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 the Council

the

there was something they

warriors appeared on the critical frontlines,

but didn't go beyond. They simply did the bare minimum and tried

show themselves in public. When nobody

had given up

leaders didn't respect them, they also wouldn't show

slow changes, the frontlines between the Skythunder Kingdom and the Magic Purity

increased, and the Council was forced

way to

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

were changing in the world over the

in the Caves, working on

Count Sword

but he was basically only a footnote, and

warrior. By now, there were many

couple of warriors that reached Mervin's level

even if Count Sword actually existed, he would

outstanding back then, but would he still

actually were so powerful, why wasn't he at the True Path Stage yet? Wouldn't he have shown himself? True Path Stage warriors

about all

was working on something

and Shang could see the sheer

remained deep in the underground, and more

some bad news

Ranos had died.

been killed by the

could only take a deep breath and continue working

future he

that more and more of the few people he knew would

thing he

was the most important thing

year later, Soran

likely

Shang's biggest fan,

woman Viera, had

gone overboard while hunting beasts and had endangered the

that she also wouldn't stay alive

like the Council was systematically getting rid of all the important

year later, Teacher

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

her

year

hit Jerald

he had had a bright

been a powerful Peak Commander Stage warrior and a powerful

most powerful person in the Commander

exactly that had been

and he was Jerald's

was the biggest

died, he had never urged Shang to

that Shang needed a lot

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