Lightning Is the Only Way

Gravis sat down when he felt his body advancing. He checked his Spirit Space and noticed that he only had around 50 body tempering pills left. "Wow, I really ate a lot of those pills. Spirit Forming Experts probably have to work for many years to get enough wealth to upgrade their bodies."

Gravis retrieved all the remaining pills and started stuffing them into his mouth. 'No reason to keep them. Might as well just take all of them now,' he thought, stuffing his face with pills. If anyone else saw this, they would grow incredibly angry. Every single one of those pills was costly, yet Gravis was just stuffing them into his maw.

Gravis felt his body heat up, and his breath quickened as well. He concentrated and felt a barrier inside of him. Gravis narrowed his eyes and looked at the barrier with concentration. "Break!" he shouted, and the barrier exploded. As the barrier broke, his breathing grew even faster. His heart beat furiously in his chest.

Blub Blub!

Black bubbles appeared on his body as the body used the additional air to push some black stuff out. Gravis' clothing was ruined immediately. After around five minutes, everything stopped, and Gravis took a deep breath.

"Hurr," Gravis retched as a thick smell of shit burst through his nose because of the deep breath he had just taken. Shortly after, he even barfed out some half-digested pills. Gravis immediately destroyed his clothing with lightning and jumped away.

BZZZ!

Gravis immediately used his lightning to destroy the black stuff around his body, but it didn't work. Those impurities that his body expelled had been part of his body, and therefore, also had his lightning resistance. He couldn't destroy them with lightning. Gravis retched again as he smelt himself. He quickly checked the surrounding 50 kilometers with his body but didn't see any water. Yet, he saw something else. 'This has to do!' he shouted to himself in his mind.

Gravis burst forth with all his physical speed and reached a small sand area a couple of kilometers away. This sandpit was in the middle of a forest, which would make anyone suspicious. Of course, there was a good reason to become suspicious about that.

Gravis jumped into the sandpit, using his full power to dig.

SHING CRACK!

A middle-grade Energy Beast used its pincers to attack him, yet its pincers cracked as they hit Gravis' steel-like body. Gravis had already noticed this beast before, but he couldn't care about it right now. He used his lightning to move forward in the sand, making the sharp edges of the sand rub all over his body.

The beast jumped out of the sandpit, shocked by the physical power of this intruder. It was an ant lion, and they used sand for hunting prey. Normal ant lions hunted in the desert since there was plenty of sand, but such a strong beast didn't need natural sand to hunt. It was an Energy Beast in tune with the earth element, so it could create its sandpit wherever it wanted. Right now, it only watched its sandpit with anxiety. What was the plan of the intruder?

Meanwhile, Gravis was quickly moving around in the sand, using it as a whetstone to grind all the dirt away on his body. The ant lion watched as Gravis moved back and forth in its sandpit and grew confused. What was the intruder doing?

After around two minutes, Gravis jumped out again. His skin was perfectly white, and no black stuff could be seen anymore. Gravis smelled his body, and his nose wrinkled. "I can still smell it, but it's bearable," he said.

Gravis quickly retrieved his stuff and put on more clothes.

At least, he would have. Sadly, it seemed like he had just destroyed his last pair of clothes. On top of that, he had destroyed his robes from the Heaven Sect when he had changed his clothes. He had thought that he would never need them again. Like this, he stood around, naked.

Then, Gravis took note of the ant lion, which was warily watching him. "Oh, sorry about your home. Seems like you have to make a new one," he said. Gravis quickly left in search of more clothing.

Some time after Gravis had left, the ant lion calmed down and went back to its sandpit. Yet, it stopped when it smelled something. It let out some insect-like noise and walked away from the pit again. Its sandpit smelled nasty, and now it had to create a new one. It glared into the direction where Gravis went to and let out more noises. If it could speak like a human, it would call him an asshole.

Meanwhile, Gravis was inspecting the new power of his body and came to an interesting conclusion. "This is interesting," he said to himself. "Beasts have a way more powerful body than I had initially thought. When I had been in the Body Tempering Realm, my body had been stronger than a high-grade Demonic Beast at the end. Yet, right now, my body is only equal to a high-grade Energy Beast, even though it is equal to the initial stage of Spirit Forming for humans."

A high-grade Energy Beast was, regarding its Realm, about as high as an eighth level Energy Gathering human. Yet, their bodies were around as powerful as someone with a body equal to Spirit Forming. Apparently, the gap between the bodies of beasts and humans only increased the further he progressed.

"I wonder," Gravis mumbled. "Would I need to reach the middle of the Unity Realm with my body to equal a high-grade Spirit Beast's body? Their physical power seems to just get crazier and crazier."

Gravis was right. Heaven created Beasts so that they could function as tempering experiences for humans of the same realm. Demonic Beasts get access to Energy when they become Energy Beasts, yet their Energy was way weaker than the Energy of humans. How could they function as tempering like that? Thus, Heaven increased their physical power even more.

When people reached the Spirit Forming Realm, they received access to finer control and further concentration of their Energy. Like this, they would become better at defending, attacking, fleeing, and became way more versatile. Spirit Beasts received some knowledge, but that wouldn't be enough to close the distance between the new weapons of Spirit Forming Experts. Therefore, their bodies became even more powerful. Around 95% of a beast's power came from their physical power alone.

Starting at the higher Energy Gathering Realm, it became straight-up impossible for humans to temper their bodies to the same level as the corresponding beast. If humans could equal the physical power of such beasts, the whole point of tempering would vanish. The beast had to be able to put up a fight.

Gravis didn't know all this, but he had some suspicions.

After some minutes of running, he finally found a town coming into contact with his Spirit. "I can buy some clothes there," he said as he got a little bit closer. After he walked for several kilometers, the whole town was inside his Spirit, but he was still many kilometers away. He didn't walk into the town. Even with his powerful will, he would feel embarrassed by walking around naked inside a town.

He quickly checked the town with his Spirit for clothing and found a clothing store. He checked out some good clothes and retrieved them. "I'll buy some clothes," his voice appeared in the attendant's head, who quickly jumped up in fright. "Here's some gold!"

A small cube of gold appeared at the counter, frightening the attendant even more. Gravis quickly put on a silver shirt and some silver pants, ignoring the attendant. "Might as well change my clothing to match my eyes and hair," he mumbled. Of course, this time, he bought a lot of spare clothes, including some other colors, if he felt like wearing them.

Without paying the town any more attention, he left for his next target. He had paid way more than those clothes were worth, so the store shouldn't be angry about him "taking" some clothes.

His next target was relatively close, and he would only need about an hour to arrive there.