Sword God in a World of Magic

Shang's next opponent was an Earth Adept, and he obviously also had nearly no combat experience.

Just like Shang's first opponent, this one also made several rookie mistakes, and Shang managed to use up a lot of Mana of his opponent by hitting his Mana Shield a couple of times.

But, eventually, Shang's opponent managed to prepare several devastating attacks, which were released in rapid succession. This time, Shang's opponent had summoned several Earth Spires that shot out of the ground.

Due to Shang's reflexes, he had been able to evade the first one, but it hadn't been easy. Shang had to abandon all his balance to barely evade the Earth Spire.

Since the Adept only needed a single thought to unleash his remaining spells, he released the next two in rapid succession, and Shang hadn't been able to avoid those.

Shang had lost.

The Adept bowed politely to Viera and threw Shang a look. Then, with a snort, he left without saying anything.

Shang's next opponent was a Metal Adept.

When the Metal Adept used Mana Step, Shang decided not to use his sword but to jump into the way of the Mana Step to grapple with the Adept.

However, the Mana Shield threw Shang away, and he quickly lost after that.

These Adepts were faster than Shang while using Mana Step, which surprised him quite a bit. Sure, Mana Step was fast, but this fast?

The next opponent was a Fire Adept.

Fire Adepts basically didn't exist in the Mage Academy, but Shang's opponents didn't only come from the Mage Academy. A lot of his opponents were Adepts that gave up trying to become True Mages or were ones that simply didn't have the talent or discipline to become one.

In short, those were Adepts that would forever remain Adepts. They basically counted to the worst Adepts in existence.

And yet, even though they all had horrible fighting experience, by simply following some simple rules, they always won against Shang.

As a warrior, Shang had to constantly adapt to his opponent and make quick decisions, but a Mage didn't fight that way.

A Mage followed rules.

They followed protocol.

They followed a path.

They followed a sequence.

They followed a plan.

for them was nothing more than following a

and the only way they could lose was if they

a step-by-step guide, they used them

smaller man in hand-to-hand combat if he made many mistakes and didn't use his powers correctly. However, if the

managed to throw the other one to the ground and land

Technique didn't matter.

exactly why there were weight classes

and bigger

Mages when they fought against warriors in this

greater

the procedure, but their Mana Shield took care of that. As long as they could resist their opponent's attacks until they were ready to

Mages. An experienced Mage wouldn't

Shang felt the power difference very

Shang hadn't

become pretty good at anticipating where his opponents would go while using Mana Step, and he managed

faster in following his opponent, which often gave him an additional opportunity to hit their

to the rapid barrage of

Adepts and deal more damage to them, but after a full

path was a

on being able to dodge his opponent's barrage

realized once again that fighting Mages was somewhat similar to

behind them than the attacks of other warriors, which basically made it impossible

thing was true when one fought Mages. Blocking their Spells was basically impossible, and

the difference between Mages and beasts was

unleash one devastating attack at a time, but a

the end, Shang focused on increasing his ability to evade the spells. It was fine as long as he was only hit once since his uniform would cancel

Spells again since Shang

Shang's experience in