The days came and went.
With her father's and teacher's acceptance, Joyce destroyed her Spirit. After that, she started refilling her Spirit with Energy until it was 99% done. With the help of a lot of Energy Stones, she reached the tenth level of Energy Gathering and immediately condensed her Spirit. All of this took only a couple of hours.
Like this, her path was set. She would go through the Self Stage in the future. She would also have a lot of time to get used to fighting in life and death tempering. After all, it was nearly impossible to speed up the progression through the Spirit Forming Realm. She would require 40 years of accumulation to reach the Self Stage. By then, she should have already been able to condense a level two Unity Will.
If everything went according to plan, she would be able to train her battle capabilities and spend time with her family for 40 years. After that, she would leave her family forever. They would never see each other again.
This was the cruelty of the cultivation world. Everyone that wasn't able to keep up would get left behind. Due to the time dilation difference between the middle world and the lower world, everyone she knew would be dead in a maximum of 30 years after she reached the middle world. Thirty years in the middle world would correspond to 300 years in the lower world, the absolute maximum of longevity for Spirit Forming experts.
This thought was quite harrowing, but Joyce knew that there was no way around it. She would spend a lot of time in her Clan in the next 40 years because that would be the last time she would have a family. She decided that she wouldn't have a family until she reached the highest world, which would take an incredibly long time. If she even managed to survive until then.
Joyce also sent out a lot of invitations to her friends. After all, they needed five people for a group. Entering with less than five was impossible, for some reason. This was probably one of Heaven's restriction that would minimize the wastage of Energy for trials.
In the following days, many of Joyce's friends would arrive. She always greeted them and informed them about why they were invited. A lot of them weren't happy when they heard the reason. After all, the ratio of deaths was just too terrifying for the Heaven's Trial. Yet, others were thankful for the invitation.
When Joyce wasn't entertaining guests, she was taught by Gravis how to fight. Many people have fought more battles than Gravis, but no one had been through more life and death fights. After all, what worth did sparring and harmless fights have?
Gravis taught her how to take advantage of the terrain and that everything could be considered a weapon. He even said that the fact that she was a woman could be considered a weapon. There were still a lot of cultivators who held onto the traditional belief of mortals.
Yet, Joyce wasn't this shameless. She would never want to take advantage of the fact that she was a woman, even if it could be useful. She wanted a fair fight, where gender didn't play a role. Gravis didn't mind. After all, it was her decision.
She also felt really uncomfortable when Gravis told her about how he had managed to kill stronger demonic beasts when he was younger. Even though she had a powerful will, she couldn't imagine stabbing a beast into the behind or cutting off its genitals. In her mind, this seemed kind of disrespectful, and not even her enemies deserved such a fate.
Gravis never forced her to fight his way. Everyone had their own way of fighting and their own philosophy. If she didn't want to use these things, it was up to her. Forcing her to follow his example would only dirty her own fighting style.
Three days before the Heaven's Trial would open, Joyce, Gravis, and her friends gathered inside a hall. Reginald and Marvin weren't present. If it had been before this whole family drama, they would have wanted to attend, but they realized that they had to give Joyce more space. She was an adult, and she would need to make her own decisions from now on, and when those decisions were wrong, she had to live with the consequences.
Everyone in the hall was at the initial Stage of Spirit Forming, except for Gravis. After all, the four chosen people would be fighting as one team. If there were someone on a higher Stage, the difficulty of the whole trial would change. Something like that couldn't be considered life and death tempering, but only suicide.
Joyce had also informed her friends about how the middle world would work and that it would be best to destroy their Spirit and reform their Spirit after going through the tenth Stage of Energy Gathering. Yet, not everyone was as determined as Joyce. Nearly all of them weren't willing to waste their years of effort just to start again.
Though, there was one person who agreed. One had to know that Joyce had friends from all over the world, and also from nearly all the Sects. The person that agreed was, surprisingly, a darkness cultivator.
The guy had been pretty nervous and afraid while he was in the presence of Gravis. He knew Gravis' face and saw what had happened back then. After he had seen the actions of his elders and Sect Master, he had decided to leave the Darkness Sect.
After Joyce had explained everything to him, he had gathered all his courage and asked Gravis if what she said was true. Gravis confirmed it, and the cultivator decided to go through with it. Like this, their group had two people at the initial Stage of Spirit Forming while having gone through the tenth Stage of Energy Gathering.
The remaining seven people were all willing to accompany them since those who weren't willing had left a long time ago. Now, it was up to Joyce to decide the last two spots.
After a long debate and going through all the people's strengths and weaknesses, Joyce made another decision. The fourth member was a disciple of the Wind Sect. His Will-Aura was above average, and his speed would also be quite useful. That was what made Joyce decide on him.
Yet, filling the last spot was quite difficult. None of the remaining candidates had any outstanding talents or powers. All in all, they could be considered supremely average. After nearly an hour of debates, she still wasn't able to make her decision.
"Whom would you choose?" she asked Gravis with a voice transmission.
"None. They're all too weak and wouldn't be able to pull their weight fully," Gravis answered directly.
Joyce released a frustrated sigh. "But we don't have any other candidates."
"Yes, we do," Gravis sent back directly.
Joyce perked up and looked at Gravis. "What?"
"Why is it necessary that they are your friends? Just go ask the Lightning Sect. They won't take part in this year's resource war either way. I'm sure you'll find someone," Gravis transmitted back.
Joyce's eyes widened as she realized that Gravis was right. She still felt a little bad for her remaining six friends, but her life was more important. Like this, she said that she wouldn't take anyone else from the group. The group wasn't happy at all about this. Most of them cut off their friendship with Joyce and left angrily. Only two people remained on friendly terms with Joyce.
Joyce felt terrible about the leaving of her friends, but her cultivation was more important. Even if those people managed to ascend too, they would just become fertilizer for other cultivators. After all, they didn't go through the tenth Stage of Energy Gathering. Maybe it was better this way.
On the same day, Joyce left for the Lightning Sect to get the last member. A day later, she returned with quite an outstanding cultivator. When she had announced that they needed one last member at the initial Stage, many disciples started vying for that position.
The reason why Joyce's group was so popular wasn't because of Gravis or the fact that she cultivated Life Lightning. It was a matter of group composition. Most groups were made up of only one power, and powers were mostly formed according to the cultivators' elements. Therefore, most groups only had one element.
A four-man group of cultivators with different elements would be even stronger than a five-man group of cultivators with the same element. After a lot of shouting and fighting, one person managed to stand out. He had a nearly fully compressed Will-Aura, which was very impressive for someone at the initial Stage. This person was very close to being an Ascender's Talent.
Joyce was incredibly happy with the last person. Like this, they would have a very balanced team. The wind cultivator could scout, evade, and distract foes. The darkness cultivator could stay hidden and deal a fatal strike to any enemy. The lightning cultivator was a mixture of both. He could deal incredible damage but was also fast enough to evade attacks.
And Joyce would be the backup. As long as the fighters didn't immediately die, she could heal them in a matter of seconds. Like this, the fighters could fight more aggressively and trade injuries for injuries.
After everyone assembled, everyone said their goodbyes and left for the resource war. If they were lucky, they wouldn't return for many years. If they were not, they would never return.