"Oh, what do you have for me this time?" asked the clerk behind the counter in the Exchange Hall as he looked at the corpse Gravis was carrying.
THUMP!
Gravis put the corpse down. It was a two-meter tall, yellow mantis. Like all the other beasts he had killed in the last week, this was a middle-grade demonic beast. He needed around two days to complete one mission. It wasn't that the missions were hard, but that the way to the mission areas was pretty long.
The missions came from all over, and Gravis had to travel to those places on foot. He ran pretty fast, but it still took some time. He was running for hours on end, ending the fight in one exchange, and then running for hours again. This was boring Gravis immensely.
Gravis was waiting while the clerk looked over the corpse. After a thorough inspection, he walked behind the counter and took out some money. "As always, an incredibly well-preserved carcass. I'll give you 85 gold for it."
Gravis nodded and took the money. He didn't care about haggling on the price, since that was only a small amount of money to him. As Gravis walked out of the Exchange Hall, he counted his money. "Three missions with 100 gold each as a reward. Another 210 gold from the corpses. With my ten gold from before, I should have 520 gold now."
Gravis pondered his situation for a while. He could finish upgrading his Lightning Seed with only 50 gold, yet he would need 2,000 gold to upgrade his Lightning Seed to 40% Destruction Energy.
After some time, Gravis decided that he would invest all his gold on the Lightning Tower's second level. He would only need five hours for his Lightning Seed, but he wanted to temper his muscles as much as possible. So, he decided to buy 45 hours on the second level. He would still have 70 gold left, and his muscles would have gotten pretty strong by that point.
Gravis walked into the Lightning Tower. The two 'guards' at the entrance ignored him like he didn't exist. Gravis went into the tower and exchanged his money for 45 hours on the second level. He quickly walked to his room and started cultivating.
Five hours later, his Lightning Seed had upgraded to 30% Destruction Energy, and Gravis started tempering his body. This time, Gravis had brought some food so that he wouldn't get hungry in the middle. The constant destruction and recreation of his muscles was quite painful, but Gravis also realized that this could temper his will further.
While tempering his body, Gravis thought more about the exorbitant amount of money he would need to fully temper his body and to upgrade his Lightning Seed to 40% Destruction Energy. This could take a while.
Suddenly, Gravis got an idea. "Hey, Heaven," he muttered. He knew that Heaven could hear and see everything. "We don't talk a lot, but right now, we have the same goal. You want me to cultivate as quickly as possible to the Spirit Forming Realm, yes?"
Gravis waited, but obviously, Heaven didn't answer. "I also want to cultivate faster right now. I will be tempering my muscles for about 35 more hours in here, and they will be pretty strong by then. You know my strength, Heaven," he continued.
"Right now, fighting a high-grade demonic beast would still be a real fight, but not truly life-threatening to me. When I am done here, my muscles will be even stronger. At that point, hunting a high-grade demonic beast won't be a problem. So, for the benefit of both of us, how about you let some high-grade demonic beasts return, ok?"
Gravis waited a couple of seconds, but nothing happened. Yet, Gravis was pretty sure that Heaven would accept his offer. For Gravis to increase his realm was also Heaven's goal, after all.
When his time was up, Gravis tried out another attack and was very surprised by his new power. Before Gravis had tempered his muscles, his muscular strength was already equal to someone with tempered muscles, but now, his strength had multiplied.
Gravis narrowed his eyes in thought. "I might not be able to use an element of an Energy Gathering expert, but I am probably physically stronger and faster. If I manage to evade all the Energy Attacks, I might even be able to kill the weaker ones in a head-on fight."
Gravis' strength had reached the Energy Gathering Realm while his body was not fully tempered, yet. This had never happened before in the lower world. In Gravis' homeworld, there were probably many people like this, but Gravis was not in his homeworld right now.
"People in the Energy Gathering Realm could safely hunt high-grade demonic beasts, and my strength is equal to someone in the Energy Gathering Realm. I could probably kill high-grade demonic beasts even without using my Will-Aura. The missions for hunting high-grade demonic beasts have probably returned already," he muttered to himself.
Gravis exited the Lightning Tower. It was time for him to earn some money. When he arrived at the plaza, he saw some disciples gathered around the notice board for hunting beasts.
"Man, another high-grade demonic beast? Four groups have already accepted hunts for high-grade demonic beasts, yet they just keep on coming," said one disciple to another one.
Gravis only sneered inside. If Heaven wanted to give him missions for hunting high-grade demonic beasts, it didn't matter how many other people decided to hunt them. Gravis would get his mission. For the first time in his life, Heaven was on Gravis's side, even if only temporarily.
"Is this how it feels to have karmic luck?" he muttered to himself. Like Heaven answered him, his body felt warm on the inside, and it felt like something that he was previously missing appeared. Yet, it vanished just as quickly. Heaven was showing Gravis what he could have if he just conceded.
"Oh, shut up," muttered Gravis quietly. "You don't want me for me. You only want to make my father mad by making one of his children betray him. Sorry, you need to look for another target."
Heaven didn't answer, and Gravis just walked over to the notice board. The other disciples quickly gave him some space, and Gravis looked at the missions. Sure enough, there were multiple missions regarding high-grade demonic beasts. Gravis quickly picked the closest one and left the guild.
"I wonder how strong high-grade demonic beasts are," he said to himself while he shot away like a rocket. His speed was multiple times faster than people with a fully tempered body.
His muscles weren't even fully tempered yet!