Shang entered his inner world together with Sword.
It was finally time.
Right now, Sword was in its Colossal Sword State, making it over two meters long and half a meter wide.
Shang was wearing a black suit of armor that covered his entire body, and his hair had been shortened so that it only went a bit over his shoulders.
Wrapped around his left eye socket was a black band made of cloth.
In the past 50 years, Shang had aged quite a bit, but after he reached the True Path Stage, his perceived age receded.
Right now, Shang looked like he was in his early twenties again, which was understandable considering his longevity.
If a True Path Stage warrior could live as long as a High Mage, Shang could live to be up to 500 years old. This meant that not even 20% of his life had passed.
In a way, he looked very similar to the time he had returned to the Skythunder Kingdom. The only difference was the size of his weapon and his armor.
"We can begin," Shang said.
The big stele in the middle of his world vanished, and the old familiar wheel returned.
Just like always, the jester sat on the wheel with a smirk.
"What did you decide regarding the warrior category?" Shang asked without looking at the jester.
"Well," the jester answered, "I gave it some thought, and I decided..."
"That I will get rid of that category."
Shang furrowed his brows. "Any special reason?" he asked.
"You've created something interesting, Shang," the jester said. "Connecting four Stars is not something unprecedented, but it is very rare, even in the grand scheme of things."
"And I'm very interested in what someone like you can come up with."
"If I were to give you the opportunity to fight against ancient warriors, you would take inspiration from their fighting style, which might very likely make you emulate these old fighting styles."
"However, that's boring, and I want something new. That's why I got rid of the warrior category."
"I want to see what you can come up with without anyone to guide you."
Shang nodded expressionlessly.
Naturally, he wasn't a big fan of that. Not being able to see others that were similar to him made it only harder to progress.
Being able to fight ancient warriors would give Shang some insight into what they were aiming for with their power, giving him an inkling as to where he should focus his attention and time.
But without it, things would become difficult.
"Of course, the rewards have been rescaled," the jester said. "Since you can't gain as many points as previously with one category missing, I've scrapped some of the more useless rewards and increased the overall quality. Additionally, I also got rid of rewards that are useless to you but useful to other warriors."
"This is your trial now, not a trial to see how far the warriors have come."
Shang didn't answer.
After some seconds, the jester's smirk widened into a grin.
"Beast category," the mechanical female voice reappeared. "Level one: Weak True Path Stage beast."
The wheel began to spin, and Shang felt like there were far more options on the wheel now.
There were so many options that it nearly became impossible for Shang to make them out, even with his Spirit Sense.
There were probably over a million, which was insane.
That was when Shang realized that the God was probably including every single beast in the world.
Over a million different kinds of True Path Stage beasts.
That meant that there were probably over a billion beasts in the world that had already reached the True Path Stage.
Thinking about such a number made Shang feel unimportant and minuscule.
He had expected that the world would be big, but he hadn't expected it to be that big!
If there were that many True Path Stage beasts already, how many Commander Stage, General Stage, and Soldier Stage beasts would be there?
A hundred billion?
A trillion?
Ten trillion?
Earth had already been overfilled with humans, and they had only been about seven to eight billion.
How many humans were in this world that so many beasts could also live here?
How big was this world?
A hundred thousand kilometers wide?
A million?
Ten million?
Shang had no idea, but he was sure that it had to be absolutely gigantic.
No wonder the God called this world his main world.
Earth couldn't even begin to compare in size.
After a couple of seconds, the wheel stopped on something Shang couldn't make out. The field reserved for this beast was just too narrow for Shang to make out the picture.
But then, the picture became bigger and overtook the wheel.
It was a stork wearing a stupid fish costume.
SHING!
At that moment, Shang's opponent appeared, and he looked over.
It was a thirty-meter-tall stork with scales for feathers, which looked very unusual.
Its beak looked very violent, and its scales were oceanic blue.
Shang slowly took out his sword and waited.
The jester lifted his hammer with a grin.
DING!
And hit the bell!
The stork opened its eyes and looked at its opponent...
Just to see a gigantic wave of fire come toward it!
BOOOOOOM!
The stork screeched as a huge part of its body exploded into the surroundings.
A couple of seconds later, it died.
Shang put his sword on the ground and returned to waiting.
At that moment, the jester whistled with positive surprise. "Isn't that one of your techniques for your Saber?"
"It is," Shang answered. "That's why it was quite a bit slower and didn't have as much power."
Yes, this was one of Shang's new techniques.
This was no longer the typical ranged attack but something far more advanced.
After Shang had created that technique, his body always cooled down a lot whenever he used it. The technique could, at most, be used three times in a row before Shang had to heat up his entire body again.
However, its power had been beyond impressive. In comparison to the normal ranged attack, this one gathered all the destructive energies into a small point, releasing them when they hit something solid.
Sadly, while using his Colossal Sword, Shang couldn't concentrate the energies properly, creating this massive wave, which essentially reduced the attack's power.
Yet, one had to keep in mind that Shang could only use it three times in a row before he had to slowly warm his body again...
At least, that was how it was when he had still been at the Commander Stage.
This technique was part of Shang's Path, and his Path also included his four Affinities.
When Shang reached the True Path Stage, his body had adapted to his Path, making it far easier to use it.
After releasing that attack, Shang's body only cooled down by a little bit.
The Mana inside Shang's body made use of the cold backlash created by the technique, distributed it over the entire body, and even absorbed some of the Ice Mana that had been created back into Shang's body.
While Shang had only been able to use that attack three times in a row back at the Commander Stage...
Now, he could use it probably over 20 times in a row.
His new Battle-Strength couldn't be compared to the weak and frail Shang that had just returned to the Skythunder Kingdom.
Now, Shang could kill a beast on his level from about three kilometers away by swinging his sword just a bit.
Shang's Battle-Strength had advanced to a level where a casual ranged attack had the same power as an offensive Spell of a Mage on his level.
