Lightning Is the Only Way

Gravis finished the remaining forging tasks in a bit more than a minute. The young man inspected the items and nodded with satisfaction. "Looks good," he said as he took out the jade token. "Give this to the clerk at the front."

Gravis grabbed the jade token and nodded. "Thanks," he said.

"No problem, bye," the young man said as Gravis was teleported back to the main hall.

Johnson opened his closed eyes when he saw Gravis. "You failed?" he asked.

"No, I was successful," Gravis said with a smile as he threw the jade token over.

Johnson looked with furrowed brows at Gravis and then looked at the jade token. After inspecting it for a bit, he blinked a couple of times in surprise. "That's a high evaluation you got there," he said.

"How high is it?" Gravis asked with interest.

"Your quality and speed are at the absolute peak. The only thing not at the peak is your consideration for the client," Johnson answered as he took out several pieces of paper again.

"Consideration?" Gravis asked. He was quite surprised that he didn't get full marks in everything.

"Yep, consideration," Johnson asked as he watched the papers in front of him with furrowed brows. "The common errors that people make in consideration is that they don't ask about the client. They are fine with what they get without trying to get more information to make a perfect weapon suited for the client."

"Have you asked how tall the customer is? Have you asked if they prefer a lighter or heavier weapon? Have you asked for their preferences in terms of fighting style?" Johnson asked.

Gravis furrowed his brows. "I asked something about the materials with the first request, but I haven't asked for any additional information. Was I supposed to do that?" he asked.

Johnson nodded. "Have you received any additional information after asking about the first request?"

Gravis nodded. "Yes, I have been told how big the tower shield had to be. I didn't ask these things with the other nine tasks."

"Your clients won't always give you all the relevant information since they mostly don't know what information is relevant and what isn't," Johnson answered. "To make a perfect product, the product needs to perfectly fit the person and their fighting style. When you open your store, you should think about what you want to ask of the customers."

Gravis nodded. "Will do. Thanks," he said. "Will these credentials be shown to others?"

"Yep," Johnson answered as his furrowed brows transformed into a glare directed at the paper. "Consideration is not that important. As long as you're not targeting the richest people with money to burn, nobody will care."

Gravis thought about this for a while and realized that this made a lot of sense.

"Fuck this!" Johnson shouted. "I'm not getting paid enough for this shit."

Whoop! Plop!

The supervisor appeared again with a frown, but before he could react, crumpled-up pieces of paper hit his face, courtesy of Johnson. The supervisor flattened the paper again as he glared at Johnson. Yet, when he saw Gravis, he only sighed and went on to fill out the forms.

The same process as last time repeated, and Gravis got his next Certificate. Yet, instead of leaving immediately, the supervisor looked at Gravis. "Need anything else?" he asked.

Gravis had to chuckle a bit at the dynamic between Johnson and his supervisor. "Yes, one more Certificate. Then, I'm done," he said.

The supervisor nodded. "Might as well stay here for that one. What Certificate do you need?" he asked.

"World Forging," Gravis answered.

The supervisor narrowed his eyes at Gravis, and after some seconds, he relaxed. "You know the Law of the Dead World. Quite surprising for a new Immortal. Yet, do you have the fee for the test?"

"How much is it?" Gravis asked. He should have the money.

"That would be 7,000,000 Immortal Stones or seven God Stones," the supervisor said.

Gravis sputtered when he heard that. How much!? Seven fucking million!? He didn't have that kind of money!

"Ehm," Gravis said awkwardly. "I'm a bit confused right now."

"Yes?" the supervisor asked.

"My mother told me that I should get these three Certificates now, and she wouldn't have sent me here with only 60,000 Immortal Stones if that weren't enough," Gravis said.

The supervisor scratched his chin but quickly noticed a possibility. "If you can provide a Middle World Core yourself, the evaluation would only cost 40,000 Immortal Stones. With your other two Certificates, the total should come up to 55,000, which would be within your budget."

Now, Gravis got it. "So, the Middle World Core is responsible for over 99% of the price?" he asked.

The supervisor nodded. "Getting the Middle World Core is by far the hardest and most expensive part to get due to its rarity. If you have the money to buy one, you have the money to buy everything needed to create a World Weapon too. I presume you have one?" he asked.

Gravis nodded.

Then, Gravis summoned his World Weapon and retrieved the Middle World Core from it. "Should it be this big?" he asked.

"Not quite that big. You can shave off around 20% of its weight," the supervisor said.

Gravis nodded and created another Middle World Core from his remaining pile. After he had the new core, he still had around 85% remaining from the original.

Yet, the Middle World Core looked completely different to him now. If that core was already worth 7,000,000 Immortal Stones, this entire chunk might be worth nearly 100 million Immortal Stones! That was an insane amount of wealth!

Gravis threw the newly created Middle World Core over to the supervisor together with 40,000 Immortal Stones. "How much would the forging fee be for a World Weapon?"

"Depends on the Cultivation Realm of the customer," the supervisor answered as he created a new jade token. "But that only becomes relevant when you reach the God Realms. It's very difficult to find anyone below the Star God Realm that knows the Minor Law of the Dead World. This means that the price is the same for everyone below the Star God Realm, which would be around 3,000,000 Immortal Stones."

Pack!

The supervisor threw the jade token over, and Gravis caught it. "3,000,000 Immortal Stones," Gravis said slowly. "No wonder mom said that selling them would be a waste. I can basically get around 40% more out of the ore with only a minimal amount of work."

"Hold your horses," the supervisor said. "Have you even made one yet?"

Gravis nodded and summoned his saber again. "I made this today," he said.

The supervisor furrowed his brows as he concentrated on the saber. "Looks good. I've got nothing to complain about. How long did it take you to forge it?"

"With or without the attuning process?" Gravis asked.

The supervisor looked at Gravis weirdly. "Does that make a difference?"

Now, Gravis was the surprised one. "Yeah. It took me like five hours to attune to the World Core while I created the rest in like two minutes."

For the first time, the supervisor showed an expression of shock. "Two minutes!?" he nearly shouted. "The intricate hammering normally needs years!"

Gravis scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. "Well, it only took me two minutes. I basically-"

Whooop!

And Gravis was gone.

Gravis had been summoned for his World Forging Certificate evaluation.

The supervisor shook his head quickly to regain his bearings.

"I gotta see this!" he said as he teleported to the same room.