WACK!
A cane hit Gravis in the side of the head, throwing him off the mighty, newly created tree. His body hit the side of a building, but his body didn't break it since Balzar was so hard. Instead, his body slid down the wall, towards the ground.
"I take my eyes off of you for five fucking seconds, and you summon a calamity!" came the angry shout of Old Man Lightning. "Destroying my home not enough for you? You wanna destroy the whole Sect now?"
Gravis rubbed his head and grew annoyed. "What's your problem, old man? I only absorbed some lightning! Is it against the rules?" he shouted with annoyance.
Old Man Lightning pointed towards the sky. "Look what you've done! The clouds are as weak as never before! If I hadn't stopped you, they would have vanished! With your reckless actions, you have nearly doomed the Lightning Sect!" he shouted violently.
Gravis looked up at the sky and noticed that some parts of the clouds had parted, light shining through them. By now, Gravis had realized his blunder. What would the Lightning Sect be without lightning? He might have really overdone it this time.
"Hey, I'm sorry, okay?" Gravis said after he calmed down. "I didn't realize that I absorbed this much lightning. I'll pay you back, okay?"
Old Man Lightning narrowed his eyes.
WACK
He appeared beside Gravis without any warning and whacked him with his cane again. The cane hit the side of his head, throwing him to the ground again.
Gravis immediately shot up again, annoyance, and a bit of rage in his eyes as he looked at Old Man Lightning. "I said, I'll pay you back! What more do you want, you old prick?"
Instead of growing angry, Old Man Lightning looked at Gravis with interest. He played around with his beard a little as he thought about something. "You're not being influenced by the temperament of lightning after absorbing so much of it?" he asked with interest.
The first hit with the cane was to stop Gravis, while the second one was to test if Gravis was influenced by the temperament of lightning. After all, that was a genuine issue that happened to a lot of disciples. If someone absorbed too much lightning in too short of a time, they would start going berserk, attacking everything that even slightly annoyed them.
Gravis now realized why the old man hat hit him again. Most of his annoyance vanished, but not all of it. "No. That happened once to me already, and I committed a grave mistake. Luckily, lightning's temperament won't ever influence me again."
Old Man Lightning raised an eyebrow. "Bullshit! Everyone can be influenced by lightning's temperament, even me. What makes you different from everyone else?"
Gravis still rubbed the hurt side of his head. "Because I am lightning. Lightning's temperament is my temperament. There is no difference between the two."
WACK!
Another hit with the cane. "Bullshit! That's not how cultivation works! You think you can lie to me? You think I'm a naive kid like you?"
Gravis stood up again, looking with anger at Old Man Lightning.
BZZZ!
Suddenly, a bolt of lightning shot from the newly grown tree onto Gravis, surprising everyone. This new tree had control over lightning? Also, why was it shooting lightning at Gravis? Wasn't it born due to what Gravis had done?
Gravis hadn't expected that this tree would suddenly shoot lightning at him, so he didn't react. On top of that, he was immune to lightning. The lightning bolt hit him, yet, instead of getting absorbed by his dantian, like normal lightning, this lightning bolt went through his whole body. It passed every organ, muscle, and bone, healing his body from the injury that the cane had brought upon him.
Gravis knew what had happened, but he almost couldn't believe it. "Life Lightning?" he uttered with shock as he realized what had happened. 'This tree has control over Life Lightning? How is that possible?'
"What did you say!?" shouted Old Man Lightning violently and loudly, but not with aggression. Instead, his voice sounded incredibly shocked. "Did you just say that this was Life Lightning!?" he asked Gravis, shaking his body violently.
"Yes!" Gravis said through the shaking of his body, getting more annoyed at the old man by the second.
Plonk!
Old Man Lightning let Gravis' body fall and turned to the tree. The tree was in the middle of the central plaza, taking up basically all the space. Its trunk was already over 30 meters wide, and its highest branch reached nearly the same height as the imposing Lightning Tower.
Surprisingly, the tree had no leaves. By all intents and purposes, it looked dead. Yet, the lightning that it had just shot at Gravis had shown otherwise.
