Shang only kept swinging his sword.
He wasn't sure how long he had been swinging his sword, but he knew it had been a long time, judging by how many resources he had consumed.
As more and more time passed, Shang's mind seemed to vanish.
He didn't think about Jerald anymore.
He didn't think about the Kingdom anymore.
There was just nothing.
Only Shang and Sword existed.
Shang had truly transformed into a machine that only performed one task over and over again.
Time stopped mattering.
The world stopped mattering.
During his long and isolated training in the Peak Commander Stage, Shang had still been contacted by Jerald time and time again with news. Jerald had always kept him up to date with the developments of the Kingdom.
But now, nobody was contacting Shang, and he was thankful for that.
The fewer distractions there were, the better.
Only his power was important.
Everything else was unimportant.
Shang only focused on the feedback of the Wind Blade Seed.
As more time passed, more and more of the good sounds appeared.
Shang was making progress.
Eventually, Shang managed to perfect one of the swings.
Every time he used the attack, he would hear the sound signifying that he had succeeded.
It was a lot of work to get this down just right, but Shang knew that there was more he needed to do.
Being able to unleash a perfect attack during practice was one thing. Doing the same thing during a chaotic battle was something entirely different.
But for now, Shang only concentrated on being able to perform his attack.
Performing the attack during a battle would be a task for the future.
Shang focused on the next attack until he could perform that one perfectly as well.
Then, the next one.
And the next one.
The time inside the Caves never seemed to move.
There were always the same beasts, the same walls, the same Mana...
Everything was always identical.
The absence of night and day also made the area feel even more isolated from time.
But Shang just kept swinging.
He just continued swinging.
As more time passed, more and more of his attacks became perfect.
He didn't know how long it had taken him, but eventually, Shang managed to perfect even his last attack in his Great Sword State.
After accomplishing that, Shang took a deep breath and repeated every single attack again.
Everything was perfect.
For just a moment, Shang paused.
'The first step is complete. Two more to go.'
Shang grabbed his Great Sword and walked deeper into the caves.
He had to practice his attacks on actually moving targets that also struck back.
Shang's first opponent was a beast at the Initial True Path Stage.
This beast had a body just as powerful as Shang, which gave him good practice.
Even though attacking a moving target was very different from just attacking nothing, Shang managed to get back into his flow rather quickly.
It only took him several hours of training against about 50 Initial True Path Stage beasts.
Naturally, Shang didn't kill all of them. After all, he would need these beasts again when it was time for his next State to be tested.
After dealing with the Initial True Path Stage beasts, Shang went to the Early True Path Stage beasts.
This time, things became much more difficult.
Shang was definitely more powerful than the beasts, but he needed to switch attacks very often while preparing a different one, completely off-setting his rhythm.
Additionally, Shang now needed to actually use his Ice Element in attacks, making it even more difficult to unleash everything perfectly.
The Mana movement was identical, with or without using Elemental Mana. However, the addition of Elemental Mana made it harder to control. After all, there was a lot more power behind the second one.
This time, it took Shang much longer.
In fact, Shang even left the Caves and went to the Crater during the end of his training.
The variety of beasts in the Caves had dried up, and Shang had essentially already fought against every single Early True Path Stage beast inside the entire Caves.
Luckily, just like the Caves, the Crater also had basically no visitors, which meant that Shang wasn't being interrupted during his training.
Shang continued fighting against the Early True Path Stage beasts in the Crater, but he still avoided killing them.
Funnily enough, Shang noticed that the performance of his attacks had become even worse after fighting the new opponents.
'I think I've underestimated the impact of variety on my performance,' he thought.
Shang continued fighting the different beasts in the Crater for a long time.
Eventually, Shang perfected his attacks again.
But instead of changing to Mid True Path Stage beasts, Shang decided to try a further increase of variety first.
Shang left the Crater, flew towards the northeast, and entered the Empress Cobra Zone.
He flew deeper and deeper into the Empress Cobra Zone until he arrived at the deadliest part of the entire Zone.
The True Toxin Swamp.
This was where the True Path Stage beasts lived, and Shang immediately jumped into battle again.
Sure enough, his attacks stopped being perfect, but their quality hadn't dropped by too much. He was still succeeding about 90% of the time.
Perfecting his attacks in his new environment didn't take as long as the first time.
Then, Shang went back to the Caves and the Crater to test his attacks again. He wanted to make sure that he hadn't lost his touch with the other opponents.
He messed up once, but everything after that was perfect again.
'I think I need even more variety. If I want my attacks to be perfect, they have to be perfect no matter who my opponent is.'
After making his decision, Shang shot toward the Ice Wyvern Zone.
Eventually, Shang stopped above a mountain range encircling a forest.
Shang knew this place very well.
This was Jerald's garden, the place where Shang had first appeared in the world.
Shang's Spirit Sense encompassed the garden, but he couldn't find a single beast at the Commander Stage.
'Seems like the hedgehog died or left.'
Usually, Shang might have fallen into memories, but this was not the case today.
Shang wasn't here for memories but to train.
Shang flew towards the middle of the garden and blasted through the thick sheet of ice above the central lake.
This was one of the tunnels that led to the gigantic underground lake below the Ice Wyvern Zone.
The True Path Stage beasts and Archbeasts could only be found in the tunnels leading to the lake and the lake itself.
This was Shang's next training stop.
