After some seconds, Lucin actually halted.
The huge lightning bolt vanished, revealing Lucin's body again.
At the moment, Lucin was looking at Shang with narrowed eyes, and his Aura felt very intense.
"I need to verify this," Lucin said with a serious tone.
Shang only nodded once.
A moment later, several pieces of metal appeared around Shang.
There were thousands of them, and they were scattered across Shang's entire Spirit Sense.
"Push every piece to the ground that you can see," Lucin ordered.
Shang did just that.
His Spirit Sense focused on all the pieces of metal he could see, and he pushed them toward the ground.
In a radius of 250 kilometers around Shang, all the levitating pieces of metal started to fall to the ground.
Lucin's Aura shook.
He was a Thunder, the second highest class of Mage Lords in existence, just one spot behind the true King Contenders.
Fooling him was incredibly difficult.
And that was exactly why he was so shocked.
Shang's powers seemed to be genuine, and he couldn't see any falsehood.
That meant that he either wasn't lying or getting help from a Mage King from another Empire.
Both things would be extremely shocking.
"How many people know of this?" Lucin asked.
"The Temple of Blood thinks that I have a Spirit Sense with a size of 150 or 200 kilometers. I didn't tell them the truth since I didn't want to die."
"Having another powerful Mage Lord joining one of your enemies might be annoying, but having a Mage King joining one of your enemies is devastating," Shang explained. "If my Spirit Sense is only 200 kilometers big, the Empires would want to recruit me. If it is 250 kilometers big, they might decide to kill me."
Lucin furrowed his brows and scratched his chin as he evaluated Shang's words.
"Why are you telling me something like this? Do you not fear that the Lightning Manor might get rid of you?" Lucin asked.
"There is always a chance," Shang answered. "However, I have a foot in the door with the Lightning Manor."
"Nobody else knows about all of this."
"The Lightning Manor has already paid a lot of money for me."
"I still have the way to reach the Seventh Realm for warriors in my mind."
"I am already in your territory."
"And I was honest."
"If I had to tell someone, I would choose this moment."
Lucin nodded slowly. He could see where Shang was coming from.
But it was still very difficult to believe all of this.
He was a warrior!
The warriors had just started appearing on the Lightning Manor's radar maybe 500 years ago, and now, they had already produced a genuine King Contender.
One had to know that Lucin had worked for the Lightning Manor for well over 10,000 years.
500 years was nothing compared to that.
"And why are you taking this risk of telling us?" Lucin asked. "We would have never found out if you didn't tell us since we would have never even expected something like this to be possible. After all, warriors are still new."
"Because of my goal," Shang said.
"Which is?"
"Becoming the strongest," Shang said.
"Becoming the strongest?" Lucin asked.
"Correct," Shang said.
Lucin looked at Shang for a while without saying anything.
Lucin wouldn't take anyone seriously if they said something like that. After all, people that said that didn't know the weight of what they were saying.
However, Shang apparently had the power of a King Contender.
He was already amongst the absolute strongest of his Realm.
When he said that, it wasn't completely unrealistic.
Lucin remained silent for several seconds.
It was obvious that he was evaluating something.
Having a potential King Contender join the Lightning Manor would have been an amazing incident.
There was one tournament every 1,000 years, and there were not always Mage Lords present with a fivefold Spirit Sense.
So, someone with a fivefold Spirit Sense would almost certainly reach the Mage King Realm in the future, assuming that their Battle-Strength didn't regress.
But this was a warrior.
It was one thing to have warriors of the Seventh Realm, but something completely different when they were in the Eighth Realm.
Someone at the Eighth Realm was just one step away from the Emperors.
Assuming Shang actually managed to win the entire tournament, would the Empires allow a Warrior King to be born?
As a Thunder, Lucin had a huge amount of responsibility. A Thunder had, on average, 100 Mage Lords under them, who would have even more Ancestral Mages under them.
Yet, the more Lucin thought about it, the more he felt like this entire thing was too big for him.
It was his responsibility to manage the training of all these extremely talented people, but when it came to Shang, he had no idea what he should decide on.
Nurture him?
And what if Shang won the tournament? Then, the Empires would either need to crown a Warrior King or kill the victor of their tournament.
Kill him?
Then, another Empire might receive another Mage King, putting more pressure on them. Even more, the Lightning Manor's philosophy wasn't shady. Their philosophy was cooperation, justice, and power. The word power was third, not first.
Killing a powerful Impose Stage warrior just because of their talent would severely conflict with the Lightning Manor's philosophy.
Accept Shang but not give him enough resources to win the tournament in the future?
That would be a huge waste, and they would also ruin their cooperation with him. Sure, he couldn't reach the Eighth Realm without them, but who knew? Maybe he could damage the Lightning Manor in another way? Such geniuses always had special ways of dealing with bad situations.
After a while of evaluating all his options, Lucin nodded.
He transformed back into a lightning bolt, and the two of them flew into the distance.
However, Shang noticed that their trajectory had changed.
Earlier, they had been flying straight toward the north.
Now, they were flying towards the northwest.
"It's funny," Lucin said. "Earlier, I was making fun of your paranoia regarding your secret."
"But now, because of your secret, I have to consult my superior."
"Your fate will be up to her."
