Chapter 295 - 295 – Joyce's Path Forward
Gravis watched as the discussions broke down and force was used. Would he get involved?
No.
Why should he get involved? Just because Joyce was a woman? Cultivation didn't take gender into account. The cultivation world was different than the mortal world. In the mortal world, one person couldn't have enough power to overthrow whole nations, Clans, or family heads. People needed help from other people in the mortal world since one person just couldn't reach overwhelming power. For mortals, the cooperation between humans was necessary.
Yet, in the cultivation world, this belief would break down. When there were no rules to stop someone from committing all sorts of things that mortals would consider "atrocious crimes", the strength of a single individual became more important than the strength of a group.
So, all in all, Joyce needed to deal with this problem herself. Her father wasn't an enemy of hers, and he also wouldn't kill her. If Joyce wasn't even able to handle something like that, she might as well stop cultivating. Even though her father was way more powerful than her, she wasn't helpless right now. If one didn't have enough power, then one had to get creative. Gravis saw multiple ways which would give Joyce an upper hand.
"Marvin, are you sure about that?" Reginald asked unsurely.
"It's what's best for her," Marvin said evenly.
Marvin also saw how Gravis didn't react at all, which gave him even more confidence. The fact that Gravis didn't get involved showed that he didn't care about Joyce at all. If Gravis wanted the best for Joyce, he would step to her side and help her. This only strengthened Marvin's belief that Gravis was trying to manipulate Joyce.
"You…" Joyce managed to utter through clenched teeth. She was suppressed by Marvin's Will-Aura, but not completely. She could still talk, though it was hard. "You!" she managed to shout through clenched teeth.
"Be silent!" Marvin commanded. "I know what's best for you! As soon as you calm down, you will also realize this."
Joyce's emotions were raging inside her. Frustration, rage, helplessness, hurt, sadness, loss, and many similar emotions all mixed together. She gnashed her teeth so hard that blood started flowing out of her mouth.
This was her father! He had always helped her, and he had always shown his love for her. Her mother had died, so her father was the closest person to her. Her father was the most important person in her life, but now he stood between her and her cultivation.
She involuntarily remembered what Gravis had told her. She remembered that Gravis had said that there might come a time in the future where Heaven might use all his companions to threaten him. At the time, she had said that this situation sounded too cruel to be real, but wasn't something similar happening right now?
Was she forced to decide between her father and her cultivation? Could she even do that? If she went against her father, she might lose the entire Freya Clan. Like this, she would become homeless and lonely. A life without her family just didn't seem worth living.
Joyce violently shook her head through the suppression of Marvin's Will-Aura. 'What am I thinking!? Didn't I just say that even if I go through a thousand years of pain, I will continue cultivating?' Joyce thought with frustration and rage. 'Am I really that weak that I will break down now? No, I'm not!'
She glanced to the side at Gravis. 'He doesn't get involved. Right! If I can't even get through this, how will I ever reach my goal? This family argument is nothing in comparison to the pain I will feel in the future! My path has been made, and I will walk it to the end, no matter who stands in front of me! If I have to choose between my family and my cultivation, I will choose my cultivation!'
WHOOOOOM!
Joyce's Will-Aura, which had been helplessly fighting against the Will-Aura of her father, started expanding furiously. Her fully compressed Will-Aura stretched out and wouldn't stop until it reached a radius of several hundred meters.
Nearly every member of the Freya Clan in that vicinity lost consciousness. Only the people in the Spirit Forming Realm were able to resist. Meanwhile, her Will-Aura pushed her father's Will-Aura away until she could finally move again. She was still slightly suppressed, but not that much.
The mouths of Reginald and Marvin fell open as they saw this. They knew what this meant. Joyce had condensed her Unity Will! She had been very close to it for a long while, but they hadn't expected that she would achieve a breakthrough right now!
Marvin knew how a will was tempered, so he knew what this meant. Joyce had just made a decision that filled her with incredible pain. This could only mean that she had decided to abandon him as her father. She was about to walk out of his life forever.
