Queen Primordium looked with surprise at the Custodian.
Then, she focused on Shang.
Right now, Shang felt nervous.
After all, this wasn't just anybody he was going to be talking with.
This was the Lightning Emperor, one of the ten strongest beings in the entire world, someone that had lived for an incomprehensibly long time.
"Don't worry," Queen Primordium told Shang. "The Ancestor is very friendly and wise."
Naturally, Queen Primordium had seen the Lightning Emperor a couple of times.
While the Custodian was essentially the Lightning Emperor's mouth and hand, the Lightning Emperor also left his study from time to time.
Sometimes, he just walked around his castle, and he also appeared when he had to make a public appearance because of something important that happened.
For example, every millennium, the Lightning Emperor came out to congratulate the winner of the grand tournament.
But these were basically the only times anyone could get a hold of the Lightning Emperor in any way since the Custodian dealt with everything else.
However, this still meant that the Lightning Emperor only exited his study every 500 years or so, which was an insanely long time for everyone below the Mage Lord Realm, and if one missed it, they would need to wait another 500 years.
And it was even rarer that someone was allowed to enter the Lightning Emperor's study since this was his private space.
Only the Custodian was allowed to enter the Lightning Emperor's study.
And now, Shang would also enter the Lightning Emperor's study.
Shang took a step forward and walked through the door.
Even though he was a bit nervous, it still wasn't nearly enough to shake his resolve in any way.
The Custodian smiled politely towards Queen Primordium and closed the door.
Then, the Custodian traveled down the hallway, followed by Shang.
After a couple of seconds, they stopped in front of an ordinary wooden door.
The Custodian politely knocked on the door and opened it just a second later without waiting for the Lightning Emperor's command to enter.
With the door now open, Shang's Spirit Sense entered the Lightning Emperor's study, and he could finally sense it.
It was simple but also earth-shattering in a sense.
At first glance, the study didn't seem special.
There was a chair, a table, a couple of ornaments, rows of bookshelves, and that was basically it.
It wasn't even that big.
However, with Shang's experience and knowledge, he could sense the truth of this simple study.
It was actually over 500 kilometers wide!
Yet, it looked barely wider than ten meters.
Shang didn't have any experience with Space, Time, and Gravity Mana, but he could still feel that all these kinds of Mana were not acting in a normal way.
On top of that, the density of these three kinds of Mana was so insanely high that Shang could feel them as clearly as if they were Light Mana.
Shang couldn't say what Concepts were being used here or what they did, but he could see that this study probably had a scary number of features.
One of the bookshelves had maybe about 100 books visually, but when one looked past the simple appearance, one would be able to see a bookshelf that was kilometers upon kilometers wide and tall.
Shang couldn't even estimate how many books there were in this study.
Billions?
Trillions?
More?
On top of that, there were no Spells that kept the books hidden from prying eyes.
Shang couldn't look into the books, but he could see them and their covers and read their titles.
In just an instant, Shang had read the titles of thousands of books, and he became deeply shocked.
All the titles he had read referred to a kind of Spark Wraith Realm, which was apparently the seventh Realm of some Path Shang didn't know.
Shang couldn't help himself and continued looking at the titles of even more books without even really thinking about it.
And eventually, he saw thousands of books for some Realm called Weapon Intent Realm.
The Custodian had said that Impose had been called Weapon Intent in the past.
This meant that there were thousands of books worth of documentation about the Impose Realm that Shang had created!
Shang had to take a deep breath when he saw that.
He had always thought that there was nothing left of the old Paths.
The God had told him so, and Shang had also never heard about the other Paths until he had met with the Custodian for the first time.
Yet, right now, there were billions of books in front of him, explaining all the intricacies of all the other Paths.
The books regarding other Paths didn't end!
They just kept going and going!
After a second, Shang had already seen the names of over a hundred different Paths, which was insane!
How many Paths had there been back then?!
"Cool, huh?"
Shang was taken out of his thoughts and focused on the person that had just spoken.
There was a smiling old man with white hair and a long white beard sitting on a chair behind a table.
'Cool?' Shang thought in confusion. 'Did he just say cool?'
Shang wouldn't have expected the first word that left the Lightning Emperor's mouth to be cool.
"I enjoy seeing people be impressed by my collection, but I can't have you continue reading," the Lightning Emperor said with a friendly chuckle. "Otherwise, we would be here forever."
Then, Shang heard the quiet sound of the door behind him close.
Apparently, the Custodian hadn't entered with him.
"I apologize. I've been distracted," Shang said, trying his best not to sound cold or aggressive but failing miserably due to his lack of practice.
"I get it," the Lightning Emperor said with a friendly chuckle.
Then, he pointed towards a chair in front of him that had just appeared. "Please, sit."
Shang took a step forward, and he felt the Space, Time, and Gravity Mana around him warp in mysterious ways.
The study was gigantic, but when Shang took a single step forward, it was like he was traveling through the version of the study that was only ten meters wide.
After just a couple of steps, Shang had traversed over 100 kilometers and sat down on the chair.
And then, Shang had a thought.
He was thinking of his inner world, and he thought that this study felt very similar to it.
This thought made Shang realize something.
Ever since the beginning, all the God's powers had seemed otherworldly.
It had been impossible to understand them, and Shang had not been able to think of a way to replicate them.
But now, he was slowly coming into contact with things that were similar to these powers.
Shang had already seen a majority of the Concepts his sword had been made with, and the strongest Concept was a level five Concept.
There were probably several Mage Kings that knew all of these Concepts, which meant that there were several Mage Kings that could recreate Shang's weapons.
The black cube Shang had received back then had seemed too magical.
But now, Shang had seen people that could learn how to create these weapons, and Shang even knew a bit about how to make them.
Shang's inner world was more complex, but after entering this study, Shang could feel that it was very similar to his inner world.
Shang guessed that the study had been created in a very similar way, but he was still sure that his inner world had something that this study didn't have.
Shang could enter his inner world without his body, which meant that his soul and body were essentially separating.
That would normally mean that Shang would die, but that obviously wasn't the case.
Something like this could only be achieved with very advanced Life Concepts, and Shang was quite certain that not even the Lightning Emperor knew enough to create something like that.
The Lightning Emperor had created something amazing with this study.
However, he wasn't quite at the level of the God.
For a while, Shang just quietly sat in front of the Lightning Emperor, who had just summoned a cup of tea.
The Lightning Emperor drank a mouthful of tea and released a sigh.
"Your name is Shang Sword, right?" the Lightning Emperor asked.
Shang nodded.
The Lightning Emperor didn't say anything for a couple of seconds.
"Okay, let me just be honest with you."
"I have no idea what I should do with you."
