Chapter 363 - 363 – How Do Laws Work?
Gravis took a deep breath to calm down. "So, I’ve wasted about four months on this?"
His father narrowed his eyes at Gravis, and Gravis actually felt some genuine annoyance from his father. Gravis had known his father for his whole life. So, he was pretty good at noticing the small differences in his expression.
"Do you think it’s that easy to create Jade Tokens that beam knowledge right into your Spirit?" his father asked. "Others don’t even get all the information at once. They have to search for it by themselves. You’re in a privileged position here. Yet, you’re still complaining? Then what’s the difference between you and your sister, Melody?"
Gravis took a deep breath. He had forgotten that he was in a privileged position. The best forger alive was teaching him personally, yet, Gravis had still complained about the time it took.
Gravis hated hypocrites the most, but now, he saw himself acting the same way. He was getting the best education regarding forging, but he had still not been satisfied with it. When Gravis realized that, he felt horrible. He had acted exactly like the people he despised.
"I’m sorry," Gravis said genuinely, even bowing a little. "My greed for power has blinded me to reality. Thank you for reminding me of my own principles, father," Gravis.
His father nodded. "Good, then go learn the alloys," his father said.
Gravis nodded and concentrated his Spirit onto the Jade Token. As soon as his Spirit touched the Jade token, it broke apart, and a sea of knowledge assaulted Gravis’ Spirit. It was a very similar feeling to the time when he had absorbed Heaven’s lightning, but still a bit different.
Back then, he had immediately comprehended the concept behind that specific kind of lightning. This time, he wasn’t comprehending any concepts but just learned one thing after another without any connection between them.
Even though one could say that learning all these alloys was less knowledge than learning Punishment Lightning, it still took way longer for Gravis to deal with this knowledge. This was the difference between just learning and reciting raw data and actually knowing the concepts behind it.
Gravis remained unmoving with a stunned and shocked expression for hours. His whole being was entirely concentrating on the knowledge that was infused into him. There were so incredibly many combinations of materials that could create so many different alloys.
Only a select few of these alloys would be useful for weapons, but that didn’t mean that the others were useless. Many different kinds of machinery or equipment needed different kinds of properties for their materials.
On top of that, many materials had different affinities. Some made it way easier to store a kind of element, while others were better at storing Will-Spheres. Some other alloys or materials didn’t allow certain Formation Arrays to be placed on them, while others only allowed a limited number.
Of course, Gravis knew that he wouldn’t come into contact with over 99% of the materials and alloys he learned. There were simply too many, and different worlds had different materials. Yet, Gravis didn’t know which world he would go to and what materials he would be able to find there. Therefore, he needed to learn about all of them.
After several hours, Gravis finally managed to regain control over his Spirit and body. Such a state left him completely helpless, and if he weren’t with his father, brother, or mother, he would be incredibly nervous during that time.
Of course, no one would just barge into his father’s room to kill him. Therefore, this place was the best place to go through these risky situations. He hadn’t been able to deal with his emotions in the lower world because of the same reason. Any weakness could prove fatal there.
"You done?" his father asked.
Gravis took a deep breath and sighed. "Yes. It’s a lot of knowledge," he said. "I even feel like I’m on the cusp of understanding something. The diagrams about the composition of Energy of the different materials feel like they’re hiding a deeper meaning."
"Forging is also a law that is divided into many smaller laws. Understanding the concept of why different materials are how they are is one of these laws," his father explained.
"Oh, that’s a law?" Gravis asked in surprise. He had thought that laws felt different. He had thought that they would be more magical in understanding, but apparently not. "Also, what do you mean with smaller laws?"
"Some things are easier to understand than others. Understanding why water flows downward is easier than understanding how space bends. There is a system for categorizing different laws, but you don’t need to bother with that right now," his father said.
Gravis furrowed his brows. "How come? What’s speaking against me knowing these things?"
"Because, if you know the different levels of laws, you might start overreaching. Knowing about the levels would also make you fixate on a specific goal. Normally, fixing on a specific goal is a good thing, but not in the case of laws. If you only concentrate on achieving one thing, you’re blind to recognize the things you find along the way."
Gravis thought about this for a while as he looked at the ceiling. ’It makes some kind of sense, I guess,’ Gravis thought unsurely. ’I might reach my goal sooner, but maybe I wouldn’t be able to comprehend many other, smaller laws along the way.’
The Opposer saw that his son wasn’t entirely convinced. "You could say that the smallest and weakest laws are the most important for your future," he said.
"How come?" Gravis asked.
"Because they are the door to a new path. If you don’t know how the raindrop works, you can’t even begin to understand how an icicle works. Without understanding how an icicle works, you can’t understand how a snowstorm works, and without that, you can’t understand how the supreme cold works."
"The more powerful and fundamental the Law, the more small laws you have to know to grasp it. If you only focus on one goal, you might miss understanding something about other small laws. There is nearly no useless law in this world, and the more you know, the better. Just try to learn about the things that interest you. That’s the best path forward."
Gravis finally understood what his father meant. Now, it also made sense to him. Gravis was very introspective, and he knew that there was a real chance that he would only focus on his explicit goal, ignoring everything else along the way. Not teaching him about different laws was really more beneficial than detrimental.
"Thank you, father," Gravis said. He was thankful that his father allowed him to see another potential problem about himself. Life was about growing and becoming the perfect person they wanted to be. The more Gravis knew about himself, the better he could judge if an action would yield a positive or negative result. The personality of a person was one of the most significant factors for power.
His father nodded again. "Good, if you want, you can try to understand the concept behind the different materials. The Law you would be able to grasp from that would be called the Middle-Tier Hard Pure Material Composition Law."
Gravis blinked a couple of times. "That’s a mouthful," he said.
"Because it’s the lowest form of a law. Generally, the longer the name, the lower the Law. Every word of the name specifies what you know further. Let me explain it to you once, so you understand."
Gravis nodded.
"The Composition Law is one of the highest Laws that exist. When you know that, you know how everything is made in the world. When you understand that, you can use it to create everything you want to make."
Gravis’ eyes widened. "Does that mean that I can also create life?" he asked.
"If you also understand how life works, yes. Anyway, the more words you add, the more specified your understanding of the Law. The word ’Material’ shows that you only know the composition of dead matter. You don’t know about the composition of living matter or different forms of Energies."
"The word ’Pure’ shows that you only know about the pure materials. There is nearly an infinite number of combinations of materials that create something different. So, you would only know about pure materials."
"The word ’Hard’ refers to materials similar to ore and stone. You don’t know about wood, water, earth, or similar, relatively softer materials. Lastly, the word Middle-Tier refers to the fact that your understanding would only go up to the Immortal Realm."
"Therefore, you would only understand a tiny bit of knowledge regarding something very specific in the grand scheme of things," his father finished explaining.
Gravis slowly started realizing how much there was to learn. He had read for such a long time and knew so much about all these things. Yet, it still required so many words to show exactly how small the area of his knowledge was.
Gravis’ eyes shone for a bit as he realized a small peculiarity. "When I understand a law, I can’t know its specific name with much accuracy, right?" Gravis asked.
His father nodded. "Exactly. You only know what you know. You can’t know what you don’t know. Naming a newly understood Law requires knowing things that you don’t know. So, there are generally two names for laws, an official one, made by a powerful cultivator very knowledgable in that field, and one that the cultivator created for themselves."
Gravis nodded. "Thank you for explaining. What’s next?"
Boom!
A huge pile of different materials appeared out of thin air.
"Smelting practice."