Sword God in a World of Magic

The Lightning Emperor sighed again, something he had been doing quite a lot in the past minutes.

"I assume you know about the lack of Mana?" he asked.

Shang nodded. "I was under the assumption that there was only enough Mana left to let one Mage Emperor survive if I want to become a God, and maybe not even that since the Abominations might have consumed even more Mana."

The Lightning Emperor nodded solemnly. "That's right, but that's only true when you are not willing to sacrifice a big group of people for your goal. Lucius was a kind man that wasn't the biggest fan of killing."

"I assume this isn't a problem for you?"

"It isn't," Shang answered emotionlessly.

"To become a God, you need to absorb ten Emperor's worth of Mana."

"In total, there are 16 Emperor's worth of Mana in the entirety of Aterium currently," the Lightning Emperor said.

"16?" Shang asked. "That's more than I expected."

The Lightning Emperor nodded. "There are eleven Emperors-"

"Wait, eleven?" Shang asked. "I thought there were only ten."

"There are nine Empires with ten Emperors, but there is one more Emperor who isn't very known. He was the only Emperor that Lucius left alive back then."

"His title is the Archivist, and he lives on one of the islands of the Beast Kings. He has dedicated his entire life to witnessing the progress of the world and archiving all the knowledge."

"He wanders the world from time to time, but he never kills anything or influences anyone. He just watches and documents. Not many people know that he exists, and he wants to keep it this way."

"Nevertheless, he is still an Emperor and a pretty strong one at that. I don't think any of us could win against him in a fair duel."

Shang nodded.

who make up eleven Emperor's

combined make

were to convert all the water in the endless ocean into Mana, that would

and Aterium itself make up another

atmosphere itself would barely make up around 70% of another

more than

converting mass into pure Mana is extremely difficult, the three portions comprising the ocean and the continent are inaccessible to

you were willing to kill all the Mage Kings and a couple of Mage Lords,

Shang just nodded absentmindedly.

have the power to kill me, but instead of doing

about many people,

centuries, and they knew a lot about me, but I don't have any

I will pay that investment back in

smiled in

world has resonated with Shang's

might not be close to anyone else, but that didn't mean that it was impossible to work

Temple of Blood

agreement," the Lightning

do," Shang said

about everything. He will inform you

chair. "Thank you," he said as

the door and

in the hallway with a

study. "I will be back shortly," he told Shang before

raised an eyebrow as he looked at the smiling

the Lightning Emperor asked

are keeping

said with two nods. "Shang is quite a peculiar person. When I first investigated

further. "Misread?" he

accurate, but after talking with him,