At this moment, it was like they had never been apart.
Gravis and Stella kissed for a long time.
However, when their lips parted, Stella still felt a bit uncertain about everything.
Yes, Gravis' words made logical sense, but feelings didn't always follow logic.
In a certain sense, Stella still felt useless to Gravis.
Gravis had known Stella for a long time, and he could take a good guess at what she was thinking right now.
"Stella," Gravis said quietly, looking into her eyes. "You're trying to take control over reality."
A skeptical look appeared on Stella's face.
"My power doesn't secure your survival," Gravis said. "Whenever you temper yourself, I have to go far away to make it impossible for me to interfere."
"Do you think I have any kind of control in that situation?"
Stella only looked into Gravis' eyes.
"I don't," Gravis continued as he embraced Stella. "Every time I see you fighting, I'm scared that this will be the last time I will ever see you. Every single time, I'm sickened with worry, and I want to do nothing more than to just help you."
"However, in a certain sense, this is a selfish feeling. I don't want to lose you, and that's why I'm feeling this way. If I followed this feeling, you wouldn't be able to grow. Additionally, I know that you would only be unhappy if you stopped cultivating."
"You're like me in that sense," Gravis said with a smile. "We both want happiness, but we also can't stop cultivating. It's simply who we are."
"Yet, to accomplish that, I have to give up any form of control I have over your life. I can give you a walking stick and some support, but you have to walk the path with your own two feet. I can't help you with that."
"I can only trust in you."
Stella looked into Gravis' eyes for a while and then looked away again.
'Is all of this only because I want to have control over Gravis' life?' Stella thought.
'That sounds bad, but is controlling someone necessarily bad? Not really. Dealing with something Gravis couldn't handle would be me taking control of the situation.'
Stella looked back at Gravis, and her heart warmed as she saw his eyes.
'Yet, even if I had the power to deal with his problems, it would only hurt him if I interfered.'
'Cultivation is a path that has to be walked alone.'
'I'm the only person that has control over my Cultivation, and Gravis is the only person that has control over his Cultivation.'
Gravis and Stella only looked into each other's eyes for a while.
Then, Stella's face relaxed.
'I guess everything makes much more sense now.'
Suddenly, Stella's eyes shot open in shock.
Gravis only smiled happily.
Silence.
"There is no right answer," Stella said.
Gravis nodded.
"Every choice has advantages and disadvantages. Under certain circumstances, a seemingly wrong choice can be the correct choice," Stella continued with surprised eyes.
"It's all perspective, and control is also only perspective."
Gravis nodded again with a bright smile.
"You could almost call it perceived reality, can't you?" Gravis asked with a smirk.
"Do you believe me now?" Gravis asked. "I can help you, but you also need to be powerful enough to receive that help from me."
Gravis chuckled a bit. "You've seen Manuel back then, right? Orpheus and I tried so hard to make him understand the Law of Freedom, but he just couldn't comprehend it."
"Yet, with only some words, you managed to comprehend the Law of Control, and with the Law of Control, you now also understand the Law of Perceived Reality."
Stella still couldn't come to terms with reality.
She had comprehended the Law of Perceived Reality?
However, Stella's mind quickly went back to Gravis.
'Gravis was the reason why I comprehended the Law of Freedom, and now he has taught me the Law of Control.'
'These are the hardest two Laws to comprehend for the Law of Perceived Reality, and he's the reason why I comprehended both of them.'
Yet, Stella only smiled.
'However, he's also right. He can only nudge me in the right direction, but I have to comprehend everything else on my own.'
'Gravis might have granted me the Laws of Control and Freedom, but that only worked because I already had the ability to comprehend them.'
Finally, Stella started to feel less worthless.
Gravis and Stella embraced again, and they wouldn't part from each other for anytime soon.
In the coming years, Gravis and Stella only stayed with each other, and after that, they traveled around Opposer City to relax.
Stella had been too stressed out from everything, and Gravis had realized that he needed to spend more time with her.
The two of them also visited Gravis' mother and father, and Stella talked a long time with Gravis' mother about reasons for cultivating and the complexities of life and relationships.
It was hard to eliminate deeply seated doubts in someone's mind in just a single day, and after talking with Gravis' mother, a lot of Stella's doubts vanished.
In essence, the Economistress was in a very similar situation to Stella.
She couldn't help the Opposer with anything.
Yet, in comparison to Stella, the Economistress had lived for far longer, and she had managed to make peace with her current situation.
"Without me, this cranky old donkey would get tired of his life, and he would be stuck in this situation for eternity," the Economistress said with a smirk.
"On top of that, without me, Gravis and our other children wouldn't even exist, and without them, he would still be as cranky and angry as on the first day we met."
Stella had to giggle at the way the Economistress phrased these two sentences.
"Also," the Economistress added with a smirk. "I'm actually helping him with his power too!"
This took Stella by surprise.
Wasn't the Opposer supposed to be on an unimaginable level of power?
How could the Economistress help him with his power?
"Come on. I'll show you," the Economistress said.
SHING!
A teleportation later, Stella found herself in an unknown cave with absolutely unreasonable proportions.
The cave was over a million kilometers high, and Stella couldn't even see the end of the cave with her Spirit Sense.
Yet, when Stella looked down, her jaw dropped.
Stella saw a blue ocean stretching into infinity.
However, the ocean wasn't made of water but of God Stones!
Stella couldn't even estimate how many God Stones were down here.
She hadn't even thought that so many God Stones existed in the entire world!
"This is my God Stone ocean," the Economistress proclaimed proudly.
Stella only looked in shock at the ocean.
"Do you feel the Energy?" the Economistress asked with a smirk.
These words pulled Stella out of her shock, and she carefully felt the Energy.
Then, her eyes widened.
'So much Energy!'
Stella wasn't referring to the Energy inside the God Stone ocean but to the movement of the Energy in the atmosphere.
Energy worked similarly to gravity, and Stella knew very well how gravity worked.
If an object with a massive amount of compressed Energy existed in a place with less Energy density, the massive object would pull the Energy in its surroundings towards itself.
The Opposer was such an object. There was so much Energy inside his being that just his existence noticeably affected the movement of Energy in the entire highest world.
However, this ocean of God Stones was also such an object.
"My ocean is beneath our home," the Economistress continued with a smirk, "and it has so much Energy that it also pulls in Energy from all over the world."
"The grumpy old man pulls in a lot of Energy, but the Energy my God Stone ocean pulls in can't be ignored."
"It took me over 45 billion years, but I managed to gather enough God Stones to increase my honey's cultivation speed by 10%. It doesn't sound like much, but it's still 10%."
"Right now, 20% of all the God Stones in the highest world are in my God Stone ocean, which means that the grumpy old man essentially sits on nearly 20% of the world's Energy."
"Sadly, he also eats a lot, and I can barely earn enough to afford food for him."
"He's consuming a million God Stones per hour just by sitting down."
"I swear, one day, he'll eat me out of house and home."