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 power to go against

there was something they

critical frontlines, even

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

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

they had given up on

them, they also wouldn't

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

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

no way

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

the Caves, working on

Count Sword had been completely

he was basically only a footnote, and

Peak Commander Stage warrior. By now, there were many Early True

of warriors that

and even if Count Sword actually existed,

might have been outstanding back then, but would he still

he at the True Path Stage yet? Wouldn't he have shown himself? True Path Stage warriors needed

knew about all of this, he didn't

working on

Shang could see the sheer power

in the underground, and more time

later, some bad news

Ranos had died.

likely been killed

a deep breath and continue working

the future he had

more of the few people

thing he could do was

most important

year later,

most likely been

had never truly been Shang's biggest fan, but it was still sad to see one of George's

had been sent to the frontlines as

overboard while hunting beasts and had endangered

that she also wouldn't

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

year later, Teacher Niria

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

seen her

one year later, Mattheo

had hit Jerald

his sole heir, and he had

Stage warrior and a powerful Peak

person in the

had been

too powerful, and he was

the biggest

Jerald's son died, he

knew that Shang needed a

left Jerald's life, and