Shang's new memories swept through his mind in an instant, and he opened his right eye again.
'Once again, I'm glad that I didn't ask a stupid question, even though I was so young back then. It's a nice feeling to have a younger version of yourself help you far in the future. I just hope the questions stay relevant.'
'I should keep that habit alive. Right now, many things feel impossible. For example, I still don't know how I can combine all the different kinds of attacks into one cohesive battle style. I do have all the attacks, but they are distributed over four different weapons, and I can only use one of them at a time.'
'I simply trust in my future self to make these things possible. Right now, I have the opportunity to create a foundation for my future self. In the future, I will be grateful for my mindfulness in the past, which is currently the present.'
'Try out new things and find a way to elevate my being, huh?'
Shang scratched his chin as he mulled over these words for a while.
'I have some ideas, but I have no way of knowing if they are actually realistic or not. However, I shouldn't be too worried about these things right now. I just reached the True Path Stage, and I need to get used to this level first. Finding a way forward at this point would be inefficient since I lack the necessary experience right now.'
'For now, I need to keep my Battle-Strength high. To keep my Battle-Strength high, I need to know a lot of things, and knowing a lot of things means gaining experience, which will help me to advance in the future.'
'My future progression will be built on what I decide to do in the True Path Stage.'
'Never tire.'
'Never stop trying.'
'Always go forward.'
'My future self will thank me for it.'
Shang nodded once and stood up.
It was time to test his power.
"Finally done?"
Shang immediately became startled and jumped to the side.
He had grown used to his Spirit Sense, and his Spirit Sense could see basically everything.
So, when someone suddenly asked him something from right beside him, he was taken off guard.
Shang hadn't felt anyone near him just now!
Shang looked at the place with shocked eyes, and his eyes only widened even further.
The jester!
It was here!
This was the first time that the God had actually shown himself in the real world!
"What, you think I can't enter my own world?" the jester asked with a mechanical smirk. "This is my world, and I can appear wherever I please."
Shang slowly calmed down and took a deep breath. "I was simply surprised because I didn't see you with my Spirit Sense."
"Spirit Sense, huh?" the jester asked with a smirk. "So, how does it feel? When you just came to this place, you couldn't even imagine how it feels to perfectly see kilometers of your surroundings with just your mind."
"Quite different from Earth, right?"
Shang had already thought about these things many times, and he had come to the realization that it was impossible for him to emulate the feeling of being on Earth.
He had simply been in this world for too long, and all the magical things had become reality.
Right now, Earth felt more like a fantasy world than this place to Shang.
"Well, that's what time can do to someone," the jester said, reading Shang's mind.
"Why are you here?" Shang asked.
The jester waddled around the cave with his short and mechanical legs.
Maybe the God intended it to be funny, but with his terrifying presence, perceiving the situation to be humorous was an impossibility.
"Three things, actually," the jester said as he looked at the walls of the cave. "I thought that appearing myself to tell you of these things would be the best way."
"What things?" Shang asked.
"Two major changes and a small gift," the jester said.
"Okay, I'm listening," Shang said.
The jester lifted his right arm and extended one finger.
"First, congratulations! You've been promoted!" he said with a smirk.
Shang blinked a couple of times. "Promoted? What do you mean?"
"You are no longer the medium to create future entertainment. You are now the entertainment yourself!" the jester said with a wide grin.
Shang only looked at the jester. He thought that he didn't need to ask since the jester read his mind anyway.
"I want to hear you ask," the jester said.
Shang took a deep breath.
"What does that change entail?" he asked.
"It means that you are currently bringing me more entertainment than the potential entertainment you can create by making every other warrior stronger."
"You see, you've managed to reach a level of power that I have not foreseen. Your Battle-Strength currently rivals the greatest geniuses in the entire world, and seeing such a talented person create a Path for themselves is far more interesting than simply making them make other warriors stronger."
"I don't want to see you theorize a way to reach the Fifth Realm. No, now, I want to see how far you can go. I want to see how many Realms you can advance before you run out of steam."
"So, congratulations, I don't need you to give techniques to the warriors anymore. You can now fully concentrate only on yourself."
"Also," the jester said, a bit of his mirth vanishing, "in the next trial, you will probably get so many points that the rewards you would get are so advanced that the other warriors can't even make use of them. It's like you show them a way to create a microchip when they haven't even learned how to make plastic."
"They just can't use that stuff because they are missing the basic requirements that allow them to reach the level of power required to make use of the rewards, essentially making them useless to 99% of warriors."
"You know, I was expecting the warriors to slowly progress over time. The foundation grows wider and wider until one person breaks the record. Then, the record gets broken again, and again, and again."
"But, right now, you are at like the eighth again."
"You basically skipped the entire process."
Shang could see where the God was coming from.
Just the Star Map was already so advanced that the Mages in the world refused to believe that some warrior created it.
The previous rewards, like the basic techniques or the ranged attack, had elicited no suspicion.
Sure, a warrior could come up with that.
And if the most powerful warriors were maybe at the fifth, sixth, or seventh Realm already, no one would have doubted that the Star Map had been created by a warrior.
This showed how advanced the technique was in comparison to the current level of warriors.
"So, I don't need to care about other warriors anymore, right?" Shang asked.
"Correct," the jester said. "Do whatever you want. As long as you don't purposefully decide to eradicate all warriors or suppress their progress, I don't care."
Shang nodded.
"And the other change?"
The jester smiled.
"With you getting promoted, someone else has to take your job."
Shang knew what that meant.
"A new person from Earth will be introduced to the Storm Eagle Zone soon. If you find him, help him get started on the journey. You don't have to look after him, but I don't want this guy to perform horribly just because you keep relevant information from him."
