Sword God in a World of Magic

Now, things were different.

Shang had thought that killing each other was completely forbidden, but apparently, it wasn't.

"And how does something like that go down?" Shang asked.

"Well," Lucin said before transforming into a Lightning Bolt again. "Let's continue on our way. I'll explain while we're traveling."

Shang didn't answer, and the two of them continued shooting into the distance.

"So, basically, in order to become as powerful as a Cloud, you need a lot of danger and actual fighting. Forever staying inside your little cave and meditating forever won't get you this kind of Battle-Strength. If it did, we would have a thousand times more Clouds than currently."

"In order to be outstanding, you must live an outstanding life. You must achieve things that others are too scared to do or can't do, no matter how much they try. One big component of that is actual fights to the death."

"We know that, and that's why we have created a perfect environment for just that. You ever heard about this weird story about that guy that wanted to make the most venomous insect?" Lucin asked.

"No," Shang answered.

"So, there was this guy, and he wanted to make the most venomous insect. One day, he had this genius idea of putting a hundred of the most venomous insects he could find into a pot and making them kill each other until only one was left, believing that the strongest insect would embody the power of all the insects it had killed, making it the most venomous."

"Of course, biology doesn't work like that, and he failed miserably. However, his experiment demonstrated a very real concept."

very powerful. The word peerless means

well be trash when there are a hundred better geniuses in the nearest town. Yet, how did these better geniuses become better? It was because, in order to become peerless, they needed to fight through many more peers than the peerless genius of the

we lock them all into an arena and only allow one of them to leave, what

gained valuable knowledge regarding fighting life and death

25 might have comprehended something that made them superior to their

more died, but the ones that remained would

one guy has learned so much that the past him couldn't be compared to the current

100 peerless geniuses to create one true peerless

the Contender

a bit more than 110 Archmage Clouds in the Contender Department. Obviously, they can't all become King Contenders. In fact, chances are high that not even one of them will become a King Contender since we

With their talent, they would reach the power of Thunders eventually, and what then? We only have space for about 70 Thunders, and we got 110 potential Thunders in

Thunders since, in order for all of these Clouds

this venomous insect approach, but instead of simply ordering you all to kill each other, we are letting you have

you want more, you gotta join very dangerous missions, tournaments, tests, and similar. Additionally, if two Clouds agree on

situations. Since you are all geniuses, you are all used to risking your lives

One-time Spells from a Mage Lord, an Ancestral Mage assassin, a powerful Ancestral Beast, and so on. If a Cloud is going to die, it will be in one of the tests or while fighting fairly against

with a question. "And you still get assassinations with

have some kind of unresolvable enmity with another Cloud. You want to kill them no matter what, but whenever you challenge them to a duel, they decline. Whenever you join one of

there's no way to kill that person officially. That's

while everyone here can be considered a peerless genius amongst billions upon billions of people, there are still differences. You have a