Ch. 761..770

Chapter 761 761 Natural Path

"I would like for you to be my teacher," Shang said.

Queen Primordium furrowed her brows. "I think Amarius would be a better choice."

"No. I think that becoming his student will even slow me down," Shang said.

Queen Primordium raised an eyebrow. "And why would that be?"

"Because he would want me to do things that I don't want to do," Shang said.

"Which are?" Queen Primordium asked.

Silence.

"Make friends," Shang said. "Find a companion. Stuff like that."

Queen Primordium just looked at Shang with an even expression. "Is there something wrong with that?"

"If I had that, I wouldn't have a sixfold Spirit Sense," Shang answered.

Queen Primordium didn't agree with Shang, and even if that was the case, was that so bad?

What was the point of becoming powerful when one only lived a grey life of suffering and loneliness?

However, she also realized that her opinion on the matter wasn't warranted.

Shang had a sixfold Spirit Sense.

She didn't.

Shang obviously knew very well how to become powerful, and if he said that something would stop him from growing, he would very likely be correct.

"Fine," Queen Primordium said. "Then, I will be your teacher from today on."

Shang nodded.

Silence.

Queen Primordium didn't expect Shang to bow to her, but the nonchalant way Shang had become her student still felt strange.

Nevertheless, she was a Mage King, and she knew how to adapt.

"First, I need to know everything that you are willing to tell me," she said. "I don't know a lot about warriors, but since I am now your teacher, I have to learn how warriors work."

"So, for our first interaction as student and teacher, the student is going to teach the teacher," she said.

Queen Primordium summoned her Communication Crystal and tapped on it a couple of times.

She put it away again and looked at Shang. "Start with the very beginning. Take as much time as necessary."

Shang nodded.

pαпdα Йᴏνê|,сòМ Some people might question why Shang, as the most powerful and knowledgeable warrior in existence, would want a Mage to tell him how to become an even more powerful warrior, especially since Shang's Path wasn't even truly the warrior's Path.

However, such thinking was short-sighted.

Sure, right now, Shang knew more about warriors than everyone else.

If Shang transferred all his knowledge to Queen Primordium, both of them would know the same.

But what about ten minutes from now?

Who would know more in ten minutes?

Queen Primordium.

She was an ancient Mage King. Her experience and mind were unfathomable compared to Shang's.

Shang started to tell Queen Primordium everything via voice transmission since that was faster than speaking.

He explained the Soldier Stage and the Mana Sources.

He explained the Bloodline Infusion and the several different low-level techniques.

Mana Domain.

True Paths.

Mana Pathways.

Imposes.

World Connection.

Void Break.

It took Shang quite a long while to convey all the information to Queen Primordium, even with voice transmissions.

Queen Primordium had asked several questions during Shang's explanations, and her questions grew more and more in-depth.

One notable point was when Shang was explaining World Connection to her.

"Have you thought about infusing your soul into your weapon?" she asked calmly.

Shang went silent for a couple of seconds.

"No," he answered.

"This seems like the natural continuation from the Impose Stage," she said. "You have already established your four Paths and your four Imposes in the True Path Stage. While the World Connection seems like a viable way to continue, it feels more like you are trying to thin the wide Path you have created."

"Imagine it like one point leading upward into four. These four points represent your four Paths. After that, you comprehended four Imposes, which would be shown as four lines going upward from these four points into another four points."

"Your World Connection fuses these four points together again, reflecting the start."

"However, something like that should realistically only happen much later since you haven't unearthed all the buried potential in the four individual Paths."

"A logical conclusion would be to go deeper in the four Imposes, and I think a logical next step would be to infuse your soul."

"Your body and mind are already perfectly performing your techniques, but there is a certain emptiness in what you described."

"Via repeated movements, several different substances, and by focusing on certain aspects, you can train your soul to slowly leave its space. Part of it would stretch out from its dimension and move down your arm to your sword. At that point, the power of your Impose would become far more powerful than before."

Shang just listened to Queen Primordium's words.

Shang knew that she would be useful, but he hadn't expected this level of usefulness.

He hadn't even finished explaining the World Connection before Queen Primordium had already come up with a more natural way to reach the next Stage for warriors.

She was right. The way she had just come up with was more fitting for warriors.

However, Shang didn't regret choosing his own Path.

After all, he wasn't a warrior.

He had his own Path, and if he could choose again, he would still choose his World Connection.

Especially due to the way he gained power.

Comprehending four Imposes would have given Shang a fourfold Spirit Sense, but if he wanted a fivefold Spirit Sense, things would have become tricky with Queen Primordium's way.

With World Connection, all four of his Paths had fused in a way, elevating all of their powers to the next level.

Queen Primordium's way would only have elevated one of the Paths, but in exchange, that one Path would have also been elevated by far more than a single Path with World Connection.

Yet, if Shang broke through after comprehending only one of these things, it would have felt extremely strange and imbalanced.

The other three Sword Stages would have essentially become useless.

So, he would have needed to comprehend that thing for all four of his Paths.

But that was impossible.

That would take far too long.

In the end, Queen Primordium's way was definitely more fitting for warriors, but it wasn't more fitting for Shang.

Nevertheless, she had come up with a natural way for warriors to progress to the Sixth Stage in less than five minutes.

There was definitely a lot Shang could learn from Queen Primordium.

 

Chapter 762 762 Problem Solution

Shang finished explaining the World Connection to Queen Primordium, but instead of continuing to explain Void Break, Shang paused.

"Do you have any thoughts of a natural progression from that point onward?" he asked.

Queen Primordium absentmindedly played with her hair. "It's difficult," she said. "There is a certain feeling to World Connection, but I am uncertain of the normal route to get there."

"I'm also trying to think of a good way by taking your Path into account."

"There are two things I am thinking about here."

"One, increase the potential of your strongest weapon, which is your World Connection."

"Two, allow you to use your Sword States all at once."

"The problem is that the solutions to both problems are at opposite ends."

"Increasing the power of your World Connection requires a step forward, but fusing your Sword States requires a solidifying step that widens your foundation."

"Also, the additional complexity makes it much harder to come up with a good way forward."

"I would ask you to give me some time to think about these things in peace since this will solidify and deepen my knowledge of warriors and your power," Queen Primordium said.

Shang nodded.

The two of them fell silent, and Shang waited.

At the moment, Shang felt like he was wasting his time by just sitting here and waiting, but he knew that he wouldn't have enough time to do anything useful.

Additionally, all of this would result in Shang's power increasing even more in the future, and he knew that.

So, he just waited.

After around 30 minutes, Queen Primordium asked a couple of questions.

The more questions Shang answered, the more the questions started to focus on the Weapon Master Path Shang had mentioned.

And four hours later…

"I think I got it," she said.

Shang nodded.

"There's a way to do both things, combine your Sword States and also increase your power by a lot."

Shang was quite interested in her answer. After all, he still hadn't found a solution to that yet. At the moment, he still had two Sword States, even though he wanted to reduce them to only one.

"Weapon Masters use a similar way to manipulate the world to World Connection. Their souls are giving an order, and the world answers by handing them a certain level of control over small parts of it."

Naturally, four hours was more than enough for Queen Primordium to create the entire Weapon Master Path from scratch up to the Sixth Stage.

