Lightning Is The Only Way

In his quest for strength, he even asked his father if he could train anywhere near the city. Gravis had realized by now, that pressure and life and death fights made him grow more powerful, even if his cultivation realm didn't increase. Also, he wanted to release some rage and frustration. His father shot the idea down immediately. Apparently, even the weakest beast in the city's vicinity was more powerful than the strongest person in a lower world.

"You can go ask your brother Orpheus. He should be able to help you with that," his father commented. "I am actually very happy that you seek strength this much. The more your desire for power rises, the firmer your will gets. You may not realize this, but only a small minority of people look for Life and death tempering, willingly. Others may look at you like you're insane, but if you survive and continue down this path, you will always be the strongest in your cultivation realm."

The Opposer ruffled his son's hair for the first time in his son's life. Gravis was shocked since his father never showed physical affection before. He also saw his father smile genuinely for the first time. His father said encouragingly, "I am looking forward to your return from the lower world. You have the will and talent to succeed. So what if you don't have any luck?" The Opposer harumphed. "If someone stumbles upon some big inheritance, you just need to kill them and steal it. You may not be able to gather your own luck, but you can obtain luck from others. Look at it like rearing pigs." The Opposer grinned slyly.

Gravis smiled happily. He may not agree with his father's cold attitude towards life, but he was happy that his father was proud of him. They talked some more, and Gravis returned to his brother Orpheus. Orpheus told him that he could theoretically let him fight in the practical test as much as he wanted, but he shouldn't forget about his age. The perfect time to start one's cultivation journey was the age of 16. Gravis was about 15 ½ now, and he still had two months of theory ahead of him.

Orpheus told him that the third practical test would be different than the other ones and that it wouldn't take up much time. The third test was different in a sense, that there were no cycles. All the enemies would appear after a set time, no matter if the previous enemy died or not. If one weren't fast enough in ending the fights and keeping their stamina, they would get overwhelmed. On the same day, Gravis did his third practical test. The time for new enemies to arrive was one minute. Gravis had no issue in clearing that since everything died before the minute was up.

He only spent a couple of hours fighting, but was incomparably exhausted. In the next two months, he repeated the practical test a couple more times, raising the difficulty every time. After a couple of times, his brother informed him that their standard beasts were running low, and they had to save some for the actual third practical test. Gravis frowned, but Orpheus smiled instead. Orpheus went out and captured a lot more beasts, and nearly all of them were new.

Though, the difference between the standard beasts and those new ones was that the standard beasts were tailored to have some strong points and some weak points. Those newer beasts were just any random wild beasts. They could be fragile beasts with no strength or strong beasts with nearly no weaknesses. Gravis accepted this condition and fought again.

Most of the beasts were average. They didn't have any major weaknesses or major strengths. Everything was about the same level as Gravis. The fights were harder this time, since exploiting a weakness was harder. Gravis took longer to complete this challenge but also received valuable new experience. He was getting better at spotting the slight imperfections in his enemies, which couldn't even be called weaknesses.

On top of that, when he noticed that multiple enemies used the same tactic against him, he realized that he, himself, also had weaknesses. He used his enemies as a mirror and tried to reduce his imperfections. He had some success in that, but one was never perfect.

In the last two months of his theory classes, he spent a total of an additional four months in the practical tests fighting. The time dilation was 1 to 1000, so it always only took him some minutes to complete the battle. His classmates slowly noticed that Gravis' aura changed. He seemed colder... somehow. They were not sure why he felt colder, but he just did. When he looked at them, they also felt slight nervousness.

The reason for all that was, that Gravis was always in battle mode, even when he didn't battle. He was unconsciously releasing his will, which subconsciously influenced others. Of course, people in a higher realm wouldn't care, but his classmates were in the same realm as him. Through Gravis' crazy slaughter-fest, he slowly built a will-aura, which generally only appeared later in the cultivation journey.

Just like Gravis, Orpheus also had a crazy light in his eyes. He wanted to throw more enemies at his younger brother and see how quickly his battle intent would grow. Sadly, they had no more time. If they continued going like this, Gravis would miss his golden opportunity to start his cultivation journey.

In the last couple of days, Gravis just waited by himself. He had accepted that no one could come close to him. He always looked at others coldly, so they wouldn't want to get to know him. He didn't want to kill more friends just by being friends. He felt lonely inside, but he suppressed this feeling with rage and cold ambition. The only two options were death or reaching the peak of power. There was no in-between.

Finally, the day came when the last practical test was held. The youngsters waited in the hall for the portals, with Gravis at the head. The others didn't want to come close to that cold psycho. He seemed warm, awkward, and innocent when they first met, but now he only acted like a madman. They kept each contact with him to a minimum, lest they said anything wrong.

If one looked closer, one would notice something peculiar. The youngsters didn't want to talk with him due to fear of him. Also, when Gravis did anything they didn't like, they wouldn't voice their opinion.

If one looked closely, they would notice...

That the youngsters looked at Gravis...

The same way as the world looked at the Opposer.