Shang was walking through a brown wasteland filled with extremely tall spires. The wind was incredibly strong. A normal human would have a very hard time walking through this place.
From time to time, Shang could see a couple of other warriors jumping from spire to spire in search of a beast they could hunt.
Several big beasts were flying through the distant sky, and many other beasts were crawling along the spires.
Today was the first time Shang had actually entered the Canyon in the Storm Eagle Zone.
For decades, he had only trained in the depths of the Caves since he had wanted to keep his existence a secret from the Council.
But with the Council gone, Shang could now go wherever he wanted.
The spires around Shang were the Eternal Spires he had seen from a distance during his first Day of Chaos.
They were made of extremely valuable ore, and many of the warriors were also mining from them while their colleagues defended them from the assault of the beasts.
This was an area where only Commander Stage beasts lived, and only the most powerful warriors below the True Path Stage could attempt to mine the ore here.
Several beasts took note of Shang as he slowly walked through the Canyon, but none of the beasts dared to attack him.
Beasts had powerful instincts, and they could feel a terrifying aura of threat coming from Shang.
A couple of warriors also noticed Shang, but they didn't recognize him.
Funnily enough, they only knew Duke Sword with his armor on.
Sadly, Shang's armor had been destroyed by Susan, and Jerald hadn't had the time to create a new one.
Eventually, Shang reached the end of the Canyon.
Only very few warriors had ever stepped past the Canyon. After all, the land beyond this place was filled with True Path Stage beasts.
Only True Path Stage warriors that had formed a team went to this place, and there weren't many of those.
Especially now.
Additionally, the Storm Eagle Zone didn't have many High Mages in it.
This meant that no one was currently in the land beyond the Canyon.
As Shang stepped past the last Eternal Spire, the wind picked up even more.
A normal human would be flung through the sky, but this wasn't an issue for Shang.
His body was several tons heavy, and the little area his body took up wasn't nearly enough for the wind to impact him in any major way.
A couple of minutes later, Shang arrived at a small cliff and looked forward.
For the first time, Shang saw an area that nearly no one had ever seen.
The Crater.
The land in front of Shang lowered more and more, similar to the Northern Ice Wyvern Zone.
The name Crater was accurate.
As soon as Shang stepped past the cliff, the wind picked up even more. The sheer amount of Wind Mana the Storm Eagle gave off was creating a terrifying storm.
Even though Shang didn't have a great Affinity for Wind Mana, he could feel the Wind Mana very clearly.
For a while, Shang stood only a bit in front of the cliff after jumping down.
The land angled further and further down, and the horizon in front of Shang created an image he had never seen.
There was nothing he could see in the distance.
Only a blue sky.
It was like Shang had arrived at the end of the world.
Shang angled his head down a bit, and his right eye followed the slope of the Crater.
There were a couple of round stones, but they weren't taller than two meters. The fact that these stones were still here despite the constant storm spoke volumes about their hardness.
When Shang's Spirit Sense inspected the stones, he realized that he was looking at True Path Stage ore.
There was so much!
The entire Crater was littered with True Path Stage ore!
At that moment, Shang remembered what Agon had told him.
The permission to plunder lands without any competition was extremely valuable.
Shang was sure that if there were more True Path Stage warriors, this entire place would have been cleaned of ore.
Even more, if Agon were an entrepreneur, he might have harvested all of this himself to sell to the warriors.
Even if one didn't need the ore, one could still sell it for an amazing profit.
It was literally like picking money off the ground.
Then, Shang's gaze focused on the horizon again.
He tried to estimate how far he could see.
He was sure that he could see further than his Spirit Sense, but he still couldn't be sure how far he could see.
But one thing was clear.
'The Storm Eagle Zone is actually bigger than the maps made it out to be,' Shang thought.
On the maps, the Storm Eagle Zone was about as big as every other Zone, around 80 to 100 kilometers across.
But as soon as Shang reached the Crater, he was sure that it was at least 150 kilometers from north to south.
At that moment, Shang's right eye was pulled to a certain spot in the distance by some subtle movement.
For a bit, Shang wasn't sure if the black thing in the distance had actually moved or not.
But then, Shang saw it move a bit, and he recognized something.
It was a feather!
For just a moment, Shang had seen a feather poking out of the black object in the distance.
Now, Shang knew what he was looking at.
'The Storm Eagle.'
'That gives me a good reference.'
For the first time in a long while, Shang's mind went back to Earth. Specifically, he remembered math class from high school.
Shang knew that the Storm Eagle was about two kilometers long, and he could see how big it looked from here.
He did some simple calculations in his head and quickly came to a result.
'Something between 40 and 80 kilometers from here. Too much guess work to get to a concrete result.'
'That means that the Storm Eagle Zone is probably around 150 to 200 kilometers from north to south.'
After satiating his curiosity, Shang stepped forward and walked to one of the huge stones of ore.
He pulled out his Great Sword from the back and put it to the stone.
"Early True Path Stage," Sword told Shang.
"What about the others? Can you make an estimate?" Shang asked.
"They are similar in level. If you want the valuable stuff, we need to go deeper into the Crater."
Shang nodded. "I just wanted to know."
For the first time in a long while, Shang was interested in knowing more about his surroundings.
The thought that not many people had been here made all of this that much more interesting.
Shang continued walking forward, but he wasn't walking in a straight line.
Thanks to his huge Spirit Sense, Shang could avoid being noticed by Late True Path Stage beasts and more powerful.
He didn't really care about the Initial to Mid True Path Stage beasts, but the more powerful ones could become troublesome.
Shang wasn't here to fight but to search for something.
From time to time, Shang felt the senses of a True Path Stage beast focus on him. When that happened, he simply looked back.
Most of the time, the beast would look away again.
But of course, there were some that wanted to fight.
Shang simply released one attack.
If they survived, they would realize they were outmatched and would flee.
If they died, Shang collected the corpse.
He didn't really care either way.
Cling… cling… cling.
After a while, Shang heard some sounds that sounded like a bigger wind chime.
When he heard these sounds, he had to smirk.
'Sure enough, just like the book said.'
Shang had already found the origin of the sound, and he had been walking toward it for a while now.
After a bit, Shang arrived in front of a two-meter-tall piece of ore.
The sounds of wind chimes had become louder and more numerous.
It was like there was a wall of wind chimes hanging in front of him.
Shang couldn't suppress a grin when he saw the stone in front of him.
There was a vine covering the entirety of the stone, and there were long, metal-like things hanging from it.
The sound came from these things hitting each other in the wind.
If one didn't know any better, one would think that these things were long blades.
But, in fact, they were seeds.
Shang looked at the wall filled with seeds for several seconds.
'Wind Blade Seed.'
'Increases familiarity with swords!'
