Shang immediately began running in a random direction.
If the Dean was right and the connection of the Communication Crystal was being intercepted, the Grandmountain Kingdom would believe this to be a matter of national significance.
This meant that, most likely, a High Mage or very powerful Mage would investigate this issue.
How was Shang supposed to flee from someone like that?
He knew that High Mages had terrifying perception. Duke Whirlwind even noticed some random Adept looking at Shang from far away.
Even more, they could maybe trace his whereabouts to a certain degree based on what kind of Mana Shang gave off.
Shang jumped from one spire to the next.
Right now, he was inside a very hot and very spiky area. The ground far below him was glowing with heat, and Shang could easily tell that this Zone had a Zone Beast with a Fire Affinity.
BANG!
Shang released an Ice Blast and shot towards the south.
Then, he released another one.
Following that, he released two Darkness Blasts, something he did very rarely due to the steep price of using one.
After landing at another spire, Shang suddenly turned around and jumped back without releasing any blasts.
A minute later, Shang changed directions and traveled for one minute without any blasts.
BANG!
Then, he released a couple of Fire Blasts.
Half a minute later, Shang arrived near a cave, low to the ground.
Shang immediately ran into the cave and saw a dark-red tiger.
The tiger noticed Shang's approach, but it was already dead before it could do anything.
Shang unceremoniously tore its fur off and put his old clothes into his inner world.
WHOOOM!
He activated his Domain of Entropy and consumed a bit of his skin to damage the fur and make it fit his body more.
By strategically making holes in the fur, Shang had essentially created a large coat.
SSSSHHH!
After that, Shang infused Sword with Fire Mana and made it fuse the skin at the correct places, creating a shirt and some pants made of dark-red fur.
Then, Shang ran to the skinless corpse and rammed his head into it.
A second later, Shang's head came out again, filled with blood.
The Domain of Entropy activated again, and some of the blood on his body was consumed, but he left a lot of scattered spots of blood.
After that, Shang used his Darkness Affinity to make the blood age, leaving stains that seemed old.
Shang quickly grabbed the corpse and tore it apart, waving the bloody pieces around the entire cave.
Some seconds later, the entire cave was a bloody mess, and Shang used his Darkness Affinity to age the spots of blood and to turn the corpse into nothing but bones.
Shang grabbed some remaining fur and put it on the ground, getting rid of all the blood with his Domain of Entropy.
Lastly, Shang dumped a huge amount of ore in the cave.
This was basically all the ore he had gotten from Vice-Commander Wilbury's corpse.
"Sword, I need you to look as crude, big, and powerful as possible," Shang said with urgency. "The Grandmountain Kingdom has barbarians, and they are different from warriors. I need you to resemble a gigantic club. It's fine if you are extremely heavy. You are supposed to be difficult for me to wield in that form."
"Fine," Sword answered as it consumed all the ore.
Shang watched with nervousness as Sword consumed one piece of ore after the other, growing more and more in the process.
Eventually, Sword absorbed over 100 units of ore, and it had become absolutely massive.
It was nearly 250 centimeters long and nearly 50 centimeters wide. Its edges were extremely rough and short. They could barely be called edges.
"My shape changed too quickly," Sword said, "and I used too many different pieces of ore. For now, it will be difficult for me to carry Light and Ice Mana."
Shang nodded. "That's fine."
Then, Shang grabbed Sword and lifted it.
CRK!
The ground beneath Shang cracked as Sword's weight was now only distributed onto two feet.
Shang's muscles bulged as he slowly lifted Sword. He could definitely lift it, but it wasn't easy at all.
Then, Shang performed a strike.
WHOOOOSH!
The loud noise of wind being pushed aside echoed throughout the cave, and Shang's arms bulged as he stopped the swing near the end.
Shang nodded and put his Space Ring into his inner world.
And with that, Shang's disguise was complete.
The person investigating the signal would arrive at an empty spire and look around.
Either they found nothing, or they would find traces of Ice Mana from Shang's Ice Blast.
If they found the traces, they would follow them, which would then lead them to traces of Darkness Mana.
Chances were that the investigator would believe that the spy had a Mixed Affinity for Darkness and Ice, and they would search for more traces.
If they didn't find any further traces, they were more inclined to believe that the spy used some strange technique to vanish. After all, not many people knew about the techniques of a Darkness Affinity.
Either they would continue down the road or turn around and search for other traces, at which point they would find the Fire Mana traces, which would lead them to Shang.
But wait, why would Shang consciously leave conspicuous traces leading directly to him?
Well, if a guard saw a person leisurely walking past them, they wouldn't mind, but if they saw someone sneaking past them, they would pay special attention.
And now, it was up to the investigator to decide if they wanted to pursue the Fire Mana traces or the other ones.
If they decided to follow the Fire Mana traces, they would reach Shang in his cave.
And sure enough, just ten minutes later, someone entered Shang's cave.
It was a woman with long brown hair, and her senses stretched throughout the cave.
A dirty man with a gigantic weapon was intensely training inside the cave. His clothes were rough, amateurish, damaged, and stained with old blood.
There were several bones from dead beasts littering the cave, showing that this man had been living here for a long time.
'An unaffiliated barbarian?' she thought with furrowed brows.
"You!"
Shang's deep voice echoed throughout the cave as he noticed the newcomer.
"Leave this place. This is my home," Shang said calmly but with a lot of power.
The Mage narrowed her eyes at Shang, and a deep brown light appeared in them.