Marvin's face blanched as panic, terror, and guilt took hold of him. 'What have I done?' he thought.
'Huh, well, that's also a way to solve the issue,' Gravis thought in surprise.
"Father, if you stand between me and my cultivation, then you will no longer be my father," Joyce said with an icy voice, though one could hear her emotions behind it. She was afraid and nervous.
Marvin's arm stretched to his daughter from a distance, almost like he tried to catch her before she left. "No… please…" he said in terror. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! Please, don't leave!" Marvin said as tears started rolling down his eyes. "I made a mistake! I'm sorry! You're the most important thing in my life, and I don't want to lose you!"
By now, Marvin was full-on crying, surprising Gravis quite a bit. Gravis rubbed his chin in interest. 'Interesting. This emotional reaction shows that his motive wasn't selfish, but that he genuinely believed that he knew better. If he didn't love his daughter that much, he wouldn't have shown such weakness in front of Reginald and me. He genuinely doesn't care about his dignity right now. He was ready to throw away all his face to keep his daughter.'
Gravis sighed. 'Many people might find this display to be pathetic, but I don't think so. It requires strength to humiliate oneself like this to not lose a loved one.' Gravis looked out of the window as Marvin continued begging. 'Would I be able to do that? Would I be able to throw away my dignity and self-respect to keep a loved one? I honestly don't think so. I don't think that there is such an important person in my life.'
Wham!
Joyce jumped into her father's chest and hugged him tightly. "Thank you for understanding, daddy!" she shouted as tears also fell from her eyes. "I'm sorry that I've hurt you, but you just wouldn't listen. I'm sorry, daddy!"
Marvin was first shocked but then cried even harder. He tightly hugged his daughter as all the pain was forgotten. "I'm so sorry, pumpkin. I didn't want to let my little treasure go!" he shouted. "I saw how you started changing and how you decided to go against tradition! I felt like you were about to leave me! I'm so sorry for what I have done, pumpkin!"
Like this, the two continued crying in each other's embrace. Gravis and Reginald left the room.
"Thank you for not involving yourself," Reginald said with relief.
"If she can't even handle that, she might as well stop cultivating," Gravis said directly.
Reginald sighed when he heard that. "When you put it like that, it sounds so cold and distant. Why don't you just say that you believe that she would make the right decision?"
"Because I didn't," Gravis said directly, eliciting a disgusted look from Reginald. "I don't know her enough to judge that. It could be that all of her previous words were empty promises. As soon as someone gets pushed into a corner, their true personality will show."
Reginald wasn't happy with Gravis' cold outlook. "What would you have done if she didn't manage to convince Marvin?"
"Nothing," Gravis immediately answered. "If she weren't able to get through something like this, it would be genuinely better to not cultivate anymore. This is a lesson my father taught me. If you don't want power and freedom with all your being, it's better not to cultivate at all, and I agree with that."
Reginald didn't say anything, and Gravis looked him in the eyes. Then, Gravis started smirking. "I didn't completely understand what that meant when I was younger, but I think I do now. Your will to move forward helps you in tempering your Will-Aura. After all, if you are not willing to risk your life, you won't be able to temper your Will-Aura."
Gravis continued explaining. "Then, with a more powerful Will-Aura, your will to move forward gets strengthened, which, in turn, makes it easier to further solidify your Will-Aura. It's a circle of mutual benefit that is the basis for every cultivator. Without that, you will give up at some point."
Reginald nodded in praise. "That's an excellent explanation. You know quite a lot for your age."
"Age has nothing to do with it," Gravis said. "A ten-year-old child that receives education might already know more than a sixty-year-old farmer that never left his village. Age only becomes relevant if both people have a similar lifestyle."
Reginald frowned. "Am I the farmer in your analogy? We are both cultivators, you know?"
Gravis looked at Reginald evenly. "I am 19 and am close to reaching a level three Unity Will."
"Are our lifestyles really similar?"