Gravis had practically been startled out of his Cultivation. After all, even while comprehending Laws, all his powers were active. His Laws of Danger and Safety were active, and his Spirit would also pick up if anyone came close to him.
Because of that, Gravis had been startled. This person in front of him had practically appeared out of nowhere.
Gravis couldn't feel the power of the person in front of him, so he decided to investigate the young man closely with his Spirit.
Mortal.
Gravis lifted an eyebrow when he noticed that this was a mortal. He had nearly no Energy, nearly no Life Energy, no Will-Aura, and his body was weak. Gravis could also feel the Spirit of this man, but it was so weak that it couldn't even interact with anything. This meant that his Spirit hadn't been formed yet.
This was a true mortal. Not even a single part of his body had been tempered.
Now that Gravis calmed down, he also noticed the disheveled appearance of the man. His skin was an unhealthy red, and he breathed quickly. Several parts of his body were injured, and he even had a broken rib. Additionally, parts of his body had started to freeze.
Where was Gravis right now?
Gravis was on top of a mountain that was nearly ten kilometers tall. For Cultivators, climbing such a mountain wasn't hard, but for a mortal, it was nearly impossible. The air up here was extremely thin, and the temperatures were far below freezing.
Judging by the mortal's appearance, he wouldn't survive the climb down. He would soon enter the last stages before hypothermia.
Seeing that Gravis didn't respond to his greeting, the young man became more nervous. He had come here with a goal in mind, and he had planned thousands of times on how he should plead his case.
However, as soon as the God in front of him opened his eyes, all the young man's plans vanished. The cold seemingly stopped existing, and his body stopped aching. It was like he was no longer in the real world and was pulled inside the world of this God.
This was a God!
A being of legend!
He was standing in front of something that shouldn't exist in this world!
The mortal's body started to shake, but not because of the cold. His body shook because of his emotions.
Fear, reverence, happiness, nervousness, hope.
Plomp!
The mortal fell onto his knees and nearly rammed his head into the cold mountain-stone. His knees and arms started bleeding heavily due to the impact.
"Please!" the mortal shouted with all his power, his voice sounding incredibly hoarse. "Take revenge for my family!"
Silence.
'Revenge, huh?' Gravis thought.
More silence.
"Why should I?" Gravis asked evenly.
When the mortal heard Gravis' voice, his body shuddered.
Gravis' voice was so very normal. He didn't sound any different from an average human.
"I will do anything!" the young man shouted without looking at Gravis. "No matter what, I will do anything!"
Silence.
"Is revenge so important to you?" Gravis asked.
"More important than anything!" the young man shouted as his head jerked up, now looking into Gravis' eyes.
"And when your revenge is complete, what then?" Gravis asked.
"I'll return ho-"
The young man suddenly stopped.
There was no more home.
The Qian family had killed everyone the young man knew!
"What then?" Gravis repeated.
The young man found it hard to answer. He hadn't thought about an after.
After everyone he knew had been killed six months ago, his entire life had focused on revenge.
Revenge dominated his entire being.
His enemies must die!
However, when face to face with a God, he had to confront this question without an answer.
"Will you return to your previous life?" Gravis asked.
"Will you travel to distant lands and finish your smithing apprenticeship under a different master?" Gravis asked. It was not hard to read the memories of a mortal.
"Will you remain in your village?"
"What will you do?"
"I DON'T KNOW!" the young man suddenly shouted with tears in his eyes. Then, he looked down weakly. "I don't know," he whispered.
"What were the last wishes of your family for you?" Gravis asked. "Did they wish for you to avenge them? Were they these kinds of people?"
"No, never!" the young man shouted with gritted teeth. However, his newfound conviction faltered just as quickly again. "They only want me to be happy."
"But how am I supposed to be happy when their butchers are still living under the same sky as me!?" he shouted as he punched the mountain below him.
Silence.
"Power can solve nearly all problems," Gravis said slowly. "It can help you attain freedom. It can help you to protect your close ones. It can help you take revenge. It can kill your enemies."