"I would classify World Connection as an ability of the Sixth Realm, which means that it would normally be enough to reach the Sixth Realm."

"You already had that, which means that you need to comprehend an ability of the Seventh Realm if you want to keep your fivefold Spirit Sense."

"If we view this like Concepts, it would be like you've comprehended a level three Concept at the High Mage Realm, and if you want to keep your powerful Spirit Sense, you would need a level four Concept."

"However, in order to comprehend a level four Concept, you need a couple of level three Concepts, assuming you want to comprehend a Complex one. That is the key to uniting both things."

When Shang heard that, his mind quickly started to analyze several things.

What Queen Primordium had just said opened an entirely new direction for Shang.

However, Queen Primordium continued explaining.

"What you could have done was to comprehend this manipulation ability of the Weapon Masters and deepen it by meditating and fusing with the world. That would push your Weapon Master Path to the Fifth Stage."

"After that, you need to comprehend the level one Concept of Space, Warping. This would allow you to create a small pocket of space for your weapons."

"This pocket would be under your control, and all your weapons would be under your control in there."

"After that, you need to comprehend something that I'm going to call Gathering."

"I've never tried it, but based on my theories, Gathering refines the wide control that Weapon Masters have and gathers everything in a small point. For a normal Weapon Master, this means that all of their weapons could gather all the power of their other weapons and unleash one powerful attack with one of them."

"By comprehending Gathering and Warping, you can keep three of your swords in essentially a tiny space on the back of your hand. The speed at which you could flip your Sword States would be instantaneous, basically making it irrelevant which sword you are currently holding in your hand."

"After that, you need to further focus on World Connection and fuse it with Gathering. Eventually, you should be able to borrow even more power from the world around you."

"Lastly, you need to reach a level of fusion with the world that allows you to attack from anywhere in your Spirit Sense. Gathering would essentially be able to show its full power from anywhere inside your World Gathering domain."

"You could unleash every attack from every Sword State from anywhere in your Spirit Sense while also increasing the overall quality of your Spirit Sense."

"And you would still retain your fivefold Spirit Sense."

Silence.

Queen Primordium's solution was basically perfect.

At least for the information she had access to.

Sadly, there was a piece of information she didn't know, but that wasn't her fault.

Shang purposely kept that piece of information to himself.

Shang only had two weapons.

Queen Primordium didn't know about Shang's two Apex Companion Weapons. At least, that was what the Lightning Emperor had called them.

In her mind, Shang was just using four different weapons he had probably commissioned from the Temple of Blood.

But the two Apex Companion Weapons were something special and specific that couldn't be applied to any other physi in existence.

So, Queen Primordium's solution had essentially been perfect.

It just wasn't possible for Shang due to his limited arsenal.

"That would solve both issues," Shang said. "However, there is now a new problem."

"By making my peak power available to be used anywhere in my Spirit Sense, I would abandon the power of my body. All the power would come from my being, but the powerful body I have created wouldn't find itself being adequately used."

"You essentially outsourced my physical power."

Queen Primordium nodded. "That's the best I could come up with that fulfilled both criteria."

Shang also nodded. "Sadly, that is probably really the best. After all, I only reduced my States to two, while your solution reduced them to only one. I have to take a step between four and one States, while you managed to accomplish that in only one."

The two of them continued talking about the validity of what Queen Primordium came up with for a while.

Then, Shang explained Void Break to her.

pαпdα Йᴏνê|,сòМ It took a while to go over all the intricacies and how Void Break worked, but eventually, Shang managed to tell Queen Primordium everything.

And then, Queen Primordium fell silent again as she tried to think of a way to continue forward.

Shang waited patiently while also trying to think of a good way forward.

He wondered what Queen Primordium would be able to come up with.

 

Chapter 763 763 Books

This time, Shang only needed to wait for around five minutes before he got an answer.

"This is far more difficult," Queen Primordium said as she looked at Shang. "This isn't something I can just create in a couple of hours. Additionally, we are talking about a far more theoretical level here."

"The earlier solutions were already backed by real-world data due to how your power has developed already. As of now, we don't have any examples of how your power would develop further."

"Additionally, while the way I will eventually create might be the most optimal for the vast majority of people, it might not be the correct one for you."

"In the end, you were the one that has a sixfold Spirit Sense, not me. I think the best way to create a fitting Path for you is not to create one."

"It would be better for me to come up with a couple of theories that you can try out. What you need is not someone telling you what to make, but someone that pushes your mind out of the proverbial box, widening your horizons."

"The more creativity and information you have access to, the better and more informed your eventual decision will be," Queen Primordium explained.

Shang wasn't really excited about that answer, but he understood where she was coming from.

In essence, she was deferring judgment to Shang, and she didn't want to influence him into choosing an incorrect one.

To some people, this seemed lazy, but others would see the true benefit this decision brought.

On Earth, there was a proverb.

Never change a running system.

This proverb could be applied to several different things, including programming and investment.

If a company was bought up by a much bigger one, there would be several ways to move forward.

The bigger company could take over the leadership and lead the smaller company forward.

However, if that smaller company had been on a sharp uprise, many bigger companies would be fine with just letting the smaller company operate as if the bigger company didn't exist.

The smaller company had already created such amazing results. Interfering might ruin the growth and momentum.

Queen Primordium was doing a similar thing.

Shang had proven time and time again that he knew what he was doing, and in Queen Primordium's mind, the best thing she could do was to give Shang access to more options, opinions, and resources, including the powerful mind of a Mage King.

"I understand where you're coming from," Shang said flatly.

Shang knew that this was probably the right decision, but he still wasn't completely happy with it. After all, everything still depended on him now, even though there was such a powerful person in front of him.

However, Shang was already used to all of this, and since he now had a Mage King as an advisor and teacher, it was already better than it had ever been.

Queen Primordium asked a couple more questions regarding the Void Break Realm, but this time, there were a lot of questions Shang couldn't answer.

After all, he had just reached the Void Break Realm.

He didn't even truly know his own power yet.

Eventually, Queen Primordium had no more questions regarding Shang's powers anymore.

As of this moment, she knew nearly as much about Shang's powers as Shang himself.

And in probably just a couple of days, she would have probably already created several viable ways to reach the Seventh Realm for Shang.please visit

From now on, Queen Primordium could point to new directions that Shang wouldn't have thought of.

But, for now, Shang needed to do something else.

'In 200 years, the trial will take place again,' Shang thought. 'Getting a good score in that trial should be my priority.'

'For that, I need to further my power as much as possible. Obviously, reaching the next level isn't possible since that would invalidate the trial, but I can work on my techniques.'

'That should be my focus for now.'

"The first thing I want to do," Shang said, "is to find a way to incorporate the two new Concepts I comprehended. I know how the Concepts work, but I am not quite sure how to incorporate the Concept of Purgatory into sword techniques."

Queen Primordium nodded. "Unfortunately, even I don't know much about the Concepts of Death, especially such an advanced one. I can think of a couple of ways, but I wouldn't be comfortable telling you while I haven't read up on the topic."

After that, Queen Primordium fell silent as she looked at the ground with furrowed brows.

