Lightning Is the Only Way

"So, anyway," said Aion as he went back to the original topic. "Do you want to start working immediately or first relax for a couple of days?" he asked.

Gravis looked at Aion with burning eyes. "Heaven has sent me a lot of opportunities, and I want to repay it. I want to work!" Gravis said. Gravis was unsure what work the Heaven Sect even had. What were they supposed to do?

Aion smiled and nodded. "Alright, then let's first go to the storage area," he said as he changed their direction. Gravis followed, and they walked through multiple thick doors until they arrived at a reception desk, which was unoccupied. Aion didn't seem to mind and walked around the desk to a door behind it. He opened the door.

RUMBLE!

As soon as Aion unlocked the door, a wave of gold pushed the door open and flowed out. Gravis had to shield his eyes from the sudden bright shine of gold. Gold was absolutely everywhere, and when Gravis looked into the door, he could only see a wall of gold. Aion saw this and groaned.

"Ugh, every time with this damn gold!" Aion grumbled in annoyance. The gold around him started floating, and a path was created through the wall of gold. The storage room was so full that one had to dig through the gold. Luckily, Aion was in the Spirit Forming Realm and could just create a space for them.

Gravis' mind was a wild mess right now. He had thought that Aion was joking when he had said that the gold was even bursting out of their storage rooms. Aion was, apparently, very serious when he had said that. The gold was literally flowing out of the door. They were not walking through the storage room but digging through it. Gravis was surrounded by gold, and without Aion, he would have already been buried.

After a while, Aion unveiled a bookcase behind a wall of gold, and Aion started looking through the books. He quickly found what he was looking for and threw the book over his shoulder, to Gravis. Gravis caught it and looked at it. The cover of the book looked like a cloudy sky, and the title of the book read: "Heaven's Balance Cultivation Technique".

"That's our cultivation technique," said Aion, as he turned back to Gravis. "Only our Heaven Sect is allowed to train in that cultivation technique. This was bestowed to us by Heaven, and it was meant to be used by us. Everyone not from the Heaven Sect that trains in this gets destroyed by Heaven."

Gravis looked at it and could guess its worth. This was probably the best cultivation technique in this whole lower world. "You are giving this to me, just like this?" Gravis asked.

Aion just laughed. "You're our junior brother, and every Heavenborn in the Heaven Sect trains in this technique. Why shouldn't I give this to you?" he asked jokingly.

Gravis looked through the book and read through crucial parts of it. What he read made him feel that all of this was unreal. Heaven had suppressed him all the way and never allowed him to gain anything easily. It used everyone and everything to leave Gravis with as few cultivation resources as possible.

Yet, now, Gravis had basically used Heaven's most reliable pawn to get something that was probably worth more than everything he had missed out in this world. Gravis felt a deep feeling of irony about this situation, and he started smiling.

He wasn't smiling because of this book, but because Gravis had finally taken something from Heaven. Was this one of Heaven's schemes? Gravis was 100% sure that it was not. Something this valuable would never be used as a gambling chip, even if Heaven was 99% sure that Gravis couldn't survive its scheme. The Heaven's Balance Cultivation Technique was just too powerful.

What did it do?

Did it have immense attack power? No.

Did it have an unbreakable defense? No.

Did it have an unsurpassable speed? No.

Did it increase Gravis' fighting strength in any way? No.

The Heaven's Balance Cultivation Technique only did one thing. It allowed the cultivator to absorb 10% of the Energy of a slain enemy. That was what Aion had done when he had killed the expert from the Lightning Guild. 90% of the Energy went back into nature, while Aion absorbed the remainder.

Why was this so powerful?

The strength of a cultivator was divided into two categories: The Cultivation Realm and the Battle Strength.

A cultivator needed both of those things to succeed. If someone had a high Cultivation Realm, but no Battle Strength, they would be suppressed by everyone else in that Realm and couldn't compete for resources. If that person needed that resource, then other people on a similar Realm would likely also need that. Like this, the person without battle strength would see their path forward blocked.

Battle strength, on the other hand, referred to the strength of a cultivator relative to his Realm. Of course, someone a major Realm higher than the cultivator could just overpower the cultivator. Yet, those people would typically not get involved in the resource fights of people of such level. Those resources were useless to them.

How did one increase their Realm? One had to go into seclusion and consume a lot of resources.

How did one increase their battle strength? One had to fight powerful enemies to increase their will and battle experience. A Will-Aura counted towards battle strength.

Those two concepts were separately trained. Yet, the Heaven's Balance Cultivation Technique combined both aspects into one. It allowed someone to increase their Realm by killing enemies.

Gravis was absolutely sure that Heaven did not intend for him to get this book since resources were one of the strongest weapons that Heaven used to keep Gravis weak. By giving Gravis this book, Heaven would only destroy one of its most potent weapons.

Were there side-effects that Heaven could use to sabotage Gravis with that technique? No! Gravis' will was already too strong, and Heaven could not influence him directly. The Energy that this technique created would also not be changed in any way since it was just normal Energy.

This book enabled Gravis to lessen Heaven's power over him since Heaven could no longer suppress him with cultivation resources. Gravis also had a lot of enemies with the Lightning Guild and Fire Guild, and Gravis saw how Heaven slowly lost its grip on him. Gravis' eyes burned with battle intent.

'I'm slowly escaping your control, Heaven. I bet you are absolutely furious right now, but you don't dare to show it,' Gravis thought. 'Just you wait. This is just the beginning!'

As time progressed, Gravis started to win against Heaven more and more. Gravis had been utterly helpless against Heaven's schemes in the beginning. The Basin of Nature was his first win against Heaven. His second win was when he had outsmarted Heaven by keeping Skye's parent around. Now, this was his third win.

'You are losing your control over me,' Gravis thought with battle-intent as he looked at the ceiling of gold.

'Just wait for me!'