Gravis quickly exited the third trial and made his way to the usual hall. After around an hour of walking, Gravis reached the hall and saw his group. Everyone was still alive, making Gravis smirk. Everyone's Will-Aura had increased, and Claude had also condensed his Unity Will.
The darkness disciple also had a fully concentrated Will-Aura now. Joyce was well on her way to reaching a level two Unity Will, but that would still require some tempering. Manuel had also started to slowly concentrate his Unity Will, but he was still a long way off from a level two Unity Will.
When the group saw Gravis, their eyes opened in shock. Gravis had already reached the Tree Stage? Wasn't that a little too fast? His will also felt much more powerful, but by now, the strength disparity was just too large. They couldn't judge Gravis' Will-Aura anymore. It just felt incredibly powerful.
"Congratulations!" Joyce shouted with a smile as she clapped into her hands, excitedly. "Now, no one below the Unity Realm can fight with you anymore!"
Gravis nodded with a smile. "Thanks. I should be able to reach the Self Stage in another ten months. Then…" Gravis trailed off as his smile transformed into a smirk.
Gravis didn't need to finish his sentence to make the group understand. They knew exactly what his goal was. After two more trials, Gravis would reach the Self Stage and then the Unity Realm. At that point, he would fight against Heaven, something that had seemed unimaginable to them a couple of years ago.
"I want to see it when it's time," Manuel said with a smirk as he stepped closer.
Instead of smirking back, Gravis' face transformed into a frown. "Manuel. There's something I need to tell you," he said.
The group noticed Gravis' change in tone and grew serious. Yet, how did Manuel react when he heard that?
Manuel only sighed.
"I think I know what you want to tell me," he said with helplessness. "Since humiliation didn't work, Heaven probably wanted to make you regret and rage. My disciple brothers are dead, aren't they?" he asked.
Gravis nodded solemnly.
When Manuel saw Gravis nod, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Tell me how it went down," he said with a calm tone as he sat down in the middle of the hall.
The others looked at Gravis and Manuel with a mixture of disbelief, frustration, anger, and pity. Heaven was really taking it too far. Gravis walked closer and sat down opposite Manuel. The remaining three people also walked closer. Claude was just about to sit beside Gravis when...
Bang!
Joyce shoved Claude to the side, surprising him. Then, she sat down beside Gravis. When Claude saw that, he laughed a little and sighed again. Helplessly, he sat down beside Manuel. Gravis was more preoccupied with Manuel, so he didn't pay this display any attention.
"It all started when I entered the third trial…" Gravis started as he told the group about everything that happened.
In the beginning, the mood was still somber, but after a while, it turned to laughter. While the thought of their deaths was still harrowing, their antics and the heroic end to their lives made the situation much easier to accept. The group from the Wind Sect had been able to insult Heaven however much they wanted.
"So that's why we felt the earth shake for such a long time," the darkness disciple chimed in.
Gravis raised an eyebrow. "You also felt that even though you probably were multiple kilometers away?" he asked.
The whole group nodded. "Yeah, we were surprised why the earth started shaking out of nowhere," Claude said and then laughed. "I would have never guessed that the earth shook because the Wind Sect's group was insulting Heaven. It must have been really angry if we felt that from so far away."
Gravis smiled slightly. "It sure was angry," Gravis said. Then, he continued telling the tale of the five heroic men from the Wind Sect. Their inevitable deaths elicited some laughter. The five men had been heroic and defiant to the bitter end.
Manuel had already started smiling for a while with closed eyes. He had closed his eyes to better imagine that scene. He knew all five of these men, so he could very well imagine how everything happened.
"So, in the end, even though they were about to die, they had the opportunity to insult this world's ruler and captor," Manuel said slowly. Then, he laughed. "This is a better death than nearly all cultivators will ever experience. While everyone had been caged, these five had managed to break out of the cage and spit on our captor. This is an unprecedented honor for my Wind Sect."
"They went out how they lived, free," Gravis said, and Manuel nodded to that.
"Thank you, Gravis," Manuel said, "and don't feel bad. It's not your fault. Even though they have died, they had been able to show their disrespect to Heaven, something we won't be able to ever do, well, except for you. Thank you for giving them this chance, Gravis."
