Joyce and Gravis looked at each other with uncomfortable expressions. They remained silent for a couple of seconds.
"I'm sorry," they both said at the same time, eliciting a look of surprise by the other.
"What are you sorry about?" Joyce asked in surprise. "You showed me a truth about the cultivation world. I should be the sorry one since I let my emotions guide my actions." Joyce was a little red in the face due to embarrassment. "I also didn't mean what I have said previously. Those words were uncalled for."
Gravis sighed. "Don't worry about it. I didn't take them to heart. Also, I should apologize for saying it that directly. I didn't take your cultivation path into account. After all, everyone's experiences are different."
"Hey, don't steal my line!" Manuel grumbled.
Gravis only smiled slightly. "Your wisdom is my wisdom now," he said with a smirk.
Manuel rolled his eyes, but inside, he was happy. He felt proud of himself. After all, not everyone was able to teach the Lightning Calamity something.
Joyce looked with confusion at both of them but then turned to Gravis again. "Anyways, I'm sorry for my words. I know that you only wanted to help me."
"Water under the bridge," Gravis said with a dismissive wave.
Joyce smiled happily, and, for some reason, Gravis also felt a bit happy when he saw her smile. Yet, he quickly caught himself. 'I might actually feel attracted to her,' he thought. 'This could become dangerous. If I get too close to her, I might have doubts about my future path. I don't know how I will act in such a situation. I can't take the risk into account that I might decide to not leave this lower world. I can't get too close to her.'
Joyce was quite confused about Gravis' involuntary changes in expression. For a second there, she could've sworn that Gravis showed a genuine smile, but it had quickly vanished. Now, he only looked troubled. 'I really don't get him,' she thought.
Manuel watched them while cultivating, and he could only muster a troubled smile. 'I think I know what's going on with Gravis. No matter what he chooses, he will lose,' Manuel thought. 'For once, I'm happy that I'm not him.'
Who didn't want to be a powerful genius? Just imagining the possibility to fight two Stages above oneself would elicit feelings of longing. Yet, everyone had their own problems, even powerful people like Gravis. Nearly no one had an easy life.
Like this, time passed.
A couple of hours later, Manuel reached the tenth Stage of Energy Gathering and immediately broke into the Spirit Forming Realm. When someone's body was powerful enough, they wouldn't need a strengthened dantian. Manuel's and Joyce's bodies easily fulfilled that requirement.
Some more hours later, two disciples from the Wind Sect arrived. One of them was the person that went over to fetch the new person, while the other, obviously, was the new person. The new person quickly went over to Manuel and thanked him for this opportunity. If Manuel hadn't left the Wind Sect's group, the new person wouldn't have been able to join.
Manuel waved him off. He saw his actions as more selfish than selfless, so he didn't really feel comfortable with accepting the new person's gratitude.
For a full day after that, nothing of note happened.
Brrr!
Suddenly, the door to the mountain started opening slowly, creating an uncomfortable sound of stones grating together. The groups all stood up and readied themselves. Many people retrieved their weapons and moved into different formations. A couple more groups arrived, but there was still no group from the Lightning Sect.
Many of the groups had been confused about the Lightning Sect's absence, and only Joyce's group knew that no group from the Lightning Sect would come. After all, in order to not force Gravis to fight against his disciple brothers', Lasar decided against sending a group to the resource war.
Yet, there was something else of note. Even though some new groups had arrived, the total number of groups didn't increase. That was because the groups from the Water, Light, and Darkness Sect had left. They decided against taking the risk of fighting Gravis. Even if they survived all the trials, fighting Gravis at the end was just suicide.
Since the group from the Earth Sect had also met an untimely demise, only a total of two Sects took part in this year's resource war. One was the Wind Sect, while the other was the Fire Sect. The Fire Sect was comprised of battle-hungry maniacs, while the people from the Wind Sect were rather carefree. Whatever happened, happened. They wanted to temper themselves, so why shouldn't they?
When the gate fully opened, one group after another charged in until only Joyce's group remained.
"Let's go," Joyce said with motivation as she pointed forward with a long and thin sword.
