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.

that the Council was

they simply didn't have the power to go against the

was something they

appeared on the critical frontlines, even when great rewards were

but didn't go beyond. They

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

they had given up on

respect them, they also

between the Skythunder Kingdom and the Magic Purity Kingdom

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

no way to announce such a

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

in the world over

was still deep in the Caves,

now, Count Sword had been

still included him, but he was basically only a footnote, and nobody really

By now, there were many Early True Path Stage

warriors that reached Mervin's level of

entire world was changing, and even if Count Sword actually existed, he would only be a relic of

might have been outstanding back then, but would he still be

Wouldn't he have shown himself? True Path Stage warriors needed resources and experience. Wouldn't

even if Shang knew about all of this, he didn't

working on something

and Shang could

remained deep in the underground,

later, some bad news reached

Ranos had died.

had most likely been killed

deep breath

future he had

knew that more and more of the few people he

only thing he could do was

most important

year later, Soran

likely been killed by the

truly been Shang's biggest fan, but it was still sad to see one of George's

student, the woman Viera, had been

had gone overboard while hunting beasts and had endangered

guessed that she also wouldn't stay alive for much

looked like the Council was systematically getting rid of

later, Teacher Niria

had been the one that gave Shang the quota for the Day of

seen her in 50

one year later,

had hit Jerald

he had had a

Peak Commander Stage warrior and a powerful Peak True Mage

been the most powerful person

had been the

and he was

biggest

he had never urged Shang to hurry

that Shang needed a lot of

the other left Jerald's life, and it