Shang could tell that Queen Primordium was evaluating something and making a decision. So, he remained silent.

After some seconds, Queen Primordium nodded. "I haven't used that privilege for quite a while, and I also think that the Ancestor is also interested in your growth."

Shang remained silent.

Queen Primordium summoned a purple piece of paper and put her finger on it.

Several complex Runes appeared on the piece of paper, and a moment later, it exploded into a purple bolt of lightning and seemingly vanished.

Then, Queen Primordium sighed.

"This is a privilege only Mage Kings have," she explained. "As Mage Kings, we may contact the Ancestor regarding deeply secret and advanced knowledge. The advanced Concepts of Death are exceedingly rare, and nearly no one knows anything about them."

"The Judgment Palace is probably the only Empire that knows everything about the Concept of Death since they have the Emperor of Death, but we obviously can't ask them for such sensitive information."

"Because of that, I just requested the Ancestor's assistance. I explained everything, and now, we can just hope that he will help you," Queen Primordium said.

"I thought that you had to go through the Custodian to contact the Lightning Emperor," Shang said.

"That's for general things," she answered. "Requesting such information is a specific process that doesn't disturb the Ancestor during meditation. Additionally, this process can be completed very quickly."

"For now, we have to- "

WHOOOOM!

At that moment, a huge portal opened on the ceiling of the room.

BANG!

A moment later, a mountain of books fell to the ground, and the portal closed again.

"Okay, seems like we don't have to wait," Queen Primordium said.

Shang's Spirit Sense was already scanning the titles of the books.

All of them were related to Death Affinities and the Concepts of Death.

 

 

Chapter 764 764 World In A Step

Queen Primordium read through one book after the other.

Sadly, Shang was forbidden from coming into contact with the information since all the information in the books was considered sensitive. Only Mage Kings were allowed to read through these books.

However, these books weren't technically for Shang but for Queen Primordium.

Queen Primordium would read up on the Concepts of Death so that she could be a better teacher to Shang.

After a couple of minutes, Queen Primordium had already gone through 50 books, but then, she started to slow down drastically.

The next book took her nearly ten minutes to finish, and when she was done, she looked at Shang.

"The knowledge inside these books is more advanced than I expected," she said. "I will probably need a couple of years to digest all of this. I think you should return to the Hibye. I will contact you when I'm done."

Shang nodded. "Thank you," he said before he walked to the door.

"Where are you going?" Queen Primordium asked.

Shang stopped and turned to her. "To the Hibye."

Queen Primordium shook her head.

Then, she lightly touched a certain spot beside her.

Whooom!

A portal opened beside her.

Shang's Spirit Sense passed through it, but he only saw unfamiliar surroundings.

At that moment, a second portal opened "inside" the first portal.

It wasn't exactly inside the first portal. In truth, it was a couple of meters ahead of the first portal's destination, which made it seem like it was inside the first portal.

Shang's Spirit Sense also entered that one, and he saw the Hibye.

"My Spirit Sense isn't big enough to see the Hibye from here," Queen Primordium said, "but by creating a portal, my Spirit Sense can essentially 'start' from 500,000 kilometers away, which allows me to actually see the Hibye."

"Walk through both portals, and you will be in the Hibye."

At that moment, Shang understood how powerful the ability to make portals actually was.

The Lightning Manor wasn't close enough to the Hibye for Queen Primordium to sense it.

However, if she simply created a portal beside her like this, she could view the entire Hibye from nearly a million kilometers away.

She could probably do that even more times, which would allow her to look into neighboring Empires.

But these Empires probably had ways to stop something like that.

Nevertheless, Queen Primordium essentially had the ability to arrive anywhere within the Lightning Manor's Empire in less than a second just by summoning a couple of portals.

Such power was crazy!

"What about Lucin?" Shang asked, turning his head to the entrance to Queen Primordium's room.

"He left before you told me about the warriors," Queen Primordium said. "I told him to leave when I summoned my Communication Crystal."

Shang just absentmindedly nodded and walked to the portal.

He had talked to Queen Primordium for several days, and he had also seen how incredible her mind was.

However, it still humbled Shang when he had witnessed her casual display of power just now.

A hardworking and old Mage King that focused on Space, Time, and Gravity.

Only now did Shang realize what a powerful teacher he had actually acquired.please visit

Shang stepped through the two portals, which quickly closed behind him.

Just like that, Shang was back in the Hibye.

It was ridiculously easy and fast.

If there were no other Empires stopping her, Queen Primordium could probably travel to any spot in the entire world in less time than a mortal needed to walk into their garden.

The entire world was nothing but a couple of steps in reach.

Lucin, as an extremely talented and powerful Mage Lord, could also essentially travel the entire world with his insane speed, but it was still a journey.

To Queen Primordium, it was just nothing.

Shang took a deep breath and flew towards the center of the Hibye.

Lucin greeted Shang, and Shang returned to the greeting.

The two of them talked a bit about Shang's new status, but Shang ended the conversation soon.

When Shang arrived at his hill, he noticed that all his "remnants" were gone.

There was no blood, Death Mana, or anything similar.

Yet, after thinking about it for a while, Shang realized that it wasn't probably very nice to look at a hill filled with fleshy constructs.

The only sign left from Shang's time spent on the hill was the fact that no vegetation grew on the hill.

The hill was completely devoid of life.

Shang sat down on the hill, and his mind traveled into his inner world.

With the added power of his mind and his new Realm, it became even easier for Shang to keep tabs on his actual surroundings.

Shang could still feel if anything threatening came close to his body or if anyone wanted to contact him while being in his inner world.

Yet, Shang knew how talented and powerful the Clouds were.

In his distracted state, he couldn't guarantee that he would be able to feel an approaching threat before it was too late.

Because of that, he went back to the center of the Hibye.

He might not be able to feel an approaching threat in time, but the several Mage Lords and Lucin could.

Also, Shang wasn't really annoying or distracting the Bolts by just sitting on a hill. He wasn't even looking at them.

He might as well be a stone.

Nevertheless, a couple of Bolts still threw suspicious glances at Shang.

That crazy man was back.

What was he up to this time?!

Yet, as Shang only continued sitting there, doing nothing, the Bolts relaxed.

Inside Shang's inner world, he experimented with his new powers.

The Bolts felt that the Mana around Shang's body was moving weirdly, but it wasn't anything too strange.

Over the next decade, a couple of Clouds wanted to come into contact with Shang, but he just kept ignoring them.

And then, Queen Primordium contacted him again.

She had read up on Death, and she could tell him what he could try out.

 

Chapter 765 765 Problematic Death Mana

A portal opened up in front of Shang, and he stood up.

He had just been inside his inner world.

A couple of Bolts noticed that a portal had opened in the middle of the Hibye, which was quite unusual.

Small portals only needed the level three Concept of Space, Distortion, to be opened, but big portals where actual living humans could pass through needed the level five Concept of Space, Tearing.

A level five Concept was already enough to reach the Mage King Realm, and a level five Concept for a Space Affinity was even rarer since space was so difficult to understand.

Such an ability wasn't even common amongst Thunders. Sure, there were several Thunders that could summon such portals, but it definitely wasn't common.

