Chapter 160: 160

When Michelle finally opened her purple eyes, her long silver hair fell over her face as she sat up, shielding her expression. Alexander could see that her lips were arched into a smile, but unable to see the rest of her face, he couldn’t make out what kind of smile it was. And with the kind of person Michelle was, her smile could mean thousands of things.

Michelle stood up and concealed her smile as she walked towards the door. She didn’t plan to show that smile to Alexander. Because she felt stupid. How could it take her so long to realize something so simple?

She kept her face calm as she prepared to swing the door open. If what she had thought of worked, it would be the last time she needed to do it.

To prepare, she first spread out her void-like spirit energy, creating a big black mist all around her. Some of the mist got under the door and seeped to the other side, where it spread around as much as on Michelle’s side.

Then, Michelle swung the door open, nearly certain it was the last time she was doing it. At the same time, she started moving the void away from the basement, towards the tavern’s ground floor.

In an instant, she felt wet wind brush by her and rush towards the void. The plan worked. Combining science with magic was a good move.

As Michelle moved the void higher and higher up the staircase, she felt the wet wind go after it. But just as the void was about to reach the ground floor, Michelle let it disappear. The tavern was full of people, and it would be dangerous for them if they got exposed to void. So Michelle had to think of a way to get them out of the way. And she had two ideas.

The first was to make it so that the void wouldn’t spread over to the people, for example by creating a pathway from the basement to the door or a window. And the second was to make all the tavern guests leave. Truthfully, Michelle didn’t know which way was better or easier.

So she walked out of the basement and went to the old tavern lady. “Ma’am,” she smiled sweetly as she sat by the counter.

She knew she was acting as Michael Grayson, but she didn’t doubt for even a moment that the tavern lady knew who she was. The proof of it was that she didn’t stop her when she went to the basement with Alexander.

One could think it was because of Alexander, but Michelle knew that wasn’t the case. Though the tavern lady was clearly polite and even fearful of Alexander, he held some concealed respect towards her.

Also, she was single-handedly taking care of the tavern with great passion, which showed that if it wasn’t discussed with her beforehand, she wouldn’t let a stranger roam over the basement, even if they were with Alexander.

“What is it?” the tavern lady asked with a tilt of her head and a slight smile. She was acting exactly the same as she always did around Michelle.

“I need your help deciding!” Michelle said with a sweet smile, making her seem like a happy young boy speaking with his grandmother.

“Deciding on what?”

Michelle then proceeded to very quickly explain to the old tavern lady what she needed the basement for and that she needed to get rid of the humidity.

She also said that for that she would need to get void into the ground floor of the tavern, and that she couldn’t decide whether it was better to have the guests temporarily leave or to create a passage for the void from the basement to a window.

“Can you decide for me?” Michelle finally asked.

The old tavern lady gave Michelle’s words some thought before speaking again: “I can let you do both. It’s easy for me. So which is easier for you?”

“Truthfully, I don’t have a clue how I could create the passage for the void…” Michelle said with a sigh.

She really didn’t want to burden the old lady, but being unable to use her spirit energy, she couldn’t create the passage on her own. She felt that it was better to ask the tavern lady for help than relying on anyone else.

Though she could ask Alexander for help, that still rubbed her the wrong way. She could say that she had gotten somehow closer to Alexander since they were together quite a bit, but that didn’t mean her view of him was positive. Though it wasn’t as negative as before, it was still not even neutral, far off positive.

The old tavern lady stared at Michelle for a while before standing up. “You go prepare your things, and I’ll get rid of these drunkards,” she said with a smile as she walked around the counter. Soon after, her smile disappeared, replaced by a calm expression which all the tavern guests knew. None of them dared to stand up again at that expression.

So while Michelle walked over to a window to open it, the tavern guests either left or scattered to the other floors into the rooms.

When they were gone, the old tavern lady left too. She went to one of the rooms on the topmost floor.

Finally, Michelle was alone on the ground floor, and Alexander was in the basement. He didn’t follow Michelle when she went to discuss things with the tavern lady. He just stayed behind and thought about some things. Especially about his view of Michelle. He found himself more drawn to her the longer he stayed with her.

But he didn’t have much time to think about it because Michelle quickly came back into the basement, already summoning her soul energy and at an intensity he had never seen before. He was guessing that Michelle had excluded this much soul energy only after she had absorbed the void within him when she cured him of Void Plague.

And back then, her eyes were still affected for some time. But at the moment, she was able to wield that much power easily. She not only had much more of it stored within her body, she was much better and more efficient at controlling it.

“How much disturbance are you planning to make?” Alexander asked with a smile as he appeared next to Michelle within a split second. His speed was incredible, and Michelle had no way of seeing him move.

“Don’t get in my way,” Michelle said placidly as she walked through the basement to the corner furthest from the entrance.

“I wasn’t planning to do so!” Alexander followed behind Michelle with his smile still on.

“You’re in my way!” Michelle frowned a bit as she started filling the corner with the void.

Watching Michelle for a moment, Alexander instantly understood what she was planning. “Don’t worry, this little void can’t harm me!” he said with a smirk, as if teasing.

But Michelle didn’t let her concentration slip. She had great plans for the day, so she was going to ignore Alexander. If he got infected with Void Plague again, she wouldn’t cure him. She had warned him to stay away, and it was also clear he knew what she was planning to do. So only his own foolishness would be to blame if something happened to him.

Controlling the void to spread around the corner, Michelle remembered the initial plans she was considering to get rid of the humidity in the basement. She wanted to create a state of low pressure on the ground floor and high pressure in the basement to create upward wind which would bring out the humidity.

Back then, she was so absorbed in thinking about physical laws that she forgot that she had something more powerful than atmospheric pressure. She had void. The ultimate space of no pressure. It could be considered as a space of nonexistence, even though that was an exaggeration.

And by the laws of nature, where there’s imbalance, the surroundings will try to balance it out. So, if there’s a space of nonexistence, the surroundings will try to fill it up, which will thin them out. And that was what Michelle needed. She needed to thin out the surroundings.

And to achieve it, she was going to do one more thing. She would move the void from the furthest corner, through most of the basement, to the ground floor, and from there to the outside world. Then, she would make sure to tightly shut the door of the basement before letting the void disappear. Then, the humidity wouldn’t return to the basement.

But it was harder to do than it sounded.

Well, the process in itself was easy, but the start was quite difficult. Michelle had to forcibly concentrate void in the corner of the basement, but she also had to make sure to leave some space between the wall and the void, so the void wouldn’t damage the wall and so that the humidity could start moving around.

Because if the void was stuck to the wall, she would have to push it all, instead of letting the natural laws pull it, which was possible, but it would make her use unnecessary energy.

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