Manuel chuckled a little when he saw that. "That pose would look better if you were on a horse," he said with a smirk.
Joyce turned to him and pouted. "Hey! Don't ruin my moment!"
Manuel chuckled a little and then walked forward. "Let's just go," he said.
Gravis also walked forward and passed Manuel. Without a word, he entered the Heaven's Trial. The rest of the group quickly followed. A long, dimly lit corridor greeted them, and only some lit torches created some light. Without these, everything would be in total darkness.
They followed the path for several kilometers. Surprisingly, the path wasn't straight. The path went up and down, left and right. The construction of the corridor resembled the body of a snake more than an actual hallway. Who would build such an uneven corridor?
Gravis checked the path with his Spirit and noticed another surprising thing. 'The walls block my Spirit. On top of that, I can't see further than a kilometer with my Spirit. On a straight path, I could see further with just my eyes,' Gravis thought. 'Well, it actually makes sense. If everyone could investigate the paths, they would be able to ready themselves for the trials.'
After walking for a while, the group reached a small hall. Two braziers stood in the middle, illuminating the surroundings. The stones were brownish, and the design reminded people of an old temple or the ruin of one. Two old gates stood before them. Above each gate was a sizable stone tablet, which was inscribed. One had a giant '1' while the other had a giant '4'.
"Weird. I don't see the other groups, and those gates are also weird," Manuel said with narrowed eyes. "This doesn't fit the info I got from my Sect."
The others also nodded. "Same here," the lightning disciple said. "All groups are supposed to meet in a gigantic hall with a lot of gates. In the hall, most of the disciples would break into the next Realm before entering their respective trials. I can't possibly imagine that everyone already achieved their breakthrough."
Gravis listened to their discussion and quickly found the answer. 'No wonder the hallway was so crooked. After the other groups entered, Heaven quickly changed the path just for us. The other groups are probably really confused about a sudden wall appearing behind them. If we went in first, the same thing would have happened, and if we entered in the middle, we would probably just get shoved into a new path by a wall.'
Gravis didn't know what the numbers above the two gates meant, but he had a suspicion. "Let me guess. The numbers above the gates say how many people are allowed to enter," Gravis said.
Manuel nodded. "Exactly, but there should be a lot of different paths available. It is also incredibly strange that we don't have an option to choose. We are forced to split up. This is so strange. Normally there would be hundreds of paths with all kinds of numbers."
"Well, nothing we can do about it," Gravis said as he walked to the gate with the big '1'. "This is where we part ways," Gravis said as he looked at his group. "I hope we'll see each other again."
"Wait!" the darkness disciple said. "Aren't you taking this a little too casual? Something is seriously wrong here! Let's first talk about this before we continue!"
Gravis shrugged. "What are we supposed to do? We wanted to split up like this either way. As far as I see, this just makes it easier."
The group looked at each other in helplessness. Gravis was right, but he was taking the situation a little too well.
"Let's go!" Joyce shouted and walked to the other door. "Why are you hesitating? Aren't we here to temper ourselves? So the trial composition is a little weird. Who cares? We can't change anything either way. We are in life-threatening danger anyway. This won't make a difference."
The remaining three people sighed and then followed Joyce. Now, all people stood before their respective gates, four people at one, and one at the other. The two groups looked at each other. "See you later!" Joyce shouted to Gravis with a wink.
Gravis smirked a little. "See you later!"
Brrrr!
Joyce pushed open the gate and stepped inside. Manuel followed her, but not before throwing a thumbs up to Gravis as a sign of companionship. The other two people also said their goodbyes to Gravis and followed Manuel.
BANG!
The doors closed behind them violently.
With this, Gravis was alone again.
After waiting for a couple of seconds in silence, Gravis cracked his neck.
"What a nice contrast, Heaven," Gravis said. "One group is comprised of three people that went through the tenth Stage of Energy Gathering, making them very valuable to you, while the other is your most hated nemesis."
"One group has a trial tailor-made for their needs. They probably have an incredibly high chance of passing all trials. And then you have me. You probably did your absolute best to make my trials as disgusting and dangerous as possible."
Gravis laughed a little.
"Anyway, time for me to reach the Sapling Stage!"