As the Mage died and the cheering returned, Shang took a deep breath.
His body had become smaller by a bit.
His Long Sword State could be likened to a meteorite. It had incomprehensible offensive power, but every single action sapped Shang of his Mana and life energy.
If the offensive power in this State weren't enough, Shang would vanish.
The opponent wouldn't even need to kill him since his own powers would do that for them.
Shang recovered the lost life energy by absorbing the corpse. Luckily, the Mage's meager life energy was just enough to recover the bit of life energy Shang had used.
Shang summoned some more ore and returned Sword to its Saber State before the wheel appeared.
"Level seven: Weak Mid High Mage."
'This is the first time I've reached level seven against the Mages. On my first time, I used Entropy on level six, and during my second time, the fight on level six ended in a draw.'
This represented a major step in Shang's growth.
He could now defeat nearly every single Mage that was one level above him, except for the very select few that had created a similarly impressive path as Shang.
Finally, Shang had reached the power necessary to jump two levels against Mages.
Shang wasn't certain if he could win against a powerful Mid High Mage, but he was confident in fighting an average one.
The wheel stopped, but Shang didn't look at it.
The Affinity of his opponent wouldn't matter.
SHING!
Shang's opponent appeared, and the bell rang.
Shang immediately unleashed Shooting Stars and Hidden Suns, and his opponent summoned Mana Shield and retreated with Mana Step.
Then, Shang's opponent unleashed an illusory hand that swatted some of Shang's attacks to the side, but some of them still got through.
Every Mage had access to this kind of Spell, but only the prideful and arrogant ones actually used it. They believed that they were good enough to block all the Spells with this Spell, but that very often wasn't the case.
When the Mage realized that they couldn't block all of Shang's attacks, they stopped and looked at him with venom in their eyes.
SHING!
And they used a Mana Step to arrive directly in front of him!
At the same time, they used the same Spell again to attack Shang.
This Spell created some kind of forcefield that mimicked the shape of a gigantic, illusory hand.
The Mage probably wanted to slap Shang away for his disrespect of hitting them.
When Shang saw the Mage getting close to him, his expression didn't change.
BOOOOOM!
Star Shatter!
The Mage was thrown back with incredible force and lost nearly 20% of their Mana!
While they were still being thrown back by their opponent's attack, Shang had already arrived in front of them.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
An incomprehensibly fast barrage of attacks hit their Mana Shield, and their Mana dropped at astonishing speeds!
For a second, the Mage fell into a panic, and they didn't know how they should react to such an assault.
They had never fought a physical fighter before!
What were they supposed to do?!
Then, they decided to use Mana Step.
In an instant, they appeared a kilometer away from Shang.
WHOOOOM!
But Shang had also appeared there!
It was like the two of them hadn't moved!
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! CRACK!
The Mage's Mana Shield cracked, and an instant later, the Mage was cut into pieces.
Shang took a deep breath and refilled his exhausted life energy with his Mana. Then, he absorbed the corpse and regained some of it.
This time, there wasn't enough to refill all his wasted resources, but the waiting time between levels would give Shang enough time to return to his peak.
As the wheel returned, a long black streak in Shang's inner world started to dissipate.
The black streak had led from Shang's original spot to his current one.
This was one of Shang's new techniques for his Long Sword State.
Shang had used Mana Step quite often in the past, and it had saved his life many times.
However, from this point on, Shang wouldn't use Mana Step anymore unless there was some kind of fringe case where it would actually be useful.
Just like Shang had found new ways to incorporate his Light Affinity into his fights, he had found new ways to use his Darkness Affinity.
This technique was created by supplementing Mana Step's significant Mana cost with life energy.
The effect of this technique was nearly identical to Mana Step, but instead of consuming 100% of the Mana inside his mind, Shang now only used 20% of the Mana in his mind and about 5% of his life energy.
Mana Step left no traces, but this technique left a black trail behind due to the life energy that had been turned into Darkness Mana.
Shang called this new technique Shock.
Shock's purpose was to get close to his opponents, and it could be used up to five times in a single fight.
Shock was the main reason why Shang's Long Sword State was so fast.
The barrage of attacks that had killed his last two opponents used a similar principle.
To create this never-ending assault of attacks, Shang was continuously consuming his life energy to increase the speed of his sword.
At the same time, Shang would load his sword with a significant amount of Darkness Mana with every attack, consuming his life energy even more.
This created a rapid explosion of powerful attacks in a tiny timeframe.
Shang called this technique Anger.
Shock and Anger were Shang's two main techniques inside his Long Sword State, but he had a couple more.
The Earth Mage had been buried in darkness nearing the end of their battle, clouding his sight and Spirit Sense.
The technique Shang used to accomplish that was similar to New Moon, the icy domain during his Great Sword State.
However, the domain was a lot smaller than New Moon, and it didn't grant Shang any additional offensive power.
It simply clouded his opponent's senses, making it more difficult to foresee what Shang would do next.
The Darkness Mage Shang had fought in the last trial had used something similar but on a much grander scale.
If Shang were to do that, he would need to kill himself to get enough life energy.
That was obviously not a very good idea.
However, he could keep a little domain of darkness around him without using much of his life energy.
Shang called this domain of darkness Isolation.
There were two more techniques for Shang's Long Sword State, but they hadn't been necessary yet.
As Shang was recovering, he looked at the wheel.
"Level eight: Average Mid High Mage."