The portal had opened without any warning. Even more, the Bolts couldn't even stretch their Spirit Senses into the portal. Their Spirit Senses were being blocked.

This made them quite suspicious, and they looked at Lucin.

However, Lucin just told them that there was nothing to worry about.

Naturally, the Bolts still wanted to know what was going on.

"Cloud Shang is a warrior, which means that he has to visit the Lightning Manor several times for tests and interviews," Lucin explained.

The Bolts were fine with that answer since it made a lot of sense.

They had seen how desperately the warrior had tried to comprehend things, and they had felt his life energy shrinking as time passed, which meant that he was running out of longevity.

But now, the warrior's Aura and longevity were as bright and strong as any other Cloud's.

This meant that the warrior now had more time to teach others about warriors.

Shang stepped through the portal, which then closed right behind him.

Naturally, this portal didn't lead to an office in the Lightning Manor but to Queen Primordium's room.

"It took me quite a while, but I finished all the books," Queen Primordium said.

Shang stopped in front of her, crossed his arms, and nodded, waiting.

After that, Queen Primordium began to narrate several unique intricacies of the Death Affinity and the way it worked.

Death Mana by itself was a very pure and dangerous kind of complex poison.

While a Poison Affinity essentially aimed to turn an opponent into a liquid or a hollow husk, Death Mana simply aimed to get rid of life.

It accomplished this by consuming life energy.

One had to remember that this was very different from what Darkness Mana did.

Darkness Mana canceled out life energy.

Death Mana consumed life energy.

Darkness Mana essentially used itself to destroy an equivalent amount of life energy.

Death Mana, on the other hand, could remain in one spot and consume all the life energy that came into contact with it.

That sounded incredibly powerful, but there was one thing.

Death Mana didn't exactly move or do anything of its own.

Fire Mana consumed things around it and could spread further and further.

Wind Mana moved all over the world.

Darkness Mana also moved around.

Yet, Death Mana didn't really move.

It was like a dot in space that just consumed life energy that touched it.please visit

When someone reached the limit of their age, little spots of Death Mana would appear all over their body, which would slowly drain more and more of a person's life energy.

Eventually, there would be so many spots that the body couldn't do anything anymore essentially.

Because of that, using Death Mana in attacks was very difficult.

Moving and manipulating Death Mana was not easy since something moving of its own volition was a sign of life, which was the opposite of death.

It was possible to move Death Mana, but it required a huge amount of resources and effort.

Even more, condensing Death Mana was also very difficult. After all, Shang was a living being.

In order to naturally create Death Mana, something needed to actually die.

Just hacking off an arm wouldn't work.

But wait, hadn't Shang created a makeshift Death Pit by doing basically that over and over again?

Yes, but Shang hadn't created his own Death Mana.

He had attracted the surrounding Death Mana.

In order to actually create Death Mana, something needed to die.

However, that sounded easier than it actually was because Death Mana wasn't generated when something died but when something was in the process of dying.

Of course, the stronger the dying being, the more Death Mana one got.

Yet, there were even more problems still!

Assuming one gathered a lot of Death Mana, using said Death Mana was still very difficult, and even keeping Death Mana was dangerous.

Queen Primordium told Shang that every single Spell she had found required the Death Mana to be inside someone's mind, which was crazy.

Shang knew exactly why that was crazy. After all, his mind had once been infected by Death Mana.

According to Queen Primordium, normal Mages couldn't even use any significant amount of Death Mana since their mind would collapse or the person would kill themselves.

Naturally, there were some ways to get around that, but that required the Life Concepts, which were just as rare and difficult to comprehend.

Essentially, in order to use Death Mana in an actual battle, one needed to either have knowledge of the Life Concepts or have a Death Affinity.

Someone with a natural Death Affinity had an inherent mindset that was close to the mindset the Death Mana created. Because of that, they could store vastly more Death Mana inside their minds than anyone else.

Finally, when all of these problems were solved, one could use Death Mana.

And when the Death Mana was already inside someone's mind, using it was no longer as difficult.

Queen Primordium explained to Shang what he could try in order to manipulate the Death Mana, and Shang nodded along.

He would need to do a couple of things he wasn't used to, but it wasn't anything too strange. He would quickly get used to it.

However, there was one big problem.

"Where do I get Death Mana?" Shang asked. "Can I purchase it?"

"No," Queen Primordium said. "Due to the ethics of producing Death Mana, any trade of it is prohibited."

"However, there is a way for you to produce your own Death Mana."

"Yes?" Shang asked.

"It's your Death Concepts," she said. "The Concepts of Death are parts of death, and by making them a reality, they will produce Death Mana."

"Now, using these Concepts on others without having access to Death Mana is like casting a Spell without a mind. It's impossible."

"But there is one person you can use these Concepts on to produce Death Mana," Queen Primordium said.

 

 

Chapter 766 766 Using Death Mana

The dead hill in front of the mansions in the Hibye was surrounded by a huge purple Isolation Barrier yet again.

Ten years.

The warrior had remained somewhat sane for only ten years.

Then, that portal appeared, and when the guy came back, everything changed.

First, that guy just stood on that hill for a couple of minutes, not moving.

And then, he began to age rapidly!

He was turning into an old man in seconds!

All his hair fell out, his muscles vanished, his skin began to sack, and disgusting brown and grey spots appeared all over his body.

Then, he just fell over like a dead man!

The Bolts immediately contacted him. After all, Clouds weren't supposed to just die like this!

And what did he answer?!

"Everything's okay. Just ignore me."

The hell it was!

That guy was aging rapidly and dying right in front of them!

How was that okay?!

When Lucin saw that, he immediately took out his Communication Crystal and contacted Queen Primordium, who quickly informed him about everything.

After Queen Primordium hung up, Lucin just looked at his Communication Crystal with furrowed brows.

Couldn't they have tried to keep this secret?

He already had needed to come up with a lie for the portal, and now he needed to find a believable lie for why Shang was just fucking dying right there.

Lucin immediately decided to summon another Isolation Barrier around Shang.

Naturally, the Bolts were interested once more about what was going on.

"Cloud Shang is working right now," Lucin said.

"Working?" one of the Bolts asked in shock.

"Yes, they are testing the resilience and life energy of warriors. From what I've just heard, they gave him a couple of Spells and pills that he is supposed to use and ingest on himself."

"Naturally, the effects are quite pronounced, but he shouldn't be in danger as long as he keeps to the instructions," Lucin explained.

"Oh, that makes sense," one of the Bolts exclaimed.

The others also agreed.

Warriors had far more powerful bodies, which meant that their resilience was also far higher.

Some of the Bolts even became a bit envious. After all, such a job had to pay very well.

After Lucin managed to convince the Bolts that everything was okay, he released a covert sigh of relief.

Ever since Shang appeared, his job had become stranger and more stressful.

Inside the Isolation Barrier, a half-dead husk was lying on the hill.

It was difficult to tell if Shang was alive or dead.

It was like he was in limbo.

Or purgatory.

Yet, even though Shang's current state was essentially identical to the state he had been in ten years ago, he wasn't in even nearly enough danger as back then.

The reason was that Shang could just stop producing Death Mana.

And even more, he could actually make use of that Death Mana.

