Lightning Is the Only Way

Contrary to what one might believe, Ferris didn't immediately understand another Law as soon as he arrived here. He probably also didn't have much experience with plants, which was why he was also taking a long time to understand any Laws related to them.

Gravis looked at all the plants surrounding him and observed them based on their position, not their kind. Gravis wanted to understand a lot of Laws anyway. Concentrating on only a single kind might actually be harder than looking at all of them. By now, Gravis knew very well that a lot of knowledge about one topic might cross into another. Trying to understand the whole thing would be better than understanding only a part of it.

Due to that, Gravis started the long track of understanding Laws.

Two years passed.

"Hey, Gravis! I managed to understand a Law!" Ferris said as he arrived besides Gravis.

Instead of lamenting his own progress, Gravis only smirked. He knew that he wouldn't understand any new Laws for quite a few years since he wasn't concentrating on anything in particular, but that would change in the future. This situation could best be described with the proverb: Sharpening one's axe didn't take away time from cutting wood. Gravis was preparing himself.

"That's great, Ferris," Gravis said with a smile. "What did you understand?"

Ferris looked incredibly excited with his tail wagging crazily. "I think I managed to comprehend one of the Laws that you want to understand," Ferris said.

Gravis lifted an eyebrow. "Oh? What is it?"

"It's the Composition of Wood," Ferris said. "I haven't nearly seen as much wood as I have seen other elements in my life, but I have seen the bulwark fight a couple of times. Additionally, with my fire, I have seen how wood breaks down."

Gravis scratched his chin in thought. Ferris had just managed to comprehend the Composition Law of another element. Had any beast ever even tried to do this in this world?

"That's indeed one of the Laws I'm interested in," Gravis commented. "Hey, Ferris. Could you show me what you can do with that Law?"

Gravis wasn't entirely sure if these Composition Laws had any kind of benefit towards one's Battle-Strength when they came from a different element. By understanding the Composition Law of one's own Element, one would be able to summon their element with less Energy cost. Yet, if one wasn't able to use the element, that advantage would become useless.

"Sure thing, Gravis!" Ferris shouted with excitement. Then, he touched a tree with one of his claws.

SSSHHHH!

The wood on the tree quickly turned into dust, which was blown away by the wind. Only the leaves, roots, and water canals inside the tree remained behind.

BANG!

The remainder of the tree hit the ground as it collapsed without the support of the wood. Gravis watched this happen in interest.

"Hey, Meadow. Could you summon a tree more powerful than Ferris so he can try the same thing on that one?" Gravis asked. The tree had been far weaker than Ferris, and Gravis doubted that the same thing would work with a more powerful tree.

"Whooptie-fucken-do, the furry boy is now a full-fledged gardener. Sadly, he doesn't know that he's supposed to nurture plants and not turn them into dust," Meadow said with sarcasm. "Truly, a great loss to the plant community."

"But a great gain to the beast community," Gravis said with a smirk.

CRR!

A new tree appeared at the spot of the old one, but this one was way more powerful.

"What about world-peace, you cold, unfeeling brute!? Where has your love for all things living gone?" Meadow asked in mock-anger.

The banter between Meadow and Gravis continued for a bit, and when they were done, Gravis told Ferris that he should try the same thing again.

Ferris touched the tree, and it shook a bit. Yet, it was still in one piece. Gravis looked at it while scratching his chin in thought. "What were you able to do, Ferris?" Gravis asked.

"The tree is at the level of a level four Emperor," Ferris said. "That's far beyond my power, but I managed to weaken the wood. Right now, the tree should only be as hard as a level three Emperor."

Gravis nodded. "If you ever fight a plant or a beast using wood as a weapon or shield, this will be incredibly useful. Yet, against any other opponent, this Law won't make any difference."

Ferris scratched his ear. "I guess so," he said.

Yet, Gravis only smirked. "If every element were distributed with the same likelihood, 10% of your opponents would be weakened by you. After all, there are nine elements and beasts without any elemental affinities."

"But!" Gravis said loudly, "weakening one's opponent is an entirely different power scaling than strengthening yourself. Your own strengthening always takes your base power into account."

"For example, if I use everything I have and put it into speed, I would be able to move around 50 times faster for an instant while using up a ton of Energy. Pushing that to 51 times is basically impossible for me."

