Five and a half hours later, Shang summoned his Mana Shield again and killed his opponent with a fiery explosion.
The barrier became transparent again, and Shang waited for his next opponent.
When the Mage King saw that Shang was still alive, she narrowed her eyes.
"Quite resilient," she muttered.
She looked at the people behind her. "Who's next?"
Three people looked at each other.
All three of them wanted to go next.
Based on what the Mage King had said, their opponent was very likely an extremely powerful Ancestral Mage with a threefold Spirit Sense. He was probably someone that barely failed to become a Cloud.
Nevertheless, there was still a very noticeable difference between someone like that and a Cloud.
All three were at the very peak of Mages with a threefold Spirit Sense.
At such a level, the strengths and weaknesses of fighting styles and Affinities played a major role.
They still weren't sure how Shang fought, but at least one of them should have a fighting style that would counter Shang's fighting style.
So, even if one or two of them died, at least one of them should win.
Naturally, all of them believed that they were the one.
"You go," the Mage King said to one of them.
It was a guy with grey hair and grey eyes. The world around him seemed to flow into him, which showed that he had a Gravity Affinity.
The guy nodded and walked forward.
'The last two had Ice and Fire as Affinities, which means that he doesn't care about this kind of fighting style,' the Mage King thought. 'Maybe we can get him with a Gravity Affinity?'
A moment later, the Mage King summoned another contract. "Same contract as the last one."
The guy read through the contract.
He wasn't the biggest fan of it, but he still signed it.
A moment later, he took to the sky and shot into the barrier, which clouded over again.
Some seconds later, Shang saw his new opponent.
This one's Aura felt like he had a fourfold Spirit Sense, but just like last time, Shang didn't trust his senses.
So, he waited.
When there were only 1,500 kilometers between them, Shang could feel his bandage alarming him.
At that moment, he realized that they had completely bought his act.
Shang shot at his opponent again.
A couple of seconds later, the two reached each other, and Shang arrived directly in front of his opponent.
But this time, he didn't absorb the darkness around him yet.
People with Gravity Affinities liked to scatter their will in the surroundings to manipulate the gravity. Absorbing all the Mana might contaminate it.
The man used several Spells to create a powerful gravitational field that tried to compress Shang into a tiny sphere.
This would put enormous strain on a Mana Shield.
That was when the man noticed that Shang actually didn't use a Mana Shield.
And yet, he could still resist the gravity!
Shang willed the surrounding darkness to flood into the gravity, weakening it.
BOOOM!
Shang's Addum exploded, scattering the Gravity Mana.
BOOOOOM!
Shang's Addum hit the man's Mana Shield, but without the added Mana in the Addum, the man's Mana Shield withstood the attack.
DING!
The next moment, Shang's Subsis hit the Mana Shield, but instead of pulling back, the Subsis kept touching the Mana Shield.
The man's eyes opened widely in shock, and he used Mana Step.
Yet, the Domain of Entropy stopped the Mana Step.
The man used another one, but it was stopped again.
And just when he wanted to use the third one, his Mana Shield vanished.
During all this time, Shang's Subsis had been using Darkness Absorb to suck the Mana out of the Mana Shield.
The man realized with horror that he was out of Mana.
BANG!
Shang's fingers "lightly" slapped the man's forehead, throwing him into the distance and creating another crater.
Some seconds later, a confused man walked out of the crater.
And then, he saw some cute birds.
Meanwhile, Shang returned to his spot and refilled his Death Mana.
This time, he had used quite a bit of his life energy. Negating two Mana Steps cost a lot of life energy.
On top of that, the Gravity Affinity of his opponent had made it a bit more troublesome.
Shang guessed that the opponent was also a bit more powerful than the previous two.
After some seconds, Shang decided on a time to wait.
This time, he would only wait three hours.
Why not wait more? After all, the opponent should be more powerful than the last ones, right?
Yes, but the opponent's fighting style was very different, and by waiting less time, Shang wanted to make it appear like he was strong against these kinds of opponents, giving the enemy Mage King more confidence in her next fighters.
Eventually, Shang killed the man again.
The Mage King looked at the victorious Shang and furrowed her brows.
She was quite annoyed that this single Early Ancestral Mage was causing so many problems.
This guy had killed one piece of trash and three talented Mages.
The other two volunteers felt excited when Shang won.
These three had been rivals for a long time, and with one of them gone, things were looking up for them.
Additionally, since Shang took less time to win against that one, they now knew more about his fighting style and grew more confident.
The Mage King called the next volunteer and made him sign the contract.
The next volunteer entered the barrier and shot toward Shang.
This time, Shang was fighting someone with a Lightning and Wind Dual Affinity.
That was a very fast opponent.
Yet, that fight ended extremely quickly.
Speed was the strength of this kind of opponent, but speed wasn't very important when they were literally standing within a couple of meters of each other.
Shang had zero problems.
This time, Shang decided to wait for nine hours.
Nine hours later, Shang used up almost all of his Mana and destroyed huge areas of his surroundings.
The nice forest had transformed into a collection of craters.
After summoning his Mana Shield, Shang tried his best to make himself appear stressed and exhausted.
Shang killed the birdwatcher and waited for his next opponent.
When the Mage King saw Shang, her eyes narrowed.
"Go, quickly!" she ordered the last volunteer.
She knew that Shang's Mana would be refilled when her volunteer arrived, but the same thing wouldn't be true for his concentration.
Shang had been fighting for over a day now without any pause.
He was very low on concentration.
The Mage King was certain that her next volunteer would win.
The next volunteer entered the barrier, which became cloudy again.
Almost immediately, Shang's entire act stopped, and he calmly waited for his next opponent.
