The wheels began to spin again, but this time, the fields on the wheels were bigger, which meant that several fields had vanished.
There were not that many Peak Commander Stage warriors in the world.
Eventually, the wheels stopped, and Shang's opponent appeared.
It was a male warrior with long brown hair, wearing golden armor and carrying a spear.
'That's the armor of Commanders in Duke Whirlwind's territory,' Shang realized.
'However, I don't know him. That probably means that he is the Commander of Swamp Lake City.'
There were only three big cities in Duke Whirlwind's territory.
Shang had met the Commander of Warrior's Paradise, and Ice Heaven didn't have any powerful warriors since that was where most of Duke Whirlwind's powerful Mages lived. Ice Heaven was filled to the brim with True Mages. They didn't need any warriors to protect them.
Which only left the Commander of Swamp Lake City unaccounted for.
The jester slowly lifted his hammer and struck the bell.
DING!
The Commander opened his eyes and looked at Shang.
SHING!
Shang immediately jumped to the side when his instincts were screaming at him.
A powerful and thick needle barely passed by Shang's body!
'This is what they use to kill flying beasts!' Shang remembered.
Shang turned toward his opponent and realized that he had already closed the gap.
The Commander's spear quickly stabbed forward.
Shang quickly saw the purpose of the attack and how it was performed, but that didn't always help.
The Commander had a stronger body than Shang, and there was simply no good way to deal with that attack.
So, even though Shang knew exactly what the opponent was doing, he had no chance but to comply.
BANG!
The spear hit Sword's side.
CRK!
A crack appeared on Sword, and Shang could feel the pain Sword was feeling.
Sword was only at the Late Commander Stage, while the Commander obviously had a weapon that was at the Peak Commander Stage.
One or two more unfavorable clashes, and Sword might break completely!
Shang gritted his teeth as he jumped back.
'I totally forgot about that!'
For a second, Shang felt like he was back in his first lesson in the Caterpillar Class.
Back then, every single attack had threatened Sword's life since it had been too weak at the time.
The Commander quickly shot after Shang and readied another strike with his spear.
Shang quickly thought of a countermeasure.
BANG!
Shang punched the tip of the spear with his left hand, the spear piercing through Shang's left arm.
Shang's right arm swung Sword forward.
At that moment, the earth around the warrior transformed into spears, which all pointed at Shang.
If he decided to go through with that attack, Shang would definitely die.
Then, the spears shot at Shang, and Shang gritted his teeth.
WHOOM!
The earthen spears turned into Earth Mana as Shang activated his Domain of Entropy.
He lost all of his Mana with that single use.
The attack was just that powerful.
The Commander's eyes narrowed, and he moved his head towards Sword.
That seemed like a stupid idea, but the Commander was obviously wearing extremely powerful armor.
The Magic Circles would activate, block the attack, and throw Sword backward, leaving Shang open.
Then, the Commander would cut through Shang's body with his spear, which was already embedded in Shang's left arm.
Shang didn't like it, but he knew that there was only one way out of this situation.
Sword was engulfed in black flames, and it hit the warrior's head.
BANG!
The black flames destroyed the Magic Circles and killed the Commander.
The Commander's spear had already left Shang's left arm and had already dug into Shang's torso.
A bit more, and Shang would have been cut in two.
The black flames vanished, and Sword had shrunken to its original form again.
At that moment, the cheering returned.
Shang took a deep breath and summoned his last pieces of ore.
Sword consumed the ore and grew to its bigger size again.
However, this was all of Shang's useful ore.
The next time Sword used its ability, it would stay in its smaller form until Shang got some more ore.
The crack on Sword also vanished after absorbing the ore.
Shang looked at Sword with furrowed brows. "A fight with a powerful Peak Commander Stage warrior might help me a little bit with my power, but I can't risk you."
"I'm sorry," Sword said.
"There is nothing to be sorry for," Shang said. "I didn't have the time to search for better ore, and even if I found some, your added weight would slow me down. My body is not yet as powerful as the body of a Peak Commander Stage warrior."
Sword didn't answer.
Shang took a deep breath and sighed.
Then, he looked at the jester.
"That's it for the warrior category," he said.
The jester didn't seem perturbed. "The fight would have been boring anyway," he said. "You know all three powerful Peak Commander Stage warriors, and you wouldn't have had a chance against any of them."
Shang nodded.
Yes, he had trained with Teacher Mervin for five years, but that was still not enough to close the gap.
Shang was pretty sure that he knew which opponents would have awaited him.
Vice-Dean Ranos was definitely the most powerful of the three.
Vice-Dean Soran was another one.
And the last one was probably the Commander of Warrior's Paradise.
The youngest amongst them, Soran, was already incredibly powerful.
His Path was probably not as powerful as Teacher Mervin's Path, but with Soran being a level stronger, he could probably fight Teacher Mervin equally.
The other two were not any weaker.
This meant that Shang would be fighting another Teacher Mervin, and he knew how that would turn out.
Additionally, even if these three decided to teach Shang something, they definitely wouldn't give their lives for him. Even though they were copies, they still wanted to live.
Lastly, Shang had been fighting against nothing but warriors for the last five years, and he needed to fight something else.
So, even if the fight might have helped with his power, it wouldn't have been much.
"Ten points in the beast category and fourteen points in the warrior category," the jester said. "Your score is already higher than your cheated score from the last trial, and you haven't even fought the Mages yet."
"Seems like you will get quite a good reward."
Shang nodded.
At that point, the wheel with the weapons vanished, leaving only the wheel with the Affinities behind.
"Let's get to the last category."
"The Mages."
