Lightning Is the Only Way

Old Man Lightning contacted Gravis and told him all about their situation. He didn't keep what he thought about Gravis' action secret. After all, Gravis had to understand that he was different from other Lightning Sect cultivators. Even if he felt isolated because of that, he needed to understand the full range of the issues.

Old Man Lightning had heard about Gravis' past in great detail, so he knew that Gravis felt alone nearly all the time. He had just found a place to belong to, yet Old Man Lightning was about to destroy that again. Old Man Lightning actually felt a little bad about telling Gravis all these things.

"Why didn't you tell me earlier?" Gravis asked in confusion.

Old Man Lightning sighed. "I didn't want to make you feel isolated again. I'm sorry," he said with sympathy.

Gravis snickered. "What? This? Make me feel isolated? Do you think I'm a dry piece of wood that you can break just because you step on it?" Gravis asked. "I am part of a Sect, and I don't care what the others cultivate. They can all cultivate darkness for all I care. I don't care about their elements. I only care about the people."

Old Man Lightning sighed in relief. "So, you don't feel isolated?"

"No, why would I?" Gravis said. "Look around. I can talk with people all I want without them attacking me. In my homeworld, I didn't even know about the cultivation of elements. I guess there are a lot of people that cultivate those, but it was never relevant."

Gravis cracked his neck. "Anyway, let's get to the issue," he said. "I'm going to be very direct now. I really don't get the issue. I don't see the problem at all."

Old Man Lightning furrowed his brows. "If we don't find a solution that both sides agree with, we will have a civil war. You say that isn't an issue?"

Gravis snickered a little. "Yeah, but war needs two parties that want to war with each other. First of all, we don't have that. Second of all, everyone will be replaced eventually. There is literally no time for a powerful enmity to be created. As long as every new person cultivates Destruction Lightning, they will only have each other to fight with. And about those people that remain in the Energy Gathering Realm, who cares? Their path is over either way. They might as well leave the Sect."

Old Man Lightning frowned. "We can't do that. They have joined the Lightning Sect, and we promised that they would be forever part of the Lightning Sect as long as they kept to the rules."

Gravis scratched the side of his neck. "So? We have a lot of methods to help those people and also reduce our number of stagnant Energy Gathering disciples."

Old Man Lightning lifted his brows in surprise. "Tell me," he said.

"It's quite simple. Give them tempering. The weaker ones will die, while the others will rise. Yes, the total number of disciples will decrease drastically, but the quality of each one will increase."

Old Man Lightning shook his head. "It doesn't work like that. Those missions have to be paid by us, and if we don't have enough people, we can't regain the lost resources."

Gravis grinned. "There are several ways around that."

Old Man Lightning lifted an eyebrow again. "Oh?"

"Yeah. For example, you can hold an internal auction for missions. No one will pay more than their potential earnings in those. Yet, the Contribution Points you get from that will offset the losses. Isn't giving the low number of missions to the highest bidder the fairest way? After all, the people with the most Contribution points have done the most for the Sect. They should get priority over those missions," Gravis explained.

Old Man Lightning thought about this. They hadn't considered such an option previously because offering more missions would put a drain on their funds. On top of that, they had been under the assumption that they needed more people to keep the Sect's resources flowing.

With this method, they would lose disciples, but others would become stronger. Those stronger disciples, in turn, would take harder missions, which would earn more. On top of that, if those stronger disciples accepted a mission from an external source, they would bring even bigger profits.

The external missions were basically always the same amount. Of course, those external missions were not nearly enough for the disciples. Many disciples basically camped in front of the notice board to be the first ones to get a new mission.

"What about the external missions of weaker monsters? With less weak people, those missions won't be completed," Old Man Lightning asked.

Gravis looked evenly into the direction of the Sect Hall. "So? Fuck 'em. If we have too few disciples at the required rank, don't accept the missions. There are enough people outside the Lightning Sect who would jump on those missions."

