Chapter 76: Lightning Seed (2/2)
Gravis looked at the timer above the door. In the beginning, it had shown 20 remaining hours, and now it showed a little more than 15 remaining hours. Gravis had taken less than five hours to create his Lightning Seed.
”Well, no point in wasting good lightning,” he said as he continued tempering his body. His Lightning Seed was automatically at the Destruction Energy ratio of the lightning in the room. There was no point in pushing more lightning into it. Instead, he would use all remaining lightning to temper his body.
After 15 hours, the lightning stopped flowing, and Gravis couldn't activate it anymore. He looked at the timer and saw that his time was up. Gravis stood up and performed some practice attacks, yet he didn't feel a difference.
”15 hours of pure tempering in lightning, and I don't even feel a difference in my muscles,” he sighed. ”This will take a while. The Codex said the tempering depended on the destruction and recreation of muscles. My muscles are probably already too strong to be harmed by such weak lightning. I need stronger lightning,” he concluded as he left the room.
He locked the door and went back to the reception desk. He placed the key down and also 50 gold. ”five hours on the second floor,” he said to the woman.
The woman didn't show an expression as she took out a new key, but inside, she was sneering. A lot of first-timers underestimated the time it took to create a Lightning Seed, and some of them tried to condense it on the second floor, thinking that would expedite things.
Of course, it didn't work that way. Their bodies first needed more lightning resistance before they even could attempt to temper themselves on the second level. ”Room 3,” she said and tossed the key over.
Gravis received the key, nodded, and went back into the Lightning Tower. He quickly found his room on the second floor and entered. The room was identical to the last one. Gravis sat down and pulled the lever.
BZZZT!
The lightning came down, and Gravis already felt the difference. It was way more painful, and it also felt more violent. Gravis could still take this pain easily and smiled. ”Now, this is way better,” he said to himself as he started pushing the lightning into his Lightning Seed. He would first increase the purity of his Lightning Seed before he went onto tempering his body.
Gravis concentrated on increasing the Destruction Energy ratio of his Lightning Seed, and he felt like he was already halfway there when the lightning suddenly stopped. Gravis pulled the lever down, but nothing happened. When he looked at the timer, he noticed that his five hours were up. 'What? Already? I'm only halfway there!' he thought in frustration.
It seemed like Gravis' situation was the opposite of a normal person. Regular lightning practitioners needed, by far, the longest time to condense their Lightning Seeds, but for Gravis. For him, it took longer to increase the purity of the lightning.
Yet, Gravis made a mistake in his assumption. He thought that he took longer to increase the purity of his lightning than other people, but that was far from true. He was still around three times faster than other people in increasing his Lightning Seed's destruction. It only felt so long for him because his condensation of the Lightning Seed was many tens-of-times faster than others.
”Seems like I need about another five hours to get my Lightning Seed to the right destruction purity. The Lightning Codex also said that every additional 10% take double the time of the previous 10%. So, in total, it would take me 10 hours to go from 20% to 30%. By that calculation, I would need 20 hours to go to 40% and 40 hours to go to 50%,” Gravis said while narrowing his eyes.
Gravis then started calculating. ”I have ten gold left, and I need another five hours on this level, which is 50 gold. So, to finish this level, I need another 40 gold. Then I need around 20 hours on the third floor, which would come up to… 2,000 gold,” he uttered while taking a deep breath.
”I need money.”