Time continued to pass.
The Bolts were no longer distracted by Shang since Lucin had created an Isolation Barrier around him, but Lucin himself had noticed that he was sighing far more often than usual.
He just felt bad for Shang.
It was one thing to go through so much pain to become stronger, but it was something else to continuously go through so much pain for decades upon decades.
This wasn't an individual instance of painful training anymore. Being under so much pain for so long had essentially transformed Shang's entire life.
Yes, Shang was already quite old, but spending decades in pain was still something significant.
Every decade of pain was equivalent to about one year of pain for a mortal.
How horrible would it be to be under such pain for one year?
Just one day was already terrifying.
As Lucin continued watching Shang, he got the thought that Shang was actually impressively sane for someone that was living like this.
Under normal circumstances, one would imagine a quivering mass of terror, paranoia, fear, and irrational hatred.
Sure, Shang had these aspects, but they weren't so strong that they overtook his entire personality.
Nevertheless, Lucin could still feel that Shang had huge issues deep inside.
His body was like a machine that was piloted by ten crazy people with different issues and illnesses, but by averaging them out, the machine was still piloted in a somewhat normal way.
Frankly, it was a miracle.
Decades passed.
Eventually, Shang used up all the Furnace Pills he had, which took him a total of 100 years.
At this moment, Shang was around 860 years old.
If he were a mortal, he would be nearly 80 years old.
Shang had genuinely reached the last years of his life.
Over the past century, a couple of Clouds had arrived in front of the Isolation Barrier.
These Clouds had all wanted to talk to Shang.
They kept announcing themselves and knocking at the Isolation Barrier, but Shang never answered them.
Lucin had made it possible for Shang to see the outside, which meant that Shang could have noticed these Clouds and could have interacted with them.
But he never did.
Some of the Clouds even became angry when Shang kept ignoring them.
Yet, it was forbidden to attack someone without their consent, and that extended to someone's belongings and Magic Circles.
No matter how angry they got, they didn't attack the Isolation Barrier.
Shang had not seen all of them, but he had still taken note of a couple of them.
In his mind, every Cloud that had arrived had tried to lure him away from Lucin so that they could kill him.
Why else would they be here?
They just wanted to kill Shang and get his resources or kill him for some ideological reason.
All of them were his rivals!
All of them were his enemies!
All of them wanted to kill him!
Naturally, that wasn't the truth, but that didn't matter.
By constantly being in a heightened state of danger and by going through decades upon decades of nothing but intense pain, Shang's perception was bound to become warped.
When one experienced nothing but pain and darkness, how could one see the world as anything but filled with pain and darkness?
By going through this ungodly training for such a long time, Shang was bound to change.
Just to put this into perspective, Shang had been training like this for over 10% of his life.
One would only need to look at one's own life, take 10% of it, and go through so much time while being tortured like this.
Would that person still be the same?
This was the longest time Shang had been this isolated.
In the past, he had gone through a couple of decades of isolation, but he had still done a couple of different things during it.
In Area 23, Shang had fought some beasts, walked from one place to the other, talked to Jerald, and a couple of other things.
As a Named Agent in the Temple of Blood, Shang had left his training room from time to time. He saw others from time to time, bought new resources, did some missions, talked to the Keeper, and left the Branch.
In Icy Bastion, Shang had to run a town while training, which meant that he regularly had to communicate with others and deal with the management of the town.
This time, it was different.
Shang was doing nothing else.
There was no break.
There was no talking to anyone.
There was no buying.
There was no managing.
It was just Shang and his training…
For better or for worse.
Over the past century, Shang had developed thoughts and feelings he had never been able to imagine before.
Several times, Shang felt like he was approaching death, but not in the traditional self.
Shang didn't exactly feel like he was about to die, but like he was about to vanish.
It was like Shang's mind and personality had been close to disappearing from the world.
Whenever that happened, Shang felt like he was no longer inside his own body.
It was like he was watching a stranger go through all this pain.
It was like he was just an onlooker.
Without thoughts.
Without opinions.
And sometimes, Shang had the desire to just look away.
Yet, something deep inside of him told him that if he decided to look away, he would never be able to look back.
He felt like he would stop existing if that happened.
But he was just so tired.
There was so much pain.
It was so exhausting.
He just wanted to not care anymore.
Was going through that much pain actually worth it?
Was his goal worth so much pain?
He didn't know.
He just didn't know.
After Shang had recovered after his last session inside the Isolation Chamber, he simply stood up and walked out of it.
Absentmindedly, he put it away.
What was he feeling right now?
Nothing.
His power had grown, but for some reason, it just didn't feel great.
Shang wasn't even relieved that he didn't need to enter the Isolation Chamber again for several years.
There was just nothing.
Shang just didn't care anymore.
