CHAPTER 293: 293

Trying to get a hold of the shadow with strings made of her dark element spirit energy, Michelle felt her veins pulsing hard, even though she wasn’t supposed to have any since she was in the shape of a gemstone. Constantly, she kept fainting.

Her control over her spirit energy was terrible, and the strings she made kept falling apart.

But at least she was able to retain enough control to always pull the spirit energy back before it enveloped around her and made her transform back into her human form.

"I feel like my veins are about to pop!" Michelle complained, but she didn’t stop trying. Once again, she summoned a bunch of strings of spirit energy and moved it towards the shadow beneath her.

But before it could even touch the shadow, which was mere centimeters away, the string burst.

And as Michelle’s veins, through which she was channeling her spirit energy, were already pulsing, she failed to pull the spirit energy back. It wrapped around her like a nice little cocoon and she took back on her human form.

"Well, that’s a fail..." Michelle sat down with a sigh.

Her veins were aching even in her human form. She had to rest. Otherwise she wouldn’t achieve anything.

Still, she summoned her spirit energy. She wanted to see just how big the difference in her control was when she was in her human and in the gem form.

The result didn’t surprise her.

In her human form, she easily created the strings and had them tangle around until they intertwined into something that resembled a flower garland. It just wasn’t made of flowers.

Retracting the spirit energy, Michelle laid on her back and closed her eyes.

Only when she closed her eyes did she realize how exhausted she was. The experiment, then absorbing the second Life Stone, and finally trying to control the shadow. All that took a toll on her and she didn’t even notice.

Nearly instantly, she fell asleep like a child.

Seeing that, Nyxaroth returned into Michelle’s body. From there, he could see both what was going on around Michelle, and could react quickly, and also what was happening within Michelle’s body and wake her up if things seemed sketchy.

Alexander stood a bit further. He wasn’t worried about a threat coming from the outside. With just a single glance from him, Noctis and Unlucien understood they were to make sure nothing got near Michelle’s resting place. So they went a bit further to stand guard.

In the meantime, Alexander sat down next to Michelle, his gaze locked on her.

Michelle slept for a long time. And it was to be expected, considering the state she was in before falling asleep.

When she woke up, she was feeling better. Her veins were no longer aching and she was quite well-rested. Even though she had slept on the ground in the middle of nowhere.

"How do you feel?" Alexander was lazily resting his chin on his hand. He was sitting cross-legged on the ground with his elbow pressed into his knee.

Michelle stood up. "Good," she said, clearly satisfied. "Quite good."

And since she was feeling good, she decided it was time to continue trying to move her shadow.

There was also one more thing she was curious about.

If she shrunk into the small gem with Nyxaroth, being mist, residing within her body, would he be shrunken along with her, or would he get forced out of her body?

She wanted to know not only to satisfy her vain curiosity, but also to prevent future problems.

Two troublesome things could happen.

One; Nyxaroth would get forced out. That would destroy her disguise. If she wanted to escape someplace and big black mist left her, people would notice the black stone it came from.

Second; Nyxaroth would stay within her body, and get shrunken along with her. But then there could be a problem with getting him back to his original form.

"Whatever you are thinking," Nyxaroth left Michelle’s body, "I’m not doing it!"

Michelle was disappointed by that. She didn’t want to give up on the test. "But I want to know what would happen to you if I transformed. That will determine whether you can stay residing within my body, or will have to stay in my space with the rest."

But Nyxaroth was firm in his standing. Unlike Michelle, he wasn’t willing to experiment with his own body.

With a sigh, Michelle decided to go try move the shadow again. So she transformed into the small black gem and summoned her spirit energy.

It felt a bit easier than before, but it was still taxing.

She succeeded in having the strings go to the shadow, but she couldn’t have them attach to it. It constantly kept connecting to the ground below the shadow.

Frowning, Michelle closed her purple eyes, focusing on sensing the shadow.

She could feel something very subtle on the ends of the strings.

But it was such a weak sensation that she couldn’t even start guessing what it was.

So Michelle decided to make the sensation more prominent.

She couldn’t cause the effect to get bigger, but she could widen her range of grasp over it to sense it better.

And the best way for sensing was using the Sensing Net.

Michelle didn’t know whether it would work. She hadn’t tried to use the Sensing Net in the shape of the stone yet. And she doubted it would be easy since her control was much worse than normally. And the Sensing Net required great control.

Spreading out more and more strings, Michelle didn’t open her eyes, so she could keep her focus on its peak. She couldn’t afford to make a single mistake if she wanted to succeed first try.

Though even she doubted she could achieve that. It was basically impossible.

She was used to her usual control, so being obscure and stiffened by the stone made it an unachievable feat.

As expected, Michelle failed on her first try, but that wasn’t a bad thing. Every fail gave her new insight into her control. Where she was making mistakes and what could be improved.

After about five or six tries, Michelle finally succeeded in creating the net in her stone form. It was highly unstable and just a tiny interference of someone else’s spirit energy could scatter it.

But Michelle didn’t mind. She didn’t need the net to be stable. She just needed to be able to feel what was going on with the shadow. What was so different about it compared to other shadows?

For a while, Michelle didn’t do anything. Her eyes were shut and her energies unmoving.

But that didn’t mean she wasn’t working.

Her senses were on high alert and her brain was working on the information she was constantly receiving from the unstable Sensing Net.

Just like she had guessed before, the shadow didn’t have a single speck of shadow essence. Instead, it was abundantly filled with dark element spirit energy. That was what was blocking the light from reaching the ground. The spirit energy was gathered around the small gem, Michelle, creating the invisible shape of a rabbit, which didn’t let light through.

So, to move, Michelle didn’t need to concern herself with the shadow. The way was through the spirit energy gathered around her.

But that wasn’t her spirit energy, so how was she supposed to move it?

Considering it for a while, Michelle thought of the idea of replacing the spirit energy with her own. But if she did that, she would be enveloping herself in spirit energy, which, in turn, would make her transform back into her human form.

She didn’t want that. That wasn’t the desired outcome.

So was there a way to create a sphere around her which wouldn’t contain spirit energy, and the rest of the rabbit silhouette would be of spirit energy?

It seemed possible. It sounded like creating a protective barrier.

But usually, when there was spirit energy flowing around the barrier’s walls, it would be from the inner side, not the outer one.

Still, Michelle believed she could do it.

First, she would try to create the skill in her human form. That would be easier.

Then, after mastering it in the human form, she would transform into the stone again and try to recreate the skill there.

When Michelle transformed, Nyxaroth and Alexander were surprised. "Are you giving up?" Alexander doubted that was the case, but he still asked.

Michelle shook her head. "I just want to try something."

Gathering her ice element spirit energy to her hand, she started channeling it outside her body, into a thick rod that stretched in front of her.

After deeming it long enough, Michelle had its end extend to the sides.

Soon, a sphere of ice was created all around her.

The reason Michelle used the ice element was because it was solid in its elemental state. So she could observe the imperfections on the sphere and change them. Then, she would force it into the invisible state of spirit energy in the air and observe the flow.

Finally, she could try to recreate that flow with her dark element spirit energy.