"You should first look at your separate space," the Dean said. "To do so, simply concentrate on wanting to be in your own world. At the start, you might need to gather a lot of focus, but it will become easier with practice."
"You can look around, but don't stay in there too long. There's more I have to tell you."
Shang nodded and closed his eyes.
Deep inside, he wished he could go to a place only he had access to.
Sure enough, Shang felt a pull a bit later, and he felt like he was falling into an abyss.
Then, he opened his eyes.
Shang's eyes widened as he looked at his new surroundings.
It was bizarre but also beautiful.
What did he see?
Grass.
It was basically a lawn.
However, the lawn stretched into infinity.
There were no mountains, no rivers, no hills, no craters, no trees, no animals.
It was just an infinitely long lawn.
The sheer openness of it all made Shang a bit nervous, but he quickly calmed down when he remembered that he could leave whenever he wanted.
Being in such a vast and unending space without any variation had a certain feeling of insignificance to it.
But there was one thing that stood out.
Shang saw a big tablet made of stone jutting out from beside him. It was three meters tall and a meter wide.
On it, Shang could see all the rules of the separate space, or most of them. After all, the God had told Shang something that wasn't on the tablet.
What did the tablet say?
"You can store whatever you want as long as it's not alive."
"If you want to store something in here, you must be able to lift it with your arms, or the space won't accept the object."
"You have no control over what Mana enters this space."
"Your perception can not be in this space and in the real world at the same time."
"While inside here, you are in a separate body that perfectly copies your real one."
Then, the tablet talked about the trial Shang could take, and Shang saw a countdown at the bottom of the tablet.
It was a bit weird to see the carvings in the stone tick down like a digital display.
After reading through all of it, Shang nodded.
This separate space was definitely useful.
Due to how the Sparrens were transformed into Space Rings, it was basically impossible to put everything into one Space Ring. On top of that, with one lapse of judgment, the Space Ring might be destroyed.
Of course, the storage space of Space Rings was also limited. Most of them could only store one cubic meter of stuff. Sure, that was a lot, but it would become difficult to look through all one's stuff if it was cramped.
After that, Shang threw one last glance at his own world and willed himself back into the real world.
This time, he felt like he was being pulled out of an abyss, and as soon as he left it, he opened his eyes.
"Fuck!" Shang shouted in a mix of fright and pain.
As soon as Shang had returned, he felt the familiar pain of a broken bone coming from his left arm. On top of that, the right side of his body felt severely bruised.
Shang could deal with pain, but he hadn't expected that he would be in pain right now.
Then, Shang felt some vertigo as he realized that he was lying on the ground, near the wall.
As far as he remembered, he had been sitting on the table before going into his world.
"What happened?" Shang asked in shock as he slowly sat up, his body quickly regenerating.
The Dean looked at Shang.
"I kicked you."
Silence.
"You kicked me?" Shang asked.
The Dean nodded.
A feeling of anger and frustration broke out in Shang.
He could deal with the pain, but breaking his bones wasn't funny!
But then, Shang's mind calmed down as he realized why the Dean had done so.
Shang took a deep breath.
"I see," Shang said, "but you could have also told me."
"Showing you is better than telling you," the Dean answered.
Shang released a sigh.
Why had the Dean kicked him?
To show him one of the separate space's weaknesses.
What happened to Shang's real body while he was inside his separate space?
It remained motionless in the real world.
By kicking and injuring Shang, the Dean had shown that Shang had to be careful whenever he decided to visit his space.
When Shang had opened his eyes, he had realized that the pain was already receding. It was still painful, but it wasn't as strong as when the bone was just broken.
That meant that Shang had been injured at least several seconds ago.
And he had not noticed it while he had been in his separate space.
"As you can see, entering your separate space is a risk," the Dean said. "At the moment, you probably need something like three seconds to enter and exit, making it basically unusable in battle."
"However, the more powerful you become, the easier it gets. Since you are now in the General Stage, your mind will also slowly start to progress alongside your body."
Shang nodded and stood up. "Thanks," he said.
The Dean also nodded. "Next, we have to prepare you for your trial. For that, you need to become familiar with your new powers."
"How powerful has my body become?" Shang asked.
"According to my test, your body is at the halfway point in strength with the power of a human at the starting point and the power of the beast at the endpoint."
"To give an example, if an Initial General Stage warrior had a power of one and an Initial General Stage beast a power of five, you would be at a three. Five minus one is four. Four divided by two is two. Two plus one is three."
"The formula is Shang equals beast plus warrior divided by two or s=(b+w)/2."
Shang frowned as he looked at his hands. "I'm not sure if that's better or worse than I thought."
"It's perfect," the Dean said. "As you progress, you will become more and more powerful in comparison to humans. Yes, the beasts will also grow more powerful compared to you, but you are a human, not a beast."
"Beasts don't have elaborate and complex techniques. So, while the gulf will still continue to grow, it won't be insurmountable."
"If my body were as powerful as yours will be when you reach my level, the Exploding Mountain Turtle would have had no chance against me," the Dean said.
"You have to remember that the gap between warriors and beasts is massive. A beast at the Early Commander Stage already has a body as powerful as a warrior at the Peak Commander Stage."
"When you are at the Early Commander Stage, you would have physical power equal to a Late Commander Stage warrior due to the exponential increase in power where the third level is a bigger power increase than the two levels before it and so on."
"At the moment, your body has the power of an Early General Stage warrior while being at the Initial General Stage."
"That increase in power is incredible. To put this into perspective, if Ranos had your body, the number of True Mages that could win against him would be in the single digits in the entire world."
"You are several times faster, more powerful, and have several times the defense of any other warrior on your level in the future."
When Shang heard that, he felt like his insides were burning.
Power!
He finally had power!
The gap was somewhat closed. Yes, the Mages still had many special means and Spells to push them even further, but that was easier to overcome than the very basis of his existence.
"Now, we need to prepare you for the trial in about a month," the Dean said. "I want you to do as well as possible since your reward will also help the warriors all across the world."
"So, it's in all of our interest to see you succeed."
"And because of that, I have a proposal," the Dean said.
"A proposal?" Shang asked.
The Dean looked into Shang's eyes.
"Are you willing to become my disciple?"