After having been a half-dead husk for just three minutes, Shang decided to try something.

In an instant, his entire body regenerated fully as all the Death Mana vanished.

He had pulled all the Death Mana into his mind.

'I want to die,' Shang thought. 'I just don't want to live anymore.'

Nevertheless, he trusted in his previous thought and simply did what he wanted to do.please visit

If he still wanted to die after that, he could still do it.

Shang pointed his hand forward.

And then, some grey smoke came out of it.

Shang's mind recovered, and he realized that he had just wanted to die, which was essentially a first for him.

'Okay, that was too much Death Mana,' Shang thought.

Some seconds later, Shang started to rapidly age again, and he collapsed.

A couple more seconds later, Shang's body recovered again.

This time, Shang didn't gather as much Death Mana in his mind.

Yet, Shang still felt apathetic toward his own life.

He didn't really care if he lived or died right now.

Nevertheless, he had more motivation in this state than in his earlier one, and he even managed to release a half-hearted slash with his sword.

A black crescent with a bit of grey in it shot out of his sword, hitting the Isolation Barrier.

The crescent exploded into Darkness Mana and a bit of Death Mana.

The power of the Isolation Barrier made the Darkness Mana essentially useless, and it was used up in an instant.

Yet, the Death Mana remained.

It stuck to the Isolation Barrier and started to consume the Mana.

Naturally, Lucin was extremely powerful, which meant that Shang's attack still didn't do anything noteworthy to the Isolation Barrier.

However, it also didn't manage to get rid of the Death Mana.

The Death Mana just remained, and it continued consuming the Mana of the Isolation Barrier.

When Shang saw that, he realized the potential of Death Mana.

Natural Death Mana only consumed life energy, but by using the level one Concept of Death, Sickness, Shang managed to slightly alter the properties of Death Mana.

Instead of doing nothing to Lucin's barrier, the Death Mana clung to it and consumed it slowly.

It was like a parasite.

A tick.

Several possibilities of how to make use of this power shot through Shang's mind.

And that was only the level one Concept.

What about Weakness?

What about Purgatory?

Even more, Shang had just used his basic ranged attack with a bit of Death Mana. This couldn't even be called an actual technique.

By actually creating a real technique, the power of the Death Mana would increase severalfold.

But that would take time, as always.

A moment later, Shang aged again and collapsed in a half-dead husk.

After dealing with all the Bolts, Lucin just looked into his Isolation Barrier and watched Shang.

The only thing he could do was shake his head.

Why was everything involving Shang always related to suffering, torture, death, and depression?

Couldn't that guy just be normal?

Couldn't he just train like a normal warrior or Mage?

Like, do some pushups.

Maybe swing his sword.

Maybe meditate.

Lucin could only sigh.

 

 

Chapter 767 767 Money Problems

For a while, Shang just kept experimenting with Death Mana, but at some point, he just kept lying on the ground as a half-dead husk.

Lucin became a bit concerned, but he could feel that Shang was still alive.

For several years, Shang just lay on the ground, half-dead.

Lucin felt more and more awkward and strange.

Eventually, he asked Shang if everything was okay, and Shang just answered that everything was fine.

Yet, Shang just kept lying there, doing nothing.

Naturally, Shang wasn't actually doing nothing.

In truth, Shang was fighting against beasts and Mages inside his inner world, and he kept his real body half-dead so that he could experiment with more Death Mana inside his inner world.

His real body had essentially transformed into a Death Mana generator.

Shang usually only needed a few years to create new techniques, but the potential and complexity of Death Mana made it quite difficult to create good techniques.

However, that just meant that Shang needed to spend more time.

After 30 years, Shang had completely solidified his new fighting style with his new techniques.

For the last 300 years, Shang had been busy comprehending Void Break, which meant that he hadn't truly had any time to refine his fighting style.

But now, with nearly 4,000 years of longevity left, Shang finally had enough time.

When Shang was around 1,050 years old, his real body recovered, and he stood up.

There was something he had to do.

In fact, there were two reasons why he wanted to do this something.

First, now that Shang was in a new Realm, he needed to advance again, and in order to advance properly within that Realm, he needed Abominations.

This hadn't been an issue in the Temple of Blood. After all, Shang could just summon some Abominations while he was walking to and from a mission.

But things were different now.

Any Abominations appearing here would immediately be noticed by several Mage Lords. While the appearance of an Abomination might not be too surprising, it suddenly vanishing when Shang touched it would very much be considered surprising.

So, Shang needed access to Abominations, and no one was allowed to see his interaction with them.

Shang had already thought of a solution to that problem, but the solution was very expensive.

Like, really expensive.

However, Shang had already thought of a way, and as fate would have it, something else was pushing him toward that way anyway.

It was Lucin.

Lucin told Shang that he was too passive.

He wasn't criticizing Shang for his training.

The problem was that there were other Clouds, and if one actually wanted to gain enough resources to become more powerful in the Hibye, one needed to interact with the Hibye and earn resources.

Naturally, as long as Shang didn't ask for something ridiculously expensive, he wouldn't need to earn anything. After all, he was getting ten times as many resources as anyone else, and on top of that, he had Queen Primordium as his teacher.

But exactly that was the problem.

Every single Cloud had a boundless ambition to become powerful.

Yet, Shang remained completely isolated for centuries.

Wasn't he in need of resources?

As the sole "warrior", Shang was already very conspicuous amongst the Clouds, which meant that they paid very close attention to him.

And now, he had come into contact with portals, got hidden by Isolation Barriers, and didn't come out to earn any resources.

There was something strange going on.

Shang's true power had to remain a secret for multiple reasons. Because of that, they couldn't let it show that he was getting preferential treatment.

So, Lucin told Shang to go out into the Hibye and earn some resources just for show.

Funnily enough, Lucin's request coincided with Shang needing more money anyway.

In the end, Shang agreed.

However, he also asked Lucin how expensive the thing he wanted would be.

When Lucin heard Shang's request, he couldn't say anything for several seconds.

That was the absolute height of luxury.

That was a ridiculous expense for something that would barely accomplish anything.

It was like Shang was throwing his money out of the window.

Naturally, it was Lucin's job to explicitly stop something like this from happening, and he told Shang that he wouldn't approve of something like that.

Shang told Lucin that as long as it was his money, it wouldn't matter.

Lucin countered by saying that Shang didn't earn any of that money but that the Lightning Manor gave him access to it. After all, he wasn't contributing to the Lightning Manor right now.

After getting his request declined twice, Shang did something he hadn't done before.

He went "crying" to his teacher.

Shang told Queen Primordium that he needed that for his training.

She looked closely at him and asked him to repeat that.

Shang very slowly repeated it.

Then, Queen Primordium nodded.

She had confirmed that Shang's statement was the truth by feeling its resonance with the world.

Shang truly believed that he needed that.

Therefore, this wasn't a waste of money.

Shang had a sixfold Spirit Sense, proving that he knew how to become powerful.

And if he said he needed something, who were they to disagree?

Additionally, it was his money anyway.

So, Queen Primordium accepted his request prematurely and told him that she would issue the construction order immediately to save time.

However, he would only get what he wanted when he earned the necessary money.

And how much money was that?

