CHAPTER 277: 277

Michelle stretched her body lazily. She was on her way to leave Mavreth’s sect. She had stayed for a long time. She had gained an arsenal of poisons, and Alexander had taught her the Liquid Shadow skill. He also tried to teach her to use the Inner Shadow, but Michelle couldn’t do it.

When Alexander first told her to give up on it, she stared at him in shock. Did that mean her shadow essence control wasn’t enough to take her into the Eclipse rank? She had been hoping it was.

But Alexander dispelled those doubts. Michelle’s control wasn’t the problem. He believed that, though suppressed by the Heavenly Law, Michelle was on the borderline of the Chasm and Oblivion ranks.

"So why can’t I learn the Inner Shadow?" Michelle frowned. She wanted to learn it.

Alexander sighed. "It’s your Spirit Soul Blood that’s causing it."

Michelle tilted her head a bit. What did the Spirit Soul Blood have to do with the Inner Shadow? And why was it that whenever she had a problem, there was a high probability it was caused by that blood?

Seeing Michelle’s confusion (and budding anger), Alexander went on to explain.

So basically, because of the Spirit Soul Blood, the Heavenly Law was taking Michelle as a monster capable of wielding spirit and soul energy alongside shadow essence. And monsters were usually more powerful than other creatures of the same rank.

It didn’t matter that that wasn’t the truth. The Heavenly Law was already viewing her as a monster, so the restraints on her were stronger and harsher.

In some rare cases, Heavenly Law could restrict—or better said, obscure—a person’s consciousness. And it did it in a way the person didn’t even notice.

When the Heavenly Law noticed what it thought to be a monster capable of using all three energies (shadow essence counted as an energy too), it instantly started restraining this monster’s consciousness. To the point that Michelle’s control over shadow essence was lessened.

Not to mention the Eclipse rank—even her use of the Nigh-ranked skills was restrained. If it wasn’t, she would have been able to master the Living Shadow and the Liquid Shadow faster.

After Alexander explained everything to Michelle, a nasty feeling sprouted within her chest. Since the Heavenly Law wanted to restrain her, she would show it what she thought about it. Even if it took a long time to achieve, she was determined to one day defy the Heavenly Law. To gain the power when it could no longer restrain her.

She didn’t care whether it was humanly possible. If it wasn’t within human means, she didn’t care. The Heavenly Law was already viewing her as something inhuman. So she would become what it thought she was.

It would just take a while.

Alexander couldn’t tell what Michelle was thinking, but the look in her eyes made his blood boil. He wanted to see more of it.

But Michelle quickly calmed down. Without doing anything brutal, she returned to normal. Everything seemed exactly the same as before Alexander had told her about the restrictions on her.

Alexander knew that within Michelle, that wasn’t the case. She just stored the plans away for later. And he would wait for her to open the drawer like a Pandora’s box and let the plans free. They would become a disease to consume what was restraining her, even if it was the whole world.

But that was for later. Until then, Alexander had to wait.

After Michelle returned to normal, she went to see Mavreth. She was planning to soon leave the sect. As Mavreth’s disciple, it seemed obvious to tell him.

But Mavreth told her to first master a few more poisons before going.

Michelle agreed. She still wanted Alexander to get her the poison he and his shadow guards were poisoned with. She had a lot of free time.

At the moment, all her plans were long-term. Even if she spent a few years at the sect, nothing would change.

But she didn’t have the patience for that. Also, her friends were waiting for her outside the sect. They were probably cultivating somewhere so they could go to the upper realm as soon as possible.

Or they were fighting monsters to gain more experience.

Michelle had no way of knowing, but she wasn’t exactly curious. She did care about her friends. She wasn’t heartless. But after splitting apart, if they decided to forever stay in the middle realm, she wouldn’t stop them.

She wasn’t their master or lord. They had their own free will. And she would find out about their adventures once she left the sect. Just like she would tell them what she had gone through.

After learning to make about a dozen more poisons, Mavreth gave Michelle a spatial ring full of poisons. The bottles had different colored caps depending on how they should be taken.

With that, Michelle was prepared to leave the sect. But before that, she inquired about the girls from the cultivation guild.

And the answer she got was quite pleasant. In the excellent cultivation environment, about half of them had already broken through into the Divine rank. But they were still cultivating, waiting for everyone to break through.

Knowing that, Michelle was quite happy. They were indeed a talented group.

Well, that was to be expected. There were just a few hundreds of them, but they were able to dominate the information industry in the whole of the lower realm.

Michelle couldn’t wait to see what they would be like once they got into the middle realm. How fast would their influence spread? And how fast would they get to the upper realm?

She couldn’t stop thinking about it as she walked out of the sect.

There, she summoned Tenether and had him transform into a huge raven. A falcon would be faster, but a raven blended better into the night.

With a happy chirp, which sounded more like a screech, Tenether flew up, Michelle on his back. It had been a long time since he had seen his contract master.

Michelle cast a last glance at the sect disappearing in the distance. She didn’t know whether she would ever come back, but that didn’t matter to her.

She wasn’t a disciple of the sect. She had no personal attachment to the sect. She was just a disciple of the sect master.

Tenether flew above the middle realm. Michelle told him the general direction where she thought Kieran and the rest could be. She left it up to him to find them.

And it wasn’t all that difficult to find them.

Tenether abruptly stopped above a group of three young people. They were in a fight against a mountain lion.

Staring down from Tenether’s back, Michelle lifted a brow. The lion’s power wasn’t enough to drive the three into a corner when they were together, but for some reason, Ivona and Anastasia were barely standing and Kieran had to protect them.

It had been a while since Michelle used the Eye of Nihil. She avoided using it to check the poisons given to her by Mavreth, because that would immediately tell her how to make them. And with that, she wouldn’t improve her ability to analyze poisons. So she didn’t use it.

But at the moment, it was time to use it. The lion wasn’t normal. Michelle was curious about what made Ivona and Anastasia so useless.

When she focused her gaze on the lion, a status window appeared in front of it. But it was too far away for Michelle to see it.

But once she focused on it, it flew up, stopping in front of her. Michelle could finally see what was written.

Seeing the status window, Michelle nearly laughed. "A picky eater amongst carnivores!" she suppressed a chuckle.

The window described the lion in quite some detail.

A Syrithis Lion. It was a rare solitary kind of lion.

And that wasn’t the only thing that made it different. It was a carnivore like every other lion, but it was quite picky about its food.

It never bit into the flesh of male creatures. Only females. And to make sure it didn’t have to unnecessarily fight, it was able to release its pheromones and carry them far with its spirit energy so it could knock its prey out before it could even notice the danger. And if the prey was too strong to be knocked out, it would at least get weakened.

But that made the situation a bit difficult. If Michelle jumped down, she would just become another burden for Kieran. The pheromones would weaken her.

Of course, she could have Tenether strike the lion down, but that wouldn’t be satisfying.

She considered summoning a Living Shadow down there, but that too was boring.

So, what if she could jump down and aim straight for the lion’s Life Stone?

That would definitely make things interesting.

Liking the idea, Michelle didn’t try to think of anything new. She just started thinking about when to jump down. If she delayed it for too long, the lion would notice Tenether flying in the air.