Lightning Is the Only Way

Joyce and Gravis looked at each other with uncomfortable expressions. They remained silent for a couple of seconds.

"I'm sorry," they both said at the same time, eliciting a look of surprise by the other.

"What are you sorry about?" Joyce asked in surprise. "You showed me a truth about the cultivation world. I should be the sorry one since I let my emotions guide my actions." Joyce was a little red in the face due to embarrassment. "I also didn't mean what I have said previously. Those words were uncalled for."

Gravis sighed. "Don't worry about it. I didn't take them to heart. Also, I should apologize for saying it that directly. I didn't take your cultivation path into account. After all, everyone's experiences are different."

"Hey, don't steal my line!" Manuel grumbled.

Gravis only smiled slightly. "Your wisdom is my wisdom now," he said with a smirk.

Manuel rolled his eyes, but inside, he was happy. He felt proud of himself. After all, not everyone was able to teach the Lightning Calamity something.

Joyce looked with confusion at both of them but then turned to Gravis again. "Anyways, I'm sorry for my words. I know that you only wanted to help me."

"Water under the bridge," Gravis said with a dismissive wave.

Joyce smiled happily, and, for some reason, Gravis also felt a bit happy when he saw her smile. Yet, he quickly caught himself. 'I might actually feel attracted to her,' he thought. 'This could become dangerous. If I get too close to her, I might have doubts about my future path. I don't know how I will act in such a situation. I can't take the risk into account that I might decide to not leave this lower world. I can't get too close to her.'

Joyce was quite confused about Gravis' involuntary changes in expression. For a second there, she could've sworn that Gravis showed a genuine smile, but it had quickly vanished. Now, he only looked troubled. 'I really don't get him,' she thought.

Manuel watched them while cultivating, and he could only muster a troubled smile. 'I think I know what's going on with Gravis. No matter what he chooses, he will lose,' Manuel thought. 'For once, I'm happy that I'm not him.'

Who didn't want to be a powerful genius? Just imagining the possibility to fight two Stages above oneself would elicit feelings of longing. Yet, everyone had their own problems, even powerful people like Gravis. Nearly no one had an easy life.

Like this, time passed.

later, Manuel reached the tenth Stage of Energy Gathering and immediately broke into the Spirit Forming Realm. When someone's body was powerful enough, they wouldn't need a strengthened dantian.

the other, obviously, was the new person. The new person quickly went over to Manuel and thanked him for

saw his actions as more selfish than selfless, so he

full day after that, nothing of

Brrr!

door to the mountain started opening slowly, creating an uncomfortable sound of stones grating together. The groups all stood up and readied themselves. Many people retrieved their weapons and moved into different formations. A couple more groups arrived, but there was still

been confused about the Lightning Sect's absence, and only Joyce's group knew that no group from the Lightning Sect would come. After all, in order to not force Gravis to fight against his disciple

groups didn't increase. That was because the groups from the Water, Light, and Darkness Sect had left. They

met an untimely demise, only a total of two Sects took part in this year's resource war. One was the Wind Sect, while the other was the Fire Sect. The Fire Sect was comprised of battle-hungry maniacs, while the people

group after another charged in

go," Joyce said with motivation as she pointed forward with a

look better if you were on a horse,"

him and pouted. "Hey! Don't ruin my

and then walked forward. "Let's just go,"

The rest of the group quickly followed. A long, dimly lit corridor greeted them, and only some lit torches created some light. Without these,

the path for several kilometers. Surprisingly, the path wasn't straight. The path went up and down, left and right. The construction of the corridor resembled the body of a snake more than an

the path with his Spirit and noticed another surprising thing. 'The walls block my Spirit. On top of that, I can't see further than a kilometer with my Spirit. On a

while, the group reached a small hall. Two braziers stood in the middle, illuminating the surroundings. The stones were brownish, and the design reminded people of an old temple or the ruin of

also weird," Manuel said with narrowed eyes. "This

groups are supposed to meet in a gigantic hall with a lot of gates. In the hall, most of the disciples would

changed the path just for us. The other groups are probably really confused about a sudden wall appearing behind them. If we went in first, the same thing would have happened, and

numbers above the two gates meant, but he had a suspicion. "Let me

don't have an option to choose. We are forced to split up. This is so strange. Normally there would be hundreds of paths with all kinds of

the gate with the big '1'. "This is where we part ways," Gravis said as he looked

a little too casual? Something is seriously wrong here! Let's first talk about