After leaving the Isolation Barrier, Shang planned his next course of action.
He knew what he had to comprehend next, but it wasn't certain if he would actually succeed.
Luckily, for once in Shang's life, he wasn't under life-threatening longevity pressure.
Shang could feel that he had gained enough momentum to reach the Seventh Realm.
If he wanted to, he could reach the Seventh Realm within the next couple of minutes.
This was already far better than when he had needed to comprehend the Concepts of Purgatory and Twilight to reach the Void Break Realm.
Naturally, reaching the Void Break Realm had been comparatively more difficult for Shang than reaching the Seventh Realm right now.
There were two reasons.
First of all, by going from the True Path Stage to the Fusion Realm, Shang's maximum longevity had only doubled, while going from the Fusion Realm to the Void Break Realm had quintupled it.
So, even though Shang had started very late in his life, he still had a lot of time remaining.
The second reason was that Shang had already reached a sixfold Spirit Sense.
If Shang had simply needed to learn a normal level five Concept, he would have probably finished even earlier since Shang had already elevated his level of existence.
And now, after undergoing his Transformation, Shang's mind had become much stronger, and his Affinity with basically everything had increased.
This made it even easier to comprehend things.
Another reason was that Shang already knew so much that he was becoming very good at figuring things out.
Finally, Shang was now truly making progress on the actual Path of a warrior, something Shang was incomparably talented in.
Supreme talent, an elevated body, an elevated mind, infinite resources, constant battle against powerful opponents, and not having to work for others.
All of these things combined resulted in Shang comprehending things on the same level as level four Concepts in less than a century.
Shang's life had been so very difficult, and he had sacrificed so much to gain all of these things.
But now, everything was paying off.
Shang was no longer under such intense pressure.
If this had happened to others, they might decide to relax and take things easy. Because of that, many powerful organizations and teachers wanted their people to be under more pressure. The added pressure would motivate people to work even harder than they would normally.
But that wasn't true for Shang.
Shang trained with 100% of his being without being under pressure.
That was why the presence or absence of pressure basically made no difference to him.
While Shang was traveling to the Lightning Manor, he was thinking of a good way to comprehend the essential Destination for Warrior Kings, but he wasn't sure if he could do it.
But he would try.
Shang dealt with a couple of Ancestral Mages again and returned to the Thunder King's island.
By now, the Empress of Death had also managed to break her contract, but that didn't make much of a difference since the Judgment Palace was still stuck assaulting a single Zone.
Sure, the assaults became more brutal, but the Lightning Manor was also going all out.
The Mage Kings were willing to spend far more resources than they were earning because they knew that Shang would join them in 450 years.
The Lightning Emperor would also soon be able to break his contract.
At that point, the entire war would change, and Mage Lords would become the most important forces.
After returning to the Thunder King, Shang didn't immediately enter the Isolation Barrier.
"450 years," Shang told the Thunder King. "That's how long I will stay here at the longest."
The Thunder King didn't answer.
"During that time, I need you to do something. If necessary, I will ask the Lightning Emperor to increase whatever he is paying you to help me," Shang said.
"Yes?" the Thunder King transmitted.
"I need a constant supply of powerful opponents, but I also need my full focus," Shang said. "From now on, I don't want to be in life-threatening danger anymore. I want this to be a non-lethal fight. I won't kill my opponent, and my opponent won't kill me."
"Yet, I also want it to feel as realistic as possible. Because of that, I want to focus on the fight and not think about not accidentally killing my opponent."
"If I or my opponent are about to kill each other, I want you to intervene and stop us."
The Thunder King remained silent for a while.
This was very different from the earlier deal.
With the earlier deal, the Thunder King just needed to get a couple of opponents for Shang and keep the Isolation Barrier active. That wasn't a lot to do, and the Thunder King could do whatever he wanted.
But with the new deal, the Thunder King couldn't do anything else. He would be forced to closely watch over the battles for 450 years.
He was an entire Realm higher than the combatants, but he would still need to pay close attention.
"I want ten more," the Thunder King transmitted. "Tell that to the Lightning Emperor."
Shang nodded and contacted the Lightning Emperor.
After telling him that the Thunder King wanted "ten more", the Lightning Emperor said that the Thunder King would get what he wanted. However, the Lightning Emperor also said that if Shang or any of the Beast Lords died, he would personally kill the Thunder King.
"He agrees," Shang said to the Thunder King.
"Go in," the Thunder King transmitted. "I will stop either of you before you kill each other."
Shang entered the Isolation Barrier, and his next opponent appeared very quickly.
And sure enough, as soon as the opponent was about to kill Shang, a kind of forcefield appeared between the two.
The Thunder King had intervened.
Additionally, it only took a couple of seconds for the next opponent to enter the Isolation Barrier, and the fight immediately started.
After a couple of fights, Shang could finally fully let go and just focused on killing his opponents with his powers.
If one of his opponents died, he would no longer be at fault.
So, what were these things that the Thunder King had asked for?
Mana to create Peak Beast Lords.
It was very difficult for beasts to reach the Beast Lord Realm due to the low Mana density in the world, and since beasts very rarely had more than a onefold Spirit Sense, it was even more difficult for them.
That was why the islands of the Kings used stored Mana provided by the Empires.
While Shang was training, around 100 different Mage Lords gathered in a big plaza.
A moment later, they all swallowed some pills, and they focused their Mana onto ten spheres before them.
In a couple of minutes, all the Mage Lords fell by one level.
The spheres shone with dense Mana and were taken away.
The Mage Lords would return to their previous levels, but it would take a couple of centuries.
A couple of minutes later, the spheres were delivered to the Thunder King by Amarius.
With these ten spheres, the Thunder King could elevate ten more Ancestral Beasts to the Beast Lord Realm, increasing the overall power of his island.
This was what the Lightning Manor had paid for Shang's request.
