Chapter 357: Alternative Cultivation

Gravis spent two whole weeks with his mother, just talking about everything. He had needed this breather and talk. He had confronted his emotions and had accepted the pain. By now, he felt much better, and he also felt like a constant pressure, which he hadn't noticed before, had disappeared.

Laughing came way easier, and it also felt deeper. When he thought back on his journey in the lower world, it felt to him like it was in his distant past. It felt like this had been done by a younger him, even though he had still been there two weeks ago.

He accepted the deaths that he had caused, but this wouldn't stop his path. He didn't want to hurt innocent people, but he accepted that this was just a reality of becoming powerful. Sometimes, even if he didn't want to hurt or kill them, it just happened because of something that he was doing.

Gravis wasn't some saint that wanted to keep the world pure. He just wanted to achieve his goal. If he could avoid it, he wouldn't implicate others, but that couldn't always be avoided. Gravis felt his path to power to be as clear and stable as never before. He would reach his goal, no matter what it took!

He also thought about all the pain he had caused by fighting Heaven. Yet, if Gravis knew what his fight would have brought, he would have still gone through with it. His enmity with Heaven was more important to him.

After his long talk with his mother, Gravis visited his brother Orpheus. In comparison to his parents, Orpheus didn't know anything about Gravis' journey in the lower world, so he was very interested in Gravis' story.

Gravis told his story to his brother, and Orpheus listened with bated breath. He said that a lot of things had been similar to his journey in his lower world, but there were also a lot of differences.

When Orpheus had visited his lower world, he only had to deal with his lack of Karmic Luck. The Heaven of that world didn't go after him. This made his journey still difficult, but not nearly as much as Gravis'.

Heaven basically had all the power in the world, so it had been able to send stuff at Gravis that he shouldn't have been able to deal with. A good example of that was Aion's visit to Proxy-Lightning Guild or the way more powerful lightning disciples at the tree.

When one only looked at the numbers, one would come to the conclusion that Gravis would die. Yet, he had managed to squirm his way out of these situations. These situations hadn't required a powerful combat strength, but intelligence.

If Gravis hadn't been able to simulate a Heavenly Pressure so well, Aion would have killed him, and if he hadn't kept an additional beast corpse ready, the lightning disciples would have killed him. Another such incident was Aion's meeting with Gravis at the Wind Wall. If Gravis hadn't planned everything beforehand, he would have also died then.

Strength was the most important thing, but if one didn't have enough strength, they needed to find something else that allowed them to turn the tide. Luckily, Gravis had the required intelligence.

The fight against elder Red and the priest from the Heaven Sect had been especially hard. In both cases, Gravis had a way higher chance of dying than surviving. Only his creativity with his power allowed him to win against these two opponents.

If Gravis told these things to others, they initially might not believe him. It just seemed to be too insane. Yet, his powerful Will-Aura gave credibility to his tales. If Gravis didn't survive so many mortal dangers, he wouldn't have such a powerful Will-Aura.

Orpheus especially praised Gravis' Will-Aura. He said that it was the most powerful one he had ever seen in relation to his Realm. Though, the circumstances of the lower and highest world also played a part in that.

In the lower world, everyone only tempered themselves enough to achieve ascension. Why would there be a reason to risk their lives further if the peak of power, which they could comprehend, was already in reach?

In comparison, cultivation in the highest world was way faster. Due to the abundance of resources and Energy, people stayed inside their Realms for shorter periods of time. On top of that, Orpheus told Gravis something else about the highest world that surprised him quite a bit.

Apparently, not all cultivation paths required a Will-Aura. There was a mountain of techniques that bypassed the Will-Aura requirement, allowing people to reach a higher Realm way sooner. Additionally, many of the cultivation techniques also bypassed the resting period for tempering someone's Spirit.

Orpheus told Gravis that the path of requiring a Will-Aura was called the Will Forging Path. It was the most original path and also the first one. People that didn't follow that path had basically no bottlenecks for the first five Realms.

