A portal opened up in front of Shang, and he stood up.
He had just been inside his inner world.
A couple of Bolts noticed that a portal had opened in the middle of the Hibye, which was quite unusual.
Small portals only needed the level three Concept of Space, Distortion, to be opened, but big portals where actual living humans could pass through needed the level five Concept of Space, Tearing.
A level five Concept was already enough to reach the Mage King Realm, and a level five Concept for a Space Affinity was even rarer since space was so difficult to understand.
Such an ability wasn't even common amongst Thunders. Sure, there were several Thunders that could summon such portals, but it definitely wasn't common.
The portal had opened without any warning. Even more, the Bolts couldn't even stretch their Spirit Senses into the portal. Their Spirit Senses were being blocked.
This made them quite suspicious, and they looked at Lucin.
However, Lucin just told them that there was nothing to worry about.
Naturally, the Bolts still wanted to know what was going on.
"Cloud Shang is a warrior, which means that he has to visit the Lightning Manor several times for tests and interviews," Lucin explained.
The Bolts were fine with that answer since it made a lot of sense.
They had seen how desperately the warrior had tried to comprehend things, and they had felt his life energy shrinking as time passed, which meant that he was running out of longevity.
But now, the warrior's Aura and longevity were as bright and strong as any other Cloud's.
This meant that the warrior now had more time to teach others about warriors.
Shang stepped through the portal, which then closed right behind him.
Naturally, this portal didn't lead to an office in the Lightning Manor but to Queen Primordium's room.
"It took me quite a while, but I finished all the books," Queen Primordium said.
Shang stopped in front of her, crossed his arms, and nodded, waiting.
After that, Queen Primordium began to narrate several unique intricacies of the Death Affinity and the way it worked.
Death Mana by itself was a very pure and dangerous kind of complex poison.
While a Poison Affinity essentially aimed to turn an opponent into a liquid or a hollow husk, Death Mana simply aimed to get rid of life.
It accomplished this by consuming life energy.
One had to remember that this was very different from what Darkness Mana did.
Darkness Mana canceled out life energy.
Death Mana consumed life energy.
Darkness Mana essentially used itself to destroy an equivalent amount of life energy.
Death Mana, on the other hand, could remain in one spot and consume all the life energy that came into contact with it.
That sounded incredibly powerful, but there was one thing.
Death Mana didn't exactly move or do anything of its own.
Fire Mana consumed things around it and could spread further and further.
Wind Mana moved all over the world.
Darkness Mana also moved around.
Yet, Death Mana didn't really move.
It was like a dot in space that just consumed life energy that touched it.
When someone reached the limit of their age, little spots of Death Mana would appear all over their body, which would slowly drain more and more of a person's life energy.
Eventually, there would be so many spots that the body couldn't do anything anymore essentially.
Because of that, using Death Mana in attacks was very difficult.
Moving and manipulating Death Mana was not easy since something moving of its own volition was a sign of life, which was the opposite of death.
It was possible to move Death Mana, but it required a huge amount of resources and effort.
Even more, condensing Death Mana was also very difficult. After all, Shang was a living being.
In order to naturally create Death Mana, something needed to actually die.
Just hacking off an arm wouldn't work.
But wait, hadn't Shang created a makeshift Death Pit by doing basically that over and over again?
Yes, but Shang hadn't created his own Death Mana.
He had attracted the surrounding Death Mana.
In order to actually create Death Mana, something needed to die.
However, that sounded easier than it actually was because Death Mana wasn't generated when something died but when something was in the process of dying.
Of course, the stronger the dying being, the more Death Mana one got.
Yet, there were even more problems still!
Assuming one gathered a lot of Death Mana, using said Death Mana was still very difficult, and even keeping Death Mana was dangerous.
Queen Primordium told Shang that every single Spell she had found required the Death Mana to be inside someone's mind, which was crazy.
Shang knew exactly why that was crazy. After all, his mind had once been infected by Death Mana.
According to Queen Primordium, normal Mages couldn't even use any significant amount of Death Mana since their mind would collapse or the person would kill themselves.
Naturally, there were some ways to get around that, but that required the Life Concepts, which were just as rare and difficult to comprehend.
Essentially, in order to use Death Mana in an actual battle, one needed to either have knowledge of the Life Concepts or have a Death Affinity.
Someone with a natural Death Affinity had an inherent mindset that was close to the mindset the Death Mana created. Because of that, they could store vastly more Death Mana inside their minds than anyone else.
Finally, when all of these problems were solved, one could use Death Mana.
And when the Death Mana was already inside someone's mind, using it was no longer as difficult.
Queen Primordium explained to Shang what he could try in order to manipulate the Death Mana, and Shang nodded along.
He would need to do a couple of things he wasn't used to, but it wasn't anything too strange. He would quickly get used to it.
However, there was one big problem.
"Where do I get Death Mana?" Shang asked. "Can I purchase it?"
"No," Queen Primordium said. "Due to the ethics of producing Death Mana, any trade of it is prohibited."
"However, there is a way for you to produce your own Death Mana."
"Yes?" Shang asked.
"It's your Death Concepts," she said. "The Concepts of Death are parts of death, and by making them a reality, they will produce Death Mana."
"Now, using these Concepts on others without having access to Death Mana is like casting a Spell without a mind. It's impossible."
"But there is one person you can use these Concepts on to produce Death Mana," Queen Primordium said.
