Chapter 225 - 225 – Ploy
It had been a month since Gravis joined the Greys. They had been traveling all around the Core-Continent, and they had also found two more groups of the Greens. Though, these groups had been weaker than the Group Gravis had fought. They had only consisted of Seed Stage Spirit Forming cultivators. Due to that, Gravis had not joined those fights. After all, the others also had to temper themselves.
Gravis was only interested in fights that could temper his will. Multiple fights against weaker opponents could even damage his will, so he didn’t participate. Of course, Elder Byron also knew about this, so he hadn’t even asked Gravis to fight those groups. So, the fight had fallen to the other members of the group.
The first fight had been against two people at the Seed Stage. Lory and Lena had been sent, and they had returned with life-threatening injuries. Luckily, they had managed to kill their opponents. Gravis had, of course, already fully healed his body with his Life Lightning. When they appeared, he quickly healed the one who was more injured. Yet, surprisingly, the healed twin hadn’t healed her sister after recovering. It seemed like they took their oath to never heal anyone again very seriously.
The other one also recovered with the help of some pills. Gravis breathed a sigh of relief when they both recovered. He had spent the last month with the Greys, and he grew to like them. This was the first instance of truly belonging to a group. Gravis had kept himself away from the Proxy-Lightning Guild, afraid that his Karmic Luck would infect them. Luckily, he didn’t need to worry about that now. Lowering the Karmic Luck of the Greys would make the Heaven from the other world protest.
The second fight had been a one-on-one. Drake had fought a cultivator at the Seed Stage. Of course, Drake had also been at the Seed Stage. Yet, Drake never returned. He had died in the fight. For a second, Gravis thought about the possibility that his Karmic Luck had played a role in that outcome, but that was only a baseless suspicion. He regularly checked the Karmic Luck of the others, and there had been no change in them. The only explanation was that Drake had been weaker than his opponent.
Gravis sighed in sadness, but he didn’t lose control over his emotions. Yes, it hurt when a friend died, but Gravis was used to this. On the path to power, many people would die. Ballor had died, Gorn had died, Wendy had died, and Saron had probably also died. This was nothing new to Gravis, though he still felt a little hurt to lose another comrade.
The Greys held a ceremony for their fallen comrade. Sadly, they had no body to bury, so this ceremony didn’t bring closure to everyone. Luckily, all of them had Will-Auras, and something like that wouldn’t impact their path forward. Actually, the opposite was true.
Emotional pain would shake people’s will, and if they managed to get over it, their will would become even stronger. This was also a form of tempering. When Gravis’ mind was in a dark place, he even thought of the idea of getting friends just to temper his will by them getting killed. Of course, this had only been a momentary thought. Gravis would never do anything like that. If he did that, he wouldn’t be able to consider himself a human anymore.
On one particular day, Gravis was concentrating on his Will-Aura. His last fight had increased his will again, and he managed to condense it a little more. Though 95% of his Will-Aura still remained uncondensed. Obviously, tempering a Unity Will was way more challenging than tempering a normal Will-Aura.
On this day, one of the twins came to him. Gravis looked at her and realized that it was Lory. By now, he had managed to tell the two apart. They had spent over a month together, after all. "Hey, Lory," Gravis said with a smile.
Lory smiled back. "Hey, Gravis," she said with a playful tone. "I have something to show you. It’s a surprise!"
Gravis lifted an eyebrow. "What?"
Lory giggled a little. "If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise, silly!"
Gravis laughed a little in embarrassment and rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, that was stupid of me." Then, he stood up. "So, what do you want to show me?"
Lory winked at him. "Just follow me, okay?" Then, she turned around and walked away.
Gravis followed her, but his eyes involuntarily went to her swaying hips. He immediately recovered and concentrated on the back of her head. ’Though it can’t be comfortable to walk like that.’
Suddenly, Gravis got a thought. ’Is she coming onto me?’ Gravis looked back at her behind, noticing the swaying from left to right. ’I don’t think she walks like this normally. I’m about 70% sure that she is coming onto me.’
Gravis smiled bitterly. ’I hope I’m mistaken.’
They continued walking for a while and entered a forest. They quickly reached a lake inside the forest, and Lory stopped walking. "Isn’t the lake beautiful?" she asked with a smirk.
Gravis looked at the lake and agreed. "Yeah, it looks pretty nice," he said and then turned to Lory. "Did you want to show me this lake?" he asked.
Lory giggled a little. "Just wait a little longer."
Gravis scratched the back of his head in confusion.
SPLASH!
A splashing sound came from the lake, which confused Gravis. His Spirit was always active, so he would have noticed any beast or fish jumping out of the lake. His Spirit had not picked up on anything, which confused him. Yet, when he looked at the direction of the splash, his eyes widened, and he took a deep breath through his teeth. What did he see?
The other twin, Lena, just came out of the lake. Usually, that wouldn’t be surprising. The surprising fact was that she was completely naked. Gravis had never seen a naked woman before, so he was stunned for a short amount of time. Lena’s and Gravis’ eyes met, and Gravis immediately turned around. "Sorry! I didn’t know that you were bathing!"
No wonder he hadn’t noticed the splash. The Greys always wore their rings, which made them invisible to the Spirit of others. Lena was still wearing her ring. Meanwhile, Lory saw Gravis’ reaction and giggled. "So, do you like your surprise?" she asked.
Gravis was not sure how to react. Was this some prank or some joke? Gravis didn’t know how to answer, so there was some silence for a while. Surprisingly, Lena hadn’t said anything yet.
"So? Did you enjoy our surprise?" This time, it was Lena that said that, and Gravis immediately realized that they had both played a part in that. Normally, Lena should have been embarrassed or angry when Gravis arrived, but instead, she sounded playful and even a little... husky.
Gravis finally realized that they were really coming onto him. This had all been a ploy to attract him. Instead of answering, Gravis looked at the sky with an uncomfortable expression.
’This will be troublesome,’ Gravis thought bitterly.