Shang slowly absorbed all the life energy out of the corpse.
His flesh recovered, but there wasn't enough for his skin.
When the corpse turned into a husk, it started to vanish, and the cheering returned.
Shang slowly sat back up and closed his right eye.
He summoned some ore and stabbed the little dagger into it.
This time, Sword was absorbing the ore much slower than previously.
Just like Shang, it was in an incredibly weakened state.
Meanwhile, Shang focused on the Mana in the surroundings and did his best to absorb it as quickly as possible.
Some skin already appeared again as the wheel returned.
"Level ten: Weak Late High Mage."
The wheel began to spin, but Shang only kept focusing on the surroundings.
If he wanted to beat the next level, he had to recover as much as possible.
Just before the wheel stopped, Shang had recovered his skin, but he was still missing a lot of life energy and Mana.
He had managed to heal his body, but he would need to rely on his passive regeneration for the next minute or so.
SHING!
Shang's opponent appeared, and Shang opened his right eye.
It was an older man with fiery red hair.
Shang slowly stood up and waited.
The jester lifted his hammer and struck the bell.
DING!
Shang pulled out Sword from the heap of ore.
By now, it had recovered to its Saber State. That was sadly everything it managed to recover in this short amount of time.
However, that was already enough.
The Mage opened his eyes and cast his Mana Shield.
Shang readied his Saber and started his barrage of range attacks.
DING! DING! DING!
The Mage summoned an illusory hand and threw all of Shang's ranged attacks to the side.
There were three levels between them, and Shang's attacks were simply too slow.
However, Shang only continued unleashing his attacks. He even made use of the transforming Hidden Suns.
But the Mage just kept parrying all of them.
Shang only continued.
Five seconds passed.
Five seconds was a lot of time in a fight of such a level. Most of Shang's fights ended within five seconds, after all.
The Mage only continued parrying the attacks with a smirk.
Another five seconds passed.
"How long can you keep this up?" the Mage suddenly asked with a smug voice.
Shang didn't answer.
Five more seconds passed.
"Quite impressive, actually," the Mage said. "Seems like you have a lot of Mana for a physi."
After five more seconds, the Mage's eyebrows furrowed.
That physi should have long since run out of Mana.
How could he still keep up this offense?
One had to know that using this illusory hand to such a fine degree cost the Mage a lot of Mana.
In fact, he had already used up nearly 30% of his total Mana.
His plan had been to simply outlast the physi.
But he grew less and less confident in his plan as time dragged on.
BANG!
Suddenly, Shang charged forward, slowing his offense.
When the Mage saw that, his smirk returned. "Finally out of Mana, huh?"
The Mage only looked at Shang with a smirk. His Focus had already prepared his offensive Spell.
He could kill this physi whenever he wanted, but he wanted to see what else the physi would do.
The Mage enjoyed toying with his opponents.
As soon as Shang reached about a distance of 100 meters from the Mage, he changed his attacks.
Suddenly, one fire pillar after the other appeared below the Mage as Shang switched to Inferno.
The Mage only laughed. "Is that your plan now? You're low on Mana, and you want to use this technique to force me to use Mana Step so that I waste my Mana, too, huh? Well, too bad for you. I know what you're planning, and I'm not moving from this spot. Let's see your dying gasp."
Shang kept unleashing Infernos as the Mage just kept standing on the spot, surrounded by fire.
After the fifth Inferno, the Mage was still confident.
After the tenth, he grew suspicious.
And after the fifteenth Inferno, he grew worried.
SHING!
He used Mana Step and retreated.
When Shang saw that, a gleam appeared in his eyes.
His Saber burst into black flames, and Shang threw it forward.
Out of reflex, the Mage used his invisible hand to slap the Saber to the side, but the invisible hand was destroyed!
And Star Shatter hit the Mage's Shield.
BANG!
Nearly 20% of the Mage's Mana vanished with that attack!
But then, Shang appeared right in front of the Mage, his right eye shining in the newly created darkness.
The Mage immediately used the Fireball that the Focus had prepared.
SHING!
Shang used Shock to evade to the side.
SHING!
Then, he used Shock to return to the Mage.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! CRACK!
Anger!
The fifth attack already broke the Mana Shield since the Mage had taken so much damage already.
The Mage's face transformed into a grimace of fear as Sword stabbed through his head.
The fight was over.
Shang pulled Sword out and absorbed the meager life energy and Mana from the Mage's corpse.
He was at around 50% of his max now.
The corpse slowly vanished, and the cheering returned.
The wheel returned, but it didn't immediately start spinning.
"So, wanna try level eleven?" the jester asked.
Shang took a deep breath.
SHING!
Then, he summoned some spare clothes and put them on.
Wait, what about his armor?
Obviously, he had sacrificed it to Entropy. Otherwise, he would have died in the last fight.
He had been fighting the last battle naked.
"No," Shang answered. "With my armor, I would have a shot, but I don't anymore."
The jester only smirked. "You know, you should get used to that."
Shang glanced at the jester.
"You know, you've already reached levels where every set of armor has to be custom-made by your friend. There are no major advancements in terms of these kinds of armor. There are plenty of Mage robes, but the kind of armor you need doesn't really exist."
"Who will forge your armor in the future? Who knows how to forge it? Who will develop the specific Magic Circles you need?"
Shang's brows furrowed as the jester only grinned.
"You should get used to fighting in normal clothes again."
Shang only wordlessly nodded without looking at the jester.
He knew that the God was right.
The jester jumped off the wheel, and the wheel vanished.
"And that concludes the trial," he said.
"Time for the rewards."
