The Space Ring fell out of the portal, and Shang inspected it.
Then, he nodded.
'Not bad,' he thought. 'This guy probably has nearly a hundred Grade Seven Mana Crystals. With everything else I've gotten, I should have earned more than 200 Grade Seven Mana Crystals.'
Less than half an hour.
This was how long Shang had taken to earn more than 200 Grade Seven Mana Crystals.
Shang pocketed the Space Ring and planned his next move.
Meanwhile, the Bolt was looking at Shang with shock.
He still couldn't fully accept what he had just witnessed.
Near the top of the greater Magic Circle encompassing the wilderness, a Mid Ancestral Mage Cloud had been calmly waiting and recovering.
After he had been attacked by Shang, he went deeper into the Eternal Ocean and searched for something valuable.
Sadly, the intense pressure and gravity had been far stronger than the Mage had anticipated, and he needed to go to shallower waters to recover some of his Mana.
He hadn't expected that the intense pressure would use up that much of his Mana, but that also didn't matter that much.
After resurfacing for a while, he was planning to return to the bottom of the Eternal Ocean.
And then, he exploded.
A humongous black sphere suddenly consumed him and the surrounding kilometers.
The surroundings had been filled with insanely dense Darkness Mana.
It took a while for the dense Water Mana from the outside to wash the Darkness Mana away, but when it did, the Cloud had been revealed again.
He had transformed into a husk.
He looked like a corpse that had been dead for months.
Naturally, this was the doing of one or two of Shang's new techniques, depending on how one defined a technique.
When Shang had absorbed the Water Mana around him with his Void Break, he had immediately shoved it into his Subsis.
Shang's Subsis couldn't hold Water Mana, but it could still guide it due to its shape.
The dense Water Mana was pushed out of Shang's Subsis at its tip, creating a fast and dense beam of water.
Yet, it had to get through something first.
A layer of Death Mana.
Shang had coated the tip of his Subsis with his stored Death Mana, and when the Water Mana shot through it, it pulled the Death Mana along.
Naturally, Death Mana wouldn't easily move like that, but this was why this was a technique. By manipulating a couple of Concepts and the Mana, Shang could infuse some of his attacks with Death Mana.
And this was one of them.
People that weren't familiar with Death Mana wouldn't be able to see it, making Shang's attack seem weak and irrelevant.
When the water beam hit the Mage, it scattered Death Mana across his entire Mana Shield.
Shang had used the Concept of Sickness with the Death Mana, which meant that it clung to the Mana Shield and absorbed Mana continuously.
An Initial Ancestral Mage would notice the drain immediately.
An Early Ancestral Mage might notice the drain.
However, a Mid Ancestral Mage had too much Mana to notice the drain immediately. It would take some time for them to notice it.
This was one of the effects of this technique, with another effect being a marker for Shang to follow.
Shang could feel the Death Mana, and he could essentially follow its trail like a dog.
Shang called this attack Infection.
What could the opponent do to get rid of Infection?
It was very easy but also very risky.
Just dismiss the Mana Shield.
When the Mana Shield was dismissed, the Mage only needed to take a step to the side and resummon it. Like this, the Death Mana wouldn't affect them anymore.
However, activating Mana Shield wasn't instantaneous.
The cast for Mana Shield was a bit longer than for Mana Step.
And with the power of a Mage's body, any attack Shang would launch at them would end their life.
Even just the pressure of Shang swinging his sword in the general direction of the Mage might turn them to dust.
Of course, Shang also had created some techniques that were extremely weak but also extremely fast for exactly that purpose.
Either dismiss your Mana Shield and risk dying or keep getting drained by Death Mana.
Sadly, what the opponent didn't know was that the more Mana the Death Mana absorbed, the more powerful it became.
By using the Concept of Purgatory, Shang could keep the Mana "alive".
All the Mana eaten by the Death Mana would be transformed into Darkness Mana and stored inside it.
And Shang could detonate this Mana whenever he wanted.
Naturally, if the Death Mana didn't absorb a lot, the power of the explosion would be negligible.
In order to completely kill a Mid Ancestral Mage with their Mana Shield, it would need to absorb Mana for around a minute.
A minute in a battle between Shang and a Mage was an unreasonably long time.
But when they were not directly in a battle, this technique was deadly.
This was the attack that had killed the Mid Ancestral Mage Cloud.
Since it was an extension of Infection and a sort of culmination of it, Shang decided to call it Sepsis.
If you actually get Sepsis, there's a good chance that you won't survive.
A weak and pathetic beam of water that had touched the Mage's Mana Shield for just an instant had been the reason for his death.
The Bolt had no idea how Shang had accomplished that.
In fact, several things about Shang shocked and confused the Bolt.
How had he destroyed such a powerful barrier?
How had he killed someone a level above him from so far away?
pαndα`noν?1~сoМ The Bolt knew that the Clouds had mystical powers, but Shang's powers were the most mystical of them all.
They just seemed to defy common sense, making the impossible possible.
For some reason, the Bolt felt like this Wilderness Hunt wouldn't be a normal one.
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