About 400 Grade Seven mana Crystals.

That was quite a lot of money.

However, if Shang could actually get that thing, he wouldn't have to worry about absorbing Abominations anymore, he hoped.

And where would he get that money?

In the Wilderness Hunt.

The reason why Shang had come out when he was 1,050 years old was precisely due to the Wilderness Hunt starting soon.

This was the biggest event for the Clouds, and it was held every 100 years.

This was the best place to earn big money.

 

 

Chapter 768 768 Amulet

Chapter 768 768 Amulet

"You're also joining this time?" a young man with ocean blue hair asked another guy with grey hair.

"Yep," the other guy said with a smile. "All my gains from the Trial of Want have been used up. Now, I need some new resources."

"Man, I wonder how strong you've gotten after that trip," the first guy said. "I heard you got a pretty good evaluation."

The other guy laughed. "It wasn't bad," he said with a smirk.

"Maybe you can actually take down- oh, speak of the devil. There he is," the first guy said as he looked in a different direction.

The other guy raised an eyebrow and also looked in that direction.

And he wasn't the only one.

Right now, over 200 people were gathered in a big plaza near the middle of the Hibye.

There were around 150 High Mages, 30 Archmages, and about 20 Ancestral Mages, and right now, they were all looking at the new arrival.

Shang landed near the edge of the plaza, not greeting anyone.

"You know him?" the guy with grey hair asked the guy with blue hair via voice transmission.

"Everyone knows of him," the blue-haired guy answered.

"Really? Is he that strong?" the grey-haired guy asked.

"Well, he was definitely above average when he was amongst the Archmage Clouds, but I'm not sure about right now," the blue-haired man transmitted. "But his power is not why he is so well known. Can't you feel how strange his Aura feels?"

"Yeah, sure," the other guy answered. "I can feel that his Aura is very weird, but there are many Clouds with weird Auras."

"He's not a Mage," the first guy said.

The eyes of the other guy shot open in shock. "Wait, what?"

"He joined after a century after you went into seclusion. Turns out, there's a warrior with a fourfold Spirit Sense, and he is that warrior."

"Wait, a warrior? You mean like those guys that fight with spears and hammers and stuff?" the other guy asked.

The first guy nodded. "Yes, those guys."

"And they managed to produce an actual Cloud?" he asked. "I mean, can a warrior actually be that strong?"

"He killed two other Clouds, and a third one conceded and left."

Shocked silence.

The grey-haired guy almost couldn't believe what he had just heard.

There was a non-Mage that could actually win against the best of the best among Mages?

"How?!"

The first guy narrated the battle, and the other guy listened with rapt attention.

"Huh, okay," he said, "and now, he's an Ancestral, excuse me, he's in the Sixth Realm?"

"Seems so," the blue-haired guy said. "And judging by the power of his Aura, I would say he is already at the Early Sixth Realm."

"That's a bit fast," the grey-haired guy said. "How long could he have been in the Sixth Realm? Like a century, maybe? Why is he rushing through his Realm like that? He should know that this is essentially wasting potential."

"No idea," the first guy said with a shrug.

The two of them continued talking, but they were definitely not the only ones.

Several other Clouds were talking about Shang.

None of them were stupid. They had seen how strong Shang was. Shang's Battle-Strength might have taken a temporary hit since he had just reached a new Realm and rushed through the first level, but they knew that he was still very dangerous.

Naturally, Shang wasn't actually at the Early Void Break Realm.

Queen Primordium had created an inconspicuous and small attachment to Shang's Space Ring. This was a permanent talisman, and it made Shang seem like someone in the Early Sixth Realm.

Shang was still at the Initial Void Break Realm.

"Hey, you're the warrior, right?"

Shang turned his head to face someone.

It was a red-haired girl with a bright and excited smile.

"What do you want?" Shang asked coldly.

The red-haired girl blinked a couple of times in shock.

She hadn't expected such an aggressive response.

"Nothing, really," she said awkwardly. "I just wanted to start a conversation."

"Not interested," Shang said as he turned his head away.

For a couple of seconds, the girl smiled awkwardly, not knowing what to do.

"Well, okay then," she said as she turned around to leave.

Shang just focused forward, waiting for the Wilderness Hunt to begin.

'All these Clouds are my enemies,' he thought to himself coldly.

Meanwhile, the grey-haired man looked at Shang with a skeptically raised eyebrow. "Is he always such an asshole?"

The blue-haired man nodded. "From what I've heard, yes."

The grey-haired man only shook his head in disapproval.

Would he jump forward and defend the girl's honor and admonish the disrespectful non-Mage?

Please, these were not teenagers.

A couple more people gathered over the next couple of days, and by the end, around 350 people had gathered, which was around half of all the Clouds below the Mage Lord Realm.

The Wilderness Hunt was exceedingly popular.

However, it was also where most Clouds met their end.

Eventually, Lucin and 20 Bolts arrived at the plaza.

If this had happened outside the Hibye, the world would have been thrown into an uproar.

21 Mage Lords!

However, inside an Empire, something like this was normal.

Lucin inspected everyone present, and after a couple of seconds, he nodded.

SHING!

Lucin summoned several amulets, one amulet flowing to one person each.

Shang took hold of his amulet and felt the light-blue Aura emanating from it.

This was the mark of being in the Early Sixth Realm.

Shang looked at the other Ancestral Mages and noticed that nearly half of them had white amulets, representing the Initial Sixth Realm.

Then, there were much fewer people with light-blue, blue, and dark-blue amulets, representing Early, Mid, and Late Ancestral Mages.

However, there were even more black amulets, representing Peak Ancestral Mages.

It seemed like most people only joined when they were either at the peak or at the beginning of a Realm.

"Now, let me explain the rules of the Wilderness Hunt," Lucin said.

 

Chapter 769 769 Deep Crevices

Lucin started to explain the rules of the Wilderness Hunt.

"The Wilderness Hunt is divided into three sections. One for the High Mages. One for the Archmages. One for the Ancestral Mages."

"Every section will be held in a different wilderness."

"The wildernesses have been prepared by me and the 20 Bolts behind me. We have created tombs, caves, and many other things that will serve as trials. We have also littered the wildernesses with valuable treasures."

"Of course, the more valuable a treasure, the harder it is to obtain. You will meet powerful beasts, deadly traps, powerful criminals, and many other kinds of dangers. It is your job to survive these dangers and earn as many resources as possible."

"The amulets you have just received must be worn at all times. They show others your level, which is important in the Wilderness Hunt."

"In the Wilderness Hunt, you are allowed to attack other Clouds and kill them. You may keep all of the dead Cloud's belongings."

"However, you are only allowed to attack people at the same or at a higher level than your own. Attacking people below your level is strictly forbidden."

"As soon as a fight breaks out, one of my Bolts will oversee the battle and make sure that no third person gets involved. Every fight is a duel, and no one is allowed to interfere."

"In order to make the Wilderness Hunt possible in the first place, your amulets will also suppress your Spirit Sense to a radius of ten kilometers. On top of that, there are several Magic Circles in the wildernesses that stop you from looking into the ground with your Spirit Senses."

"The Wilderness Hunt will last for one year for the High Mages, three years for the Archmages, and ten years for the Ancestral Mages."

