Sword God in a World of Magic

A couple of minutes later, Shang left the Caves and went to where Jerald was currently.

Jerald simply handed Shang several large books, and Shang left for the Caves again.

As soon as he came back, Shang read through all the books.

These books were Spell Compendiums, and they basically listed every standard True Mage Spell known to the Skythunder Kingdom.

Something like that would go for an extraordinary price, but Jerald just gave them to Shang.

Sure, these Spell Compendiums were extremely valuable, but their value was still perceived in gold.

Shang could hunt True Path Stage beasts. If he wanted to repay Jerald, he would only need to hand over a single corpse, and he would have repaid far more than he owed.

Naturally, Shang wasn't interested in learning Magic. He only looked at the Spells and how they worked to gain inspiration for his techniques.

Shang was no longer on a level where he needed to learn other people's techniques. No, he needed to create his own techniques.

Additionally, with Shang's powerful Path, he was more than qualified to create such techniques.

Over the next two years, Shang's Path didn't make much progress. He was fully focused on coming up with new techniques and trying to manipulate his Mana and Affinities well enough to actually use them.

He created a couple of duds, but he also found a couple of useful ones.

After coming up with a good framework for his future fighting style, Shang went on to make his new fighting style an actual reality.

The beginning was hard since this was a new field for Shang.

Three years later, Shang had only made marginal progress.

At least, that was how it felt.

When Shang actually looked at the Star Map, he noticed something.

The Shards that had symbolized Shang's different Affinities were starting to connect to Shang's Paths.

This didn't increase the actual progress of his Path but made it wider and more powerful.

By now, all four Paths were even wider than Mervin's Path, showing their ridiculous power.

Shang realized that he was onto something big, and his determination to continue pursuing this path only increased.

Five years later, Shang managed to fully integrate his Affinities with his Paths.

In the last ten or so years, Shang's Path hadn't advanced upward but had gotten far wider.

Right now, Shang's Path was still stuck at a bit more than 50%, but it couldn't be compared to its earlier version.

From this point onward, Shang focused on progressing his Path again with its new width.

Over the past couple of years, even more True Path Stage warriors and High Mages appeared.

Sadly, the number of deaths amongst the True Path Stage warriors rose.

They started to be sent on reckless missions or just mysteriously vanished.

Most of all, the warriors that died were all warriors that were not too happy with the Mages.

started to realize that

they simply didn't have the

was something

frontlines, even when

necessary things that were expected of them but didn't go beyond. They simply did the

power or show themselves in public. When nobody knew that they existed, they couldn't be forced to fight on the

had given up on

respect them, they also wouldn't show

the frontlines between the Skythunder Kingdom and the Magic Purity

on the Skythunder Kingdom increased, and the Council was forced to lower the

no way to announce such a

done in the shadows. If they announced now that they were no longer doing these things, it would be like telling

in the world over the years, but for Shang, nothing

was still deep in the Caves, working on his

now, Count Sword

but he was basically only a

very powerful and talented Peak Commander Stage warrior. By now, there were many Early True Path Stage warriors and

even a couple of warriors that reached Mervin's level of

Sword actually existed, he would only be a

back then, but would he still be

himself? True Path Stage warriors needed resources and experience. Wouldn't he want to fight Mages? How

knew about

working on something

Shang could see the sheer

in the underground, and

later, some bad news

Ranos had died.

likely been killed by

deep breath and

the future

that more and more of the few people

thing he could

was the most important thing

later, Soran

most likely been killed by the

never truly been Shang's biggest fan, but it was

had been sent to the frontlines

overboard while hunting beasts and had

guessed that she also wouldn't stay

systematically getting rid of all the important people in the

later, Teacher

that gave Shang the quota for the Day of Chaos, and she had also been the one that gave him the

hadn't seen her

year later, Mattheo

hit Jerald very

his sole heir, and he had had a bright

Peak Commander Stage warrior and a powerful Peak True Mage at

been the most powerful person in

that had been

too powerful, and he was

biggest threat

Jerald's son died, he had never

Shang needed

friend after the other left Jerald's life, and it was very difficult