Going through the Body Tempering Realm was easy since it only required resources. Same thing with the Energy Gathering Stage. With different cultivation techniques, people could also convert resources into tempering for their Spirits.

After that, they had a powerful body, a powerful dantian, and a powerful Spirit. Thus, achieving Unity also wasn't an issue. After all, the cultivation techniques bypassed the need for a Will-Aura.

Apparently, there were many Unity Realm cultivators that didn't even reach the age of ten. They were simply just kids that had been pumped full of resources. This seemed unreal to Gravis. There were small kids out there that were in the same Realm as him?

Reaching the Nascent Nourishing Realm was, of course, also not hard for these children. It only needed time and resources. But after that, the required background for the kids became higher.

In order to reach the next Realm, they needed to understand some things about the laws. Something like that couldn't be solved with resources. On top of that, the kids, who had not achieved much by themselves, had not nearly enough experience with the world and their own power to grasp something as elusive as laws.

The only way to make them grasp the laws was to teach them slowly. Of course, different kids had different affinities for different things. So, they couldn't just learn any law. It had to fit perfectly with them. So, they needed a teacher that grasped these specific laws. Finding such a teacher was difficult and expensive.

The further the kids progressed, the harder it was to help them. At one point, there was basically nothing that anyone could do. This meant that these people would never achieve another breakthrough again.

They could theoretically temper themselves for a ridiculous amount of time to get back to the same level as someone that went through the Will Forging Path, but there was an issue. Tempering required genuine danger. The family had already invested so many resources, so it was impossible for these cultivators to temper themselves. Their family or organization wouldn't allow it.

Of course, the good came with the bad. These people had an easy way to a relatively high Realm, but they were very inexperienced in fights. On top of that, the lack of a Will-Aura made them especially weak to one.

Orpheus told Gravis that with his current Will-Aura and Realm, he could completely immobilize one of these cultivators in the middle Stage of the Nascent Nourishing Realm. This was a jump of one and a half major Realms, and it wouldn't even be a fight!

Of course, there were some very elusive methods that allowed people to even become immortals, but that required a very powerful background. One shouldn't forget that even the Opposer couldn't make someone become more powerful than the Immortal Emperor Realm. Anyone else wouldn't even be able to push someone to that Realm.

The Opposer was the only person that could make people reach the Immortal Emperor Realm. Everyone else was stuck in the Immortal Realm. There was one Realm between an Immortal and Immortal Emperor, and it was called the Immortal King Realm.

Only people in the publicly accepted highest Realm in the highest world could make someone reach it. These were the rulers, hegemons, and deities of the highest world. They controlled everything.

Of course, that was if one ignored Gravis' father.

On top of that, there basically didn't exist anyone that had been pushed into the Immortal King Realm. The strongest people with the highest Realm wouldn't be interested in someone like that, so why should they make someone reach that Realm?

Because of these things, the practically strongest Realm achievable for people not following the Will Forging Path was the Immortal Realm. At that point, they would be completely stuck.

After talking about this topic, Orpheus also told him his Realm.

Orpheus was a Star God.

Orpheus also joked about the fact that there currently were fewer Star Gods than the Realm coming after that. After all, the Opposer had killed all living Star Gods two years ago. Of course, the Opposer wouldn't just kill his own children. That's why Orpheus was now in one of the rarest Realms.

Orpheus also told him that he was the third strongest of all their siblings. His power was also the reason why he was in such a high position inside his company.

"Speaking of our siblings," Gravis said. "Do they still not want to meet me?" he asked, unamused. Back then, he had thought that their conduct had been understandable, but not anymore. His siblings were running from possible pain. Now, this seemed weak to him.

When Orpheus heard that, he sighed. "Well, I might not have told you the whole truth," he said.

Gravis lifted an eyebrow. "Yes?" he asked slowly.

"Yes, a lot of them don't want to meet you because of your risk of death, but that's only about 10% of our siblings," he explained.

"And the others?" Gravis asked.

"Well, when you have so many siblings, the feeling of family kind of vanishes. We are related by blood, but most of us don't care about our family," he said.