Lightning Is the Only Way

Gravis was quite surprised by what he saw because the whole Earth Guild was built inside the mountain. The sheer size of the gigantic cave made it seem like the whole mountain was carved out until only the outer shell remained. Of course, that wasn't true. Gravis had seen how big the mountain was, and there was still a lot of solid stone left. Yet, didn't they worry that the mountain could collapse on top of their heads?

He could see a lot of buildings carved out of the stone and a myriad of caves at the walls. Judging by the number of caves, Gravis guessed that those were the personal caves of the disciples. There were literally thousands. But one thing hit Gravis even harder than the size of the Earth Guild.

A cacophony of noise assaulted Gravis. He heard the loud clanking of weapons on stone and a lot of imposing voices. The voices all turned into an unintelligible mess of shouts, annoying Gravis. Though he couldn't understand what the voices were saying, he felt no aggression coming from them. They were just really loud.

Gravis looked over to the disciple, who had continued walking by now. Gravis quickly caught up and followed him. The closer they got, the louder everything got. Gravis slowly grew annoyed by all the noise, but there was no way around that. The Earth Guild was respectful, and Gravis just had to deal with all the noise.

As they got closer, Gravis could discern the voices of nearby speakers. He was quite surprised by the content of their dialogue. Most of them were discussing their ways and philosophy. They were discussing the attributes of earth and their beliefs associated with it.

Though they all discussed loudly with each other, they all remained unaggressive and respectful. They were only arguing about why they believe their way to be true, and not why the belief of others was false.

"Hey, you two," shouted the leading guard at the two discussing people. "Move to the discussion hall!" he ordered them. The two disciples looked at the new arrival, but when they saw him, they only nodded and left, moving to a big building.

Gravis watched them leave and then turned to the guard that accompanied him. "What's that all about?" he asked.

The expression of the guard, obviously, didn't change. "Discussing your beliefs outside of the discussion hall is forbidden!" he stated loudly. "If we allowed everyone to discuss their beliefs openly, the guild would become noisy!"

Gravis looked in disbelief at the disciple. 'So, right now, it's not noisy?' he thought. Gravis was constantly under the assault of clanking weapons and shouting people. How was this not noisy? Gravis only remained silent.

guard turned to Gravis. "Do you have any special destination in

intended to look around some more, but this noise was grating on his nerves. He could barely hear his own thoughts.

headache to deal with, so he didn't need another one on top of it. He could tune out the noise with his will, but that would be exhausting if he did that over

had already learned enough from the accompanying

high-grade Energy Beast with me. Where

"What?" asked the guard.

I'd like to exchange!"

annoyance. "I heard you! You don't need to shout!" he, ironically,

you not hear your surroundings!?' he thought in annoyance. Gravis took

him more closely. "What did

said, I killed it on the way to here!"

shouldn't shout this loudly while in public! It's bad manners!" he, of course,

twitched in suppressed

eyes. "Then why did you ask!?" Gravis asked with clear annoyance in his voice. This guy was getting on his nerves more than anyone he

sound like you killed it alone!" he shouted back, which made Gravis even angrier. This guy said that Gravis shouldn't shout, yet he

can I exchange the

and looked at Gravis very closely. After some seconds of intense staring,

shouted and turned around. He used his physical strength to run back to

came the shout of the

Gravis,' he thought to himself. 'Be the bigger man and just leave. No need to make a