"When the time is up, we are going to come to you and bring you back to the Hibye."

"If you have entered a smaller trial located within the wilderness and time runs out, you are allowed to finish that trial before you have to leave."

"Any questions?" Lucin asked.

None of the Mages had any questions.

"Will the Bolts watch us constantly, even outside of fights?" Shang asked.

Lucin nodded. "Every participant will be watched over by one or more Bolts at every moment unless during special trials, but you will be informed if you enter such a trial."

That was everything Shang wanted to know.

This meant that he couldn't show his more sensitive abilities involving his Entropy Affinity.

There were no other questions.

Lucin nodded. "Then, I wish everyone good luck."

A second later, three Bolts stepped forward, each summoning a big Transportation Plate.

"High Mages, here."

"Archmages, here."

"Ancestral Mages, here."

The people all gathered on the three different plates. The remaining bolts split up amongst the different groups.

As for the Ancestral Mages, there were a total of 36 that took part in the Wilderness Hunt.

16 of them were at the Peak Ancestral Mage Realm, two were at the Late Ancestral Mage Realm, three were at the Mid Ancestral Mage Realm, five were at the Early Ancestral Mage Realm, and ten were at the Initial Ancestral Mage Realm.

The three Bolts leading the groups took to the sky and flew in different directions.

Shang's group was flying towards the north.

"Your trial will be held in the Deep Crevices," the leading Bolt said.

When the Ancestral Mage Clouds heard that, their brows furrowed.

"I've not heard of that one," one of the Clouds said.

The Bolt turned around and looked at her.

"You new?" he asked.

She nodded.

"You have an Ice Affinity?" he asked, looking at her light-blue hair.

She looked around at the other Clouds but nodded in the end.

"Depending on your fighting style with your Affinity, you will either have a great advantage over others or a great disadvantage," the Bolt said.

"Okay," the Cloud said awkwardly, "but what are the Deep Crevices?"

"You'll see," the Bolt said.

After flying for a couple of minutes, Shang could feel a huge body of water with his Spirit Sense.

Shang's Spirit Sense had a radius of 3,000 kilometers usually, but with the amulet, he only had one of ten kilometers.

Yet, he could still feel how fast they were moving.

And right now, he was seeing nothing but water for over a full minute of traveling.

That was when Shang realized where they were.

This was Shang's first time being in the Eternal Ocean, the gigantic body of water surrounding Aterium.

Near the beginning, Shang had still been able to feel the ground beneath the ocean, but now, he couldn't feel the ground anymore.

Even more shocking was the fact that they had traveled for over five minutes across the Eternal Ocean.

Based on the speed at which the Bolt was traveling, this meant that they were over a million kilometers away from Aterium right now.

They were literally in the middle of the Eternal Ocean.

And then, the Bolt suddenly stopped.

Shang looked around with his Spirit Sense, but he could feel nothing but the water below him and the sky above him.

"And we're here," the Bolt said.

The girl that had asked about the Deep Crevices earlier opened her eyes widely in shock. "But there's nothing here!"

The Bolt turned to her with a smirk. "Not on the surface," he said.

It took the Cloud a bit to realize what the Bolt meant, and her face turned white.

Wait, the Wilderness Hunt would be held on the bottom of the Eternal Ocean?!

How deep was it?!

While a bit of water wasn't an issue for an Ice Mage, the sheer density and pressure of the Water Mana at the bottom of the Eternal Ocean were probably unimaginable!

This was what the Bolt had meant earlier regarding her Affinity.

If the Ice Mage fought by converting Water Mana to Ice Mana or similarly, she would have a huge advantage. After all, she would be surrounded by extremely dense Water Mana.

Yet, if she didn't fight like that, it would become an issue.

Back in Area 23, Shang had learned about Mana Transformation.

The Ice Wyvern Zone had been filled with Ice Mana, and the Empress Cobra Zone had had a lot of Water Mana.

When the Water Mana flowed into the Ice Wyvern Zone, it turned into Ice Mana, and when the Ice Mana flowed into the Empress Cobra Zone, it turned into Water Mana.

So, if the Ice Mage didn't fight by transforming Water Mana into Ice Mana, she would find that her Ice Spells would be much harder to use.

She would need to use much more Mana for every Ice Spell since she would need to increase the density of the Ice Mana.

Obviously, she didn't have enough Mana to exhaust all the Water Mana in her surroundings. The best thing she could do was to keep her Ice Spell alive before it was inevitably turned into Water Mana, making it harmless.

Of course, Ice Mana wasn't the only kind of Mana that would have some issues inside the Eternal Ocean.

Fire Mana would get weakened just like Ice Mana.

Wind Mana couldn't borrow the inherent power of the air, which meant that one would need to use much more Wind Mana.

Metal Mana didn't technically care about the Water Mana, but the power of pressure, gravity, and the density of the water made it very difficult for a solid object to move very quickly.

Light Mana would also be at a horrible disadvantage since there was no light down there.

However, there were also kinds of Mana that benefited.

Earth Mana would have a great time at the bottom since there would be a very dense mass of earth beneath them.

Water Mana obviously had a great advantage.

Lightning Mana would also be very useful.

Due to the absence of Light Mana, Darkness Mana would also prove to be very useful down there.

And lastly, Gravity Mana was also at an advantage due to the increased pressure and gravity down there.

Naturally, the reactions amongst the Clouds were mixed.

A lot of them had furrowed brows, but there were also a lot of them with smirks.

Surprisingly, 28 of the 36 Ancestral Mages seemed to find this to be an advantageous wilderness for them.

Almost everyone had several Affinities, and these geniuses also had impressive abilities to adapt to new environments.

The Clouds had so many different Spells and techniques that they could find an advantage in any kind of extreme environment.

Sadly, there were also some of them that looked quite scared.

However, it was always difficult to accurately judge these Clouds.

It was possible that some of the seemingly unconfident Clouds were actually just faking their fear to lure others into attacking them.

"Alright, let's begin."

 

 

Chapter 770 770 Grey-Haired Cloud

"This is the middle of the place we call Deep Crevices," the Bolt explained. "The Wilderness Hunt will be held within a radius of 10,000 kilometers. Leaving the area voluntarily results in death."

"Naturally, you will be able to tell where the wilderness ends based on a very noticeable Magic Circle, which you will see and pass through on your way down."

"As soon as you pass through the Magic Circle later, you are not allowed to pass through it until a Bolt tells you so."

"Well then," the Bolt said with a smile, "I think that should be everything."

"You can descend now."

BANG!

Half of the Clouds immediately shot into the water at their full speeds, even using Mana Step.

The other half slowly started to float and made their way downward.

Shang was amongst the half that traveled slowly.

Usually, one could tell someone's confidence in their power based on how they acted in this situation, but that wasn't very easy here. After all, the Clouds knew how certain people would act and could emulate that behavior.

Shang slowly floated into the water, although his kind of slow wasn't exactly an average human's kind of slow. He still moved two kilometers per second.

As Shang continued going downward, he was reminded of the time he had run away from the Grandmountain Kingdom. Back then, he had also swum to the bottom of a huge lake.

