Gravis was still a bit confused, but as he saw his father's expression getting increasingly annoyed and bored, his eyes widened in realization.
"Wait, you're going to teach me!?" Gravis asked incredulously.
"Is that so strange?" his father asked.
Gravis rubbed the back of his neck in nervousness. "Well, don't take this the wrong way, but you never really taught me much regarding cultivation. I never even thought about the possibility that you would personally teach me something," Gravis said.
"That's because I want you to forge your own path," his father said, "but you can't forge your own path if you don't know how to forge."
Gravis blinked a couple of times. "Was that another joke?" he asked.
"Yes," the Opposer said with narrowed eyes.
"Eh, okay," Gravis said.
Some seconds passed in silence. Then, his father sighed.
"I'm your father. Teaching you something shouldn't be that strange to you," he said.
"I'm sorry, father. I just hadn't thought about that," Gravis said helplessly.
"It's okay," his father said, "I didn't really teach you much. So, such a reaction is to be expected. Anyway, we should get started."
Gravis nodded and stood up.
"Where are you going? You don't want to learn how to forge?" his father asked with his usual, even voice.
Gravis was confused again. "We're inside your room. I don't think we can forge here," Gravis said.
"Why not?" his father asked.
Gravis ruffled his hair in confusion. "Well, there is no oven, smelter, or whatever it's called. There is no water to cool the products or anything else. There is no equipment here," he said.
"Will you have such equipment in the middle world?" his father asked.
"Eh, no," Gravis answered.
"So, why should I teach you a forging technique that needs equipment?" he asked back.
Gravis furrowed his brows. "I don't need equipment to forge?" he asked.
"No, not your technique, at least. You only need something to cool the product, nothing more."
Whoop!
A small bottle appeared before Gravis. "This bottle has an ocean-load of water. You shouldn't need more in the middle world," he said.
Gravis looked at the bottle and picked it up. It wasn't heavier than a regular bottle, but when he sent his Spirit into it, his eyes widened.
"So much water," he said in shock.
Gravis couldn't even estimate how much water was in the bottle. It seemed absolutely endless. Were there millions of tons? Billions? Trillions? Gravis had no idea. It was just too much. Also, were there fish and plants in there?
"This is an ocean?" Gravis asked.
The Opposer nodded. "You haven't seen an ocean before, right?"
Gravis shook his head. "No, I only heard about it. The lower world also didn't have anything like an ocean, at least, I think so."
"That's because it isn't a Natural World," his father said. "There is no need for an ocean. Many beasts would live in the ocean if it had one, and not many humans would go there. It would just be a senseless waste of Energy and space."
"It's different for the highest world. We have some big oceans here, and humans in this world are powerful enough that they don't care about the ocean water. It wouldn't be much different from air to them."
"That makes sense," Gravis said. "What about Natural Worlds?" he asked.
"The highest world needs sea beasts. So, Natural Worlds have oceans. By the way, you can't retrieve anything from the bottle. Otherwise, you would find a way to use it as a weapon or bargaining tool. You could flood an entire middle world easily with that," his father said.
Gravis blinked a couple of times. "Then how am I supposed to cool the finished weapons?" he asked.
"You just treat the bottle like a bucket. Hold the weapon into it, and it will cool. Get comfortable with the bottle because you're going to use it a lot in the future," his father said.
"Is that really all I need in regards to equipment?" Gravis asked.
"Yes, you don't need more. When you have the materials, you only need to use your lightning to make the material malleable. After that, you need to temper it so that it actually gets converted into a hard weapon. Then, you need to draw the Formation Arrays on it. The cooling is the last step. That's everything in regards to forging," his father said.
"That sounds simple," Gravis said.
"It is," his father said.
Gravis remained silent for some seconds. "That's really it?"
"Yes," his father said. "What more did you expect? Did you think that I'm going to teach you some mystical way of swinging a hammer to imbue materials with some kind of law or meaning? The real world isn't that mystical. Forging is a job. It's a profession. It's work."
Gravis sighed. "You know, you're really taking all the fun out of cultivation," Gravis said helplessly.
"That's how the world works. Anyway, we should get started," his father said as he summoned a thin booklet. "This has all the important materials relevant to a middle world written down. The first thing about forging is to treat the mineral correctly. If you can't make it malleable, you can't do the other stuff. That's why you have to know the materials."
Pack!
His father tossed the booklet over, and Gravis looked at it. "That's a pretty small book. Are there really so few materials?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Look inside. You'll see," his father said.
Gravis opened the book to the first page. The first page was completely black. When Gravis saw that, his brows furrowed, and he looked back at his father. "Is this a joke?" he asked.
"What?"
"There is nothing on here. It's just a blank, black page," Gravis said.
"It's not a black page," his father said.
Gravis opened the book and showed the black page to his father. "It's a black page!" he said.
"No, it's a white page with black writing on it," his father said.
Gravis looked taken aback. He had quite some control over his Spirit. After all, he was able to read the small descriptions of the items inside the store. Yet, he saw absolutely nothing but black with his Spirit.
Gravis looked back at the page and concentrated. Slowly, he felt his vision zoom into the page. Inside his mind, the page transformed into a vast, black island. Yet, there was still nothing but blackness. Gravis started sweating as he noticed that he still couldn't see anything else but blackness.
He concentrated more and more. After some seconds, his eyes started becoming red in concentration.
"There!" Gravis suddenly shouted. "I see something white!"
"Believe me now?" his father asked.
"Well, I think so, but I still can't discern even a single word," Gravis said.
"That's your problem, not mine," his father said.
Gravis rolled his eyes but then got an idea. With a smirk, he retrieved the booklet into his Spirit Space. Then, he made his Self inside his Spirit Space smaller. It was made out of pure lightning, and he had control over lightning. He might not be able to compress it further, but he could split some lightning off his Self.
Over 99% of the lightning went to the side while his Self became smaller and smaller. After some seconds, Gravis was unseeable by human eyes. Then, he moved the abandoned lightning over him so that it shed some light onto the booklet.
It was like Gravis was standing on a flat continent. Everything had words written on it as far as the eye could see. Gravis smirked when he saw the clear words. If his Spirit didn't work, why not simply use his eyes? He might not be able to see the writing with his regular size, but it wasn't an issue when he was so small.
"Did anyone ever tell you that you're a smartass?" Gravis heard from in front of him and saw his father standing on top of the booklet inside his Spirit Space. His father was just as big as Gravis right now, or, more like, just as small as Gravis.
"Is that a compliment?" Gravis asked with a smirk.
"It's neutral," his father said. "This might help you in dangerous situations, but you might also find shortcuts for your cultivation. That would be bad."
Whoop!
Gravis involuntarily opened his physical eyes again as he saw the booklet and his father in front of him. His father had thrown him out of his own Spirit Space.
"Read it with your Spirit. You need to learn how to concentrate all of your Spirit into something if you want to forge properly," his father said.
"Why didn't you say that in the first place?" Gravis asked.
"Because I didn't want to," his father said with a severe tone.
"Mhm," Gravis commented dryly.
