Chapter 260 - 260 – Testing The Threshold
Gravis jumped back and forth while the seed shot around his Spirit Space with unreal speed. Gravis had been hit quite a lot in the past couple of minutes. In the beginning, it hadn’t been that hard to evade the seed, but as soon as Gravis started hitting it with more power, it became increasingly more difficult. The seed became nearly unavoidable as soon as Gravis started kicking instead of punching it.
Yet, Gravis had the time of his life right now. He realized that this was an incredible way of training his dodging. Since the seed was round, and Gravis constantly had to dodge it, he decided to call this training Dodge Ball. He thought that this was a fitting name for the training.
"Is everything alright?" Gravis heard the voice of Old Man Lightning reverberating throughout his Spirit Space. He guessed that this was how a sound transmission sounded while inside his own Spirit Space. Of course, that voice distracted him enough to get hit by the seed.
BZZZ!
The seed just released some lightning that entered Gravis’ "body" and then halted. The seed was himself, so it obviously wouldn’t injure him. Yet, he was a little bummed out that he couldn’t break his record of consecutive dodges. After a sigh, Gravis left his Spirit Space.
In the physical world, Gravis opened his eyes and looked at Old Man Lightning. "Oh, everything’s fine. I was just training."
WACK!
"And here I thought something went wrong," Old Man Lightning shouted with frustration. "After your breakthrough, you just remained silent, and I was worried that something went wrong. Instead, you immediately went back to training! Try to think of my position for once!"
Gravis rubbed his head, but he realized that he might have worried Old Man Lightning by being silent. "Yeah, sorry," Gravis said nonchalantly. "I was just really absorbed in training."
Old Man Lightning snorted. "What training? You just made a breakthrough, and you have to wait for your Realm to increase again. What could you possibly train while remaining still like a rock?"
Gravis smirked. "I call it Dodge Ball!" Gravis said proudly.
Old Man Lightning had confusion written on his face. "Dodge Ball?" he asked.
Gravis nodded. "Yes, Dodge Ball! I poked my Spirit Seed and noticed that it bounced off the membrane of-"
WACK! BOOM!
Gravis was hit pretty hard by the cane, and his body hit the wall, destroying some furniture. "Are you insane!?" Old Man Lightning shouted with anxiety and rage. "Do you know how fragile a Spirit Seed is? If it breaks, you will fall back into the initial stage of Spirit Forming!"
Gravis stood up and rubbed his head. He looked at Old Man Lightning with annoyance. "What are you talking about? Fragile? I can kick that little ball of lightning with my full power, and nothing happened to it."
"Kicked... with... your... full... power?" Old Man Lightning said in shock between deep breaths. "What nonsense are you spouting!? Even a small poke can injure the Spirit Seed!"
Gravis sneered. "Well, that’s not what I saw! I can punch and kick it however I want."
Old Man Lightning looked incredibly confused and agitated for a while, but after seeing that Gravis was alright, he calmed down with a sigh. "Well, your cultivation is different from others." Old Man Lightning sat back down in his armchair. "Tell me what happened."
Gravis snorted once due to being hit twice, but he complied. He started telling Old Man Lightning about his breakthrough and what had happened. When he told him how he used his Spirit Seed for avoidance training, Old Man Lightning became a slight bit anxious, but nothing too much.
After Gravis was finished telling his tale, Old Man Lightning sighed. Then, he looked out of one of his windows into the sky. "I guess Magic and lightning are different," he said slowly. Then, he turned to Gravis. "When a cultivator reaches the Seed Stage, they have created their Spirit Seed, but that seed is still fragile. If it gets hit, it breaks apart and becomes a mass of Magic again. Even though we can control Magic with our Spirit, we can’t create enough pressure to keep the Spirit Seed stable if some force acts upon it."
Gravis thought about this for a bit and nodded. "I guess that sounds reasonable," he said. "After all, Energy is very passive. It isn’t really dangerous in itself and can easily be converted into many other things. Something like that probably can’t be abused without breaking it."
Old Man Lightning nodded. "Yes. Lightning is different in that regard. It is a powerful force that destroys everything that touches it. If Magic is one extreme, then lightning is the other. I guess that, if you hit it, it would rather strike back than break. Yet, since you are one with lightning, it probably doesn’t care. After all, it’s just you."
