Lightning Is the Only Way

Gravis lost himself to time. For once, he was able to forget everything about himself and dedicated his entire being to understanding the different kinds of stone directly in front of him. It was like the magic of understanding Laws had returned, and Gravis felt like it was even more beautiful than back then.

Back then, Gravis wasn't able to properly appreciate the feeling of wonder. Only when someone lost something and regained it much later would they truly be able to appreciate it.

It was simply a joy to look at all the different stones.

Whooom!

Suddenly, the Energy inside the ore stopped moving. The metallic essence vanished, leaving behind only dead stone. Gravis frowned as he inspected everything. Was something wrong with the Virtualization Array?

Gravis checked the Virtualization Array, but it didn't move at all. It had simply stopped working for some reason.

Gravis concentrated on the Virtualization Array and felt that there was no more Energy inside it. It was empty.

"Empty?" Gravis asked himself. Then, his eyes widened. "Are 500 years already over? But I didn't manage to comprehend the Law of Core!"

Gravis inspected his surroundings with his Law of Time and noticed that 500 years had passed. Sure enough, Gravis had stayed here for the entire duration.

"What!? That was never 500 years!" Gravis said.

"Father, has it been 500 years?" he asked.

"Yes," his father answered.

"What? How?" Gravis asked in shock. "I only just started!"

that you lost track of time, Gravis. It happens. Just rent it again," his father said

still couldn't wrap his head around it, but everything pointed at that 500 years

like that," Gravis said to himself as he grimaced. "So much time has passed, and I didn't even notice. This feels similar to when Heaven told me that I had stayed 200 years in the

more frequently in the future. Understanding the

the mountain. The mountain was still there since the Virtualization Array only controlled the

He felt absolutely ancient to me. 3,000 years was such

I'm even older than Ferris back then. It felt like I had been only 100 years

is unforgiving," Gravis said,

minutes, just thinking. Then, he sighed again and pocketed the ore mountain. This was a

of ore. This sounded like an enormous number, but one shouldn't forget that Gravis paid 50 million Immortal Stones. On

inspected the city to find Yersi. He wanted to

people in his "living room". One of them was Jake, while the other one was

"Already?" Gravis asked himself.

to them and looked with wonder at

some reason, Gravis got reminded of

shouted in surprise as she jumped into Gravis' embrace. "I'm a human

he put his hand on her head and ruffled her hair. "You look beautiful. Honestly, if you had a

in the philosophy of beasts and didn't care about meeting her. Now that I think about it, I think I regret not meeting

would have seen her at least once,"

shook her head. "No, I didn't," she

to see her?" Gravis

Jake remained silent. He didn't want to interrupt the reunion.

his

the time he first met Azure, in the middle of the competition