Old Man Lightning continued frowning. "But with less external missions, the Sect will earn even less," he said.

Gravis smirked like he had expected that answer. "Yeah, but have you seen the Mission Board recently? There are a lot of open missions for Spirit Beasts. It seems like we have more missions for Spirit Beasts than Spirit Forming disciples. If we reduce the number of Energy Gathering disciples by tempering and increase the number of powerful disciples in return, we might have enough to accept all those missions."

Old Man Lightning's eyes widened. He immediately checked the Mission Board and noticed that a lot of external missions weren't taken. All of these were for people at the Spirit Forming Realm. "You're right! That would solve the issue. By offering our disciples tempering, a lot of our disciples will die, but others will become more powerful."

Yet, Old Man Lighting frowned again. "But that would only push the problem back. The internal fights would still occur at the Spirit Forming Realm. It would still be unfair to let the two sides fight, even if only half a level is between them."

Gravis' smirk intensified. "That's where the second part of my plan comes into play, but first of all," Gravis said, "If we are already completely replacing the Lightning Sect, why not go even further? Don't you want to see how powerful this Sect can get?"

Gravis now felt the same thing that all his previous teachers had felt towards him. They had all wanted to see how powerful Gravis could get, and Gravis, in turn, now wanted to see how powerful the Lightning Sect could get.

Old Man Lightning's breathing slightly quickened. He felt that the thing that Gravis would say would be insane. Yet, the fire of ambition inside of him got roused by Gravis' question. Yes, why not go all the way? "Tell me," Old Man Lightning asked with interest.

Gravis still continued smirking. He felt great about having the opportunity to make the Lightning Sect rise. "Force every person with Destruction Lightning to go through the tenth level of Energy Gathering."

Old Man Lightning's eyes widened. He knew that Gravis would say something insane, but not this insane! "That's insane! Where would all these people even find the necessary tempering? This will make the cultivation manyfold harder for everyone! Like this, the people would need a level two Unity Will to ascend!"

Gravis' smirk vanished, replaced by a solemn look. "Look, you have forgotten something very crucial. In actuality, the whole Sect and probably also this entire world has forgotten this crucial detail. The current state of this world tells me as much."

Old Man Lightning felt a little bit offended by Gravis saying that everyone in the world was ignoring something. "What are you on about?" he asked with annoyance.

Gravis looked evenly in the direction of the Sect Hall. "Ascension isn't the goal," Gravis said.

Old Man Lightning snorted. "Of course it is! What else would be the goal?"

Gravis shook his head. "Think about the higher world. Their cultivation is more advanced. They have way more knowledge and way more power. In the higher world, people at the Unity Realm have just managed to come out of the bottom of the barrel, yet there is a middle and a top before them. Let me ask you the following. Would any power in the higher world give a shit about some ascender that didn't even reach the Self Stage? After all, there are many lower worlds for them out there. Some of them surely only ascended with the Self Stage."

Old Man Lightning's eyes widened in shock. He hadn't considered that at all. Everyone only knew their world, and in their minds, they all saw how rare people at the Self Stage were, yet what about the other worlds? Maybe in other worlds, people that ascended over the Tree Stage would be considered garbage. What of the people in the higher world then?

Gravis looked severely at the Sect Hall, where Old Man Lightning currently stood. Even though they were far apart, they still looked into each other's eyes. "I am pretty sure that people like that are considered trash in the higher world. People who didn't go through the Self Stage shouldn't even go there if they want to live a good life. On top of that, it might actually become entirely impossible to advance a Realm without an extremely solid foundation at some point."

Old Man Lightning looked with nervousness down at the floor. The elders in the hall looked at him, surprised by his sudden change in emotion. What had Gravis told him?

"Right now, in the eyes of the higher world, our Sects are considered trash, including the Lightning Sect," Gravis said.

"Don't let the Lightning Sect remain trash."