Lightning Is the Only Way

Gravis stood up and performed some practice punches. His punches were a little faster, but not much. "Seems like I can actually temper my body here, though most of the lightning went into the seed. Maybe I should stay in here for a couple more hours to temper my muscles," he explained to himself. Because of his need for social interaction, he had created a habit of talking to himself.

"Anyway, off to earn some money." Gravis went out of the door and walked to the reception desk. He put the key down and left the Lightning Tower.

"He's out!" Gravis heard a shout coming from his front and saw eight people dressed in the same armor as the two previous 'guards'. It looked like the two guards from before were not alone. Some disciples had, apparently, created an entire organization, judging by their armors.

They quickly surrounded him and readied their weapons. "You'll regret the day when you crossed- Aaah!"

Gravis had activated his Will-Aura, and the surrounding disciples stepped back in fear. Their eyes opened wide in terror, and their breathing grew heavier and faster. Cold sweat ran down their entire bodies, and their weapons started rattling because of the trembling of their bodies.

"Let this be your last warning," Gravis explained with an emotionless tone. "Block my path again and see what happens."

The surrounding disciples gulped in terror and couldn't react to what he had said since they were scared stiff in fear. Gravis just walked away, and when he arrived at a distance of about ten meters, he deactivated his Will-Aura.

The disciples could finally breathe normally again, and their eyes followed Gravis' back as he walked towards the notice boards. The disciples then looked at each other, not sure if they should defend their honor or not.

"What should we do? If we don't teach him a lesson, we will lose all respect from the other disciples, and extorting money will get harder," asked one disciple.

"He's only one guy," shouted another one. "I don't know what happened, but this time, we will be prepared! We just need to attack togeth-"

BANG!

Gravis had destroyed a tile on the floor and threw one of the pieces at the shouting disciple, which pierced through the disciple's body and destroyed a kidney in the process. The piece was pretty hard since the tiles of the road were not made with ordinary stone.

Contrary to how it looked, Gravis had actually been quite careful with the throw. Those disciples probably had tempered bones, and a throw with a tile piece wouldn't break them. The kidney was not protected by any bones. Furthermore, a person could still survive with only one kidney, so it didn't matter if the disciple had tempered his organs or not.

The disciple fell over and held his bleeding side in horror. He couldn't process what had just happened. The others looked at him in shock and gasped. This was a serious injury and went beyond a simple "spar". That madman was actually ready to lose all pretenses with them!

They decided not to mess with Gravis any further. Gravis had injured one monkey to scare all the others… Well, nearly all the others.

"Are you insane? We are part of the same Guild-"

BANG!

This time, Gravis threw the piece at the forehead of the shouting disciple. The piece was pulverized in the process, but the disciple's skin and flesh also exploded. The others could see parts of the skull through the hole. The bone looked uninjured, but…

THUMP!

The disciple fell backward to the floor, his eyes remaining wide open. His head hit the ground pretty hard when he fell over, but he didn't notice. A lot of power from the throw went to the disciple's brain, and the brain had smashed around in his skull. The disciple was still alive, but he had a severe concussion.

Meanwhile, Gravis had another tile piece in his hand and repeatedly threw it up and caught it again. He was watching if those disciples would continue making trouble for him.

This time, no one dared to make more trouble for Gravis. They quickly collected their injured comrades and carried them to the Exchange Hall. Their comrades needed some serious healing medicine.

Gravis threw the tile piece to the side and walked to notice boards. The other disciples, who had watched the spectacle, gulped and gave him a wide berth. Even though there were many disciples around the notice boards, Gravis didn't have to wait for his turn to look.

The first notice board he saw was about hunting beasts. Gravis sighed. 'Why do I always have to fight beasts? Ever since I came to the lower world, I hadn't had a true life and death battle with a human. It's always beasts, beasts, beasts…' Gravis thought.

He was a little fed up with beasts. Yes, they were excellent tempering for his will, but he also wanted some variety. On top of that, Gravis thought that evil humans were worse than rampaging monsters. At least, beasts were honest with their intentions. You only had to look at them, and you would have a fight to the death.

With humans, things grew a little more complicated. You could never truly judge a human's character by just one look or one conversation. Murderers could use their silver tongue to sound upright and then stab you in the back when they gained your trust.

On the other hand, some people insulted and demeaned you when you first met them but would prove to be upright and loyal people in the future.

"Why can't people just be a little more honest?" he grumbled to himself in helplessness. Gravis looked through the notice board for beast hunts and was surprised about the number of missions. "Over 50 hunts for middle-grade demonic beasts, yet not a single one for a high-grade demonic beast."

Gravis sneered in disgust. This was obviously Heaven interfering again. Heaven knew that high-grade demonic beasts would serve as good tempering for the current Gravis, so it didn't allow any of those to approach human settlements. Yet, middle-grade demonic beasts, which Gravis could easily kill, were filling up the entire notice board.

Gravis left the notice board and looked at a different one. This one was for escort-missions and transportation. When Gravis saw the rewards, he showed another look of disgust. The highest paying mission gave 50 gold and would take two whole weeks. In comparison, one middle-grade demonic beast gave 100 gold as a reward plus the carcass of the beast itself.

Gravis went to the next notice board. This one was for assassinations and for recruiting mercenaries, and the payment was actually pretty good. On average, an assassination gave a little more than a middle-grade demonic beast. But what Gravis didn't like was the fact that the mission said nothing about the reason why a specific person was chosen as a target.

Gravis could be morally flexible if it involved his survival, but that didn't mean that he liked it. As long as there were other ways, he wouldn't consider accepting those missions.

Gravis went to the last notice board. This one was for miscellaneous jobs, so basically, everything that didn't fit into one of the other three categories. Gravis read through some of them and saw a lot of missions for specific pills or specific gear. Some others were for beast-parts and teaching.

The rewards varied immensely, but Gravis saw only some well-paying jobs that he could do. Sadly, those jobs would take too long. Gravis could only sigh.

"Back to hunting, it is."