During the next couple of days, Gravis spoke more with the other people, but the vast majority of his time was spent on the Rakshasa Saber. The Battle Technique was actually really interesting and opened Gravis' eyes to a whole new way of fighting.
The Rakshasa Saber needed four components to work. It needed a powerful will, Spirit, Energy, and a physical saber. Normally, a powerful attack with a Spirit Weapon would need the element and the Spirit of the user. The Spirit controls and strengthens the element inside the weapon, increasing its destructive potential. Yet, the Rakshasa Saber was different.
The regular usage of a Spirit Weapon didn't require the will. It only required the element and Spirit. Yet, this Rakshasa Saber also required the will. What did the will do to make the technique work?
Spirit and Energy were not inherently dangerous. The Spirit was only dangerous when paired with something dangerous, like an element. The Spirit could be considered as a tempering agent or support for something else. Energy was also not inherently dangerous. One first had to transform it into an element to make it destructive. At least, that held true for this lower world. Other worlds surely had different techniques.
One could summarize the whole thing as such.
Energy was the basic component and resource.
The element was the forging of the resource into something destructive.
Spirit was the tempering of the destructive material.
The Rakshasa Saber threw the concept of the element completely away. Instead, it used the will to change the Spirit from a tempering agent into a forging resource to transform something harmless like Energy into something destructive.
The Rakshasa Saber showed a method that would use the will in such a way that it fused with the Spirit. At that point, the Spirit would be fused with the will and, therefore, also carry its suppressive and destructive property. Usually, the element used the Spirit as a resource that would make the element stronger. Yet, for the Rakshasa Saber, the opposite was true.
It used the Energy to strengthen the mix of will and Spirit. Like this, the user's will would manifest in a physical form and could directly injure others. Normally, a Will-Aura only affected the will of others, and it wasn't able to injure people directly. It only suppressed them.
Yet, when it achieved physical manifestation with the support of the Spirit and the strengthening of Energy, it could damage others. If the mix was used correctly, it could be transformed into a destructive wave that could cut or destroy the things it hit.
After understanding how the Rakshasa Saber worked, Gravis sighed. "A whole new world has opened before my eyes," he said.
In the last couple of days, the Greys had moved multiple times. According to Elder Byron, there was no headquarter since that would give them a permanent residence and, therefore, a target for the Greens. They were always on the move, and right now, they stayed inside a mountain chain.
Gravis quickly left the encampment to find a place where no one could watch. Gravis trusted the Greys, but he was still cautious about showing his abnormal centers of power. After he was many kilometers away from the encampment, he retrieved his saber and readied himself.
WHOOOSH!
His Will-Aura appeared, and the surroundings shook a little. Surprisingly, the ground and mountains didn't get damaged. Apparently, due to the higher Energy density in the atmosphere, the terrain had been hardened. In the Middle-Continent, when Gravis had released his Unity Will, a dome of suppressed earth always appeared around him. Not here, though.
Gravis followed the instructions of the booklet and combined his will with his Spirit. It took some time, but he quickly managed to achieve it. When he was done, he felt something entirely new appear. It felt like a big part of his Spirit's vision had been compressed, making the area appear somewhat bigger in his mind. Of course, Gravis knew that this was only an illusion created by the Spirit's compression.
The compressed area had the form of a sphere, and Gravis moved it around slightly. Moving it around didn't cost any Spirit, so that was one worry less. Gravis then made the mix of Spirit and will hit the ground.
BANG!
A loud bang resounded like someone had punched the floor. The floor sunk down for a meter, but nothing more happened. Gravis could achieve more with a punch, but one shouldn't forget that Gravis hadn't infused any Energy into the mix.
Gravis quickly realized that the mixture had vanished, and the infused Spirit was used up. Luckily, a will was inexhaustible, so, therefore, couldn't be used up like Spirit. In total, around 10% of Gravis' Spirit had been used.
"Interesting," Gravis muttered as he scratched his chin in thought. "Now, let's try again with some Energy from my body."
Gravis summoned the mixture again and then infused the inherent Energy from his body into the mixture. He used around 50% of the Energy, which was not a lot. One should remember that the inherently saved Energy inside Gravis' body was only equal to the Energy in the dantian of someone at the seventh level of Energy Gathering.
Gravis felt the sphere become more powerful, and he could now see it with his eyes, kind of. If one looked at it with their eyes, they would only see a grey, distorted area with a diameter of about a meter. The objects behind the sphere appeared warped and dimmed in color. After looking at it for a while, Gravis made the sphere hit the ground again.
BOOOOM!
A ten-meter-wide crater appeared, yet no debris flew out of the crater. It was like the stone and earth inside the crater vanished. One would think that the sphere had eaten the debris, but that wasn't true. The stone and earth had been ground down into dust, which quickly scattered into the surroundings.
When Gravis saw that, he was surprised by the destructive potential. One had to know that he had used only half the amount of Energy that someone at the seventh level of Energy Gathering would have. All in all, the destruction was about as strong as a regular punch from Gravis.
Gravis then used the remaining 50% of his inherent Energy again to create another sphere, yet this time, he infused the sphere into his Spirit Weapon. As the sphere entered the saber, the saber's color dimmed to a greyish color, and it started vibrating a little bit. Gravis checked his saber and concluded that it could withstand such an attack.
One shouldn't forget that his saber was a weak Spirit Weapon. He had gotten it from Elder Red when he had killed said elder in a fight. That someone at the Energy Gathering Realm already had a Spirit Weapon was already impressive enough. Of course, it was basically impossible that someone on that level would come into contact with stronger Spirit Weapons.
Gravis then used his saber and swung at a mountain about 100 meters away.
WHOOOM!
A thin crescent that followed his swing was created and then shot with incredible speed at the mountain. It made no noise when it hit the mountain, and no destruction was apparent to the naked eye. Yet, in Gravis' Spirit, the destruction could be seen.
A millimeter-wide cut appeared on the mountain, which extended tens of meters into the mountain. When Gravis saw that, he took a deep breath. "That's nearly as strong as my lightning loaded punch with added acceleration."
Gravis knew that the saber slash would be powerful, but this even surprised him. One had to know that the infused Energy made up most of the destructive potential of the attack, and Gravis had only used 50% of the amount of Energy that someone at the seventh level of Energy Gathering would have!
The seventh level of Energy Gathering and a physical attack with a Spirit Forming body with Destruction Lightning were worlds apart. How was this so destructive with only so little Energy?
Of course, Gravis quickly found the answer. "It's my Unity Will," he concluded. "My Unity Will is already, as the name suggests, part of the Unity Realm, which is a whole Realm higher than my cultivation. Since the attack uses my will, a stronger will also means a stronger attack."
Yet, Gravis had a dilemma. This attack would use up the inherent Energy in his body, which he usually required to heal himself. Using this attack used the same resource that he needed for healing, so he could either do one or the other if he used his body's Energy.
"The manual said I can't use this technique with an element since the mixture will be used up if it comes into contact with anything physical that isn't Energy. Yet, isn't my Spirit special? It's adapted to lightning, so infusing it with lightning shouldn't be an issue."
"Maybe it works with lightning."