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.

to realize that the Council was behind all

simply didn't have the

was something

appeared on the critical frontlines, even

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

show themselves in public.

had given

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

slow changes, the frontlines between the Skythunder Kingdom

Council was forced to lower

there was no way to announce such a

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

changing in the world over the

was still deep in the Caves,

now, Count Sword had been

lectures on politics still included him, but he

warrior. By now, there were many Early

were even a couple of warriors that reached Mervin's

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

might have been outstanding back then,

True Path Stage yet? Wouldn't he have shown himself? True Path Stage

knew about all of

working

and Shang could see the sheer

deep in the underground, and more time

years later, some bad news reached

Ranos had died.

been killed

only take a deep breath and continue

was the future he

and more of the

thing he could do

was the most important thing

later,

likely been

truly been Shang's biggest fan, but it was still

Viera, had been sent to

overboard while hunting

also wouldn't

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

year later,

Day of Chaos, and she had also been the one that gave

hadn't seen her in

year later, Mattheo

had hit

his sole heir, and he had had a

Stage warrior and a powerful Peak True Mage at the

person in the Commander Stage

exactly that had

was too powerful, and he

the biggest threat to

though Jerald's son died, he had never

Shang needed a lot of

Jerald's life, and it was very difficult for