Lightning Is the Only Way

"Let's first get to the Certificate of Middle World Equipment," Johnson said. "That would be 5,000 Immortal Stones, please."

Gravis nodded and handed over the Immortal Stones. "Alright, please wait for the summons," Johnson said. "This might take a bit longer than the last time."

Gravis nodded again and waited.

Whoop!

"Or not," Johnson said as he saw Gravis vanish nearly instantaneously.

Gravis reappeared in a gigantic hall full of smithing equipment. He saw huge barrels of different kinds of water, a ton of forges, and several other pieces of tools he had never seen before. The forge was over a kilometer wide.

"You came at just the right time," a young teenager said with a smile. "We are currently backed up with orders."

Gravis saw the young man, and just like the previous examiner, Gravis couldn't see through his power. "Hi, backed up with orders? What do you mean by that? Do you accept orders?"

"Sure, we do," the young man said. "There are a lot of cultivators that don't have the money to pay the creation fee for weapons. Because of that, we offer a service where they only have to bring us the materials for a piece of equipment they desire without them needing to pay anything."

"The disadvantages are the long waiting time and the possibility that some forgers might deliver a product which is not up to standard. This is where you come into play. You need to craft ten pieces of specified equipment with an, at least, average quality to get your certificate."

The young man gestured to the forge. "We have all the equipment you could possibly need and more. Feel free to use everything you see here."

Gravis nodded. "Thank you, but I don't need any forging tools," Gravis said.

"You don't need forging equipment?" the young man asked in surprise. "Then how do you intend to forge?"

Gravis scratched the back of his neck. "I just don't need them. I only need my lightning," he said.

"Lightning?" the young man asked with furrowed brows. "Does that mean that you can only forge lightning-specific equipment? You do know that you have registered for the general Middle World Equipment Certificate, right?"

"Oh, no," Gravis said to clear the confusion. "I can forge any kind of equipment with lightning. It doesn't need to be lightning specific."

The young man blinked a couple of times like he hadn't heard correctly. "How?" he asked. "You would need to use your lightning to only heat the material without contaminating it with the essence of lightning. You would need to have an absolutely insane amount of control over lightning to do that. That should be impossible for an Immortal."

"Is that really so special?" Gravis asked. "My father simply showed me how to do that."

"Your father?" the man asked as he took a look at Gravis' Residency Ring. "Oh, your father," he repeated with a different tone. "Sure, he can probably do anything, but can you?"

"How about I just show you?" Gravis said. "What's the first thing I need to forge?"

The young man hesitated but shrugged his shoulders after a bit. Who cared if Gravis would waste an order? Some of the fees that the participants paid would just go to the customer as reparations.

Whoop! BANG!

The young man summoned a considerable piece of brown ore, which hit the ground with a huge bang. "Tower shield. Early Law Comprehension Realm. Earth Cultivator," the young man said simply.

Gravis immediately recognized the ore but grew confused due to multiple reasons. "This is only pure ore. Additionally, if I were to harden the tower shield, it would become tiny. Even more, isn't this too little ore anyway?" Gravis asked.

"The customer ordered a standard tower shield," the young man said. "This is only your first order, and it is to test if you have the basics down. Simply make it about 150 centimeters tall with the materials you received."

Gravis thought that this was a huge waste. Would such a shield even be useful? Calling it a paper shield would be more accurate than calling it a tower shield.

Gravis sighed. "Well, if that is what the customer wants," he said as he trailed off.

BZZZ!

Gravis summoned some lightning and melted the ore with practiced ease. The ore was finished heating up in less than a second, and Gravis quickly molded it into a fitting form. It hurt him that he had to make a shield without a compressed surface. It was like he was throwing ore out of the window.

The whole process took less than a minute.

BANG!

The shield hit the ground loudly as Gravis looked at the young man.

Yet, the young man only had his eyes opened wide in shock. It was like he couldn't believe what he had just seen.

Gravis waited some seconds. "Excuse me? I'm done," Gravis said.

