The Affinity Wheel spun for several seconds before it stopped.
Metal.
A second later, a muscular and black western dragon appeared several kilometers away from Shang.
It had four powerful legs with intimidating claws and six extremely sharp and long wings. On top of that, it also had an extremely imposing and powerful armor made of metal covering its entire body.
Shang could tell that it was outstanding in every metric of power.
Shang assumed that only one of these beasts that entered their Hibernation to reach the Seventh Realm would count as powerful Peak Ancestral Beasts.
These were the unrivaled Ancestral Beasts.
Shang readied his Addum and Subsis, which were already filled with Darkness and Fire Mana.
The dragon slowly opened its eyes.
The jester lifted his hammer and hit the bell.
DING!
The dragon roared, and in an instant, a storm of metallic spears appeared above it, which shot directly at the distant Shang.
At the same time, the dragon charged after the spears, readying another assault.
Shang moved his Subsis forward.
DING! DING! DING! DING!
Shang's Subsis hit several of the huge spears, and as soon as it did, the spears vanished.
At the same time, the warping space around Shang's Subsis began to weaken.
Every time Shang absorbed Mana with a foreign will on it, the Darkness Mana inside his Subsis would lessen.
After Shang absorbed all the spears that had shot at him, the dragon appeared behind the spears, its wings ready to strike.
Shang swung his Addum forward at the wings.
BOOOOOOM!
In an instant, all the absorbed Metal Mana appeared around the Addum, increasing its size and weight severalfold.
The wings and the Addum hit each other, and the dragon's wings bounced back.
Naturally, the dragon's body was far more powerful than Shang's, and Shang should have also been flung back.
But he wasn't.
As soon as the two attacks had collided, Shang had let go of his Addum.
His Addum shot out of his hand, flying into the distance.
Since Shang didn't bounce back, he readied his Subsis and stepped forward.
WHOOOOM!
All the Mana in the surroundings was absorbed as Shang used Void Break.
The dragon still didn't recover its balance, and Shang was moving at very high speeds.
Shang pointed his Subsis at the dragon's head, and a thin spike appeared on its end.
And then, he stabbed forward.
SHING!
It was like there was no resistance.
The Subsis moved through the metallic armor, the thick scales, the powerful muscles, and even the hard bone.
It was like it had moved through air.
In an instant, the Subsis reached the dragon's brain, but since the dragon was so big, the stab itself didn't do much.
But then, Shang used Darkness Absorb with his Subsis.
The dragon's body was incredibly powerful, which made Darkness Absorb not that useful.
However, since Shang was using Darkness Absorb with the tip of his Subsis, which was currently located in the dragon's brain, the effect was very clear.
The dragon had just regained its balance and readied an attack to kill Shang.
And then, its eyes glazed over, and it fell to the ground.
It was dead.
The applause returned, and Shang's Addum flew back to him.
But a moment later, Shang's body began to weaken as he started to age rapidly.
He was refilling his Death Mana storage.
Just now, Shang had used one of his most powerful attacks.
He had gathered all the Death Mana on the tip of his Subsis and used the level two Concept of Weakness.
With that, the Death Mana would be used up in exchange for weakening and destroying anything it touched.
While the Concept of Sickness could theoretically absorb nearly infinite Mana, the Concept of Weakness couldn't.
Yet, the effect of the Concept of Weakness was many times stronger in a shorter timeframe.
The pure destructive power of Death Mana with the Concept of Weakness could only be surpassed by Entropy.
The Death Mana had dug a tunnel into the dragon's head for Shang's Subsis.
This attack wasn't that useful against Mana Shields, but it was insanely useful against other kinds of defenses, like the armor of beasts.
Shang called it Injection.
The corpse vanished, and the wheel returned.
For the first time, Shang was glad that the wheel spun for so long since he needed some time to regain his Death Mana.
"You know, I would have never expected that anyone would actually beat an entire Realm," the God said from atop his Affinity Wheel as he looked at the dying Shang.
Shang didn't answer.
"Do you actually know what kind of achievement that is?" the God asked. "You even rival me when I have been younger."
These words interested Shang.
When the God was younger…
Shang had expected that the God had once been a mortal just like anybody else, but this confirmed it.
From which era did God come?
Did he actually create this world?
If he did, where did he gain his power from?
Was there another world where he gained enough power to create this one?
Or did he come from this world and just assume the mantle of God?
But then, who made this world, and what happened to them?
Shang couldn't be certain.
There were so many open questions.
However, one thing was certain.
The God had probably been exceptionally powerful in his youth.
"To think that I actually need to create a Beast Lord for your trial today," the God snickered. "That's really impressive."
"However, I wonder how far you can actually go."
"You know, there are so many unrivaled Peak Ancestral Beasts, but only very few manage to gain intelligence and reach the Seventh Realm."
"This means that even the weakest Beast Lord is already more talented than the beast you fought just now."
"The same thing is true for the Mages, FYI," the God added with a smirk. "The fourth Realm represents a watershed since that's when people actually create their future foundation. There are far fewer people managing to take the jump from the Third to the Fourth Realm than there are people managing to take the jump from the Fourth to the Fifth Realm, proportionally speaking."
"Additionally, the difference in power between Mages of the same Realm also increases drastically."
"All of this also applies to Mage Lords and Beast Lords."
"Let me put this into numbers for you," the God said with an even wider smirk.
"Less than 5% of Mage Lords have a normal Spirit Sense."
"Around 90% of Mage Lords have a twofold Spirit Sense."
"About 4% of Mage Lords have a threefold Spirit Sense."
"And one entire percent of Mage Lords have a fourfold Spirit Sense."
"This means that an average Mage Lord has a twofold Spirit Sense and a powerful Mage Lord has a threefold Spirit Sense."
"Wanna know why? After all, you could just break through after only understanding one level four Concept, which would only give you a normal Spirit Sense."
"So, how come there are so few Mage Lords with such a weak Spirit Sense?"
The Affinity Wheel was still spinning.
Shang guessed that the God was probably prolonging its spin since he was talking.
Shang didn't have a problem with that since he needed to refill his Death Mana anyway.
"Why?" Shang asked.
The jester only smirked.
