Lightning Is the Only Way

Today was the day when Gravis would use his Destruction Lightning to temper the new disciples. The Lightning Tower had been modified intensely. Initially, it only had one circuit of lightning, which was natural lightning. The natural lightning would hit the top of the Lightning Tower and then get absorbed by the Formation Arrays. Like this, they could store the natural lightning and were able to release it in smaller portions.

Yet, Lasar had created two additional circuits. One was for the Life Lightning of the Freya's Birch, while the other one was for Gravis. The tree had been told that it had to hit a specific spire that pointed towards it. After a lot of unloading, the storages for the Life Lightning had been filled. After that happened, beast corpses nearly swallowed the bottom of the tree. It had used a lot of lightning, and it needed many corpses to make up for it.

The circuit for the Destruction Lightning was an issue, though. There were no Formation Arrays that were able to store such a destructive Energy, which made it impossible to store it. They could only create a room to load the tower, without any storage. This meant that one person with Destruction Lightning always had to remain present. After all, the tower was not able to store it.

The cables going into the different rooms were another issue. The usual material they used had an easy time of moving lightning along its path without much loss, but these materials would get severely damaged if they came into contact with Destruction Lightning. This forced Lasar to look for a new material.

After days of testing, they found one, but they weren't pleased with it. It was able to withstand Destruction Lightning somewhat, but it would degrade over time. After one week of use, the cables would need to be replaced fully. This created an additional weighty expense for the Sect. On top of that, over 50% of the Destruction Lightning would be lost along the way.

After finding the material and deciding to use it since there was no better alternative, Lasar dug up the Lightning Tower again. Before this, the cables had been buried in the tower, but with the need to continually change the cables, they moved the cables so that they could be replaced more easily. This required the creation of more holes, doors, trapdoors, and similar things.

They couldn't just place the cables inside the corridors since even one jump from the Destruction Lightning would incinerate nearly everyone. Like this, Lasar created cable pipes that went along the corridors. All of this required the Lightning Tower to be more complex and also uglier on the inside. All in all, the Lightning Tower's renovation had eaten up way more resources than they had initially expected.

While the whole construction was underway, the disciples had difficulties finding elders. After all, nearly all elders were inside the Lightning Tower. Important matters had to be handled by a single elder that remained on standby, which made for a prime example of stress. That lone elder had to do the work of five people.

The contribution points that the elders received for the reconstruction was also massive. Many body tempering pills, weapons, and Formation Arrays were bought from those, creating a significant dent in the top treasury of the Sect.

Giving so many missions to hunt beasts for the disciples also hit the treasury hard. The tree needed a lot of corpses, and since the Sect paid with Contribution Points, the smaller treasuries also became a lot smaller. Yet, there was a problem that made all of these things pale in comparison.

Since the Lightning Sect only allowed a maximum power and number of people on the missions, every single mission served as life and death tempering. From the 5,000 disciples of the Lightning Sect, a whole 1,500 had not returned from the missions. This made it hard to refill the storages since there were fewer people doing missions for external clients.

Luckily, the surviving disciples had become more powerful and had received some powerful tempering. Over a hundred disciples at the Energy Gathering Realm had managed to condense their Will-Auras, making them future Spirit Forming disciples. One had to know that of those 1,500 people that had died, only about 30 of those had been in the Spirit Forming Realm. Nearly all deaths came from Energy Gathering disciples.

One would think that this was all worth it, but that wasn't true. While the peak experts were the most important ones, the weaker experts were essential to earn resources for the Sect. After all, sending a Spirit Forming expert to kill an Energy Beast was simply stupid. This would be beneath them and would give nearly no resources in relation to their Realm.

The reconstruction of the Sect due to the tree had also cost a lot of money. Everything was paid in Contribution Points, and reconstructing the center of a whole Sect was a lot of work. Everything had to be paid accordingly, and the Lightning Sect would never refuse to pay, even if they were poor.

While the disciples were ecstatic about the number of missions and Contribution Points they could earn, the leadership was burrowed in a mountain of stress and worry. The disciples saw this as a golden age for the Lightning Sect, while the leadership saw this as an age of worries. The disciples looked at the new Lightning Tower with reverence and worship, while the leadership saw the tower as a dark, imposing spire filled with the blood of their dead disciples.

The innocent disciples had no idea about the terrifying cost that this new Lightning Tower had brought. They only saw the exciting rise that the Sect would achieve with this tower, unaware of the number of bodies that this tower had demanded.

The construction of the Lightning Tower had also taken longer due to the circuit for the Destruction Lightning. All in all, it took over a month to finish the tower. During that time, the maximum number of people and power required for the missions was also heightened. Tempering for their disciples was good, but they couldn't allow for more of their weaker disciples to die. They had to wait for new disciples to join the Sect.

The deaths for the missions decreased, but not by as much as the leadership believed. Most disciples still followed the old requirements since they wanted to temper themselves. This made the leadership nearly helpless regarding this factor. They couldn't create a minimum power for the missions since that would be damaging to the disciples' cultivation path. After all, everyone had the right to tempering.

In the end, right before the Lightning Tower was finished, they canceled all missions that hadn't been accepted yet. They couldn't keep up with this wild spending. Sadly, this was the only way to keep the Lightning Sect afloat. The disciples weren't happy about that, but they had earned enough Contribution Points in the last couple of weeks, so they didn't protest.

Gravis walked through the Lightning Sect, looking around as he made his way to the Lightning Tower. Nearly every disciple was back in the Sect, yet it almost felt empty to him. Nearly all disciples that Gravis saw were either at the Spirit Forming Realm or the Body Tempering Realm. Energy Gathering disciples had grown rare. Yet, the ones that remained radiated powerful wills.

Gravis had just been told that the Lightning Sect would accept his current shipment of Balzar, but nothing more. Their Balzar storage wasn't full, but they had to save Contribution Points. Balzar was not the top priority now, so the mission for getting Balzar got the axe.

After a while of walking, Gravis appeared before the Lightning Tower and looked at it. To him, the Lightning Tower radiated an aura of chaos. On the one hand, it radiated an aura of power and reliance, yet on the other, it radiated an aura of greed and blood. The tower had claimed a lot of lives and wealth, yet it was about to show its power.

Gravis knew that the Lightning Tower's reconstruction demanded a lot of blood and money, but it would allow everyone to rise. This was a calamity, yet if the Lightning Sect managed to get through this calamity, they would become more powerful than ever before.

Gravis also noticed Lasar standing in front of the Lightning Tower. Lasar looked exhausted, and his face had a couple more wrinkles on it. The Lightning Tower weighed hard on his mind.

When Lasar felt Gravis, he slowly turned around to look at him with bags beneath his eyes. "I'll show you what you have to do," he said with a voice that lacked energy.

Gravis nodded. "Go ahead."