For a while, Shang just kept experimenting with Death Mana, but at some point, he just kept lying on the ground as a half-dead husk.
Lucin became a bit concerned, but he could feel that Shang was still alive.
For several years, Shang just lay on the ground, half-dead.
Lucin felt more and more awkward and strange.
Eventually, he asked Shang if everything was okay, and Shang just answered that everything was fine.
Yet, Shang just kept lying there, doing nothing.
Naturally, Shang wasn't actually doing nothing.
In truth, Shang was fighting against beasts and Mages inside his inner world, and he kept his real body half-dead so that he could experiment with more Death Mana inside his inner world.
His real body had essentially transformed into a Death Mana generator.
Shang usually only needed a few years to create new techniques, but the potential and complexity of Death Mana made it quite difficult to create good techniques.
However, that just meant that Shang needed to spend more time.
After 30 years, Shang had completely solidified his new fighting style with his new techniques.
For the last 300 years, Shang had been busy comprehending Void Break, which meant that he hadn't truly had any time to refine his fighting style.
But now, with nearly 4,000 years of longevity left, Shang finally had enough time.
When Shang was around 1,050 years old, his real body recovered, and he stood up.
There was something he had to do.
In fact, there were two reasons why he wanted to do this something.
First, now that Shang was in a new Realm, he needed to advance again, and in order to advance properly within that Realm, he needed Abominations.
This hadn't been an issue in the Temple of Blood. After all, Shang could just summon some Abominations while he was walking to and from a mission.
But things were different now.
Any Abominations appearing here would immediately be noticed by several Mage Lords. While the appearance of an Abomination might not be too surprising, it suddenly vanishing when Shang touched it would very much be considered surprising.
So, Shang needed access to Abominations, and no one was allowed to see his interaction with them.
Shang had already thought of a solution to that problem, but the solution was very expensive.
Like, really expensive.
However, Shang had already thought of a way, and as fate would have it, something else was pushing him toward that way anyway.
It was Lucin.
Lucin told Shang that he was too passive.
He wasn't criticizing Shang for his training.
The problem was that there were other Clouds, and if one actually wanted to gain enough resources to become more powerful in the Hibye, one needed to interact with the Hibye and earn resources.
Naturally, as long as Shang didn't ask for something ridiculously expensive, he wouldn't need to earn anything. After all, he was getting ten times as many resources as anyone else, and on top of that, he had Queen Primordium as his teacher.
But exactly that was the problem.
Every single Cloud had a boundless ambition to become powerful.
Yet, Shang remained completely isolated for centuries.
Wasn't he in need of resources?
As the sole "warrior", Shang was already very conspicuous amongst the Clouds, which meant that they paid very close attention to him.
And now, he had come into contact with portals, got hidden by Isolation Barriers, and didn't come out to earn any resources.
There was something strange going on.
Shang's true power had to remain a secret for multiple reasons. Because of that, they couldn't let it show that he was getting preferential treatment.
So, Lucin told Shang to go out into the Hibye and earn some resources just for show.
Funnily enough, Lucin's request coincided with Shang needing more money anyway.
In the end, Shang agreed.
However, he also asked Lucin how expensive the thing he wanted would be.
When Lucin heard Shang's request, he couldn't say anything for several seconds.
That was the absolute height of luxury.
That was a ridiculous expense for something that would barely accomplish anything.
It was like Shang was throwing his money out of the window.
Naturally, it was Lucin's job to explicitly stop something like this from happening, and he told Shang that he wouldn't approve of something like that.
Shang told Lucin that as long as it was his money, it wouldn't matter.
Lucin countered by saying that Shang didn't earn any of that money but that the Lightning Manor gave him access to it. After all, he wasn't contributing to the Lightning Manor right now.
After getting his request declined twice, Shang did something he hadn't done before.
He went "crying" to his teacher.
Shang told Queen Primordium that he needed that for his training.
She looked closely at him and asked him to repeat that.
Shang very slowly repeated it.
Then, Queen Primordium nodded.
She had confirmed that Shang's statement was the truth by feeling its resonance with the world.
Shang truly believed that he needed that.
Therefore, this wasn't a waste of money.
Shang had a sixfold Spirit Sense, proving that he knew how to become powerful.
And if he said he needed something, who were they to disagree?
Additionally, it was his money anyway.
So, Queen Primordium accepted his request prematurely and told him that she would issue the construction order immediately to save time.
However, he would only get what he wanted when he earned the necessary money.
And how much money was that?
About 400 Grade Seven mana Crystals.
That was quite a lot of money.
However, if Shang could actually get that thing, he wouldn't have to worry about absorbing Abominations anymore, he hoped.
And where would he get that money?
In the Wilderness Hunt.
The reason why Shang had come out when he was 1,050 years old was precisely due to the Wilderness Hunt starting soon.
This was the biggest event for the Clouds, and it was held every 100 years.
This was the best place to earn big money.
