Lightning Is the Only Way

The man grew excited when he heard Gravis ask about natural treasures for tempering the bones. "Do you have any?" he asked.

Gravis felt a little confused. "No, I am looking to buy," he explained.

The middle-aged man deflated and sighed. "Sorry, out of stock," he confessed.

"Out of stock?" Gravis asked in surprise.

The man sighed again. "Yeah. About a week ago, a fire broke out in one of our storage rooms and ruined all the natural bone tempering treasures. The other treasures were fine, luckily. No one knew how the fire started, but when we noticed, it was already too late. On top of that, we normally get like three of those treasures per week, but for some reason, we have not received any since the fire. This is really some bad luck."

'Bad luck, eh?' Gravis thought. About a week ago, Gravis had killed the centipede. It seemed like Heaven's plan fell flat with the centipede's death, and it immediately used its contingency plan and destroyed all easy ways for him to temper his bones.

Heaven saw everything, and it knew that Gravis would go to Body City for the entrance exams of the Elemental Guilds. Of course, it also knew that Gravis would want to temper his bones. Heaven was really showing its ruthless side by destroying all easy ways to temper one's bones for an entire city.

Gravis clenched his fist again when he thought about Heaven's actions. He could probably also forget about finding any of those treasures anywhere else in the city. Heaven would not allow for such an oversight. He had to take the hard path, yet again.

"Okay, do you, at least, have pills for tempering bones?" Gravis asked.

The man waved nonchalantly. "Of course! Even if they burn down, we can just make more. You don't have to worry about that," the man explained in confidence.

"Okay, how much for a pill?" Gravis asked.

"One Bone-Pill is ten gold," the man said, his smile back on his face.

Gravis did some math and realized that he could buy about 13 pills. Gravis was absolutely sure that he would need just as many Bone-Pills as he needed Skin-Pills. "If I buy more than ten, could you reduce the price?" Gravis asked, hopefully.

First, the man was shocked. Who would buy so many pills? Then, he grew excited. This was a big customer. "Sure. We can reduce the price to 9.5 gold if you buy more than 10," he offered. The supply of Bone-Pills was endless, so it was no issue to give such a big spender a discount. They wouldn't run out, even if Gravis bought hundreds.

Gravis did some math and realized that he could buy 14 now and still have around two gold left. Though he also wanted to look into Martial Arts, so he decided to buy 13 instead. "Alright, I'll buy 13 then."

The middle-aged man grew excited. "Alright, 13 pills cost 123.5 gold," the man said with a delighted grin. He knocked on the counter again and told another set of confusing numbers to his assistant, who quickly ran away to fetch the pills.

Gravis took out 123 gold, and searched for the remaining 50 silver, but couldn't find any. "You got change for a gold?" he asked the man.

The man just waved him off. "Ah, let's reduce the price to just 123 as a thank you," the man declared magnanimously. He took the gold, just as the assistant came running back with a wooden case. The assistant opened it, and Gravis saw 13 pills inside the case. The assistant closed it again and placed the case on the counter. Gravis took it and stuffed it awkwardly under one arm since his broken shoulder had not healed yet.

Gravis nodded. "Thank you!"

The man just smiled. "No, thank you!"

Gravis turned around but stopped. "Do you know where I can buy Martial Arts?" he asked.

The man pointed to the exit. "Across the plaza is a big dark-blue building with lots of ornamental weapons. That's the Martial Hall. You can find all the Martial Arts you need in there."

"Thank you," Gravis said and left the Medicinal Pavilion. When he came outside, he could already see the Martial Hall even through the crowded central plaza. The building was just as big as the Medicinal Pavilion, and it was surrounded by many stone and metal ornaments in the form of different weapons. A big sign showed the words "Martial Hall" written in aggressive and overbearing strokes.

"Hm, argh!" Gravis heard from behind him. He turned his head just to see a man trying to pull on the wooden case from under Gravis' arm. Obviously, the would-be thief didn't have enough strength. Though, Gravis was really surprised since he hadn't noticed the guy until he made those noises of exertion.

Suddenly, a guard bodied the thief and held him down. 'Huh, maybe that's why the city is called Body City,' Gravis snickered to himself. The poor thief was on the floor and tried to take out a dagger. Yet, another guard came and kicked the dagger away, and the guards started kicking the guy. "Stop resisting!" they continued shouting as the guy cowered in a fetal position.

"Come on, man. That's enough," Gravis said to them.

The two guards looked at him, saw his pill-case, and, surprisingly, stopped. "He was resisting arrest. We were only fulfilling our duty," the guard spoke with confidence, and then looked at the poor thief. "Well, he stopped resisting now. Boys, let's get him to HQ," he shouted to the newly arrived guards. One guard lifted the thief above his head and ran off.

Gravis was not sure how he should feel about this. Thieves were a problem in a city, but the guards went a little too far. Gravis sighed as he realized that might truly made right. Weak people were often suppressed by stronger ones, just because they were weak.

Though Gravis felt pity for the thief, he didn't intervene. The thief had tried to take out a dagger previously, and he was still alive and not injured too much. The guards, apparently, held themselves back. If they were serious, just one kick from the guards would distribute the thief to different parts of the surroundings.

Gravis continued walking to the Martial Hall, now, being more careful about his case of pills. He quickly arrived and entered.

The inside of the Martial Hall looked different than the Medicinal Pavilion. It had a long wooden floor, and Gravis could not see any display cases. There were also no counters. The only thing of note that Gravis could see were multiple people comfortably kneeling on cushions at the opposite wall. Some others were sitting before those people and spoke to them. This was probably how the Martial Hall conducted business, and it surely was different than Gravis had imagined.

He quickly went to a free spot and sat before a vigorous young man with sharp eyebrows. The young man opened his eyes. "What do you require?"

Gravis wanted to say Martial Arts, but that seemed kind of obvious. "I'm not sure how you conduct business around here. It's my first time in a Martial Hall. I'm looking for different kinds of Martial Arts to supplement my fighting style," Gravis explained.

The young man immediately stood up in fury and shouted: "HOW DARE YOU?!"