Chapter 129: 129

Lying on the ground in the cave, Michelle stared at the fire. Even though she was a good few meters away from it, she still felt the warmth from it, and it made her uncomfortable. She glanced around and saw that Snow was also keeping her distance from the flames. In that, she and Michelle were the same. They had cold bodies, so they avoided warm things and places.

“Michelle…” Kieran broke the silence in the cave. Everyone was already preparing to go to sleep, but he had a question on his mind. “You said you would come only after about a week at the earliest, so how come you are here so early?” he asked curiously.

Michelle glanced at Kieran and remembered the Soul Seeking Pendants in her spatial ring. “I still need to take care of something, but to do that, I need to go to the lower realm first. But while there, I can’t break through into the Spirit rank.”

“Why can’t you break through?” Kieran was confused.

“The Soul Seeking pendants can suck in the souls of those who are above the Spirit rank. They should be full, so I shouldn’t be in danger, but I have no way of knowing if there isn’t a pendant that isn’t completely full. If there is one like that and I touch it after breaking through into the Spirit rank, then I’m as good as dead.”

“Oh…” Kieran lifted a brow. He remembered that Michelle had once told him that the Sloan family had created an army of soulless cultivators using the Soul Seeking Pendants, but he didn’t know that Michelle had yet to break them. He thought she had already done so. “Why do you need to go to the lower realm to free the souls?” he asked as he sat down by the cave wall. Everyone else was already half-asleep, but they were still listening, curious about Michelle’s plans.

“Well, they are all cultivators from the lower realm. If I freed them in the Land of Exile, they would be shocked and confused. And twelve thousand confused and maybe even enraged cultivators could cause quite some turmoil in a place where barely anyone can cultivate.” After finishing her explanation, Michelle yawned lazily and lay on her side, wanting to sleep.

Knowing that she had to be exhausted, no one asked her anything more, and everyone went to sleep. The next day, they were planning to go to the lower realm, so they needed to be well rested. In the end, in the jungle behind the barrier awaited more powerful monsters and beasts, ready to tear them apart.

The next day, Michelle woke up last. Kieran, Ivona, and Anastasia were already prepared to depart at any time.

Michelle sat up slowly and stretched her arms in front of her, smiling a bit when her muscles no longer ached. They were still sore and hurt in some positions, but that was just ordinary muscle soreness, so she didn’t mind it. “Are we going now?” she asked as she jumped to her feet. As she had come to the cave only in the evening, she had nothing to pack, so she was ready to leave the moment she woke up.

“We probably should…” Ivona was a bit surprised that Michelle already looked fine. What she didn’t know was that Michelle just had exceptional healing abilities due to having Spirit Soul Blood, so she was really fine. But Ivona assumed that Michelle was just hiding her pain so they could proceed. Still, she thought that if that was the case, Michelle wouldn’t agree to stay to rest a bit more, so she didn’t suggest it.

Kieran and Anastasia clearly thought the same, and Michelle could guess it from their faces, but she didn’t feel like explaining what was really going on. She wasn’t planning to hide her Spirit Soul Blood from the three, but just imagining explaining it was bothersome. Also, she knew that Anastasia and the rest must have guessed something already when they saw the horde of monsters that swarmed at her after she got wounded and the sweet scent of her blood filled the forest. It was impossible for them not to notice.

And indeed, after they left the cave and started walking towards the hinterlands so they could reach the barrier of Heavenly Law, Anastasia came to Michelle and asked her about it. “Michelle, why did all the beasts and monsters appear when you were fighting the plant beast? And what was the sweet scent in the air?” she asked curiously. Unlike Kieran and Ivona, who were nearly unconscious, she was fully awake, so she could clearly see that the creatures were all targeting solely Michelle.

Having guessed such a question would arise, Michelle had already thought about how to explain it so it would be easy to understand while keeping it as short as possible. “I have a special blood that smells very attractive to beasts and monsters, so they rushed at me after I was wounded by the plant beast. Also, the blood gives me extreme healing speed, so I’m already fine. The wound on my back is also healed.”

“That sounds like a troublesome thing… Though the healing is good, the fact that it attracts monsters and beasts is dangerous.” Anastasia sighed.

“It has some advantages, so it’s not that troublesome,” Michelle said lazily as they finally reached the barrier.

“What advantages?” Anastasia perked up as she continued walking towards the barrier. She had already passed through it once, so she wasn’t worried that it would keep her out.

“That’s difficult to explain, so I’ll leave that to some other time…” Michelle said as she watched Kieran and Ivona pass through without any trouble, both enjoying the feeling of thick spirit energy swirling in the air behind the barrier. It was so thick that they never wanted to feel the lack of spirit energy that was in the Land of Exile again.

Michelle stared at the barrier and remembered how she had rammed her head against it the last time she tried to pass through it. Reminded of the pain, she subconsciously touched her forehead and sighed a bit.

Coating herself in her soul energy, Michelle let her spirit energy run rampant within her body, so the barrier would recognize that she was neither a monster nor a beast and would let her pass through. Just like that, she was able to enter the lower realm just like everyone else. Even though that was already her second time going there, she was still astonished by the difference in the density of the spirit energy in the Land of Exile and in the lower realm.

“Why did you have to do that?” Anastasia asked, recognizing soul energy all over Michelle.

Michelle retracted her soul energy and made her spirit energy calm down within her body, as she rubbed the back of her neck. “One of the things my blood does is that I have a high affinity with monsters and beasts, which can be quite an advantage, but with barriers like this, it can mistake me for one of the two, and since monsters and beasts have to have more power if they want to pass through a barrier like this, I have to prove to it that I’m a human,” she explained as she resisted the urge to start cultivating. She couldn’t break through into the Spirit rank just yet. She had to wait.

“What are we going to do here?” Kieran asked as he breathed in deeply, feeling the dense spirit energy clinging to his body.

Michelle thought about it for a while before answering: “You and Ivona can cultivate. Anastasia, you can train more with your soul energy to reach a new peak. Or you can all just come along with me. That’s up to you. I’ll be going out of this jungle to find a place where I can release the poor souls stuck in the Soul Seeking Pendants. Or…” A new idea struck her. “You can try to fight the monsters and beasts on this side, but it will be more dangerous than before.”

“When are you planning to go there?” Ivona asked, wanting to know how much time she had to decide.

“Well, as soon as possible, but I can wait an hour. It’s not really an urgent matter. I just want to take care of it so it doesn’t weigh on my mind for too long.” Michelle glanced back at the barrier and frowned a bit. She never knew that resisting the urge to cultivate would be so hard. “I’ll be on the other side until you decide, so I don’t start cultivating…” she said as she once again coated herself in her soul energy and crossed through the barrier as her spirit energy swirled wildly within her body. On the other side, she just sat down and closed her eyes.

The three on the other side also sat down to think, talking a bit. They wanted to make the same decision so they would stay as a group.

In the end, the decision wasn’t that hard to make. Within fifteen minutes, they decided to stay in the jungle to fight monsters and creatures, so they could hone their survival skills. If they thought it was too dangerous, they could return to the Land of Exile’s side to fight for a while, or they could find a place to cultivate until they could fight the creatures.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep