Gravis arrived in front of Stella while she was tinkering with some Formation Arrays on different pieces of armor and weapons.
"Oh, hi, Gravis," Stella said with a smile. "What brings you here?" she asked.
Gravis immediately noticed several worrying things.
First of all, Stella's greeting had been awkward. It was like she didn't know how she should talk with Gravis.
She was talking like she was supposed to know him but didn't.
Second, Gravis could feel nervousness coming from Stella. It was like she had no idea how she should act towards him.
It pained Gravis to feel these things.
To him, it didn't feel any different from all the other times they met, but to Stella, it felt like they hadn't met in an eternity.
However, Gravis didn't address the awkward atmosphere.
Instead, he focused on the equipment from the other side of the large table. There was quite some distance between Gravis and Stella. Gravis wanted to close that distance, but he also knew that Stella would feel more nervous.
"Are you trying to upgrade the Formation Arrays to allow more Star Gods to combine their power?" Gravis asked as he looked at the equipment.
Stella was surprised. "Can you make Formation Arrays now?" she asked in shock.
Gravis only laughed. "No, but I can guess the function of the Formation Arrays based on what Laws they use."
"Oh, okay," Stella said before she went back to looking at the equipment.
Silence.
The awkward atmosphere was oppressive.
Gravis scratched his chin as he looked at the pieces of armor and weapons.
"Wait here for a bit. I'll be back in a couple of hours," Gravis said with a smile before teleporting away with a wink.
Stella was surprised that Gravis left so quickly again, but she released a sigh of relief.
She had feared that Gravis would want to get close to her as soon as they met.
However, she wasn't certain how she should act if Gravis wanted to get closer.
They were husband and wife, and something like that should come naturally. That was also how it had been in the past. No matter how long they had been apart from each other, Stella's feelings would guide her on what to do.
Sadly, her feelings hadn't guided her this time, making the situation very awkward for her.
She continued tinkering with the Formation Arrays without much success, and eventually, Gravis returned.
When Gravis returned, Stella became nervous again, but she continued focusing on her work.
However, her work was cut short as Gravis pulled all the equipment on the table towards him. In just a short moment, the thousands of pieces of equipment floated in front of Gravis as he looked at them.
BANG!
A gigantic pile of ore hit the ground beside Gravis.
Then, Gravis took out his saber and unleashed a Lightning Crescent on the pile of ore.
BOOOOOOM!
The Lightning Crescent exploded with incredible power, but Gravis kept its destructive power isolated.
The light of the destructive explosion shocked Stella.
It was so powerful!
However, the ore didn't get reduced to nothingness but only melted.
This ore was a hard pure material for level nine Star Gods. If Gravis only used Heavenly Lightning, he couldn't possibly muster enough power to melt it.
BANG!
Gravis unleashed another Lightning Crescent, melting the ore even further.
Parts of the ore turned to dust, but that was to be expected. Gravis couldn't have full control over his power when he unleashed all of it at once.
BZZZ!
Gravis unleashed Heavenly Lightning to keep the ore melting while absorbing God Stones to keep his Energy output going.
Gravis glanced at one of the weapons and back at the molten ball of ore.
A small piece of the ore left the ball and arrived in front of Gravis. After that, Gravis focused on the piece of ore and shaped it into a weapon.
In just a second, an identical copy of the weapon had been created. However, it wasn't just a simple copy. The Formation Array that had been added to the previous weapon had been integrated into the weapon.
Adding a Formation Array onto a weapon was like drawing a symbol on a wall while integrating it was like one was carving the symbol into the wall.
The Formation Array couldn't be changed without reforging the weapon, but it also had a far stronger presence and integration.
Gravis repeated the same thing thousands of times until he had made a perfect copy of all the equipment.
Even more, most of the equipment had been created with the level six Law of Matter, while Gravis used the level seven True Law of Hard Pure Materials.
On top of that, all the equipment was now on the same level, which was the ninth level of the Star God Realm.
The Cultivators using these pieces of equipment wouldn't need to get new equipment before becoming Ancestral Gods.
Lastly, Gravis had added something shocking.
He had created all of the weapons to be World Weapons!
Of course, the weapons only had the potential to become World Weapons. Cultivators still needed to put in the relevant blood and a Higher World Core.
The blood wasn't an issue for Star Gods. In the Immortal Realms, one needed the blood of a beast that was perfectly compatible with oneself, but that changed. Humans in the Star God Realm now also had bodies that were as powerful as beast bodies, which included the Laws flowing through their blood.
So, every Cultivator could just take their own blood.
In essence, Gravis had created thousands of World Weapons that only missed the Higher World Cores.
If Gravis wanted, he could now earn a ridiculous amount of money again if he started forging again, but he had enough money right now. On top of that, Gravis had a better way to make money.
Torturers were many times rarer than forgers.
After Gravis was done, he put the new pieces of equipment on the table while throwing the old pieces to the side.
"Here!" Gravis said with a bright smile. "Try it!"
Stella looked with conflicting emotions at the new pieces of equipment.
Then, Stella activated the Formation Arrays.
WHOOOOM!
All the Formation Arrays activated at the same time, and the different sets of armor vibrated crazily. It was like the power flowing through them was severely damaging them.
However, that was only how it appeared.
Gravis had specifically used ore powerful enough to resist that stress. The armor sets were vibrating, but they wouldn't get damaged, even if all of them were activated at once.
Stella's eyes widened as she saw that the sets of armor didn't break.
Her goal had been to improve the Formation Arrays to the point that 500 of them could work together, which would have already been shocking.
One had to remember that combining the power of thousands of Peak Immortal Emperors was still many orders of magnitude away from combining the power of only a hundred level nine Star Gods.
Yet, Gravis had created over 5,000 sets of armor that could combine their power perfectly in less than a day.
"See?" Gravis asked with a bright smile. "The Formation Arrays have been added, which was the problem. Sure, you can add Formation Arrays on top of the equipment, but the Formation Arrays are not integrated into the armor. The Laws that bind the Formation Array to the equipment will crumble, essentially making the Formation Array lose the connection to the armor."
"That's the thing with Formation Arrays," Gravis continued. "You can add them, but if you want really good equipment, you need to integrate the Formation Arrays into the equipment. You can work all you want with the Formation Arrays, but if you want to have a good result, you need to get a forger that can actually integrate the Formation Arrays into the weapons and sets of armor."
"However, I have to say that the Formation Arrays are really good," Gravis added with a smile. "I haven't seen them before in Opposer City, which probably means that they are an original creation. I'm pretty sure you created them, Stella, and they're really good."
"You just have to get a forger that can add them to the weapons and pieces of armor," Gravis finished.
Gravis looked at Stella for a while, but Stella only looked at the new equipment in front of her.
Gravis' expression became nervous as he saw Stella's reaction.
Stella wasn't positively surprised or happy or exhilarated.
No, Stella looked like she had just been hit by reality.
It was like a dream of hers had been crushed.
When Gravis saw her like this, he became nervous.
"I know," Stella said slowly.
Gravis' nervousness rose.
"I know that integrating them is better," Stella said quietly with uncertainty and a bit of helplessness. "However, I just don't have the time."
Stella put her head in her hands as she looked down.
"Forging one weapon with Formation Arrays integrated while using the Major Law of Matter takes me over five years," Stella said quietly. "To make enough equipment to combine the power of an entire unit of level seven Star Gods takes me nearly 40,000 years. On top of that, I have to take into account that Star Gods continually learn new Laws."
"Their auras change, which means that I have to reforge them again and again, and when I'm finally done, they are already all level eight Star Gods, which means that the equipment becomes useless again. Then, what was the point of forging all of this?" Stella explained quietly.
"I don't have the level seven Matter Laws."
"I don't have the money to buy so much hard pure ore just to experiment."
"I don't have the time to comprehend the Law."
"I can't even make World Weapons due to how hard it is to create all these fine lines."
Stella looked at the old equipment, which had been unceremoniously thrown to the side by Gravis.
"That was the accumulation of about 36,000 years of my work," Stella said with a distant voice.
