Shang and Astor talked for several hours inside the bar.
Shang very vaguely told Astor about what he had done, taking care not to unveil any of the confidential secrets.
In Shang's story, all his opponents were also a level weaker than they actually were to hide the powers of the procedure.
"You won against a Mid General Stage warrior?" Astor asked in surprise.
Shang nodded as he drank another mouthful of beer. He had just told Astor about his fight with the officer.
"Is that so surprising?" Shang asked.
"It is!" Astor said. "Mid General Stage warriors can release their Affinity in close proximity to their own bodies. It makes getting close to them very dangerous."
Shang nodded.
Advancing at the General Stage was different from advancing at the Soldier Stage.
Warriors at the Soldier Stage only needed to strengthen their entire body, while warriors at the General Stage also had to gain a certain mastery over their Mana.
Back when Shang "lost" against the average Mid General Stage warrior during the trial, Shang had become a victim of that power.
Back then, the warrior had unleashed a small fireball, which had been the reason for Shang's loss.
This was the exact ability Astor was talking about.
Reaching the Early General Stage wasn't difficult. Basically everyone could reach that easily, but as soon as a warrior tried to reach the Mid General Stage, it would become more difficult.
Strengthening the body was still necessary, but one also had to be able to move the Mana through their bodies with a certain level of mastery. Without that mastery, the strengthening of the body would fail.
This was the first bottleneck or barrier, depending on what word one liked more, that warriors encountered on their journey.
Gaining a certain level of mastery over one's Mana also gave one the ability to unleash a Pseudo Spell.
Pseudo Spells were called as such because they didn't need any incantations. Of course, in exchange for that, they were also far weaker than actual Spells.
For example, when Shang had been hit by the Pseudo-Spell of that Mid General Stage warrior during the trial, Shang hadn't really been injured, even though the warrior's body was essentially a level above Shang.
Of course, if Shang's body had actually been hit, a big part of his chest would have burned away, but he wouldn't have died from that.
To reach the Late and Peak General Stage, one only needed to increase the mastery over their Mana and then strengthen their body the old-fashioned way. One wouldn't gain new abilities, but all the previous abilities one had would become a bit stronger and would use less Mana.
In order to reach the Commander Stage, a warrior needed to create their own Domain.
A Domain was an area around the warrior that was filled with their own will and Mana. It essentially allowed a warrior to manipulate the Mana around them by spending a bit of Mana to control it.
This essentially allowed a warrior to increase the power of their attacks by a factor of two, making the Mana one used effectively twice as efficient.
Naturally, it was incredibly difficult for a warrior to reach such mastery regarding their own Mana, and it took years upon years of training.
Most Commander Stage warriors only reached that level when they were 40 or older.
Of course, there also were some geniuses that managed to reach that level in their thirties, but they were truly rare.
But that only counted for the entire world as a whole.
One had to remember where Shang currently was.
Shang was at the strongest academy for warriors in the entire world.
Just as the name suggested, Warrior's Paradise was a paradise for warriors, and there were a great number of talented warriors here.
Around 50% of all warriors living in Warrior's Paradise managed to reach the Commander Stage in their late thirties.
Now, the obvious question was…
What was Shang's level of mastery?
When Shang had reached the General Stage, he had only had the required level of mastery to reach the Early General Stage.
However, something happened that boosted his level of mastery to an entirely different level.
The reward of the trial.
In order to create the ranged attack from the reward, a warrior needed to have a mastery over their Mana that would allow them to become a Mid General Stage warrior.
Yet, that would only allow them to unleash a weak attack.
The reward automatically allowed Shang to learn it completely, which meant that Shang could exhibit the full power of the reward.
To do that, one needed to have a mastery over one's own Mana to become a Peak General Stage warrior.
And since Shang learned all of that automatically…
Shang could, theoretically, become a Peak General Stage warrior right now as long as he consumed enough resources and trained a lot.
Of course, neither the Dean, Duke Whirlwind, nor Shang wanted to do that.
An inexperienced person would think that this was stupid.
Why would you want to be weaker?
The reason was experience.
Right now, as long as one ignored the effects of the procedure, Shang could win against an average warrior one level above him.
But what about later?
Without the procedure, if Shang became a Peak General Stage warrior at this moment, he might actually fall to be slightly above average.
Talented warriors on his level, ignoring the procedure, would definitely win against Shang then.
In short, Shang needed more time to gain experience.
His body was only around 18 years old right now, which was nothing in comparison to the warriors at the Late or Peak General Stage.
Those were all in their late twenties or thirties.
They had over a decade more experience in fighting than Shang.
Advancing a level always meant increasing one's overall power, but decreasing one's relative power, also called Battle-Strength.
Realm and Stage were quantity.
Battle-Strength was quality.
There were a lot of General Stage warriors that didn't have a great Battle-Strength.
However, there were only a few Commander Stage warriors that didn't have a great Battle-Strength.
And there were no True Path Stage warriors that didn't have a great Battle-Strength, even if there were thousands instead of only one.
The more quantity one aimed to reach, the higher the quality had to be.
If Shang's goal were only to reach the Commander Stage, he would advance right now.
But that wasn't his goal.
He wanted to go much further.
And for that, he needed to always remain on top.
He needed to be the most powerful at his current level.
Astor and Shang continued to talk for several hours.
Sadly, there weren't many interesting things that happened to Astor during the last year.
There were only a couple of fights with beasts and a couple of missions outside.
"Hey, you want to accompany my team when we're hunting in the Wasteland tomorrow?" Astor asked after a while.
"Accompany your team?" Shang asked with a lifted eyebrow.
Astor nodded. "We planned to get an Early General Stage warrior to accompany us anyway."
"Why?" Shang asked.
"We want to enter the Caves in the Wasteland."
Shang looked at Astor with a bit of surprise.
"It's not like you think!" Astor said quickly. "We won't go far. We only plan on staying near the surface."
"We've heard that there are a lot of Initial General Stage beasts in the Caves. Do you know how difficult it is to find Initial General Stage beasts on the surface? There are so many teams at the Initial General Stage that hunt them. Some days, we can't even get one, and when we get one, it's almost always a Trash Bird!"
"But as you know, it's more difficult to flee from a stronger beast inside the Caves, which is why we need someone that can buy us some time to flee. There should only be the occasional Early General Stage beast near the surface, which shouldn't be a problem for you. After all, you only need to secure our retreat, nothing more."
"Of course, you will also get 30% of the reward, and you don't even need to help in the hunt. You will only need to buy us time if an Early General Stage beast appears."
Shang looked to the side.
That would essentially waste an entire day of training.
Should he accompany them?
After some seconds, Shang made his decision.
"Sure."
