Chapter 717: Mother (1/2)
Gravis lost himself to time. For once, he was able to forget everything about himself and dedicated his entire being to understanding the different kinds of stone directly in front of him. It was like the magic of understanding Laws had returned, and Gravis felt like it was even more beautiful than back then.
Back then, Gravis wasn't able to properly appreciate the feeling of wonder. Only when someone lost something and regained it much later would they truly be able to appreciate it.
It was simply a joy to look at all the different stones.
Whooom!
Suddenly, the Energy inside the ore stopped moving. The metallic essence vanished, leaving behind only dead stone. Gravis frowned as he inspected everything. Was something wrong with the Virtualization Array?
Gravis checked the Virtualization Array, but it didn't move at all. It had simply stopped working for some reason.
Gravis concentrated on the Virtualization Array and felt that there was no more Energy inside it. It was empty.
”Empty?” Gravis asked himself. Then, his eyes widened. ”Are 500 years already over? But I didn't manage to comprehend the Law of Core!”
Gravis inspected his surroundings with his Law of Time and noticed that 500 years had passed. Sure enough, Gravis had stayed here for the entire duration.
”What!? That was never 500 years!” Gravis said.
”Father, has it been 500 years?” he asked.
”Yes,” his father answered.
”What? How?” Gravis asked in shock. ”I only just started!”
”You were so entranced with the Laws that you lost track of time, Gravis. It happens. Just rent it again,” his father said in a bored manner.
Gravis still couldn't wrap his head around it, but everything pointed at that 500 years had passed.
”500 years, over just like that,” Gravis said to himself as he grimaced. ”So much time has passed, and I didn't even notice. This feels similar to when Heaven told me that I had stayed 200 years in the gap between worlds. It feels like time has been stolen from me.”
After a while, Gravis sighed. ”I guess these occasions will happen more frequently in the future. Understanding the Laws will take longer and longer.”
Gravis looked at the mountain. The mountain was still there since the Virtualization Array only controlled the metal essence, which created different kinds of ore on its own.
Gravis thought back to the time he met Ferris. ”Back then, Ferris had been around 3,000 years old. He felt absolutely ancient to me. 3,000 years was such an incredibly long time. I also thought about how much I could learn in 3,000 years.”
Gravis laughed bitterly. ”Yet, look at me now. If I add everything together, I'm already around 3,650 years old. I'm even older than Ferris back then. It felt like I had been only 100 years old, only one year ago. I have become ancient.”
”Time is unforgiving,” Gravis said, ”but I already know that.”
Gravis remained silent for a couple more minutes, just thinking. Then, he sighed again and pocketed the ore mountain. This was a byproduct of the Virtualization Array, and it belonged to Gravis. One could say it was a nice bonus.
Gravis estimated the ore's worth and concluded that this was around three million Immortal Stones worth of ore. This sounded like an enormous number, but one shouldn't forget that Gravis paid 50 million Immortal Stones. On top of that, Gravis had seen the clerk putting around 25 God Stones into the Virtualization Array. So, in total, this ore was not even nearly enough to make up for the cost of producing it.
After that, Gravis pocketed the Virtualization Array and inspected the city to find Yersi. He wanted to talk to his daughter after such a long time.
Gravis' eyes widened in surprise when he found two people in his ”living room”. One of them was Jake, while the other one was a cute girl, seemingly 20 years old. The girl was also an Early Minor Circulation Immortal.