Lightning Is The Only Way

Gravis and Cynthia flew around for a bit. Gravis always kept his Spirit up and searched through the ground. The ground was just littered with incredible ore that Gravis wanted. He was way closer to the core of the continent, which meant that the quality of ore increased significantly.

In less than 30 minutes, Gravis had gathered a plethora of ore. All of the ore was of different levels in the Nascent Nourishing Rank, which was quite impressive. Sadly, Gravis wasn't powerful enough to smelt such ore yet. With his lightning, he was barely able to make use of Late Unity Rank materials.

It required incredible power and Spirit to manipulate and forge with such ore. One shouldn't forget that Gravis had barely molten some of the Golden Dragon's body with a Lightning Crescent, which was his most powerful attack. With his current lightning and Spirit, he wouldn't be able to forge anything with Peak Unity Rank materials.

Because of that, most of the ore remained unused inside his Spirit Space. Yet, Gravis had gathered a lot of that ore and could already see that his future equipment was basically taken care of. The biggest issue right now was to find weaker ore.

While collecting all this ore, Gravis found out more about the Red Kingdom. Apparently, most of the beasts had claimed their own territories inside the Red Kingdom, and they weren't exactly happy when some weaker beast came to their territory.

Yet, as soon as they saw Cynthia, they remained quiet. They only carefully asked some questions about why those two were in their territories. Gravis had explained a lot of things about ore and forging to Cynthia while they flew, so she had no problems in answering the question.

After they heard that Gravis was after the hard stone in the earth, nearly all of the beasts stopped caring. This hard stone had no use to them, and they didn't really care about it. It literally made no difference to them.

Yet, some beasts weren't exactly happy about that. Beasts with a metal and earth affinity felt drawn to powerful ore. When they remained near such ore, they felt themselves become more in tune with nature and their element. They really didn't want to give any of that ore away. They owned the ore, and they had a use for it.

After thinking for a while, Gravis decided to exchange. Gravis had an incredible amount of powerful ore since so many beasts didn't care about it. So, Gravis offered them ore with a higher Rank than what they currently possessed. Of course, he only did that if he lacked this particular level of ore.

Basically all the beasts were quite delighted by that offer. The more powerful the ore, the better. After all, most of the places with stronger ore were occupied by more powerful beasts. These beasts, obviously, wouldn't give parts of their territory to weaker beasts. Because of that, it was quite challenging for these beasts to get their claws on better ore.

Gravis also wouldn't have gotten any of this powerful ore if Cynthia hadn't followed him. Every beast knew Cynthia, and they respected her. Even Kings on the same level as her didn't seem to mind the matter too much.

After gathering ore for over two hours, Gravis furrowed his brows. "I need weaker ore," he said to Cynthia. "I'm fully loaded with powerful ore, but I can't use it yet. Do you know of a place where I can find weaker ore, Cynthia?" Gravis asked.

"We're currently in the core of the Red Kingdom," Cynthia explained. "You might have noticed that most beasts we have met were Kings. That's because the closer we get to our King's mountain, the more powerful the beasts get. I don't exactly know where to find weaker ore, but I guess you can find it in the weaker territories."

Gravis scratched his chin in thought. "That sounds reasonable," he commented. "Where can I find these fringe territories?"

Cynthia pointed to the south with one of her paws. "We just need to travel in that direction for a while. The further we travel, the weaker the beasts become. As long as you don't leave the borders of our Kingdom, you can go wherever you want. I will tell you when we reach the borders of our Kingdom."

Gravis nodded and flew to the south, followed by Cynthia. While flying in the sky, Gravis still kept on checking the ground with his Spirit. He was sure that, at some point, he would find some ore that was actually in the Unity Rank.

Yet, Gravis hadn't expected that the Red Kingdom was so big. He and Cynthia traveled for over six hours until Gravis finally found some Unity Ore. It was a Peak Unity Rank material, and he couldn't use it yet, but it would become useful as soon as he became a level three Lord.

After some talking and negotiations, Gravis received enough Peak Unity Rank material. Now, he only needed some Late Unity Rank materials. With that, he would be able to forge his new weapon and equipment.

Before Gravis understood the Law regarding the materials, he hadn't been able to make full use of them. In general, a material in its raw form was about as hard as the hardest part of a beast's body at the equivalent level.

This meant that, for example, raw ore of the Late Unity Rank was about as hard as the claws or teeth of a level four Lord. This seemed weak at first glance, but one shouldn't forget the hidden advantages of having a body made of ore. The Golden Dragon was a good example.

When it fully transformed into metal, it became many times heavier without becoming slower, which increased the power of its attacks. Additionally, its whole body became as hard as its hardest part. That's why beasts with a metal affinity became more powerful when they transformed into metal.

Forging would change the properties of these materials. Before Gravis understood the Law regarding the materials, he could have created a weapon or armor that was just as powerful as the raw ore.

If, for example, Gravis didn't understand the Law and made a shield of the Golden Dragon's body, an attack from the Golden Dragon would have destroyed the shield and parts of its claws. After all, they had the same hardness.

Yet, by understanding this new Law, Gravis was able to compress and elevate the material. With this new method of forging, Gravis could increase the power of the ore by one level. So, by creating the shield with this new smithing technique, the Golden Dragon lost the ability to destroy it. After all, the shield had been as powerful as raw ore from a Peak Unity Rank material.

Yet, peculiarly, such a powerful weapon that was a level harder than its base form would only count as a weapon one level weaker. Example: By forging a weapon with a Late Unity Rank material with the newer and better method, one would still create a Late Unity Weapon instead of a Peak Unity Weapon.

At first glance, this didn't seem to make much sense. Yet, if one thought about it more, one would see the logic behind that. A Peak Unity Weapon should be able to fight against a Peak Unity Beast, right? Yet, if the weapon got severely damaged by such a beast in one attack, one couldn't really consider it as a Peak Unity Weapon, could they?

Because of that, the classifications for weapons were always one level lower than the actual hardness of it. So, all in all, Gravis could now create a Late Unity Weapon with his current power. Theoretically, he could also create one with Peak Unity Rank materials and the old smithing technique, but he couldn't manipulate such powerful materials.

All of these explanations boiled down to one point: Gravis could now forge weapons and armor two levels higher than himself instead of one.

Now, Gravis only needed some Late Unity Rank materials to fully equip himself. After that, he wouldn't need to search for any new ore for a long while.

Yet, finding such a relatively weak material wasn't easy. It took Gravis another couple of hours until he finally found it. He went over to the beast and asked for the ore.

"Scram, weakling," the beast shouted with disdain.

Gravis was a bit surprised since that was the first time that anyone had talked to him like this after he went ore-gathering. Cynthia was always directly behind him, and she never hid herself. The beasts immediately saw her and never acted as arrogantly as this one.

Gravis looked behind him, and, sure enough, Cynthia was just standing there. Then, Gravis looked back at the beast. It was some kind of bronze-colored bear and was a level three Lord.

"I'm willing to trade some higher-grade stone for your stone," Gravis explained.

"I don't care! You're weak, and you should quickly leave before I tear you to pieces," the bear said aggressively. "The only reason why you're still alive is because of the powerful cat behind you."

Gravis blinked a couple of times out of confusion. So, the bear actually did notice Cynthia. Yet, he just didn't give a shit about her. That was quite surprising to Gravis since even level two and level three Kings seemed to give quite a lot of shits about Cynthia.

Gravis looked at Cynthia and saw that she had quite an uncomfortable expression on her face. Apparently, the background of this bear wasn't so simple.