CHAPTER 262: 262

"So, a bet?" Michelle raised a brow.

"Yes!" Alexander nodded. "A bet on whether you can find out what it means. If you can’t, I win, and I decide if the deal with me stands. If you can, you win, and you get to choose whether we go through with it or not."

Michelle quite liked the idea of a bet, but she doubted it would be that easy. Alexander wasn’t someone to start a bet he would lose. It would probably be hard for her to find out what it meant if he had put his shadow essence into her neck.

Still... "Sounds nice! I like the bet!" Michelle agreed.

So, just a few minutes later, Michelle was going through the library. She had two sections in mind where she could find information about the spot on her neck.

First was the one about anatomy. Compared to the rest of the library sections, it was quite small.

Well... small.

Three full bookshelves.

The problem was with the second section—about twenty bookshelves full of books about shadow essence, its cultivation, and Shadow Masters.

To go through all that, even briefly, Michelle would need weeks. Three days were far from enough.

Only after seeing that did Michelle understand why Alexander proposed the bet. The information was easy to find if you had the right book. And the book was most probably in the shadow essence section. But for Michelle to find it was nearly impossible in three days.

"He messed me up good..." she showed a bright smile.

As the anatomy section was smaller, it was probably best to start there, but a thought surfaced in Michelle’s mind.

Since Alexander was so sure she wouldn’t find a book about inserting shadow essence into the neck, it was highly possible it couldn’t be found in the smallest section of the library.

But there was also the possibility of Alexander doing it the opposite way. Maybe he knew she would think like that because of the way he spoke, so she wouldn’t check the anatomy section. Where the book was.

Since Michelle didn’t know whether that was the case, she went with her first choice and went into the anatomy section. She would go through it quickly before moving on to the Shadow Mastery section.

Speeding through the anatomy section, Michelle passed through it in a day and had two more days to go through the Shadow Mastery section. She couldn’t find anything helpful in the anatomy section even though she was only checking things related to the neck.

In the Shadow Mastery section, Michelle decided not to go through the books one by one. Instead, she picked the first and the last one, and then some random books to go through. That could increase her chance of finding the right book. Because she didn’t know in which part of the section a suitable book would be.

It took a long time, but by the evening of the third day, lady luck smiled at Michelle. One of the books she had randomly picked was about Shadow Pacts.

The book explained a lot.

Every cultivator had not only a center on the back of their neck for sensing the energy they were cultivating, but also a center for absorbing the energy. Soul Masters had it on top of their head, Spirit Masters on their chest, and Shadow Masters on the side of their neck, just below the jaw.

The book didn’t explain whether Soul Masters and Spirit Masters had some kind of pact too, but if two Shadow Masters met, and if one inserted his shadow essence into the absorption center of the other one, a pact would form between them.

It wouldn’t especially affect them normally, but once one of them got hurt or was suffering, the other could feel it. They would feel it as a strange beating appearing in their chest, like a second heart, beating whenever the other one was hurt.

And if one of the Shadow Masters in the pact died, the other one would first feel the beating get extremely rapid before it disappeared completely, never to appear again.

Reading that, Michelle frowned.

The book mentioned that Spirit Masters had their absorption center on their chest. Then that was another thing Michelle had different from everyone else. She could absorb spirit energy through her whole body.

If she gave it some time, she could come up with a way to break the pact if she wanted.

She had the feeling that if she used her spirit energy to flood the shadow essence absorption center, it would sever its connection with the shadow essence outside. That could sever its connection with the pact, creating a situation as if she died.

Thinking about it, Michelle smiled a bit. She was suddenly a bit tempted to form the Shadow Pact with Alexander. She really wanted to see his reaction if he thought she had died.

But at the same time, she didn’t really want to tell him that she wanted to form the pact. He would definitely suspect that she was planning something and could even see through her plan. Then it would all be pointless.

So, instead, Michelle closed the book and put it away, taking up another one. There was a high possibility of Alexander watching her to see whether she would find the information. So she wanted to fool him into thinking she didn’t.

That way, he would think she was forming the pact with him because she lost the bet. Also, he would have to explain it to her. Maybe he knew more about it than was written in the book, so she could gain some additional knowledge.

But for her plan to succeed, she needed one thing. For Alexander and his subordinates not to know which book in the library was about the Shadow Pacts. Otherwise, they would already know that she found out about it. And her plan would fall through.

After some time, Michelle slapped the book she was holding closed, a yawn leaving her mouth. The sun was already hidden and darkness was overtaking the sect. The library would soon close, and since Michelle didn’t want to stay the night, she had to leave.

She didn’t even have to open the door to her room before she felt a presence inside. The shadows inside were moving around, bending around a person.

"Were you here the whole time?" she asked as she opened the door. "I didn’t feel you when I was at the library." Michelle turned to Alexander. Once again, he was in her bed, lying there carelessly.

Alexander sat up. "Of course I was there." A small cloud of shadow essence left his hand and wrapped around Michelle’s wrist. Then, it tugged her toward Alexander. When she was just a few steps away, it tugged stronger and she nearly fell over, landing right next to Alexander. "I was just outside the window."

Michelle raised a brow. "So you put in more effort into concealing yourself?"

Alexander shrugged. "Maybe you were just that engrossed in your research. So..." he tilted his head a bit. "Did you find out about my wish?" he asked.

Michelle narrowed her eyes. Alexander’s attitude wasn’t that of someone who didn’t know.

But there was the question of whether he really knew or he just thought he knew.

So Michelle didn’t answer right away. "What do you think?" she asked instead.

Alexander stared at Michelle for a while. "I get the feeling that even if you found out, you will agree to my wish," he suddenly said, observing Michelle’s expression.

He wanted to see at least some change in expression to gauge her reaction.

But Michelle remained the same. "Are you that sure?"

"I was never more sure!" Alexander smiled and leaned his head down, pressing it against Michelle’s head.

"But that’s not important now since I’ve won the bet!" he finally said with a smile. "Did I not?"

Michelle moved her gaze to Alexander. Was he being serious or was he testing her? She couldn’t exactly be sure, but she didn’t really care. "Why do you think so?"

"You are the type of person who would have already explained everything about Shadow Pacts by now if you knew," Alexander was quite confident.

Michelle raised a brow. "You know I don’t like explaining things, don’t you?"

Alexander nodded. "I know, but this is something you would have explained at all costs, because you would want me to tell you more about it."

Michelle shrugged a bit. She couldn’t exactly disagree. She was quite curious about the Shadow Pacts, and even though she was doing it differently, she was trying to make Alexander explain things to her in detail.

"Well then..." Alexander stood up, leaning over Michelle. "It’s time to fulfill your promise."

Michelle leaned her head to the side, giving Alexander access to the side of her neck.

Alexander placed his hand there and started pouring his shadow essence in. At first, it felt like a soft stream entering her body, but after a while, Michelle felt like a river was tearing through her neck.