Gravis had no idea what was going on, but Old Man Lightning seemed to know this kind of tree. He looked at the tree with wonder and amazement.
"Freya's Birch," Old Man Lightning said with shock.
Some of the disciples looked with shock at the tree after hearing those words, but most of them only showed confusion. Was this tree able to control Life Lightning? How was that possible?
"Hit me with your lightning!" Old Man Lightning shouted at the tree. Yet, the tree didn't react. Apparently, it wasn't a fan of the person that hit its creator with his cane multiple times. It was a newly born organism, not knowing anything about the world. It only knew that Gravis had created it, so it didn't want to help anyone else.
The old man continued shouting at the tree to hit him with its lightning while Gravis looked at it with wonder. Gravis extended his Spirit to the tree, and he felt a resonance of closeness and warmth from the tree. While inspecting the tree, Gravis also noticed its strength.
'Mid-Stage Energy Plant,' he concluded. That was quite impressive for a newly born tree. This thing was probably around as strong as that one tree where Gravis had met Skye.
'Also, aren't birches supposed to be white? Why is this thing brownish-grey?' Gravis thought after remembering the supposed name of the tree.
"Hello?" Gravis spoke to the tree with his Spirit. After saying that, the tree slightly swayed. Gravis was pleasantly surprised when he saw that. Communication with the Spirit was different than with words. The Spirit directly transmitted the concepts to the other person.
Speech tried to convey a concept by transforming it into words. The other person had to decipher the words and try to understand the concept that the first person tried to convey. Of course, this was not efficient since it was hard to translate complex concepts into words.
Spirit was better in that sense since it wasn't necessary to know any words. While this tree, obviously, wasn't able to understand words, it understood the concept that Gravis' Spirit conveyed. The concept was only a warm greeting and acknowledgment of its existence, after all.
The disciples only kept on watching in confusion. By now, their hatred towards Gravis was forgotten. Right now, they were only interested in the tree. Many of them thought about eventual uses of Life Lightning and grew excited. A free heal, whenever they wanted, was always useful.
Gravis walked closer to the tree, ignoring the old man that was still arguing with it. When he came closer, a branch extended towards him. Gravis didn't evade since he knew that the tree didn't want to do anything bad to him.
The branch coiled around Gravis' torso, pulling Gravis up. After some seconds, it put Gravis down at the position where he previously stood when he had involuntarily created the tree. By now, Gravis realized what it wanted. The feeling of hunger that came from it afterward only proved his suspicion.
"Hey, old man!" Gravis shouted.
By now, Old Man Lightning stopped arguing with the tree, looking at Gravis. "What?" he shouted.
"It wants more lightning," Gravis shouted from about 500 meters in the air. The tree was pretty big, after all.
"There is no more lightning!" Old Man Lightning transmitted with his Spirit. Shouting from such a distance seemed stupid. "If you absorb any more lightning, it won't ever regenerate."
Gravis thought about this for a second but then got another idea. "Hey, old man. What about the lightning of your disciples?" he transmitted.
By now, Old Man Lightning seemed to have calmed down. He was no longer looking at Gravis like he had created a calamity. After all, something positive came out of Gravis using up so much lightning.
"That won't do!" Old Man Lightning transmitted. "Freya's Birch only eats Life Lightning. Of course, that diet can be supplemented with Energy Beasts and Spirit Beasts. Sadly, the corpses of such beasts can only help it regenerate its current storage of Life Lightning. In order to increase its cultivation, it needs pure Life Lightning."
"Oh, then that's no issue," Gravis said.
"Just make the disciples attack me with their lightning, and I'll make as much Life Lightning as it wants."
Old Man Lightning's eyes widened. "You can do that? How is that even possible?" then, he started combing his beard again in thought. "Though, you also created the tree by absorbing lightning," Old Man Lightning transmitted with a sigh, "I guess I should stop trying to understand you with normal logic. Alright, I'll make the disciples use their lightning on you."
"But," Old Man Lightning said with narrowed eyes. "We really need to talk after this!"
Gravis nodded with a smirk. "Sure."
