Sword God in a World of Magic

When the Hadean King looked at him, Shang could feel the sheer power it exhibited.

However, it wasn't as overwhelming as he had expected.

Yes, it was definitely many times stronger than him, but its power somehow didn't feel as "complete" as even the weakest Mage King Shang had met.

There was definitely something lacking.

But on further thought, this actually made a lot of sense.

After all, nearly every Mage King had a fivefold Spirit Sense.

The Hadean King looked at Shang for several seconds.

Then, the cold and hot pockets of air fused with each other, evening out the temperature around it.

And yet, the temperature rapidly changed.

It went from hot to cold to hot to cold to hot and so on.

However, the change in temperature wasn't strong enough to injure Shang's powerful body.

Yet, some seconds later, the switch became more intense, with colder and hotter temperatures switching even faster.

But Shang still didn't get injured.

The temperatures became more and more extreme, and a full minute later, Shang's body actually showed a couple of burns and freezes.

That was when the switch of temperatures stopped getting stronger.

The Hadean King only looked at Shang, who didn't show any reactions.

After a couple of seconds, it looked away and closed its eyes.

Shang could guess what this meant.

This was probably the best way to comprehend the Concept of Temperatures. The temperatures were switching fast enough to injure Shang but not fast enough that they would kill him.

He was still recovering more life energy than he was using.

"You can start," Linay said from behind Shang. "I will keep watch over the surroundings."

Shang just nodded and checked if he really wore the pin that Linay had given him.

He did.

After that, Shang sat down in the middle of the sky.

It wasn't as easy to get lost in comprehension as usual, which was because Shang didn't feel as safe here as in his Isolation Chamber.

However, Shang got used to his new environment very quickly.

As Shang sat in the air, his mind actually entered his inner world.

The Mana of the surroundings permeated through his inner world, flooding it with Fire and Ice Mana.

All the grass inside Shang's inner world immediately turned to ash, leaving a dead wasteland behind.

A moment later, Shang's body was surrounded by his own Fire and Ice Mana.

He was trying to replicate the way the Fire and Ice Mana in his surroundings felt.

If he could perfectly replicate it, he would learn the Concept of Temperatures.

Creating the intensity of the temperatures and the frequency of the switch wasn't very difficult for Shang, but for some reason, it still felt very different.

And an hour later, Shang realized the difference.

The speed at which the temperatures were changing had doubled, but the intensity of the temperatures had lessened.

Naturally, Shang could emulate this change with his own Fire and Ice Mana, but it didn't feel nearly as smooth.

Every hour, the change in temperatures drastically changed.

Sometimes, the temperatures changed very slowly but with powerful extremes.

Sometimes, the temperature felt static and unchanging, but that was because Shang's mind wasn't powerful enough to notice the tiny and very quick fluctuations of temperature.

Emulating the extreme temperatures wasn't difficult for Shang, but he had big issues with the very subtle and quick changes.

It was like he was holding one half of an object in one hand and the other in another hand, but he just couldn't perfectly clap them together on the first try. He always had to adjust the position a tiny bit after banging them together.

Meanwhile, the temperatures in Shang's surroundings were switching very smoothly.

Shang started to swing his Addum and Subsis, using them as representatives of Fire and Ice.

The more Shang swung his two swords, the closer he felt to the surrounding temperatures.

He even began to anticipate the changes.

And yet, his own Fire and Ice Mana were not changing as fluently as the surrounding temperature.

Time passed.

Shang just continued training.

Linay kept glancing more and more at Shang.

She had actually never seen Shang train since he always stayed inside his Isolation Barrier.

Now, she could watch, and as more time passed, she grew more and more surprised.

He didn't stop.

He took no breaks.

A human only had a limited amount of concentration, and they needed to recover that concentration from time to time.

Comprehending a Concept wasn't something fun.

It was work.

It was just doing calculation after calculation, and it involved a lot of brute-forcing in different ways.

There was nothing magical or mystical about comprehending a Concept.

It was just a lot of work.

Even more, the progress of comprehending a Concept very often halted. Oftentimes, one had to change one's approach and reset their mind.

Troubleshooting was tedious, and one's head was often so stuck in one's ways that it was impossible to see the true solution to a problem.

That was when most people took breaks since a change of activity and scenery could refresh their minds, allowing them to see an almost obvious solution they had overlooked earlier.

And yet, Shang never stopped.

He just continued.

His Spirit Sense never showed any kind of activity, which meant that he wasn't looking at his surroundings at all.

He just continued sitting there in the air like a statue.

A century passed.

Two centuries.

Three centuries.

Shang never stopped.

He just continued.

Linay had to deal with several of her duties with her Transmission Medal since she didn't get an opportunity to leave Shang.

The news of the war also continued to come in, and it didn't look good at all.

Their numbers of Ancestral Mages were shrinking.

Even more, the Judgment Palace had already noticed that Shang hadn't shown himself in a long time, and they started to carefully use their remaining Defender Flags again.

But for Shang, nothing changed.

Every day was the same.

More years passed.

Another hundred years.

Another hundred years.

And finally, after over 500 years in total, Shang managed to understand the Concept of Temperatures.