Sword God in a World of Magic

Shang noticed that the barrier before him started to distort under the pressure.

Shang pulled his hand back and healed himself to his peak.

He had filled the barrier with an unreal amount of Death Mana, and it wouldn't stop absorbing Mana anytime soon.

Shang watched the barrier distort more and more until…

BANG!

The barrier shattered.

WHOOOOOOM!

As the entire barrier around the trial vanished, all the wet ground surrounding it suddenly imploded, filling the spots that had been filled with normal air until now.

In the short moment when the barrier had been destroyed but the earth hadn't yet filled in the empty space, Shang had been able to feel his surroundings with his Spirit Sense.

The image Shang had seen was of a rather large room with several pitfalls, several Magic Circles, and several platforms.

Shang assumed that this had probably been some kind of trial where people had to find out how the Magic Circles worked to divine the correct way across the platforms and pitfalls.

But now…

As soon as the barrier broke, all the earth rushed into the room, destroying the platforms, filling the pitfalls, and disrupting almost all the Magic Circles.

Shang remained standing on his spot for a couple of seconds until all the ground around him had calmed down.

Then, Shang took out the emblem and looked at the arrow.

Diagonally down.

Shang hadn't seen his target in the brief moment before the earth had filled in the gaps, which meant that his target was inside a different challenge within the trial.

Shang remembered where one of the doors had been and dug towards that spot by punching more dirt.

None of the pitfalls, platforms, and Magic Circles worked anymore.

Some seconds later, Shang reached the doorway, and one punch later, the door opened slightly.

WHOOOM!

The door immediately exploded outward, and the earth around Shang rushed into the opened doorway.

Shang simply continued punching forward.

BANG!

After one particular punch, Shang noticed that he had destroyed something that wasn't the normal kind of ground.

of marble shot

hallway with a stairway that went upward, and he

emblem again

Diagonally down.

the door, through the room, and then through the other

that the angle was different, which meant that he had just punched through

meant that this

kick diagonally down when

He realized something.

that, he looked at the arrow again and oriented himself perfectly

adhere to the planned

advanced, the more the arrow

moving but that he was

prepared himself for a battle as

Yet, nothing was happening.

rapidly when Shang was

around a bit, Shang realized that his target was essentially directly in front of

could already move

moved his arms forward and dug more

he

was a small cube of bloody meat surrounding a

particularly

permanently resist the pressure at the bottom of the Eternal

spot was even deeper

the pressure underground was even more brutal than the pressure in

the Cloud had probably been taken

Mana Shield had been

her Mana had

earth had killed her and compressed

was the body of an

Not very strong.

about as strong as Shang's body

comparison to Shang,

already under quite

imagine how a Mage's

out of the cube of

'Pretty good,' he thought.

guessed that the contents were worth quite a couple of Grade Seven Mana Crystals. Way better than the beggar

meat to the side again and punched

layout of the trial and kept checking what kind

while, Shang noticed that he wasn't destroying marble anymore and

next couple of minutes, Shang kept searching through the highest layer of the trial until he found one single

a bit and noticed that it led to an

This was the exit.

finding the exit, Shang turned around again

opening it, he began to dig