a little. Of course, there came no answer.

Gravis thought about this situation some more and concluded that Jaimy had probably died, together with his younger brother. This lower Heaven had watched Gravis constantly, always overseeing everything that happened. When Jaimy had failed in killing him, he had basically helped Gravis in some bizarre way.

This whole incident with him, him throwing Gravis into a ditch, making him insane with anger, and even killing Gorn, had increased Gravis' power. Gravis remembered that Heaven had planned, at the time, to never give Gravis any enemies. It had given him all the resources that he needed, a Guild Master as a friend, and his whole life in this lower world would have gone down smoothly until he reached the Spirit Forming Realm.

Gravis didn't like thinking about Gorn's death in a positive way, but the impact that it had on Gravis' power was significant. Gron's death had sent the Lightning and Fire Guild to kill him, which granted Gravis more tempering for his battle experience and will. Without Gorn's death, he wouldn't have been able to create a Unity Will in the Energy Gathering Stage.

Gorn's death had been one of the consequences that Jaimy's action had brought. Of course, Gravis and even Gorn himself were not without fault.

Additionally, Jaimy's actions had also forced Gravis into a mad struggle for power. Without Gravis' insistence on breaking his body and recreating everything, he wouldn't have been so shameless to demand more lightning from Gorn. At that point, Gravis would have only been able to condense natural lightning. In a weird way, Jaimy's actions had pushed Gravis to power.

Was Gravis thankful to Jaimy? Of course not! Jaimy had tried to kill him. Even though he had failed, he had still mutilated Gravis and even forced him to live off of shit for a while. Something like that couldn't be forgiven.

Yet, one couldn't ignore the positive effects that Jaimy had brought with his failed assassination. This lower Heaven had lived longer than Gravis and also knew much more. When everything had happened, it saw that Gravis would survive and knew that Jaimy had granted Gravis some "wonderful" tempering for his will.

Increasing Gravis' will was the last thing that this lower Heaven wanted to see.

Gravis had learned a lot about the personality and temperament of this lower Heaven. It had been deathly afraid when that one bandit had talked even remotely bad about his father. Back then, it was evident that his father wouldn't have done anything. Yet, Heaven had still killed that bandit just for that. This showed that when some emotions reached a specific threshold, this lower Heaven would ignore logic and act out based on its emotions.

When it had sent all the beasts in the Basin of Nature at Gravis, it had proven that fact. By directly controlling the beasts, it had already broken the rules of the highest Heaven. Gravis' father had all the right to execute that lower Heaven right then and there. Of course, with this lower Heaven being like this, it had ignored that consequence.

Another interesting point was that Gravis' father hadn't killed this lower Heaven when it had tried to strike him. Gravis knew that his experience and wisdom didn't even come close to his father's. Actually, as Gravis thought about it, his father might have even been delighted about the conduct of this lower Heaven. Without it knowing, this lower Heaven had sent tempering experiences to Gravis. Wasn't this precisely what he needed to progress on his path to power?

It was rather ironic thinking about this. This lower Heaven thought that Gravis was dancing on its palm, while it itself was dancing on the Opposer's palm.

What of the times when it withheld Energy Beasts so that Gravis couldn't temper himself? At first, it had seemed that this was an effective method, yet what if that had never happened? If Gravis had ample opportunities to kill beasts, he would have been able to increase his power drastically. His will would have also risen even quicker.

Though, some things would have been different. With the Heaven's Balance Cultivation Technique, Gravis would have been able to expedite his training speed like this. Yes, Energy Beasts didn't give much Energy, but they did, at least, give some. Gravis might have reached the Spirit Forming Realm before the yearly visit to the High Priest.

At that point, he would've reached the Spirit Forming Realm sooner. This might seem like a net-positive, but Gravis wouldn't have had the opportunity to increase his physical power. After all, he had gotten most of the body tempering pills from fighting other guilds. The fight with Red, specifically, had even increased Gravis' will tremendously.

There were a lot of eventualities that Gravis thought of, but he always came to the conclusion that he wouldn't have been as strong as now if Heaven hadn't repeatedly meddled with Gravis' business.

What if Heaven had never involved itself at all?

Gravis' will probably wouldn't have been as powerful as it was right now. He would have also never achieved his Destruction Lightning and, therefore, wouldn't have tempered his Spirit with it. Gravis' battle-power would have probably only been above average at that point.

All the hardships that this lower Heaven had forced on Gravis made him the monster he was today. Destruction Lightning, a Unity Will, an unprecedented affinity towards lightning, and a body equal to the Spirit Forming Realm. All of these powers had been achieved out of necessity to survive.

Without some of these, Gravis would probably still reach the Unity Realm, but what of the realms after that? Maybe there would be a bottleneck in the future that required one or several of these things to push through. Without this lower Heaven, he would have probably still ascended, but his foundation wouldn't have been nearly as sturdy.

As Gravis thought of all this, he felt like he understood this lower Heaven more. It was basically trying its best to stop him but always failed spectacularly. Now, Gravis was also over 90% sure that Jaimy was dead. Killing Jaimy out of anger seemed to fit this lower Heaven very well.

Gravis took a deep breath and sighed. 'Seems like one of my debts had been settled without me even knowing,' he thought. Jaimy had tried to kill Gravis and had died at Heaven's hands. This could be considered as Heaven taking revenge for Gravis. Another spectacular failure from its part.

Gravis jumped onto his lightning board again and continued his journey. This whole thing had been a brief intermission, but an important one. Another restraint on his conscience had vanished like that.

Now, only two debts remained.