Sword God in a World of Magic

"You're also joining this time?" a young man with ocean blue hair asked another guy with grey hair.

"Yep," the other guy said with a smile. "All my gains from the Trial of Want have been used up. Now, I need some new resources."

"Man, I wonder how strong you've gotten after that trip," the first guy said. "I heard you got a pretty good evaluation."

The other guy laughed. "It wasn't bad," he said with a smirk.

"Maybe you can actually take down- oh, speak of the devil. There he is," the first guy said as he looked in a different direction.

The other guy raised an eyebrow and also looked in that direction.

And he wasn't the only one.

Right now, over 200 people were gathered in a big plaza near the middle of the Hibye.

There were around 150 High Mages, 30 Archmages, and about 20 Ancestral Mages, and right now, they were all looking at the new arrival.

Shang landed near the edge of the plaza, not greeting anyone.

"You know him?" the guy with grey hair asked the guy with blue hair via voice transmission.

"Everyone knows of him," the blue-haired guy answered.

"Really? Is he that strong?" the grey-haired guy asked.

"Well, he was definitely above average when he was amongst the Archmage Clouds, but I'm not sure about right now," the blue-haired man transmitted. "But his power is not why he is so well known. Can't you feel how strange his Aura feels?"

"Yeah, sure," the other guy answered. "I can feel that his Aura is very weird, but there are many Clouds with weird Auras."

"He's not a Mage," the first guy said.

The eyes of the other guy shot open in shock. "Wait, what?"

"He joined after a century after you went into seclusion. Turns out, there's a warrior with a fourfold Spirit Sense, and he is that warrior."

"Wait, a warrior? You mean like those guys that fight with spears and hammers and stuff?" the other guy asked.

The first guy nodded. "Yes, those guys."

"And they managed to produce an actual Cloud?" he asked. "I mean, can a warrior actually be that strong?"

"He killed two other Clouds, and a third one conceded and left."

Shocked silence.

The grey-haired guy almost couldn't believe what he had just heard.

There was a non-Mage that could actually win against the best of the best among Mages?

"How?!"

The first guy narrated the battle, and the other guy listened with rapt attention.

"Huh, okay," he said, "and now, he's an Ancestral, excuse me, he's in the Sixth Realm?"

"Seems so," the blue-haired guy said. "And judging by the power of his Aura, I would say he is already at the Early Sixth Realm."

"That's a bit fast," the grey-haired guy said. "How long could he have been in the Sixth Realm? Like a century, maybe? Why is he rushing through his Realm like that? He should know that this is essentially wasting potential."

"No idea," the first guy said with a shrug.

The two of them continued talking, but they were definitely not the only ones.

Several other Clouds were talking about Shang.

None of them were stupid. They had seen how strong Shang was. Shang's Battle-Strength might have taken a temporary hit since he had just reached a new Realm and rushed through the first level, but they knew that he was still very dangerous.

Naturally, Shang wasn't actually at the Early Void Break Realm. 

Queen Primordium had created an inconspicuous and small attachment to Shang's Space Ring. This was a permanent talisman, and it made Shang seem like someone in the Early Sixth Realm.

Shang was still at the Initial Void Break Realm.

"Hey, you're the warrior, right?"

Shang turned his head to face someone.

It was a red-haired girl with a bright and excited smile.

"What do you want?" Shang asked coldly.

The red-haired girl blinked a couple of times in shock.

She hadn't expected such an aggressive response. 

"Nothing, really," she said awkwardly. "I just wanted to start a conversation."

"Not interested," Shang said as he turned his head away.

For a couple of seconds, the girl smiled awkwardly, not knowing what to do.

"Well, okay then," she said as she turned around to leave.

Shang just focused forward, waiting for the Wilderness Hunt to begin.

'All these Clouds are my enemies,' he thought to himself coldly.

Meanwhile, the grey-haired man looked at Shang with a skeptically raised eyebrow. "Is he always such an asshole?"

The blue-haired man nodded. "From what I've heard, yes."

The grey-haired man only shook his head in disapproval.

Would he jump forward and defend the girl's honor and admonish the disrespectful non-Mage?

Please, these were not teenagers.

A couple more people gathered over the next couple of days, and by the end, around 350 people had gathered, which was around half of all the Clouds below the Mage Lord Realm.

The Wilderness Hunt was exceedingly popular.

However, it was also where most Clouds met their end.

Eventually, Lucin and 20 Bolts arrived at the plaza.

If this had happened outside the Hibye, the world would have been thrown into an uproar.

21 Mage Lords!

However, inside an Empire, something like this was normal.

Lucin inspected everyone present, and after a couple of seconds, he nodded.

SHING!

Lucin summoned several amulets, one amulet flowing to one person each.

Shang took hold of his amulet and felt the light-blue Aura emanating from it.

This was the mark of being in the Early Sixth Realm.

Shang looked at the other Ancestral Mages and noticed that nearly half of them had white amulets, representing the Initial Sixth Realm.

Then, there were much fewer people with light-blue, blue, and dark-blue amulets, representing Early, Mid, and Late Ancestral Mages.

However, there were even more black amulets, representing Peak Ancestral Mages.

It seemed like most people only joined when they were either at the peak or at the beginning of a Realm.

"Now, let me explain the rules of the Wilderness Hunt," Lucin said.