Gravis sighed and shook his head. "I didn't do anything. I only told them why they were in this situation. Everything they did after that had been their decision."
After that, the group started talking for a couple more hours. Apparently, the group had been fighting a mixture of the first two trials in their third one. They had fought solo and in groups, always outnumbered two to one. Yet, surprisingly, even though the trial could objectively be called harder, subjectively, it wasn't harder at all. According to what the group had said, the third trial was just as hard as the second one.
What was also surprising was the fact that the enemies had strengths tailored to the individual. For example, the enemies that Manuel had faced were way stronger than the enemies that Claude had faced. If the enemies' power were uniform, either nearly everyone would die, or the strongest of the bunch wouldn't receive tempering.
They had been fighting for a long time. In fact, the door to the fourth trial had opened only a day after they had passed the third one. This also showed the progress that everyone had made in the trials. One could even say that their battle-strength was skyrocketing.
Due to Manuel falling down a full Stage, his total strength was still weaker than when he had been in the Seed Stage. Yet, instead of being a full Stage weaker, Manuel was now only about half a Stage weaker. He had made a lot of progress. Previously, he had been able to win a one-on-one fight against someone a full Stage higher, but now, he could fight around three of them.
Joyce, on the other hand, only had average Battle-Strength if one ignored her Will-Aura. Yet, that was still impressive. After all, she hadn't really participated in fights before this Heaven's Trial started. But if one compared her to the rest of the group, her Battle-Strength was way weaker. One shouldn't forget that this group consisted of the absolute elite.
After some hours of talking, Gravis stood up and wanted to walk to the door, yet he stopped when he noticed something. Meanwhile, the group smirked at him. They had already noticed this peculiarity earlier.
Gravis didn't see two doors, like the previous times, but only one door. On top of that, the single door also had a big '5' inscribed above it. When Gravis saw that, his eyes narrowed. "What are you planning this time, Heaven?" Gravis asked out loud.
The group was a bit surprised that Gravis had talked to Heaven. Wasn't that useless? After all, Heaven didn't answer. Wouldn't this be considered as talking to oneself?
Gravis continued thinking for a while, but he couldn't find any reason why it would do that. Killing the group would be ridiculous. The highest Heaven would, obviously, not accept that. Yet, if Gravis entered the trial, shouldn't it get tailored to his power then? Like this, the others wouldn't be able to temper themselves, which would also be a colossal waste.
Pack!
Two excited arms grabbed Gravis' shoulder. "We're staying together from now on!" Joyce said with an excited grin. "You can teach me more fighting now!"
Gravis looked helplessly at Joyce. Wasn't she taking this situation a little too lightly? Yet, when he looked into her eager and excited eyes, he could only sigh and accept it. How long has it been that someone had been this excited to spend time with him?
Yes, friends liked to spend time with each other, but it felt different. Excitement like this wasn't part of something like that, mostly. The only time he could remember when someone had looked at him like that was when he had spent some time with his childhood friend, Stella. She had looked at Gravis with a similar look.
Gravis fell into thought and started thinking about his childhood. The days had been without any real worry. Even though Gravis had wanted to cultivate, it didn't have as much of an impact as he had thought back then. After all, Gravis had still been able to forget every worry in his life, as long as he had spent his time with Stella.
Was something like this possible today? Gravis was really not sure. The world looked greyer now.
Poke!
An aggressive poke shoved Gravis' head to the side. "Hey! Stop spacing out!" Joyce shouted. "I just told you how excited I was to spend more time with you, and you immediately looked like you were in for a lifetime of bitter torment!"
Gravis shook his head and sighed. "Sorry, I was just lost in thought. I was thinking about a childhood friend who had died." Then, he turned to Joyce and tried to smile, but he wasn't in the mood. His smile looked very crooked and forced.
When Joyce saw this weird smile, her face transformed into disgust. "Ew, what's with that smile? Stop that! It looks disgusting!"
Gravis' eyebrows shot up in surprise.
BANG!
Joyce kicked the door open before Gravis could say anything. "Onward!" she shouted as she pulled Gravis along.
The remaining group looked with helpless smiles at each other and followed.