"If I would fight a beast three levels above myself, their body would be around 64 times more powerful than mine. If their speed is a bit above average for their level, they would be a slight bit faster than me since my speed is very fast for my level."

"Yet, if they had the wood element, by simply weakening them by an entire level, they wouldn't be 64 times as powerful, but only 16 times. In that sense, I would be many times faster than them."

Gravis said these things half to Ferris but also half to himself. Gravis often talked to himself when he was thinking. "This is a very specialized counter Law," Gravis said. "If I don't fight someone with a wood element, it is totally useless, but if I fight one, it's about as powerful as a level two Law. What an interesting power dynamic," Gravis said.

Ferris only scratched himself. "Yeah, but you have to touch the enemy first," Ferris said. "Chances are that if you touch your enemy to weaken them, they would directly kill you if they are so much more powerful."

Instead of confirming Ferris' words, Gravis' smirk only widened.

"Oh, fuck," Meadow suddenly interjected. "That's fucking unfair! Did you suck a God's dick or something to be born a human!?" Meadow asked with frustration.

Gravis had told Meadow his backstory, so she knew his powers. Gravis only had to laugh when he heard Meadow. "That's right!" he shouted. "I have a Spirit! This means that I don't have to touch the enemy to use it! Any enemy that comes close to me with that element will be weakened!"

Ferris' eyes widened as he finally understood why Gravis smirked. Yes, he didn't have to touch the enemy since he had a Spirit. For the first time, Ferris felt envious of Gravis a bit. Yet, he was also happy for him.

Suddenly, Gravis' laughter halted as if he had been frozen. Then, his face turned into a grimace.

"Fuck!" he said in frustration. "My body is lightning, and if I fight another human that knows the Lightning Composition Law for my kind of lightning, wouldn't they also be able to weaken me!?"

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Meadow was laughing crazily as she heard that. "Serves you right! Hey, ever heard the phrase, advantages can have disadvantages? It's quite an accurate phrase!" she said.

Gravis only looked with disgust at his surroundings as Meadow continued laughing.

"Honestly, I might start hating this phrase if this continues," Gravis muttered.

Ferris was only scratching himself as if nothing of importance was happening. "So what?" Ferris asked. "Your body is made of Punishment Lightning. As far as I know, Punishment Lightning is a level three Law that you have to understand in one single go and isn't comprised of weaker Laws. This means that there is no Composition Law for Punishment Lightning."

"So, your enemy literally has to understand the Law of Punishment Lightning and be a human to do that to you," Ferris said.

Gravis wasn't encouraged by these words because he remembered something his father had said in the past. "Punishment Lightning is a pretty popular element," was what he had said.

Additionally, Gravis also remembered that Ferris had managed to weaken a more powerful tree than him. The tree before that had been turned into ashes. If someone a level or Realm above Gravis understood Punishment Lightning…

Suddenly, this conversation was no longer funny. If someone understood Punishment Lightning, chances were very high that they were a lightning cultivator. Wasn't Gravis the perfect counter to lightning cultivators?

Yes, but not in the way one might think.

Gravis could absorb and control their lightning, but in comparison to beasts with a lightning affinity, humans weren't filled with pure lightning. They had Energy inside their dantians and transformed that Energy into lightning. At most, Gravis could make the converter, which converted Energy to lightning, explode. Sadly, that converter probably wasn't powerful enough to kill the user.

The cultivator would lose their lightning element, but they would still be alive, and being alive was everything they needed to be to turn Gravis into nothingness. Of course, their power had to be above him first. The question was, how far above him?

Suddenly, Gravis' eyes shone. 'The Will-Aura!' he concluded. 'They are using their Spirit and will as a medium to scatter and destroy my will. So, logically, if their Will-Aura after the level suppression is more powerful than mine, I will die. If we are about the same, I will probably be severely weakened.'

Slowly, Gravis realized that his situation wasn't as bad as he had thought. 'Additionally, others are not able to feel that my body is comprised of lightning. As long as they don't know that my body is made of lightning, they won't just randomly try to scatter it with the Punishment Lightning Law.'

Gravis sighed again. 'This means that I actually need to keep my powers a secret in the next world. I'm not a fan of that, but sure, I can deal with that.'

'Also, I should probably increase the priority of my Will-Aura even more.'