Skye flew for a full day. In that day, Gravis ate a lot of body tempering pills. He didn't need to destroy and reforge his body for it to become stronger. The only reason why he had done that with the Body Ascension Pill was that this was the only way how the pill would work. The other pills simply strengthened the body without destroying it.
In that day, Gravis ate about a third of the pills and reached the peak of the seventh level of the body. He still had some time and could increase his bodily power into the eighth level, but he stopped. If his body were at the eighth level of Energy Gathering, not many people would dare fight him. Like this, he would maybe not get enough pills to reach the tenth level.
'Most people can't feel my physical strength, but some of them can. If anyone powerful notices my body's power, they might dissuade others from fighting with me, and I can't just go on a killing rampage. The Spirit Forming experts would get involved. I can't fight those, yet,' thought Gravis with narrowed eyes. 'Guess this is where I'll stop for now.'
The disciples Gravis had killed also carried a lot of Energy Stones. He had several hundreds of those, and if he took them all, he would reach the middle of the eighth level of Energy Gathering. He also didn't absorb those for the same reason. He had to accumulate more pills and stones to rise in one shot. No one would accept fighting a Heavenborn at the ninth level of Energy Gathering with an equally powerful body.
Like this, Skye and Gravis continued flying towards the Earth Guild until…
BOOM!
A loud sound of something hitting the ground reverberated through the surrounding kilometers. Whatever hit the ground had to weigh multiple tons. Gravis' eyes shone with interest, and without him saying anything, Skye charged into the direction where the sound originated.
After some seconds, Gravis and Skye arrived at the location where the sound came from, and they saw a powerful wolf-like creature. It had a height of around twenty meters, but its front legs were more prominent and more powerful than its hindlegs, creating a bizarre but powerful-looking asymmetry. It was eating an equally giant, dead salamander.
When Gravis saw that beast, his eyes widened in surprise. "High-grade Energy Beast," he said involuntarily. The only high-grade Energy Beast that Gravis had ever seen had been Skye's parent. Heaven had made sure that he never saw another one. Yet, they just so happened to stumble upon one.
Gravis continued growing more apprehensive as he thought about this situation. He looked up into the sky. "I wonder why you allow a high-grade Energy Beast to cross my path," Gravis spoke. "Is it because they can't temper me anymore, or is that one of your schemes again?"
Of course, Heaven didn't answer. Gravis looked back down at the creature and rubbed his chin in thought. 'I doubt this is a scheme. Beasts can't resist my Will-Aura, and the only thing powerful enough to threaten me is a Spirit Forming expert. If this beast has a Spirit Beast parent, its parent wouldn't be in this Middle-Continent. This beast also can't be a pet of anyone of some guild. It's too far away from any guild for that.'
After thinking about this, he came to a conclusion. 'It probably takes too much Energy to control such a powerful beast. Heaven had been willing to pay that price if those beasts could still function as tempering for me, but with my new Will-Aura, they became too weak for that. Heaven probably doesn't care anymore about me finding high-grade Energy Beasts. Might as well accept this "gift". Let's see how this goes.'
Gravis jumped off of Skye. His body was powerful enough to withstand a fall with terminal velocity, so that wasn't an issue. Skye looked at Gravis but didn't decide to get involved. It had fought many powerful high-grade Energy Beasts before, so it might as well leave this one to Gravis.
The wolf-like creature noticed the falling Gravis and released a loud howl as intimidation. It ran to the place where Gravis would land and readied itself, opening its mouth to release powerful lightning. The elemental power of Energy Beasts might be weaker than those of humans, but such a hit would still injure Gravis a little bit.
WHOOOSH!
An unbearable pressure pressed into the creature, and its eyes widened. It was supremely difficult to move, and it couldn't muster the concentration to finish its lightning attack. As Gravis closed in on the ground, more and more trees in the surroundings were crushed into splinters. The intensity of the Will-Aura grew with proximity to Gravis, so a giant crater also started forming. It looked like a humongous, invisible bowl pressed into the earth.
It grew increasingly harder for the beast to move, and soon, it became impossible. It could only look with scared eyes at its approaching doom. Gravis readied his saber for a mighty swing and infused it with 80% of his Energy.
BOOOOOOOM!
Gravis slammed his saber into the head of the beast, and the surroundings erupted in an explosion of dirt and lightning. Gravis had been falling with terminal velocity with his very heavy body, which generated a ridiculous amount of force. Like a meteor, he created an even larger crater with his impact. The shockwave uprooted many trees, and the earth blasted away in a wave.
Gravis climbed out of his hole and looked at the creature, and he saw its headless body lying before the hole. The missing head was blasted onto the surroundings. Seeing that the creature was dead, Gravis absorbed its Energy with the Heaven's Balance Cultivation Technique.
"What?" he exclaimed in shock. What did he feel? This high-grade Energy Beast only gave him like 5% of Energy. That was basically negligible. After Gravis accepted that fact, he could only sigh. "No wonder you don't bother to hide those beasts anymore. They give nearly no Energy and no tempering," Gravis spoke.
'Well, at least now I know that killing beasts is nearly useless to me right now. So, that contingency plan fell through,' Gravis thought with another sigh. The whole scamming idea seemed to be the only practical way forward. 'Well, at least I can get something from killing those.'
Gravis searched around in the surroundings and quickly found a fist-sized Beast Core. He walked over and pocketed it. 'I can probably sell that.' Then he turned to Skye. "You can have the beast."
Skye had been quite impressed by Gravis' attack. It still had some trouble fighting other high-grade Energy Beasts, but Gravis had instantly killed it in one attack. Now, it truly felt the distance between Gravis and it. Instead of getting demotivated, its hunger for power only increased. Without waiting, it flew down and started devouring the beast. The corpse was rather big, so that would take a while.
After Skye had its fill, around another half remained of the corpse. Skye gestured to Gravis to jump onto its back, and he complied. Then, it grabbed the remaining half and continued flying to the Earth Guild. It could always eat the other half later.
