Sword God in a World of Magic

The people in the arena couldn’t believe what had happened.

Only after a couple of seconds did it register that Lucin had declared Shang as the victor.

He had won?!

He had killed Erel?!

“What happened?!” one of the Archmages shouted.

“He shot forward, destroyed the Light Mana Domain, absorbed the Light Mana, and killed his opponent with one strike,” an Ancestral Mage Cloud said.

While the High mage and Archmage Clouds couldn’t see what had happened, the same thing wasn’t true for the Ancestral Mage Clouds.

They were extremely talented and also an entire Realm above Shang. They had still been able to perceive most of the things that had happened inside the arena.

The weaker Clouds looked at the Ancestral Mage Cloud with shock.

How?!

“How did he destroy the light Mana Domain?” one of them asked.

“Not sure,” the same Ancestral Mage answered.

“It was the Concept of Subtraction,” a different Ancestral Mage said. 

“Concept of Subtraction? I’ve not heard of that Concept,” one of the Archmages said.

“It’s an unusual one. It works on the basis of absorbing energy in all forms. It’s made of Ice and Darkness Affinities and is a Complex Concept. It can absorb energy or weaken it. In this case, he used the Concept of Subtraction to get rid of the will on the Domain by using up his own Mana,” the Ancestral Mage explained.

Shang wasn’t surprised to hear that someone knew the Concept of Subtraction. The Concept of Subtraction might be a complete unknown outside, but here, there were only insanely talented people.

However, there was one thing that told Shang a lot, and he even grew a slight bit excited when he heard it.

The Ancestral Mage had called the Concept of Subtraction a Complex Concept.

That wasn’t true.

Entropy was one Affinity, and the Concept of Subtraction was part of the Entropy Affinity and nothing else.

This meant that the Concept of Subtraction was a Pure Concept, not a Complex Concept.

And since the Ancestral Mage had called the Concept of Subtraction a Complex Concept, it meant that nobody knew about the Entropy Affinity.

Now, one had to differentiate between two things.

The people knew about the Child of Calamity but the people didn’t know about the specifics of the Child of Calamity’s Affinity.

This was extremely important to know!

‘It’s understandable,’ Shang thought. ‘Maybe not even the Emperors know how the Child of Calamity works exactly.’

‘Lucius was the Child of Calamity, but he kept everything about his Affinity a secret. After that, the Emperors immediately found each Child of Calamity and stopped them from becoming more powerful.’

‘This meant that every single Child of Calamity in history, except for Lucius, never even reached the Adept Realm.’

‘Because of that, they couldn’t be sure what powers the Entropy Affinity has. In their minds, the Child of Calamity is similar to an Abomination, but the Abominations only show their powers in their pure forms, which is Entropy itself. They are not showing fire, light, ice, or darkness.’

‘Sure, they might know that the Child of Calamity’s Affinity is made of these four Affinities, but that doesn’t tell them which Concepts would be considered Pure for that Affinity. After all, they had never seen anyone comprehend them.’

This was important!

‘That means that I don’t even need to keep the Concepts I plan to comprehend a secret. To them, comprehending Temperature and Twilight after comprehending Addition and Subtraction would seem normal, although maybe a bit inefficient.’

‘How interesting. This also means that someone else can comprehend the Pure Concepts of the Entropy Affinity. Sure, it would be very difficult to comprehend since they don’t share the Affinity, but it is possible.’

‘Although, according to the God, the first four Concepts all lead into one single level five Concept, which is something that only Peak Mage Lords can comprehend, and these Peak Mage Lords are probably busy with comprehending something else.’

‘Additionally, they wouldn’t even know that it is possible to combine these four Concepts into a level five Concept.’

‘That means everyone knows all the components needed to understand the Entropy Affinity, but none of them realize that they are the components.’

Today, Shang learned something very important.

The Child of Calamity was known, but the Child of Calamity’s Path and its goal were a secret.

The Ancestral Mage explained in more detail how Shang had won the battle, and when everyone finally understood what had happened, they realized that a big component of Shang’s victory was luck.

Which was true.

If Erel had only released one Domain and readied a defensive Spell, he would have vanished from Shang’s Spirit Sense, completely obscuring him. 

Shang had only managed to hit Erel since he had remembered where Erel had been when the Domain had appeared.

In fact, for once, Shang believed that he had been lucky.

Someone that could obscure Shang’s senses would be one of the hardest opponents for him to defeat. After all, compared to a normal Mage, Shang couldn’t release large-scale destructive Spells that destroyed huge areas, revealing the enemy.

Shang had to get close and strike his opponent precisely.

Erel had most likely been the most difficult opponent for Shang to defeat, but due to his recklessness, Erel had ended up being the easiest opponent.

But the same thing wouldn’t happen again.

Shang’s Spirit Sense focused on his next opponent, the woman wearing purple robes, Cindy.

She had a Temperature Affinity.

However, compared to Erel, Cindy didn’t have as much potential to win against Shang in his mind.

Erel had been Shang’s counter, but Shang was Cindy’s counter.

Rowan, with his Darkness Water Dual Affinity, would be in the middle for Shang. Shang would neither be at a disadvantage nor at an advantage.

Cindy looked back at Shang.

By now, her expression had changed.

Earlier, she had still taken Shang easy, just like Erel, but now, she had realized that Shang was actually truly dangerous.

However, none of these people were greenhouse flowers that had never seen the outside world.

All of them had gone through tons and tons of life-and-death battles, and they wouldn’t crack under pressure.

To her, this was a deadly and difficult fight, but it wouldn’t be her first deadly and difficult fight.

Shang was a powerful opponent, but she was used to battling someone like that.

“Shang, how long do you need to recover?” Lucin asked.

Shang’s body had been injured by the power coursing through it, and he had also used up quite a bit of life energy and Mana to release so much power.

Even more, while his body would recover just as fast as always, due to his new body, his life energy would take multiple times longer to recover.

“Give me ten minutes,” Shang said.

Lucin nodded. “The next duel will happen in ten minutes,” he announced to everyone.