When Gravis returned to the encampment, he saw that the others were all gathered together, talking. 'Did something happen?' Gravis asked himself as he walked closer. "What's up?" he asked with his Spirit to everyone.
The others turned to him, and all started grinning. Gravis raised an eyebrow in a questioning look.
"We found a group of the Greens," said Elder Byron. "They are currently traveling from west to east about a thousand kilometers to the north." Then Elder Byron started smiling at Gravis too. "We still need to test you, so I hope you'll accept the honors this time."
Gravis now also smirked. "Well, I said I would join you guys, so I don't see a problem with that," he said. "Though, I hope I get some Contribution Points from that."
Elder Byron nodded. "Of course! While we're at the topic, what do you intend to buy for your future Contribution Points? I have a lot of things stored in my Spirit Space, but I need to procure stuff that you might request. If I know what you intend to buy, I can get the resources earlier."
Gravis already had some things in mind. "Are there ways to increase the Energy in my dantian separately from an increase of Realm?" he asked.
Elder Byron lifted an eyebrow. "Energy?"
Gravis shrugged. "That's what we call Magic in our homeworld. Many worlds call it differently. Some call it Magic. Some call it Qi, some others Yuan. It all refers to the same thing. Energy is just the most direct description of it." Everyone already knew that he wasn't from this world, so there was no reason to keep such things secret.
Elder Byron combed his long beard with his fingers in thought. "Energy, huh? It actually makes sense. Anyway, you were asking if there was a way to increase the Energy in your dantian, right?"
Gravis nodded.
Elder Byron nodded back. "There's not really an external method to increase the Energy. You can only do that yourself."
Gravis lifted an eyebrow. "Myself?"
Elder Byron nodded again. "Yes. Just do the same thing as when you were at the Magic Gathering Realm. Oh, you probably call that Energy Gathering then, right?"
Gravis nodded.
"Just do the same thing as in the Energy Gathering Realm. The only issue is your dantian. It needs to be able to resist the increased pressure from your Energy. There are several ways to increase the hardness of the dantian but…" then Elder Byron smirked at Gravis, "you don't need them."
Gravis furrowed his brows. "What do you mean?"
Elder Byron lifted his right index finger. "Simple!" he said. "Starting at the Spirit Forming Realm, an increase of your body also increases the hardness of your dantian. The dantian is part of your body after all, no?"
Gravis inspected the walls of his dantian, but he wasn't sure about that. The walls were harder, yes, but he actually felt no pressure from inside his dantian. Now that he thought about it, that was even weirder. The gentle Energy already generated incredibly powerful pressure, so shouldn't the pure Destruction Lightning completely tear his dantian apart?
Gravis didn't think much about it. Many weird things had happened after he broke into the Spirit Forming Realm. This was just one of them, and he had learned to accept them. Though, if there was no pressure on his dantian, didn't that mean that he could absorb as much Energy as he wanted? He had to try that.
"I need to try something. Please bear with me," he said. The others nodded back, showing that they didn't mind.
Gravis then retrieved all his Energy Stones and started absorbing them. With his Spirit, absorbing the Energy Stones was many times faster than before. Gravis actually absorbed 20 Energy Stones per second. The others looked at him with interest. They wondered how far he could go with that.
The Energy of the stones went into his dantian and quickly got converted into Destruction Lightning. Yet, Gravis was quite surprised when he saw what happened next. The Destruction Lightning inside his dantian actually started breaking through his dantian. It was like his dantian didn't even exist.
As the Destruction Lightning inside his dantian became bigger, more and more lightning bolts left his dantian, circling it. Gravis now finally realized what was up. 'No wonder I don't feel any pressure in my dantian. My dantian doesn't exist for my lightning.'
Gravis narrowed his eyes while the others continued looking at him in interest. They weren't able to feel the lightning moving. In their perception, the little Energy inside Gravis wasn't moving at all.
Meanwhile, Gravis started realizing more things. 'Energy needs the dantian to keep it contained, yet my lightning doesn't need to be contained. I am lightning, after all. My lightning doesn't want to escape. So, I can basically fill my entire body with lightning as if my body didn't exist. That's kind of insane.'
Gravis tried to retrieve the next stone, but he noticed that there were no more. Gravis looked over and saw that the huge pile had vanished. His eyes widened as he realized that he had just eaten all his wealth. Then, he turned to the others. "Did I absorb all of the stones?"
The others looked with wide, shocked eyes at him. Elder Byron shook his head slightly. "You're a monster," he said with a sigh.
Gravis was really shocked since his lightning hadn't increased by much. In total, it was maybe 10% bigger than before. 5,000 Energy Stones for only a 10% increase? That was insane! One had to know that going from the first to the tenth level of Energy Gathering Realm took only a little less than 4,000 Energy Stones. That was a whole major Realm!
Yet, he needed even more than that to increase his lightning by only 10%. Though, there was still an open question.
BANG!
The others jumped back in fright as Gravis shot around 10% of his lightning into the horizon. He wanted to see if the increased volume of his lightning now acted like the usual lightning in his dantian. If it were like this, then it should regenerate fully in some minutes. "Please wait a minute. I need to check something," Gravis said to the others, who quickly looked at each other unsurely. What was he doing?
Gravis waited for about a minute and noticed that his lightning was regenerating to its new peak. When he saw that, he released a sigh of relief. He was happy that he hadn't wasted 5,000 Energy stones in vain. At least now, he had a way to increase his lightning further.
After he was done observing, he turned to Elder Byron again. "I'll be using nearly all my future Contribution Points for body tempering resources," Gravis said.
Elder Byron lifted both his eyebrows. First, Gravis asked about a way to increase his Energy, then he absorbed a small mountain of Energy Stones, and then he completely changed his mind and went for body tempering medicine.
Elder Byron shook his head but didn't question Gravis. "Alright. Thanks for the heads-up. I'll keep my eyes open for those. Anyway, you should go to the north and handle the Greens."
"But first, we need to outfit you with the proper gear for the Greys."
