Shang was looking at the diagram with a bloodshot eye as he gripped his hair tight with his hands.
He was stressed.
There were so many changes that needed to be made across all the different pathways that it would essentially revert half of the changes that had been made previously.
There were so many issues that needed to be resolved, and Shang hadn't even reached the shared Mana pathways yet.
Things would only get worse from now on.
Now, Shang truly knew how incredible the Mana pathways actually were.
Sure, they weren't perfect, but they were good enough for everything.
By just changing one tiny thing, Shang had made several attacks straight-up impossible to use.
Shang had been looking at the diagram for hours now, trying to find a way to solve the current issue.
However, he was reaching his limit.
He fixed stuff here and there, but there were simply too many changes across the entire thing, and the new pathways felt completely different from the old ones.
It was like the architectural style of these pathways completely differed from the natural one of his original pathways.
After a while, Shang got distracted.
He felt like it was becoming impossible, and his mind was trying to think of a different solution.
Shang looked at the old and new diagrams again and again.
He looked back and forth.
Right now, Shang wasn't exactly thinking about anything in particular. He was just looking at stuff.
Then, Shang looked at the outer pathways, which looked a bit more orderly and straighter than the natural ones.
Shang looked where they led and scratched the top of his head.
After that, he took out a completely new diagram and began to draw the outline of his body.
Then, he put the original and new diagrams on top of each other and marked the spots where all his Mana pathways would lead to.
After several minutes, Shang could see thousands upon thousands of individual small points on the diagram. Luckily, the magical paper could draw new stuff with terrifying accuracy. It was almost like a computer screen.
A normal human would have huge issues with seeing all the individual points, but Shang's eyesight was terrifyingly good.
Then, Shang looked at the new diagram.
Now, there was the outline of his body and just a lot of points.
After that, Shang started to draw lines, connecting all the dots.
All the individual points in one of his fingers went to the middle of the finger and then traveled down to the hand, where all the pathways from the fingers met.
Then, Shang drew a huge pathway going through his arm, which ended in his chest.
He did that for his entire body and looked at it.
And he snorted.
'As if it would be that easy,' Shang thought as he threw the diagram to the side. 'I would essentially need to completely recreate all my Mana pathways. Even more, during the lengthy process, I would be mostly helpless. I would only be able to move at like a fifth of my speed with a fifth of my power without being able to use any Elements effectively.'
'Additionally, I am missing the boost from the advancement. If I change all the Mana pathways, I might lose access to some of them permanently. It takes a lot of Mana to change a Mana pathway, and if I lose access to too many of them, I might never be able to gather enough Mana to establish access again.'
Then, Shang looked at the diagram with all the changes again.
'I mean, I would need to start here, move over to here, do it here…'
After a while, Shang stopped commenting on what he was doing in his mind as he actually started to plan.
Shang's brows furrowed more and more as he continued.
'I could actually do it,' Shang thought. 'I could actually make this work.'
'Even more, the way I have designed all of this allows me to easily add in additional Mana pathways. Assuming my new pathways can't incorporate all the ones for my other States, I can just add new ones. After all, all my current pathways are straight like pipes, and it's not a problem to just add an additional one alongside the currently existing ones.'
Shang scratched his chin as he looked at the diagram.
'However, this is too easy. I refuse to believe that there is no problem with that. By now, I know that the world is very good at creating Mana pathways, and if the solution were so simple, I wouldn't have my current pathways.'
After that, Shang did some math inside his head. Professor Callen had given Shang way more than just his Spell. After all, Shang also had to know how to simulate his Mana's movement before actually making the changes. Without that, Shang might build himself into a corner with no way to get out.
It took Shang several minutes, but he eventually finished his calculations.
And he was not happy.
Sure enough, there was a humongous issue.
'In order to bring maximum speed to every spot in my body, I have to create central pathways that are extremely wide and extremely stable.'
'Yet, these humongous pathways require a lot of Mana to fill, and the Mana I can have inside my body is finite at any given moment.'
'In order to push the pressure to what I need, my muscles would need to let go of about 50% of their Mana. Additionally, the Mana required to actually move my Mana also increases drastically due to the greater volume that's being moved.'
'All in all, I would lose about 50% of my physical power, making my body only half as powerful as a beast on my level.'
'The advantage would be that I could attack far faster and with more flexibility and diversity. But due to my weakened body, the speed of my attacks would remain about the same while their power reduces by quite a bit.'
'Hmmmm,' Shang thought as he tapped his finger on one of the diagrams.
After a while, Shang looked at where he was actually tapping and noticed that he was tapping on the middle of the diagram's chest.
Then, Shang remembered the image Professor Callen had Shown him.
'Beast Core, huh?' Shang thought.
Shang edited the diagram and added a round energy storage.
Then, Shang realized that this was a bad place. If any attack hit his chest, he would be done for.
So, Shang changed the location to his neck. There was no more space inside of his head, but there was a bit of space left in his neck. Additionally, if he got hit there, he would die anyway.
Then, Shang connected all the different Mana pathways to the Mana reservoir inside his neck.
'Hmmm,' Shang thought as he looked at the finished diagram for a while.
After that, Shang performed some more math.
And his findings were very interesting.
'Interesting,' Shang thought. 'With a Beast Core, I can actually reach the same power as I currently have. But in comparison to beasts, I would have already excavated the talent of my individual muscles.'
'But instead of giving me additional power, my muscles are actually creating the pressure and Mana necessary to move the Mana of my Beast Core throughout my body.'
'I would gain the speed and flexibility of the pathways while not losing any power.'
'There's just one issue.'
'It's impossible to create the Beast Core just like that. I am lacking way too much Mana to make something like that. A higher level also won't help me since the Beast Core would also be of higher quality and would also need more Mana.'
'On my own, creating this is impossible. Lastly, no Mage can possibly help me since their Mana is external and can't be properly absorbed in this way.'
'That only leaves one possibility.'
'The Breakthrough.'
'Just like with reaching the True Path Stage, reaching the Fifth Realm should also give me a ton of Mana to work with. Usually, warriors, Mages, and beasts just let the world do whatever it wants during the process, but if I take control of the process, I could shove all the Mana into creating a Beast Core.'
'Like that, I would be able to transcend to the next level.'
Shang smirked.
'And isn't that exactly what the God told me?'
'I perfect all my techniques, something that warriors would need to reach the Fifth Realm.'
'I do that four times.'
'I recreate all my Mana pathways.'
'Then, I fuse all my Paths together and create a Beast Core during the advancement.'
'If that's not a monumental transformation, I don't know what is.'
Shang looked at the new diagram with a smirk.
'Let's get started.'
