"Grassis?" Gravis asked with a lifted brow. "Is that a joke?"
The Opposer looked at Gravis with his steely gaze. "Yes," he said coldly.
Gravis was first a bit confused, but then he started laughing. "Okay, it might not be funny, but your delivery is spot on," Gravis said. His father's blunt and cold delivery somehow made the shitty joke funny.
The Opposer stood up and walked over to his son. "Welcome back," he said, this time with a smile.
Gravis also smiled. "Thank you, father."
"Come, sit with me," he said as he sat down again. Gravis followed and also sat down.
Whoop!
Two cups appeared out of thin air, and Gravis immediately smelled what was in them. It was something that he had dearly missed. Gravis took the offered cup and smelled it more closely. "Coffee," he said with a sigh. "But it smells a bit differently."
"Yes," the Opposer said, "because this is a new blend. After all, you're no longer a mortal. You're as strong as grass now," the Opposer said with a smirk.
Gravis rolled his eyes. "Haha," he said sarcastically, "but I guess you're right. I wouldn't have expected that even just grass would be this powerful," he said while sipping from the cup.
The nostalgic taste assaulted his tastebuds, but that was not all. Gravis felt parts of the coffee enter his Spirit Space. Surprisingly, the coffee fused with his Self in the Spirit Space, and Gravis felt awake and refreshed.
Seeing Gravis' astounded expression, the Opposer smiled. "You're not a normal cultivator, so I had to invent this new kind of coffee. Otherwise, you wouldn't feel a thing."
Gravis was a bit surprised that there was a drink that could affect his peculiar Spirit. After all, his Self in his Spirit Space was comprised of lightning. How would anything be able to affect it? Yet, he quickly remembered who his father actually was. Something like this probably wasn't difficult for him.
It felt refreshing to actually drink something that affected his Spirit. The Spirit Wine hadn't worked back in the Lightning Sect. Gravis didn't care about that, but he had feared that he also wouldn't feel the effects of coffee or tea anymore. Luckily, his father found a way around this.
"To come back to your earlier comment," the Opposer said, "only the grass surrounding the city is this powerful. That's because of the Energy density and the constant struggle for survival. After all, one fight between some beasts is deadly for grass."
Gravis remembered something. "Speaking of, what were these shockwaves? I'm assuming that two beasts fought against each other?" Gravis asked as he took another sip.
The Opposer nodded. "Two beasts of the same faction had a scuffle and fought against each other about 1700 kilometers away from you. Such a scuffle can take up to a year if they are pretty close in power," he said.
Gravis' eyes widened in shock. "1700 kilometers away from me, yet the shockwaves were still so powerful?" he asked with a shocked voice.
The Opposer nodded. "Yes. You should remember where you are," he said.
"The highest world?" Gravis asked.
The Opposer shook his head. "Yes, but I'm referring to a more specific place. You're in the Central Plains, where the Energy is the densest in the entire world. Only the most powerful beasts and cultivators live here. You can't find any mortals for millions of kilometers, except the ones that are protected by their powerful family."
Gravis nodded. "That makes sense," he said and stayed silent for some seconds. "Father, could you tell me more about our world?" he asked.
"Sure," the Opposer said. "Your will is powerful enough that seeing the wider horizon won't affect you anymore. If I told you these things earlier, you might see the vast gulf in power and think that you would never reach it."
Gravis nodded. "I understand," he said.
The Opposer finished his cup and refilled it. "Our world was the first world. Back then, meaning before I became this powerful, there were no other worlds."
Gravis' eyes widened. "No other worlds?" he asked. He had assumed that all the worlds had been created at the same time.
His father nodded. "Yes. There was only this world. The old bastard only decided to create the other worlds to expedite the gathering of Cosmic Energy after he saw that I became a threat. After all, he and I still become stronger, and he needed an edge over me," the Opposer explained.
Gravis' felt his horizons widen. Cosmic Energy? The Opposer and Heaven were still becoming more powerful? He had expected that both of them had already reached the peak. "What's this Cosmic Energy?" Gravis asked.
The Opposer stayed silent for a couple of seconds. "I can't tell you all the details since that would maybe motivate the old bastard to move against you, but I can tell it to you in more general terms."
"Every world is created inside something that I call the Chaos Void. There is no official word for it since I'm the only being that had ever been there," he explained.
Gravis' felt his heart race. His father was about to tell him something that only he knew. Probably no one else, except for maybe some members of his family, knew this.
"It's basically an endless conglomerate of chaotic forces with no pattern. To put the forces at play into perspective: Every other being that would go there would die immediately. Only the old bastard and I can survive out there."
Gravis couldn't imagine the power of the forces at play.
"Energy is part of the Chaos Void, and that's where the Energy in the world comes from. The world is able to filter the Energy out of the forces, but it doesn't have enough attraction to pull in more than just a little bit," he explained.
"That's where the cultivators come into play. Try to imagine the world as a spherical filter inside an ocean. The filter only allows water to enter the sphere but not exit it. Obviously, the sphere has the same density and pressure inside as outside, right?" the Opposer asked as he drank more coffee.
Gravis nodded. "Right, and in order to get more water into it, the water inside the sphere needs to be compressed to make room for more. After all, you said that no water could exit it," Gravis said.
The Opposer nodded. "Exactly. The water is obviously Energy in this analogy. In order to compress the Energy, you would need to use more Energy. Like this, you only have a small gain of Energy since you already used a lot of it to compress it. On top of that, it requires more Energy the further you compress it."
The Opposer finished his cup. "That's where cultivators come into play," the Opposer said. "By becoming stronger, they automatically compress more and more Energy into themselves and pull in more from the surroundings. This creates empty spots of Energy in the world, which we call an Energy Vacuum. Due to the lower pressure, more of the chaotic forces get pulled into the world to fill the vacuum. Thus, more Energy enters the worlds."
"That's the reason why there are cultivators," he repeated.
Gravis looked out of one of the windows in thought. The reason why there was cultivation was one of the central philosophical questions that every human had. This question was on the same level as to why there were life and death and why the world even existed in the first place.
Yet, such a philosophical question had such a logical and straightforward answer. "So, cultivators only exist to make the worlds, and probably also Heaven, more powerful?" he asked.
The Opposer nodded. "Exactly," he said. "For your info, the reason why death exists also has something to do with it. By knowing why there's cultivation, you should be able to infer why death also exists," the Opposer said.
Gravis sighed. Even the mysterious reason for death was this logical. He already had a pretty good guess. "The possibility of forever losing our loved ones is terrifying and a motivator to become more powerful. After all, with more power, we have a better chance of protecting ourselves and our close ones."
The Opposer nodded. "Yes. Same reason why we have love and friendship. If we didn't care for our close ones, death wouldn't have such a powerful effect. Everything has been perfectly designed to motivate us to become stronger, and therefore, increasing the power of the old bastard."
Gravis sighed again. It felt like the world's philosophical truths had been answered, but the answer was only cold, selfish, and logical. Everything only existed to make Heaven more powerful.
Gravis sighed another time as he finished his cup.
He felt like some of the wonder and magic of the world had left, only to leave a grey and calculating machine.