Sword God in a World of Magic

Time continued to pass.

The Bolts were no longer distracted by Shang since Lucin had created an Isolation Barrier around him, but Lucin himself had noticed that he was sighing far more often than usual.

He just felt bad for Shang.

It was one thing to go through so much pain to become stronger, but it was something else to continuously go through so much pain for decades upon decades.

This wasn't an individual instance of painful training anymore. Being under so much pain for so long had essentially transformed Shang's entire life.

Yes, Shang was already quite old, but spending decades in pain was still something significant.

Every decade of pain was equivalent to about one year of pain for a mortal.

How horrible would it be to be under such pain for one year?

Just one day was already terrifying.

As Lucin continued watching Shang, he got the thought that Shang was actually impressively sane for someone that was living like this.

Under normal circumstances, one would imagine a quivering mass of terror, paranoia, fear, and irrational hatred.

Sure, Shang had these aspects, but they weren't so strong that they overtook his entire personality.

Nevertheless, Lucin could still feel that Shang had huge issues deep inside.

His body was like a machine that was piloted by ten crazy people with different issues and illnesses, but by averaging them out, the machine was still piloted in a somewhat normal way.

Frankly, it was a miracle.

Decades passed.

Eventually, Shang used up all the Furnace Pills he had, which took him a total of 100 years.

At this moment, Shang was around 860 years old.

If he were a mortal, he would be nearly 80 years old.

Shang had genuinely reached the last years of his life.

Over the past century, a couple of Clouds had arrived in front of the Isolation Barrier.

wanted

kept announcing themselves and knocking at the Isolation Barrier, but Shang

possible for Shang to see the outside, which meant that Shang could have noticed these Clouds and could have interacted

But he never did.

became angry when Shang kept

someone without their consent,

angry they got, they didn't attack

had not seen all of them, but he

arrived had tried to lure him away from Lucin so that they

would they be

wanted to kill Shang and get his resources or kill him

of them were

of them were his

of them wanted to

that wasn't the truth, but

decades upon decades of nothing

one see the world as anything but

training for such a long time, Shang

into perspective, Shang had been training like this for over 10% of his

take 10% of it, and go through so much time while being tortured like

still

longest time Shang

past, he had gone through a couple of decades of isolation,

had fought some beasts, walked from one place to the other, talked to Jerald,

time to time. He saw others from time to time, bought

Shang had to run a town while training, which meant that he regularly had to communicate with others

time, it was

doing nothing

There was no break.

was no talking

There was no buying.

There was no managing.

was just Shang

or

developed thoughts and feelings he had never been able

he was approaching death, but not

exactly feel like he was about to die, but like he was about to

mind and personality had been close to disappearing

like he