Shang returned to training while waiting for missions.
A couple of days later, Shang got a mission, but it was just a small one with nearly no reward.
Over the next couple of months, Shang only got smaller missions from time to time, but that wasn't too surprising. These hugely lucrative missions to kill an entire gatherer family were rare. After all, there were not that many gatherer families in the territory.
Sadly, there wasn't much he could do.
He just continued doing these small missions while refining his World Connection.
"I have a mission for you."
Shang put his sword away and stepped out of the training room.
Trapper was nowhere to be seen, which probably meant that he was tracking his next target.
The Keeper was currently sitting with her back to Shang, but she wasn't alone.
"I am the one responsible for these missions!" House Wife shouted at the Keeper from behind. "I'm the stealthiest Mage in this branch!"
'Seems like my mission is very lucrative if even House Wife is arguing this much with the Keeper,' Shang thought.
"That might be the case," the Keeper said. "However, can you kill a Mid Archmage?"
House Wife just furrowed her brows. "I can," she said.
"Can you kill a Mid Archmage before they can contact an Enforcer?" the Keeper asked.
"If I get them with their Mana Shield deactivated, yes," House Wife said.
"Alright," the Keeper said. "Can you stay hidden when you and your target are the only humans around for over ten kilometers?"
House Wife snorted. "That's impossible. The best a Mage can do is to seem as unremarkable as possible, but we still look and feel like humans. No matter how unremarkable you look, when you're the only other human around, you're bound to be noticed."
"Then you are not the right person for the mission," the Keeper said.
"But then the mission is impossible to complete!" House Wife shouted. "We can't just follow one person in the wilderness without being noticed by their Spirit Sense."
"This mission is- AH!"
House Wife suddenly jumped to the left and activated her Magic Shield by reflex.
Just now, something white had entered her field of view on the right.
Usually, every Archmage had their surroundings constantly inside their Spirit Sense, which meant that nothing could come close to them without being noticed.
But that was exactly why she had been so startled just now.
Obviously, the white thing that had entered her field of vision was Shang.
Shang stopped behind the Keeper and waited for instructions.
The sudden appearance of White Ghost gave House Wife thought.
She hadn't noticed him at all.
Wasn't that exactly what had been required of the mission?
In the end, House Wife could only bitterly look to the side.
SHING!
A bloodred sheet of paper appeared in front of Shang, and he scanned it with his Spirit Sense.
These sheets of paper were special since they transmitted the information they contained right into the reader's mind, making it faster and easier to "read" them.
Shang read through the mission.
Target: Treasury Master of the Urbring Family.
Goal: Observation and eventual elimination.
Description: Follow the Treasury Master of the Urbring Family for five years every time he leaves the Urbring Family's house and find out if he's hiding something. If there is nothing suspicious, retreat. If he harbors a secret, eliminate him and forward the information. You are not allowed to take any of his belongings.
Reward: Ten Grade Six Mana Crystals.
These were the details of the mission.
Shang was not very happy with the mission, but he also didn't decline it.
Ten Grade Six Mana Crystals was a lot of money. The only problem was that he would need to waste five years of his life watching over someone.
Five years for ten Grade Six Mana Crystals.
If he were to earn two Mana Crystals per year, he would need 50 years to get enough to visit a Beast Lord.
That seemed reasonable.
"I accept," Shang said.
Shang put the bloodred sheet of paper into his inner world and left the branch.
He didn't say anything while leaving.
'Seems like my training will change for the foreseeable future,' Shang thought as the Isolation Barrier activated behind him again.
Shang pushed through the roots of the Yellow Sunbreaker and took to the skies.
A moment later, the path towards the Urbring Family appeared in his mind with all the Ancestral Beasts marked on it.
Shang still wasn't sure how the Temple of Blood was actually surveying the land. It couldn't be the Keeper since the Yellow Sunbreaker created a wall of roots around the branch. Not even her Spirit Sense should be able to get through that.
Yet, whenever Shang left for a mission, all the Ancestral Beasts from thousands of kilometers around appeared inside his mind.
Shang flew toward the Urbring Family while avoiding all the Ancestral Beasts. He didn't specifically need to evade their entire Spirit Sense, but he shouldn't get closer than 50 kilometers.
Most Ancestral Beasts didn't care about an Initial Fifth Realm human as long as they didn't come too close to them.
Of course, there were also more docile beasts and more aggressive ones. The Yellow Sunbreaker, for example, was a very docile one. It didn't even mind several humans in the Fifth Realm walking over its roots.
But there were also beasts that preferred preying on humans, and if they saw one, they would immediately charge over and eat the human.
That was why it was so important to have a way to navigate the wilderness, even as an Archmage.
Normal Archmages had a Spirit Sense with a radius of 50 kilometers, which was just around the safe line regarding Ancestral Beasts.
Because of that, Archmages could travel through the wilderness as long as there were no aggressive Ancestral Beasts nearby.
There was maybe a 1% chance of meeting such a beast.
But that was for every trip.
After enough rolls, one was bound to hit the 1% eventually.
Shang traveled for around 2,500 kilometers, which was around the halfway mark between the Urbring Family and the Temple of Blood branch.
At that moment, the atmosphere around Shang suddenly changed.
SHING! SHING! SHING!
Hundreds of beings suddenly appeared a couple of kilometers to Shang's right, and one of them appeared very close to Shang.
It was an Archbeast Abomination.
SHING!
Shang swung his sword, and the Abomination turned into nothingness.
Then, he simply continued on his way.
Obviously, Shang had used this opportunity to absorb an Archbeast Abomination.
While Shang was leaving, the Commander Stage and True Path Stage Abominations started to completely decimate the surroundings.
Thousands of weaker beasts died.
This would continue for several hours before one of the Abominations entered the territory of a particularly territorial Ancestral Beast.
And one minute later, all the Abominations were dead.
In Area 23, the Abominations had been killed very quickly by the Zone Beasts, but that was because there was always a Zone Beast around.
In Area 23, the Ancestral Beasts lived far closer to each other than was normal.
In the outside world, one would only meet one Ancestral Beast every 500 kilometers or so while traveling in a straight line.
After some more minutes, Shang arrived at his goal.
The Urbring Family.