The young man was shaken out of his stupor. "What? How?" he sputtered. "How were you so fast!? Where was the hammering? Where was the tempering? Where was the forging? You basically only warmed it, molded it into shape, and that was it! By reason, there should be a ton of inconsistencies and impurities in the shield. Are you sure you are done?"

Gravis shrugged. "That was how my father taught me. As for cooling, I did cool it. I infused my Law of Cold into the shield to cool it evenly."

"Law of Cold?" the young man repeated in surprise. "You're a lightning cultivator, right? How do you know the Law of Cold already? That thing is about as far away from your element as it gets."

Gravis only furrowed his brows. What was so unusual about that?

After a while, to stop the guy from continually getting surprised, Gravis simply showed him something.

WHOOOOM!

Besides Gravis, a small rock appeared as it floated in the world. This was a tiny world Gravis created out of the basic elements. Obviously, Gravis was demonstrating the Law of the Dead World. "Temperatures are part of the Law of the Dead World. Didn't you know that I have comprehended that Law?" Gravis asked.

The man's mouth fell open in shock. "W-What? You know the Minor Law of the Dead World as a new Immortal? Then, why are you here getting tested for the general certificate!?"

"Because I don't have it yet," Gravis said.

"What?" the young man said. "How come you don't- ooooohhhh," he said as he suddenly remembered Gravis' Obsidian Ring. "Of course, you came from a middle world, right? That would explain it."

Gravis nodded.

"But then why didn't you simply use fire!?" he asked as he ruffled his hair in stress. "You clearly have access to fire, so why didn't you use it? Why are you using lightning?"

Gravis shrugged. "My control over lightning is better," he answered.

"Yeah, sure, I believe you, but that's not the point!" the man nearly shouted. "Using your lightning this finely should put a massive drain on your concentration. Yet, you're still using it for something this basic and simple."

"I don't feel any drain," Gravis said. "It just comes naturally."

The man tore at his hair like he couldn't comprehend the current situation. "If you didn't obviously show the signs of the Law of Honesty, I would have thrown you out for lying to me. How the hell do you not feel any drain from..."

But then, the man trailed off as he took a deep breath and released a sigh. "Know what? Just forget it," he said as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Let me just test the shield."

The shield floated over to the man, and several sounds of impacts could be heard coming from it. The man was hitting multiple parts of the shield with his Spirit. About 150 impacts hit the shield in just a couple of seconds, and the shield held.

"Huh," the man said. "Well, color me impressed. And you really don't feel any strain or fatigue?" he asked.

Gravis shook his head.

"Man," the man said as he looked at the shield again. "You're sitting on a goldmine. No wonder you are opening a forging shop. You're basically printing money."

Gravis furrowed his brows. "What do you mean?"

"You don't know what I mean?" the man asked. "Have you seen anyone else forge anything before?" he asked but remembered something. "Except your father, of course."

"No, I haven't," Gravis said.

"Makes sense," the man said as he put the shield down. "Generally, when forging equipment, us forgers need to go through a ton of processes. Equally heating everything takes a while since the fire can't penetrate the material. We basically need to heat from the outside to the inside and manage the temperature so that the inside is just as hot as the outside."

"Yet, by using lightning, you can heat the inside and the outside at the same time. That's why the heating is so fast in your case. Then, we need to hammer everything into place, which also requires us to continually reheat the material. Meanwhile, as far as I have seen, you have some kind of special Spirit that just forces stuff into place. It's like you're simply bending the material into a weapon."

The shield floated upwards again as the man knocked twice on it. "In order to make this, a new Immortal would take several hours. Meanwhile, you completed it in seconds. That's why I'm saying that you're basically printing money. On top of that, you don't even need any tools. That's unreal!"

Gravis was surprised about what he had just heard. He had thought that everyone was forging equipment like him. Yet, Gravis decided to not answer since he didn't want to sound like he was tooting his own horn.

Whoop! BANG!

Nine more piles of ores appeared as well as several jade slips with information on them.

"You already know the Minor Law of the Dead World. Testing you is pointless," the man said with a dismissive wave. "Simply complete these nine orders, and everything should be fine."

Gravis looked at the nine piles of ore and jade slips.

"No problem."