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.

the warriors started to realize that the Council was behind all of

have the power to go against the

something they

the critical frontlines, even

of them but didn't go beyond. They simply did the bare minimum

many powerful warriors didn't even announce their new power or show themselves in public. When nobody knew that they

had given up on the

leaders didn't respect them, they

between the Skythunder Kingdom and the Magic Purity Kingdom became bloody

increased, and the Council was

was no way to announce such a

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

over the years,

still deep in the Caves, working

now, Count Sword

lectures on politics still included him, but he was basically only a footnote, and nobody

had been 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

a couple of warriors that

was changing, and even if Count Sword actually existed, he would only be a

then,

guy actually were so powerful, why wasn't he at the True Path Stage yet? Wouldn't he have shown himself? True Path Stage warriors needed resources and experience. Wouldn't he want

knew about all of this, he didn't

working on

was increasing day by day, and Shang could see the sheer power his

the underground, and more

some bad news reached

Ranos had died.

most likely been

only take a deep breath and continue working

was the future he

more and more of the few people he knew

he

most important

later, Soran

likely been killed by the

remembered the Vice-Dean. Soran had never truly been Shang's biggest fan, but it was

woman Viera, had been sent

while hunting beasts and

she also wouldn't

looked like the Council was systematically getting rid of all the important people in the

year later, Teacher

gave Shang the quota for the Day of Chaos, and she

her in

year later, Mattheo

had hit Jerald very

and he had had a

Peak Commander Stage warrior and a powerful Peak

been the most powerful person in the Commander

that had

too powerful, and he

was the biggest

son died, he had never urged

knew that Shang needed a lot of

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