Lightning Is the Only Way

Gravis created a copy inside his Life Ring and quickly shoved Immortal Stones into it until it reached the Mid Major Circulation Immortal Realm. With this, his Will-Aura was no longer at the peak, and he could go temper himself again. However, now wasn't the time.

His Will-Aura was one thing, but his Laws were a different thing. His Will-Aura wasn't the only thing that allowed him to jump so many levels. Ever since coming to this world, Gravis had only learned the Major Law of Danger and the Law of Safety.

However, he was now four cultivation levels higher than before. His comprehension of Laws was weaker now than in comparison to when he had been an Early Minor Circulation Immortal.

Gravis sat down and closed his eyes while his other body inside the Life Ring took out his World Weapon. These World Weapons were supposed to help someone in comprehending a Focus.

The Gravis in the Life Ring also sat down cross-legged as he put his World Weapon on his legs. Then, Gravis started thinking.

'I need to find a way to pull my ethereal Laws to a material plane. Doing it the other way around would weaken my attacking power severely since the attack would no longer get the power of my body.'

'How do I do it?' Gravis thought as his mind was racing.

Gravis thought for over two days on this issue and found some solutions, but he wasn't sure if they would work and how effective they were.

'Let's try one,' Gravis thought.

In his mind, Gravis started imagining all his Laws of Perceived Reality to combine with the Law of Punishment Lightning. Gravis was lightning, which meant that bringing lightning and the Laws of Perceived Reality onto the same plane would be the most effective way.

Gravis used his entire will and mind to fuse the two planes together. In the beginning, nothing happened, but after some hours, Gravis felt a reaction.

'I can feel my ethereal Laws coming into contact with lightning,' Gravis thought. 'This means that this isn't a dead-end, at least. My lightning is rejecting the Laws, but that means that they are on the same plane, at least. If they weren't, they simply wouldn't interact.'

Several weeks passed as Gravis tried different things.

However, after one month, progress completely halted.

'I can feel that my ethereal Laws have condensed into a physical form. However, as soon as they touch my lightning, they get rejected. As soon as I try to add them to my lightning, my lightning just pushes them away again and even attacks them. Whenever I try this, I lose some Energy and Spirit. It's like they are fighting against each other whenever they see each other.'

'Fusing them is also a no-go since my lightning pushes them away again. My Laws of Perceived Reality don't attack my lightning and try to fuse with it, but my lightning doesn't want to. It's like my Laws carefully approach my lightning, asking it for help, but then just get kicked away with aggression.'

'It's like they are water and oil. They just don't have a common basis for combining.'

'However, they should have a common basis. After all, both Laws belong to me, and both Laws can interact with the physical world now. I should be the common basis between them. My lightning interacts with me without any issue, and my Laws interact with me without any issue.'

'But as soon as I try to combine them inside of me, my lightning just kicks them away. It's like it's saying that the Laws should get away from it and me.'

Gravis opened his eyes and looked at his World Weapon.

'My World Weapon also doesn't help. Using my World Weapon as another me doesn't work either. I thought that it would be possible to infuse my ethereal Laws into my World Weapon and then use my lightning-infused self to interact.'

'Putting my ethereal Laws into my World Weapon works, but as soon as my true self and my World Weapon touch each other, it's like they are no longer the same. It's like two strangers meeting.'

'I mean, it's not like I gained nothing,' Gravis thought with a bitter smile. 'The first step is already complete. After all, my ethereal Laws can now be manifested in physical reality.'

Gravis stood up and concentrated on his saber.

WHOOOOM!

His saber became dark grey and warped the surroundings. This image was very similar to when Liran had created an arrow made out of the Law of Suppression.

In just a couple of weeks, Gravis had been able to do what Liran had been able to do. He was able to infuse his weapon with his Laws of Perceived Reality.

Would such an attack be powerful?

Very!

Could it be used in battle?

No.

Why not?

'As soon as I pull my Laws of Perceived Reality to physical reality, they are no longer in perceived reality. They can only be at one spot at a time. They can only be in perceived reality or in physical reality.'

'A physical attack with my Laws of Perceived Reality would be even more powerful than a Lightning Crescent, but as soon as I ready the attack, my Will-Aura loses all support from these Laws. My Law of Suppression no longer increases the power of my Will-Aura, and my Law of Control can't manipulate my opponent anymore.'

'As soon as I condense my attack, my enemy's Will-Aura will suppress me. Sure, with my Major Law of Freedom, I won't actually be suppressed, but that's not the issue. The enemy's mind will return to normal, and they will be able to take full control over the situation. Their minds would no longer be clouded by my Laws of Perceived Reality. In such a case, evading my attack wouldn't be hard.'

