Shang slowly opened his remaining eye, and control came back to his mind.
'Sure enough, I survived,' he thought.
Shang noticed that there was something heavy lying on top of his chest.
It was Sword.
"You survived," Sword said.
"I did," Shang answered. "Thanks to you."
Sword remained silent for a second.
"No problem," it said.
Shang only smiled when he saw Sword.
'While facing death, I was thinking about who would miss me when I died. I was under the impression that no one would miss me,' Shang thought.
'But I was mistaken. There's at least one being that would miss me.'
"How long was I out?" Shang asked.
"I think five minutes," Sword answered.
Shang nodded and slowly stood up. His passive regeneration had already fully healed him.
At that moment, Shang felt a cold wind near his left eye, and he touched it with his hand.
There was only a hole.
'Right, I lost my eye,' Shang thought with a frown. He was happy to be alive, but the loss of his eye weighed heavily on him.
"There's no way of getting that eye back, right?" Shang asked.
"I don't know," Sword answered, "but I think chances are slim. When I use my ability, I can regain the parts I've lost by assimilating more ore, but your body is different."
"I think regrowing your eye would be just as hard as growing a fully functional third arm."
Shang thought about Sword's words.
'That definitely isn't easy. How would I go about growing a third arm? What would I do?'
'Is there a Spell for that? Not sure, but if there is one, it's probably a very powerful and advanced one. After all, I've never seen or heard about a human that gained new appendages, even though having more arms would probably be quite useful to warriors. If there were an easy way, warriors would already use it.'
Right now, it was difficult for Shang to see much due to the darkness, but he could still feel the difference between the two sides of his vision.
'Huh, I've actually never thought about it, but losing one eye doesn't actually mean that I only see half. The only thing I can't see is everything left of my nose, and due to the angle, I can still see a lot of the left side, assuming the thing I want to see isn't directly in front of my left eye.'
'I think I still see around 70% of what I've previously seen. That's actually not that bad.'
"Sword, I want to try my depth perception. Please go to my front and attack me from different angles while I try to block you with one of my fingers," Shang said.
"Alright," Sword answered before jumping up and stopping in front of Shang.
Shang concentrated on Sword, and Sword began to slash forward.
Shang was surprised by Sword's speed. It wasn't as slow as he had imagined.
Clink!
Shang pushed Sword's tip to the side with ease, which even surprised him.
He had expected that his depth perception would have suffered, but he felt like nothing had changed.
Sword quickly unleashed another attack, and Shang also blocked it.
The next ten attacks also were no problem.
"I don't see any problems," Sword said.
Shang's brows furrowed. "It's strange. Logically speaking, since I have relied my entire life on having two eyes, my depth perception should be completely off, but it isn't."
"I think I know why," Sword said. "Try blocking again but close your eye."
Shang raised an eyebrow. Even though he was now missing an eye, his left eyebrow was still there.
However, Shang complied and closed his right eye.
Sword struck again.
Clink!
And Shang blocked it easily, just as before.
Shang's eye opened again, and it widened in surprise.
"My Mana Sense!" Shang said. "You exhibit Mana, and by moving, you also displace all the other kinds of Mana! That's how I can always accurately tell where you are!"
"That's what I've thought," Sword said as it slowly placed itself on Shang's back. Even though it wasn't huge anymore, it was still quite long.
"That's good," Shang said with a sigh of relief. "I feared that my Battle-Strength would have been compromised with the loss of my left eye, but that doesn't seem to be the case. This also tells me that I have long relied on my Mana Sense far more than my sight. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been so easy."
Sword didn't answer. The fact that it said so much was already very unusual.
However, Shang didn't need Sword to answer to know that it cared.
Being by his side was enough.
After that, Shang checked his current condition.
His armor was completely ruined.
The back had completely deformed, making it extremely uncomfortable. The Magic Circles on it had been ground off. The front was also quite deformed, and the black cape was barely there anymore. There were only some loose, black streamers remaining.
Shang decided to take it off, which wasn't easy in its deformed state. Without the Magic Circles, the armor barely gave any protection.
He threw it to the side and looked at it.
At the same time, he felt a cold wind go into his left eye socket.
Shang bent down and ripped off one of the black streamers.
Then, he wrapped the streamer several times around his head, covering his left eye.
He had no intention of walking around with an empty hole in his head.
A black band now covered Shang's left eye.
A second later, Shang took out one of his old black shirts and put it on. Luckily, Shang's armor had never covered his legs since he wanted his legs to remain mobile. Additionally, Shang didn't want to empty the metal shoes of a puddle of blood whenever he decided to use a Fire and Ice Blast in quick succession.
Shang threw one last look at his old armor. 'Well, there goes that look. Sword is now smaller again, and I am back in my black pants and shirt. It's almost like I've traveled back in time, except for that I'm an adult and… well…'
Shang touched the black band hiding his left eye socket.
"What about your damage, Sword?" Shang asked.
"My crack will recover in time," Sword said. "If I weren't made of Early Commander Stage materials, I might have died."
"Can you die?" Shang asked.
"Yes," Sword answered. "If I break, I die."
Shang nodded.
After dealing with the loss of his eye, his condition, and Sword, Shang focused on his surroundings.
The two walls were still there, and the area below Shang was also made out of the same material. Right now, Shang was essentially in a very, very high hallway, which was about ten meters wide.
'Speaking of, how far did I fall?' Shang thought as he looked up. 'That must have been over 15 kilometers at least, right?'
Then, Shang looked at the first wall. 'Which means that I am probably near the deepest part of the Caves, the part where the True Path Stage beasts reside.'
After that, Shang focused on the miscellaneous items around him.
A lot of the stuff hadn't survived the fall, but Shang could still make use of the pieces of ore and the gold. Sure, the gold had also been blasted into pieces, but it was still gold.
After riffling through most of the things, Shang found an emblem, which had also shattered into pieces.
With Shang's Darkness Vision, he found the pieces and rearranged them. A person from Earth might have trouble rearranging something like that, but with Shang's powers, it was quite easy.
About two minutes later, the complete emblem was in front of Shang, and he read what was written on it.
'Just as I've expected,' Shang thought, his eyebrows furrowing.
"Vice-Commander Wilbury."
