Lightning Is the Only Way

The man grew excited when he heard Gravis ask about natural treasures for tempering the bones. "Do you have any?" he asked.

Gravis felt a little confused. "No, I am looking to buy," he explained.

The middle-aged man deflated and sighed. "Sorry, out of stock," he confessed.

"Out of stock?" Gravis asked in surprise.

The man sighed again. "Yeah. About a week ago, a fire broke out in one of our storage rooms and ruined all the natural bone tempering treasures. The other treasures were fine, luckily. No one knew how the fire started, but when we noticed, it was already too late. On top of that, we normally get like three of those treasures per week, but for some reason, we have not received any since the fire. This is really some bad luck."

'Bad luck, eh?' Gravis thought. About a week ago, Gravis had killed the centipede. It seemed like Heaven's plan fell flat with the centipede's death, and it immediately used its contingency plan and destroyed all easy ways for him to temper his bones.

Heaven saw everything, and it knew that Gravis would go to Body City for the entrance exams of the Elemental Guilds. Of course, it also knew that Gravis would want to temper his bones. Heaven was really showing its ruthless side by destroying all easy ways to temper one's bones for an entire city.

Gravis clenched his fist again when he thought about Heaven's actions. He could probably also forget about finding any of those treasures anywhere else in the city. Heaven would not allow for such an oversight. He had to take the hard path, yet again.

"Okay, do you, at least, have pills for tempering bones?" Gravis asked.

waved nonchalantly. "Of course! Even if they burn down, we can just make more. You don't have to worry about that,"

how much for a pill?"

ten gold," the man said, his smile back on

13 pills. Gravis was absolutely sure that he would need just as many Bone-Pills as he needed Skin-Pills. "If I

"Sure. We can reduce the price to 9.5 gold if you buy more than

left. Though he also wanted to look into Martial Arts, so he decided to buy

excited. "Alright, 13 pills cost 123.5 gold," the man said with a delighted grin. He knocked on the counter again and told another set of confusing numbers to his assistant, who

the remaining 50 silver, but couldn't find any.

him off. "Ah, let's reduce the price to just 123 as a thank you," the man declared magnanimously. He took the gold, just as the assistant came running back with a wooden case. The assistant opened it, and Gravis saw 13 pills inside the case. The assistant closed it again and placed the case on the counter. Gravis took it and stuffed it awkwardly under one arm since his broken shoulder

Gravis nodded. "Thank you!"

just smiled.

stopped. "Do you know where I

a big dark-blue building with lots of ornamental weapons. That's the Martial Hall. You can find all the

crowded central plaza. The building was just as big as the Medicinal Pavilion, and it was surrounded by many stone and metal ornaments in

trying to pull on the wooden case from under Gravis' arm. Obviously, the would-be thief didn't have enough strength. Though, Gravis was really surprised since he hadn't noticed the guy until he made those

floor and tried to take out a dagger. Yet, another guard came and kicked the dagger away, and the guards started kicking the guy. "Stop resisting!" they continued shouting as the guy cowered