CHAPTER 260: 260

When Elise was satisfied with the size of the cloud up above, she stopped pumping her spirit energy out. Then, a silver streak of spirit energy left her hand and shot up to the cloud.

Michelle raised a brow. "Dual-faceted Spirit Master?" It was a bit surprising. People like that were rare.

But she didn’t really have the time to think about it. Elise activated the skill.

The streak of metal element spirit energy she had shot up into the cloud spread within it like a net. Because it was spirit energy, it had an extremely potent energy. So when the parts of the net rubbed against each other, they created sparks.

Upon the platform, rain started. It was light, but could last long. And it turned the air humid. So the sparks created by the metal net could spread around, prickling everything.

Michelle frowned. In her past life, there was no way to create lightning solely by shooting a metal piece into a calm, non-storm cloud. But with spirit energy, things were completely different.

But Michelle had a plan of her own.

The speck of shadow essence on her palm was prepared. She started forcing it to spread out, forming a very thin cloud. It was basically transparent.

When it was nearly invisible, Michelle finally felt what she wanted. The shadow essence under her control reacted to the shadow essence in the air.

Usually, shadow essence under no one’s control would be invisible. But after reacting to someone else’s shadow essence, it would show itself—gray and grim.

Elise’s face showed a speck of worry when she saw a gray mist appear all around her. But it wasn’t hard to realize it wasn’t under Michelle’s control since it was moving completely randomly. So she quickly calmed down.

And she was right—it wasn’t under Michelle’s control.

But just like humans could be manipulated into doing as someone wished, shadow essence had this trait too. If Michelle could precisely control her shadow essence, she could make the shadow essence in the air move as she wished.

Elise sent another streak of metal element spirit energy into the cloud, and the sparks turned even bigger. The ordinary cloud had turned into a storm cloud.

Forming a metal plate on her hand, Elise threw it at Michelle.

Michelle stepped to the side to dodge the plate.

But to her surprise, it stopped just a few centimeters before the place she had stood. There, it fell to the ground and, like a bug, started crawling toward her.

The storm cloud up above was charged up. When Michelle moved away from the metal plate, it followed her at incredible speed. It was nearly constantly beneath her.

If she didn’t do something, sooner or later, lightning would come down at her. But it was fine. Michelle had a plan.

She quickly put her focus on the shadow essence she could control and pulled it all back to her.

And the shadow essence around it, as if reacting to a crowd effect, followed closely behind.

The gray mist all around the platform moved to Michelle, wrapping around her.

Then, Michelle did something shocking.

It wasn’t that she pulled her shadow essence back into her body.

It was that she closed her eyes and let the rest of the shadow essence follow her own into her body.

She wasn’t cultivating, so the shadow essence didn’t get under her control. It just invaded her body like a virus.

It all happened quickly, and no one could know what would happen to Michelle. They could just make assumptions.

But since nothing special was happening to her, they thought it was safe.

The only one who understood why Michelle did it and what consequences it would have was a shadowy figure concealed above the arena.

The shadow essence wasn’t long in Michelle’s body before the first lightning charged up. With an earth-splitting roar, it struck down toward the metal plate beneath Michelle.

It was to be expected that it would strike Michelle.

But unlike what everyone thought, Michelle was unharmed. The lightning passed through her like she wasn’t there.

Like she was nothing but a shadow.

Alexander’s smile widened when he saw that. Michelle did it correctly.

The foreign shadow essence in her body had spread everywhere, so when the lightning landed on her, all that it came in contact with was masterless shadow essence. And that only appeared in shadows.

So the lightning continued going down. It bypassed Michelle, not even touching her even though it was in her body for a moment.

Seeing that, Elise was puzzled. She didn’t have the knowledge to know why the lightning didn’t affect Michelle. So she sent even more metal element spirit energy up into the cloud to provoke it into making an even bigger lightning.

Originally, since they were only meant to spar, she wanted to use a small lightning so Michelle wouldn’t get hurt too much. But since a small lightning had no effect, a bigger one was needed.

But no matter how big of a lightning Elise sent at Michelle, it always ended the same. It just passed through Michelle like she wasn’t real.

Elise was quite angry. That was one of her best skills. When she put in enough spirit energy, it was able to kill a person three levels above her. So why was she unable to graze Michelle, who was so much weaker than her?

While letting the lightning strikes pass through her, Michelle concentrated on summoning a skill of her own. She needed to time it perfectly, or Elise’s next lightning strike would burn her to a crisp.

The moment the next lightning passed through her, she moved her shadow essence and had it fly at Elise at blinding speed. Along with it, all the shadow essence that was in her body moved along.

Before Elise could control the cloud to strike Michelle again, she was engulfed by a gray cloud, pushing her down. To those who weren’t Shadow Masters, even masterless shadow essence was harmful—though barely.

But when there was enough of it, it could knock them out.

Elise fainted on the spot.

Without her controlling it, the metal plate beneath Michelle stopped moving, so she could walk away. The few next lightning strikes which came down freely no longer posed a threat to her.

After Elise was brought down from the platform, Michelle walked down too. The people around were looking at her like she was some kind of monster. It was unheard of for someone to be completely unaffected by lightning.

But Michelle did it.

What no one noticed was that Michelle’s eyes showed slight discomfort. Using foreign shadow essence like that had its side effects.

But she didn’t leave yet. She was waiting for Elise to wake up.

Luckily, that was quick.

They exchanged a few words before Michelle left the arena.

She was planning to continue working on the poison, but just a few steps outside the arena and her head spun like crazy.

She was able to stay on her feet, so she quickly activated her Shadow Spirit Steps and went to her room. There, she knocked into nearly everything as she walked to the bed.

And when she finally reached it, she couldn’t even lay down. "What do you want here?" she hissed at Alexander. His posture was relaxed, lying in Michelle’s bed.

"It’s surprising you were able to make it here!" He moved to the side a bit, creating some space. It was like he was daring Michelle to lay down next to him.

Michelle stared down at him. She was way too tired to even get angry. She just crashed down into the bed, kicking her shoes off.

Alexander sat up. "You haven’t even cultivated your shadow essence yet, but you already understand it to such an extent. Your talent is definitely above that of others."

It was rare to hear Alexander say something so serious, but Michelle didn’t really care.

The side effect of letting foreign shadow essence into her body for a prolonged time was that once it left, her own shadow essence started thrashing around.

She was still fine when she was on the platform because she had shot her shadow essence out, but when she stepped down, it returned to her—and it started causing a ruckus.

While she wasn’t moving that much, it was fine, but when she decided to leave the arena, the ruckus within her body got worse. She could barely stay on her feet.

Alexander lifted his hand and put it over the back of Michelle’s neck. Then, he poured some of his shadow essence into her body. "You need to get a hold of your shadow essence if you want it to calm down..." He leaned down, his face right behind Michelle’s head.

Michelle didn’t say anything. She felt like cursing Alexander out, saying that it was impossible to control shadow essence once it went rampant. He was just messing with her.

But she held back. The shadow essence he had sent into her body was stronger than hers, and it was subduing it slowly. The pain she was feeling was subsiding.