Sword God in a World of Magic

Chapter 168: Rise

During the first Day of Chaos, Shang had been under Yiral's protection the entire time. If Yiral hadn't been there, Shang would have died many times over.

During the second Day of Chaos, Shang managed to survive on his own. Well, at least as long as one ignored all the guards that dealt with all the beasts.

Shang had learned even more during his second Day of Chaos, and he took a several-days-long break from his classes to work on his own fighting style.

Shang returned to class, but his Battle-Strength seemingly hadn't changed.

That was because he was fighting humans.

When it came to beasts, Shang had become much more powerful over the last couple of days.

A month passed.

"Guess who's back!" Astor shouted with a wide smile as he arrived at the Preparation Grade Caterpillar Class lesson.

Astor had reached the Peak Soldier Stage!

Shang only smirked.

The two of them quickly fought.

Shang lost horribly.

By now, Shang was slightly above-average in the Preparation Grade Caterpillar Class, while Astor was outstanding.

He could already attempt to fight for the top spot in the Preparation Grade.

After the fight, Astor looked at Shang with shock.

"Man, you've become really powerful!" he said. "It's hard to imagine that you have only been here for a bit more than half a year!"

Yes, Astor had won convincingly, but the fight hadn't been easy for him. He didn't need to unleash his Affinity, but he had to fight with everything else he had.

For the first time, Shang could see his actual progress.

Astor was no longer a level weaker than Shang, but Shang had still managed to fight him for quite some time.

Of course, this fight had been a one-time thing. Shang was still a bit too weak to teach Astor something right now.

Because of that, Shang had to fight someone else from the Preparation Grade while Astor fought the most powerful students.

Another month passed.

"You will join the next practical lesson and watch from the side."

Shang looked with shock at the person that had suddenly spoken to him.

It was Vice-Dean Ranos!

Vice-Dean Ranos had never spoken to Shang!

"Yes?" Shang asked.

"You should know enough about Mages by now, and the Dean needs you to prove your power against Mages in the future," Vice-Dean Ranos told Shang. "The procedure is to close the gap between warriors and Mages, and winning against Mages is the best way to prove that the procedure works."

"For now, you don't need to fight them. Simply watch the other students fight them and learn from their fights."

Shang only nodded. "Alright. I also think it might be time for me to see how warriors and Mages fight."

After that, Vice-Dean Ranos left.

A couple of days later, Shang followed the red uniforms of the Preparation Grade to the Mage's Academy north of the northeastern Wild Forest.

And then, Shang saw the students fight each other.

It was a massacre.

The Peak Apprentices had already received their Pure Mana Sources, which meant that their control over their Affinities had spiked to a ridiculous degree. At that point, the advantage of the Mages had already taken hold.

And it would only grow more and more pronounced the more powerful everyone got.

A class that specialized in dealing with Mages only managed to win one out of every five fights.

However, the Apprentices didn't ridicule the warriors. Instead, they were rather impressed by them.

Even though the Mages won nearly every fight, none of the fights were easy. The fights had always taken a while.

As Shang watched the students fight, he realized the most important things when it came to fighting against Mages.

And to Shang's surprise and delight, these things were identical to what one needed to fight against beasts.

Speed, adaptability, and flexibility.

A warrior had to close the distance to be a threat to a Mage, which made speed important.

Adaptability was important to counter the multitude of Spells the Mages shot at them.

And flexibility was important to dodge the Spells.

All of these things were important against beasts as well.

When Shang realized that, most of his nervousness left him.

He had feared that he had to create another fighting style to fight Mages. Luckily, his fighting style against beasts was already perfect for fighting against Mages.

After this day, Shang joined the red uniforms every weak to watch their fights.

After a while, the red uniforms also warmed up to Shang and actually talked to him.

Most of them were normal people that had something against Mages.

Maybe a Mage had done something to them in the past.

Maybe they simply feared the oppressive power of the Mages.

Maybe they only wanted to fight against the most powerful humans in the world.

Everyone had different reasons.

Another month passed.

"Please take care of me," Mattheo said with a polite smile as he joined the Preparation Grade for the Caterpillar Class.

Shang had been pleasantly surprised when he saw Mattheo, but that was quickly replaced by deep shock.

By now, Shang had learned a lot about battle and Mages in particular.

And for the first time, Shang could feel Mattheo's true power.

As a warrior, Mattheo was great, but he wasn't at the peak.

But as a Mage, Mattheo was absolutely terrifying.

As Shang stood in front of Mattheo, he felt helpless.

It was like Shang was standing in front of someone at the General Stage.

Mattheo noticed Shang's look and only smiled politely. "You've made terrifying progress, Shang," he said.

Shang didn't know how to answer that.

Mattheo was an absolute monster!

"Come! We've never fought before," Mattheo said with a smile.

Shang took a deep breath.

Yes, Mattheo was terrifyingly powerful, but as a warrior, Shang could fight him!

The two of them fought.

Who won?

Mattheo.

But he had won only barely.

When Mattheo saw that he needed to unleash all his abilities as a warrior to fight Shang, he grew even more impressed.

Shang's current power was quite good, but that was not the impressive part.

The impressive part was how much Shang had grown in the past ten months!

From this day on, Mattheo became Shang's main opponent. The two of them were simply perfect for each other since their power was about equal.

Another month passed.

"Where did you get that?" the clerk in the Hunting Guild asked.

"I hunted it," Shang said simply.

The clerk only looked at Shang with suspicion, but he paid the money anyway.

Shang had just delivered the corpse of an Initial General Stage beast.

Shang had finally made a breakthrough in one of his aspects recently, and it had increased his power by a lot, allowing him to kill his first General Stage beast.

The fight had been absolutely brutal, but Shang had won.

He hadn't had any help.

The beast hadn't been injured before the fight.

It had been a fair fight.

And Shang had killed it.

Of course, the beast was only a General Stage Vanishing Snake, which meant that it was below average in power in a direct confrontation.

However, it was still a real General Stage beast.

Another month passed.

"I… lost?"

Astor lay on the ground with widely opened eyes.

He was in shock.

Astor slowly lifted his head as he looked at Shang.