Sword God in a World of Magic

Chapter 574 - Shroud

Shang stopped around 200 kilometers away from the Urbring Family's house.

Or, more like, the Urbring Family's city.

The Urbring Family was one of the more powerful gatherer families, much more powerful than the two gatherer families Shang had destroyed.

Because of that, their "house" was also far bigger.

Several-kilometer-tall walls surrounded a large area that was nearly 30 kilometers wide, but there was actually no roof above these walls.

Several powerful barriers and Magic Circles strengthened the walls, transforming everything into an extremely powerful fortress.

Inside the walls were several smaller mansions and houses for the different groups inside the Urbring Family. 

In a way, the gigantic walls were seen as the Urbring Family's house, but the house was actually just a container for a city.

The Urbring Family was sizable and very powerful.

The Patriarch of the Urbring Family was a Peak Archmage, someone that could kill Shang with a high likelihood.

Shang would definitely not be able to kill the Patriarch before he could call an Enforcer, if he could kill him at all.

Luckily, Shang was not here to kill the Patriarch but to keep watch over the Treasury Master.

Even more, Shang suspected that it was actually the Patriarch that requested this mission.

Even though the Patriarch was definitely much more powerful than the Treasury Master, their Spirit Senses were still equally as large, which meant that the Patriarch couldn't secretly watch the Treasury Master.

In fact, no one in the entire Urbring Family could watch the Treasury Master after leaving the Urbring Family's house. 

One had to either be an Ancestral Mage with a greater Spirit Sense or be invisible to Spirit Senses.

Shang guessed that the Patriarch suspected the Treasury Master of keeping a secret or embezzling funds.

Shang had been working in this territory for several decades, and he knew the rules all the gatherer families had to follow.

While the Natural Selection Company could harvest the territory for all it was worth, the same wasn't true for the gatherer families.

The Natural Selection Company paid money to the Twilight Dusk Family for all the resources in this area. The gatherer families were only contractors or employees. They were paid money to harvest the resources and send them to the Natural Selection Company. 

The gatherer families were not allowed to keep the resources they harvested for themselves.

The Patriarch of the Urbring Family probably suspected the Treasury Master of keeping resources.

Most of the time, this shouldn't be a rational fear for anyone to have. After all, everyone was getting paid good money.

But if one person found a valuable and secret location with several resources interesting to Ancestral Mages, things would be different.

What if one found a secret garden filled with Grade Six Mind Flowers, the main ingredient for Mind Flow Pellets?

Just one of these flowers could produce several Mind Flow Pellets and would go for over 50 Grade Six Mana Crystals.

If someone found a whole garden of those, their wealth would have to be measured in Grade Seven Mana Crystals.

Some people would definitely be enticed into keeping such a garden for themselves.

But if the Natural Selection Company got wind of it…

Well, the Enforcers were often searching for good reasons to kill a family and pocket all their belongings without having to pay them.

And that was probably exactly why the Patriarch was most likely the one that requested this mission.

The biggest indicator for it being the Patriarch that requested the mission was the fact that Shang wasn't supposed to kill the Treasury Master if he didn't break any rules.

Shang wasn't sure if the Treasury Master was inside the house at the moment. His Spirit Sense was completely cut off by the powerful Magic Circles surrounding the house.

But that wasn't really a problem. He only needed to wait. At some point, the Treasury Master would either return or leave.

After scanning the surroundings, Shang dug a small cave and buried himself in it.

While he could stay invisible to Spirit Senses, he could still be seen.

As Shang was surrounded by nothing but earth and stone, he fully focused on his Spirit Sense and kept watch over the Urbring Family's house.

Shang wouldn't train for the next five years since it wouldn't help much. Whenever Shang trained, he fully focused on his training, but that wouldn't be possible in this case since he had to keep watch over the Urbring Family's house.

Without being able to focus, training wasn't very effective.

After several days of watching, Shang eventually found something to occupy his mind that didn't require too much focus.

He simply tried to move the heavy Earth Mana around him more and more precisely.

Of course, Earth Mana had literally zero impact on Shang's power, but it was better than doing nothing.

If Shang were to do nothing for the next five years, he would go insane.

So, Shang just moved the Earth Mana around.

Left and right.

Up and down.

Whenever someone entered or exited the Urbring Family's house, Shang's Spirit Sense quickly threw a glance at them.

Eventually, Shang's mind entered a rhythm.

Several weeks passed.

Suddenly, Shang's Spirit Sense locked onto a person that just left the Urbring Family's house.

This was the Treasury Master.

The earth above Shang silently split open. He hadn't been able to do that several weeks ago but being able to move earth wasn't something particularly impressive.

Even some Peak Adepts could do that.

Learning this skill wasn't hard for someone with the mind of an Initial High Mage.

Like a ghost, Shang flew through the forest as he followed the Treasury Master.

It was currently night, and the forest was very dark.

Yet, Shang's white silhouette almost seemed unaffected by the dark.

It almost seemed like this white silhouette was only an illusion.

This was the effect of Shang's peculiar ability to stay invisible to most Spirit Senses.

Over the past 150 years, Shang had created an impressive ability to stay hidden.

While training his Long Sword State and Colossal Sword State Imposes, Shang had also learned a lot about light and darkness. Additionally, the lie he told everyone about his eyes wasn't a complete lie.

Not being able to see actually helped Shang in viewing the world from a different viewpoint.

So, after years of training, he had learned something surprising.

He had actually comprehended the level one Pure Concept of Light and Darkness.

The level one Pure Concept of Light was called Illumination, and it could be used to distort sight and Spirit Senses.

In fact, the powerful Mid High Mage Shang had fought in his last trial had used that concept to completely cut his senses off from the surroundings.

The level one Pure Concept of Darkness was called Shadow, and it could be used in the same way as the Concept of Illumination, but with darkness.

Light could be used to fill the surroundings with light.

Darkness could be used to empty the surroundings of light.

One represented the addition of something, and the other represented the subtraction of something.

They were two extremes.

But if one knew both, one could manipulate the two of them like a dial.

Make more appear there.

Make less appear there.

After a lot of training, Shang had managed to essentially only delete himself from the enemy's Spirit Sense.

This ability was also the very reason for his codename, White Ghost.

But Shang just called it Shroud.