Sword God in a World of Magic

Now, things were different.

Shang had thought that killing each other was completely forbidden, but apparently, it wasn’t.

“And how does something like that go down?” Shang asked.

“Well,” Lucin said before transforming into a Lightning Bolt again. “Let’s continue on our way. I’ll explain while we’re traveling.”

Shang didn’t answer, and the two of them continued shooting into the distance.

“So, basically, in order to become as powerful as a Cloud, you need a lot of danger and actual fighting. Forever staying inside your little cave and meditating forever won’t get you this kind of Battle-Strength. If it did, we would have a thousand times more Clouds than currently.”

“In order to be outstanding, you must live an outstanding life. You must achieve things that others are too scared to do or can’t do, no matter how much they try. One big component of that is actual fights to the death.”

“We know that, and that’s why we have created a perfect environment for just that. You ever heard about this weird story about that guy that wanted to make the most venomous insect?” Lucin asked.

“No,” Shang answered.

“So, there was this guy, and he wanted to make the most venomous insect. One day, he had this genius idea of putting a hundred of the most venomous insects he could find into a pot and making them kill each other until only one was left, believing that the strongest insect would embody the power of all the insects it had killed, making it the most venomous.”

“Of course, biology doesn’t work like that, and he failed miserably. However, his experiment demonstrated a very real concept.”

“A peerless genius isn’t necessarily very powerful. The word peerless means that the peerless in question simply doesn’t have any peers.”

“A peerless genius in a village might as well be trash when there are a hundred better geniuses in the nearest town. Yet, how did these better geniuses become better? It was because, in order to become peerless, they needed to fight through many more peers than the peerless genius of the village.”

“Let’s imagine we have 100 peerless geniuses from 100 villages. If we lock them all into an arena and only allow one of them to leave, what will happen? They will start fighting.”

“Maybe half of them die, and the other half have gained valuable knowledge regarding fighting life and death battles, making them stronger for the next fight.”

“Then, another half die, and the remaining 25 might have comprehended something that made them superior to their opponents.”

“Then, even more died, but the ones that remained would have grown once again during their fight.”

“In the end, we only have one guy left, but that one guy has learned so much that the past him couldn’t be compared to the current him.”

“We used 100 peerless geniuses to create one true peerless genius.”

“That’s how the Contender Department works.”

“At the moment, there are a bit more than 110 Archmage Clouds in the Contender Department. Obviously, they can’t all become King Contenders. In fact, chances are high that not even one of them will become a King Contender since we burn through them so quickly.”

“Even more, imagine all of them reaching the Mage Lord Realm. With their talent, they would reach the power of Thunders eventually, and what then? We only have space for about 70 Thunders, and we got 110 potential Thunders in one generation of Archmages, which spans about a thousand years while Thunders live for over 20,000 years.”

“Additionally, the quality of these Thunders would almost certainly be lower than our current Thunders since, in order for all of these Clouds to survive, we would have needed to coddle them in safety.”

“So, in order to maximize the benefit, the Lightning Manor takes this venomous insect approach, but instead of simply ordering you all to kill each other, we are letting you have the choice.”

“As an Archmage Cloud, you get your one Grade Seven Mana Crystal per century, but if you want more, you gotta join very dangerous missions, tournaments, tests, and similar. Additionally, if two Clouds agree on a life and death duel, the winner gets to keep all the belongings of the loser.”

“Funnily enough, we don’t need to force you into dangerous situations. Since you are all geniuses, you are all used to risking your lives for amazing rewards.”

“What we don’t want is someone that kills another Cloud with borrowed strength. One-time Spells from a Mage Lord, an Ancestral Mage assassin, a powerful Ancestral Beast, and so on. If a Cloud is going to die, it will be in one of the tests or while fighting fairly against another Cloud.”

After listening to all of this, Shang interjected with a question. “And you still get assassinations with all of that?”

“Sadly, yes,” Lucin said with a sigh. “Imagine you have some kind of unresolvable enmity with another Cloud. You want to kill them no matter what, but whenever you challenge them to a duel, they decline. Whenever you join one of the big trials to kill them, they withdraw.”

“Additionally, while everyone here can be considered a peerless genius amongst billions upon billions of people, there are still differences. You have a fivefold Spirit Sense. The others don’t.”

“How are they going to win against you in a fair duel?”

“They are certain that they would become powerful enough if they just had some more resources, and they are certain that they would win the grand tournament. Yet, there is only a single spot for the tournament.”

“So, they try to assassinate you,” Lucin explained.

“And what about me?” Shang asked.

“In what way?” Lucin asked.

“Will I become the target of an assassination?”

“In the beginning, no,” Lucin said. “Everyone will probably think that you are extremely weak and not worthy of being a Cloud. You will probably very quickly get challenged to a duel.”

“How you deal with that will be up to you.”

“Will you accept the duel, unveil your true power, and become a target?”

“Will you decline and act like a pushover?”

“It all depends on your actions.”