Gravis agreed with that statement. If he weren’t synchronized with lightning, that little seed would probably unload its whole self into him, trying to destroy him with everything it had. Yet, since Gravis was basically lightning, there was no sense in attacking itself. With the situation as it was, the Spirit Seed could only accept the abuse that Gravis bestowed upon it under the name of training.
This all sounded dramatic, but the Spirit Seed didn’t have its own personality or will. It was just an amalgamation of a lot of lightning, after all.
"So, what will you do now?" Old Man Lightning asked.
Gravis thought for a while. "I think I’ll buy some pills to make my body equal to my lightning."
Old Man Lightning looked like he remembered something. "Speaking of, you haven’t condensed your lightning yet," he said.
Gravis now also showed a look recognition. "Oh yeah, right!"
With a more powerful Spirit, one could condense their Energy further. This was how the Energy of Spirit Forming experts increased. They would press the Energy inside their dantian into a denser form, creating more space for more Energy. Like this, the amount of Energy in their dantian would increase.
Yet, Gravis didn’t have any Energy inside his dantian. He only had lightning, and that didn’t even conform to his dantian. It was just ignoring it and growing without end. Gravis already knew that his increase in Realm wouldn’t increase his amount of lightning. Yet, it would concentrate his lightning more, and therefore, making it not poke out of his body as much.
Gravis used his Spirit to inspect his lightning and then pressed it together with everything he had. This whole thing took a couple of minutes, and after he was finished, the size of his lightning had been reduced by about 50%.
Old Man Lightning saw this and nodded with praise. "Good! Like this, you probably won’t unload into the ground anymore. Though, you will probably still unload onto other people if they bump into you. Let’s go outside and see where your new thresholds are."
Gravis nodded, and they walked outside. They walked until they left the Sect and stopped when nothing was around for hundreds of meters. Old Man Lightning turned to Gravis. "Alright, how much lightning do you have now?" he asked.
"I’m a little bit below 70%," Gravis answered.
Old Man Lightning nodded. "Alright, let’s see."
Pack!
The cane touched Gravis’ belly, but nothing happened. "That looks good. Even at nearly 70%, it doesn’t hit anything outside your body. Now, let’s wait."
Gravis remained silent and looked at his abdomen in interest. He also wanted to know what his new threshold would be. After waiting for some minutes...
BZZZ!
Some lightning came out of Gravis’ abdomen and went along Old Man Lightning’s hand. Yet, even with the new density of Gravis’ Destruction Lightning, it still didn’t injure Old Man Lightning’s hand by much. His hand was only a little red.
"How much was that?" Old Man Lightning asked.
"About 74%," Gravis answered.
Old Man Lightning nodded. "Alright, try to remain below 70% while being anywhere near the Sect. Now, just to be sure, let’s see if it still unloads into the floor."
Gravis also nodded, and they both waited. Old Man Lightning was now standing several meters away from Gravis. After all, he wanted to see if Gravis unloaded into the ground and not onto himself.
After about an hour, Gravis spoke up. "I’m full," he said. Lightning could be seen coming out of his lower abdomen. It enveloped the entire lower part of his abdomen, including everything that was between his legs. The lightning stopped at around half the distance between his abdomen and knees.
Old Man Lightning nodded. "Sounds good. Just a question. You also have your Life Lightning remaining, right?" he asked.
Gravis lifted an eyebrow. "Yes, I do. Why do you ask?"
"I want to feel the power of your lightning," Old Man Lightning said while slowly walking forward. His outstretched hand pointed at the middle of the lightning ball between Gravis’ legs.
"Sure, go ahead!" Gravis said. He put his arms on his hip and waited for Old Man Lightning’s hand that was coming closer to his lower abdomen.
After a couple of seconds...
BANG!
A violent thunder exploded as all the outside lightning shot into the hand, which was still 50 centimeters away. Some flesh exploded off of Old Man Lightning’s arm, and he gritted his teeth.
BZZZ!
Gravis quickly used his Life Lightning to heal the arm. Old Man Lightning’s body was powerful, so it took nearly all of Gravis’ Energy to heal that single wound.
"How much was it?" Old Man Lightning asked.
"Around 40%," Gravis answered.
Old Man Lightning nodded. "That’s pretty impressive. 40% of your lightning managed to injure my arm to this degree. I think, with that power, you can take on some of the weaker Sect Masters."
Gravis rubbed his chin in thought.
"Interesting."