'So, in short, hitting my enemy with this attack is even harder than hitting my enemy with Mortality.'

'However, Mortality is still slightly stronger in destructive effect.'

'In short, as long as I can unleash Mortality, I would have no reason to unleash this new attack since it is just objectively worse.'

'That's why I need to fuse it with my lightning. As soon as my ethereal Laws are inside my lightning, I can increase their speed manifold with my different speed-related Lightning Laws. A short moment without suppression wouldn't be an issue as long as the attack was fast enough.'

'But no matter what I do, my lightning just won't interact with my Laws of Perceived Reality. It just doesn't want to.'

This was how Gravis' mind went about solving issues. He was looking at everything and trying to find connections between them.

Two entire years passed.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

A huge explosion of lightning and grey, warping space appeared inside the Life Ring.

Gravis had managed to combine his lightning with his Laws of Perceived Reality.

However, Gravis clenched his fists and teeth in frustration.

'So that's it, huh?' he thought in frustration.

How had Gravis accomplished this?

Gravis had always done one conversion, which was to convert his Laws of Perceived Reality to physical reality. However, they just wouldn't mix with his lightning.

So, one day, Gravis thought about how others were able to accomplish this, and he quickly found his answer.

Energy.

Energy was the basis of all Cultivation, and Energy could interact with absolutely everything. This meant that Energy could be used as a common denominator for both Laws.

By being converted to the physical reality, the Laws of Perceived Reality could already be made into Energy.

Then, Gravis transformed his lightning into Energy.

After that, he added both of them together and recreated a fusion of lightning and his Laws of Perceived Reality.

Gravis was now certain how other Cultivators did the conversion. They simply summoned their ethereal Laws and combined their Spirits with them. After that, they would create their attack.

However, Gravis couldn't do that.

Why?

Because his Spirit was not attuned to Energy.

His Spirit was attuned to lightning.

Others could simply absorb their Laws into themselves, but since Gravis was lightning and not Energy, he automatically rejected his own Laws.

Because of that, Gravis had to do three conversions instead of only one.

Every time one converted something into something else, power would be lost. One conversion wouldn't be bad since the added power of the Laws, and the added power of the body would be far more than the loss of Energy, resulting in an extremely powerful attack.

However, Gravis had to do three conversions instead of one.

And even worse, Gravis had to manipulate Energy.

In Gravis' entire cultivation life after reaching the Spirit Forming Realm, he had only needed to manipulate lightning. Gravis had an absolutely unequaled control over lightning, even in the highest world.

Why? Because everyone else was attuned to Energy, not lightning.

However, Gravis had basically no experience when it came to manipulating Energy. Yet, the fact that he had no experience wasn't the entire reason. The bigger reason why Gravis was so horrible at manipulating Energy was the same one while others were horrible at manipulating lightning.

Why? Because Gravis was attuned to lightning, not Energy.

Gravis began to laugh bitterly.

"I've finished my Focus," he said to himself. "I can pull my ethereal Laws to the physical plane."

"Hey, I'm more powerful now, right?"

Gravis sat down and put his head in his hands in frustration.

'What bullshit. Even if I train for tens of thousands of years to manipulate Energy, I won't even reach the standard of a Unity Realm Cultivator due to my adaptation to lightning.'

'Lightning just can't interact with the ethereal Laws. It's just straight-up impossible. It needs Energy to bind it together. Both things are Laws, and the highest Heaven had simply created them like this. They were simply not made to be fused together.'

'Fuse them together regardless? As if. This would require me to change the actual Laws in reality. I'm not even sure if father can do that. Probably not. After all, this is the highest Heaven's Cosmos.'

'So, to combine my lightning directly with my ethereal Laws, I need power on par with father.'

Gravis had just tested his new attack.

How powerful had it been?

It had been weaker than his Lightning Crescent by quite a bit, and it was very clunky.

It was weaker, used more Energy, had less speed, less accuracy, and temporarily took away his Will-Aura's support.

This attack was absolutely useless.

'Weapon Cultivation just doesn't work for me,' Gravis thought. 'Every Weapon Cultivator ever had a mind attuned to Energy, which makes the combination between the Laws very easy.'

'Even if I somehow found a way to fuse them together, the Laws themselves would still be incompatible. That's simply physical reality, and as long as my Laws of Perceived Reality are converted to act upon physical reality, they won't even change perceived reality anymore.'

'Bringing them to physical reality is the very thing that takes away their power to change physical reality.'

'Using one Law at a time also doesn't work due to loss in power by the conversions.'

Gravis lay down and looked at the fake sky in his Life Ring.

"As long as I'm attuned to lightning, I can't use Weapon Cultivation Techniques."

Gravis sighed.

"That sucks."