"However, power can't help you become happy," Gravis said slowly, his words putting a heavy weight on the mortal.
More silence.
"I will not take revenge for you," Gravis said, throwing the mortal into a sea of despair.
"However, your conviction has moved me," Gravis said. "Your willingness to climb to your death because of the ones you love, even if it was for the wrong reason, is something I value highly."
"Therefore," Gravis said as hope reignited in the mortal's eyes, "I will help your family to fulfill their dying wish for you."
Bing!
Gravis' finger pointed forward, and the man lost consciousness.
Gravis looked at the young man as he scratched his chin. 'A mortal that has the tenacity to climb such a huge mountain for his loved ones. He probably saw my silhouette on a cloudless day, but from such a distance, he couldn't even be sure if I actually existed. I could have just as well been a cloud or a stone.'
'Even more, I could have also just been a guy. Lastly, I could have already moved away before he reached the peak.'
'This man's feelings for his family are so deep that he threw everything that he owned away just to take revenge as quickly as possible.'
'This mortal has an impressive amount of willpower, conviction, and he isn't an emotionless machine.'
'Very well. Let me help you!'
Gravis put his finger on the mortal's head, and it shone with white light.
The mortal's body seized for about ten seconds due to the sheer amount of information that was shoved into his brain, but after that, everything stopped.
Gravis wouldn't take revenge for the young man, but he gave the young man the tools to rise to power.
He taught the young man how to cultivate.
And was there anything better at teaching Cultivation than the preparation course for Research Assistants?
Gravis planted all his memories of the theoretical and practical lessons of the preparation course into the young man's mind. Stuff like how the highest world worked or something like Elemental Synchronicity were taken out, as was information about Gravis' family.
However, this young man would now be able to relive Gravis' experiences in the preparation course.
People would look away from him and call him prince, which would elicit questions about Gravis' background in the young man's mind.
Gravis also planted several memories about his trip in the lowest world into the young man's mind. Whenever the young man reached a new Realm, all planted memories before that Realm would be unlocked. Of course, no sensitive information was left in there.
Gravis simply did this to give the young man another Cultivator to compare himself to.
If he ever entered a trash Sect and received incorrect information, he could think about what Gravis had done and could see the truth.
The young man would realize: "No, this isn't impossible. The person in my memory was able to do this."
Gravis grinned. It was a strange feeling to influence a mortal to such a degree. Gravis knew exactly that this action of his would reshape the entire life of this mortal.
Normally, Gravis didn't care if something happened to mortals, but for once, he was looking at this person like he was an actual person.
"You have 100 years to reach the Unity Realm," Gravis spoke to the unconscious young man.
"A calamity is about to befall the surrounding thousands of kilometers, and everything will die. You must reach the Unity Realm before that and find me again."
Calamity? Well, a fight between Immortal Kings could be called a calamity for mortals.
"When you see your injured body, think how your family would feel if they saw you like this."
SHING!
Then, Gravis teleported the guy into a random cave in a forest. He only healed the life-threatening injuries but left the others. They would serve as a reminder.
The young man would survive and would wake up with a ton of new information in his head.
Meanwhile, Gravis looked at this Qian family, the enemy of this young man.
They were the leaders of a kingdom, which had recently won a war against another kingdom.
The main reason was that they had four generals with tempered muscles.
However, the true danger was the royal teacher.
He was at the first level of Energy Gathering.
'The hero has received his blessing, and the antagonist is set,' Gravis thought with a smile. 'Will the hero triumph over the antagonist, or will he die along the way?'
Gravis chuckled a bit but quickly threw all of this out of his head.
His comprehension had been interrupted, but it wasn't so bad. It took a couple days, at most, to return to his comprehension. A couple of days out of fifty years wasn't anything.
SHING!
However, Gravis quickly changed mountains and went to a far higher one, nearly a thousand kilometers away.
It would be awkward if that guy appeared right in front of him again.
Without wasting another second, Gravis went back to comprehending the Magma Element.