However, the Shang from back then had just reached the Commander Stage, and he hadn't been able to sense anything down there since it had been just too dark.

But this time, Shang had a Spirit Sense, even if it was only restricted to a radius of ten kilometers for now.

The Clouds split up the further they descended. As soon as they passed through the barrier, they would be allowed to attack each other, and most of them didn't want to be attacked.

In a matter of seconds, Shang was alone again.

Right now, there was only water in all directions.

Shang had no idea how deep the Eternal Ocean actually was, but it was probably very deep.

After nearly a full minute, Shang could see the Magic Circle the Bolt had been talking about.

There was a purple barrier in front of Shang, impossible to miss.

This meant that the Wilderness Hunt would start from here.

'The wilderness is supposed to have a radius of 10,000 kilometers. I wonder if that also extends upward, which would mean that the bottom of the Eternal Ocean is over 10,000 kilometers away.'

Shang had expected the Eternal Ocean to be deep, but he hadn't expected it to be this deep.

However, Shang didn't stop descending, and in nearly an instant, he passed through the actual barrier.

BANG!

Suddenly, Shang's surroundings seemed to crack apart!

The space in the surroundings had received cracks!

Obviously, someone was planning on attacking Shang, and Shang was shocked by the sheer power of the oppressive space in his surroundings.

All the space in Shang's surroundings was pulled to him as it cracked apart, putting immense pressure on his body.

Shang felt his Mana Pathways crackling under pressure, but they managed to hold.

An instant later, numerous Magic Runes appeared in Shang's surroundings.

Shang didn't know anything about Magic Runes, but he could feel that Concepts of Space and Gravity were currently trying to press him into a tiny cube of meat.

Shang didn't move and remained in the middle of the oppressive space and gravity.

'This has to cost a lot of Mana,' Shang thought calmly.

Using Mana Crystals as power sources was forbidden in any fights between Clouds. Otherwise, the battles would deteriorate into whoever could build the better defensive Magic Circle and offensive Magic Circle since everyone had access to such a ridiculous sum of Mana Crystals.

This meant that whoever attacked Shang needed to use their own Mana to keep this Magic Circle going.

Nearly an entire second passed, which was an insanely long time for a fight on this level.

Shang didn't receive a single injury and didn't use up any Mana.

If a Mage were in this position, they would be forced to use Mana Step. After all, every bit of damage would consume the Mage's Mana.

Meanwhile, Shang's defense worked like flat damage reduction. If the power of the attack wasn't strong enough to get through, Shang would literally take no damage at all.

Naturally, this Magic Circle wasn't meant to kill him but to make him move. After all, the easiest counter was to just rush out of the Magic Circle.

But then, Shang would probably be attacked by another attack that the opponent had readied, which would be their actual killing move.

The Magic Circle was strong enough that staying inside would be a bad idea but not so strong that it would consume too much Mana.

WHOOOM!

In an instant, Shang noticed that a terrifying beam of concentrated space was shooting toward him from a hidden location outside the Magic Circle.

If Shang had left the Magic Circle, the beam would have probably been fired at Shang from just a couple of meters away, making it impossible to avoid it.

At that moment, time seemingly stood still.

Shang was surrounded by oppressive space and gravity as a beam of powerful gravity shot at him from barely a kilometer away.

As soon as that happened, Shang became active.

In an instant, the entire Magic Circle around Shang vanished!

It was like it had never been there!

However, Shang hadn't used his Domain of Entropy.

This was the power of Void Break!

Shang had consumed the momentum of Void Break and had strengthened his body, but the actual ability of Void Break still existed.

Just now, Shang had absorbed all the Mana in the surrounding kilometers, including the Water Mana and the irregular Space and Gravity Mana.

The surrounding ten kilometers had turned into a black void.

There was no Mana in this void.

It was just nothingness.

All of the absorbed Mana was currently pressed into Shang's Mana Pathways, putting immense strain on them.

The beam had barely moved a couple of meters in that instant.

Shang's head moved toward the direction of his opponent, who had been unveiled since all the Mana around them had also been absorbed, canceling their cloaking Spell.

At this moment, the opponent's face was agonizingly slowly transforming from a serious one to a shocked one.

It was like everything but Shang was moving in slow motion.

With all of this Mana inside Shang, his body had reached a bit more than the power of a Mid Ancestral Beast.

Right now, Shang could punch a Mid Ancestral Beast, and it would be thrown back.

All the foreign Mana inside Shang moved to his legs.

The void behind and below Shang seemed to solidify.

Shang put his feet to the solidified space.

And then, he jumped.

BOOOOOOM!

Shang shot toward his opponent with unreasonable speed!

In an instant, he arrived at the beam, which had barely moved 150 meters up to now.

Shang's left arm swung the simple metallic rod that was his Subsis at the beam.

The beam vanished, and a translucent blade made of space and gravity appeared around the Subsis.

However, the blade vanished just as quickly as it had appeared.

The Space and Gravity Mana moved through Shang's Mana Pathways, which had already been emptied of foreign Mana by using it to jump forward.

The new foreign Space and Gravity Mana replaced the old foreign Mana, essentially activating the ability of Void Break again.

But this time, the foreign Mana only traveled through Shang's body and entered his Addum.

The Addum began to vibrate and shake under the power of Gravity and Space.

Shang's Addum wasn't made to use Gravity and Space Mana, but it was strong enough to house them anyway. Sure, the efficiency was far lower, but that didn't really matter.

Shang swung forward, and at that moment, he used up a majority of his life energy, which was instantly refilled by using a big part of his Mana.

The Addum didn't seem any different from before, but that couldn't be further from the truth.

Shang had used the Concept of Addition to transform his Light Mana to the extreme of mass.

Right now, Shang couldn't even accelerate or stop his Addum anymore.

The added power of space, gravity, and mass had made his Addum so insanely heavy that Shang couldn't even hope to move it.

Yet, Shang had already inserted a ton of kinetic energy before the Addum had become that heavy, and that energy didn't just disappear.

The Addum continued slashing forward.

And it hit the Mage's Mana Shield.

At that moment, the grey-haired man inside the Mana Shield was finishing the word for Mana Step.

CRACK!

The Mana Shield blew apart like a marble made of thin glass.

All the Mana in the Mage's body completely vanished.

Suddenly, a powerful hand grabbed the Mage's throat and pulled him forward.

The grey-haired Mage looked with terror at the white bandage right in front of him, covering the opponent's eyes.

For just an instant, he thought that his opponent might spare him.

But then, he felt like he was losing all his youth, energy, happiness, and strength.

His body was turning into a husk.

He wanted to scream, but his neck and face had already atrophied.

And in just two seconds, the grey-haired Mage had turned into a lifeless husk.

Shang remembered that this Mage had talked to another blue-haired Mage before the trial started.

What surprised Shang was that this grey-haired Mage had only been at the Initial Ancestral Mage Realm, while Shang's amulet told him that he was at the Early Sixth Realm.

Well, it seemed like this Mage had been quite confident in his power and thought that he could kill this warrior as long as he ambushed him.

Shang calmly ripped the bony finger off that carried the Space Ring and looked inside.

Three Grade Seven Mana Crystals.

'Beggar.'

Shang threw the dried corpse to the side and continued descending.