Chapter 172: 172

Sitting in an office, a middle-aged woman was going through some documents, a frown on her face, when someone knocked on the door.

“Enter!” she didn’t even raise her head as the door opened.

“Boss, we’ve brought her!” A woman in a brown cloak walked in, bowing at the waist.

“Where is she now?” The boss lady finally lifted her gaze, looking at the woman in the brown cloak.

“We’ve placed her in one of the rooms. Two executives are in the room too, guarding her.”

“I’ll go see her,” the boss lady said calmly as she stood up, not caring that her sudden movement made the chair behind her overturn.

“Lead the way!” she ordered.

—

When Michelle felt the spirit energy invading her consciousness leave, her mind cleared up, and she looked around. Though she was in an unfamiliar place, the bed beneath her was surprisingly soft.

But that didn’t make her let her guard down. She quickly locked eyes with the person who seemed to hold the highest rank in the room.

There were four people in the room. Standing by each side of the bed was a woman dressed in brown clothes, suitable for extreme movement and fighting.

Next to her stood another woman in a brown cloak, positioned beside a seated woman whose similar attire was adorned with more accessories—clearly marking her as the one in charge.

She was clearly the boss.

“For someone so weak, you have guts to stare into my eyes!” the boss lady said calmly, showing no real emotions.

But deep in her eyes, Michelle could see some satisfaction.

Michelle smiled a bit, tilting her head lazily.

“Are you powerful?” she asked, her voice smooth and steady.

The boss lady crossed her legs and leaned back in her chair.

“Depends on who you compare me to.”

Michelle’s smile widened.

“This is the information guild the city lord talked about, isn’t it? Did you bring me here because of my Shadow Spirit Steps?”

“I guess that wasn’t hard to guess…”

“What do you want to know about my footwork?” Michelle finally sat up on the bed, leaning on the wall behind the bed’s headrest.

The boss lady narrowed her eyes.

“At first, I thought a traitor of ours might have taught you our technique, but after observing you for a while, I realized that wasn’t the case. So I want to make a deal with you.”

“What kind of deal?” Michelle asked with great interest.

“You will teach me your footwork, and I’ll teach you mine. I promise your technique won’t get out of my guild as long as you promise you won’t teach anyone my technique.”

The boss lady stared at Michelle with her eyes narrowed, trying to gauge her reaction.

But Michelle didn’t let anything be seen on her face. So only her words could reveal her thoughts—or what she wanted others to assume she was thinking.

“That’s impossible!” Michelle’s smile widened as she closed her eyes momentarily.

“I can’t teach you something I myself don’t understand.”

That made the boss lady lift a brow.

“How can you use a skill if you don’t understand it?” she questioned, some suspicion raising in her voice, tinged with a hint of disappointment. Was Michelle using such a blatant lie to reject her?

“Of course I can use it. The skill was formed slowly, over time, instinctively, and by hard training. I don’t need to understand it if I use it subconsciously.”

Michelle’s words made the boss lady’s eyes brighten.

Subconscious, or passive, skills were one of the most efficient skills she knew about. Though they required the wielder to train for a long time before being able to use them, the benefits they brought were usually extreme. And the best thing about them was that once someone grasped them, they would only get better and better at using them, with no limit for improvement.

But, naturally, there was one big problem—bigger than how hard it was to master such a skill. Unless someone found a skill book, passive skills were completely impossible to learn. Even an experienced wielder of a passive skill couldn’t teach it to someone else.

Because passive skills weren’t skills to be understood. If someone didn’t write down every detail of the process of attaining it, the skill would remain only to them.

And that happened most of the time, because people usually didn’t even realize they were attaining a new skill. And when they realized, it was already too late to write down the details of the start—the most important part of the whole process.

Still, the boss lady didn’t lose hope. Quite the opposite, she was just more hyped up.

“You think it’s impossible to teach me because it’s a passive skill?” she asked, but she didn’t even give Michelle the time to answer before continuing.

“Don’t worry, the footwork I have taught my subordinates is also a passive skill, and they were able to master it without much trouble. Though it’s hard, it’s not impossible to teach someone else a passive skill, especially a footwork skill.”

Hearing that, Michelle raised a brow. She could guess what a passive skill was, but she didn’t care much about how it was impossible to teach it to someone. She knew that if she understood her Shadow Spirit Steps, nothing would be able to stop her from teaching anyone the skill. She just needed some time to understand the footwork. Because of the city lord, she had already understood quite a bit, but it was still far from enough.

It was quite the paradox: she knew a lot about it, but it was still so little.

That made her remember something from her past life. She knew a very good professor of psychiatry with over fifty years of experience in the field, who used to say the same about the human brain and the processes within it. He used it to explain that psychiatry, psychology, and studies about the human brain were still in “diapers,” and that in the future, the knowledge would be much greater.

“I can’t be sure if you will be able to learn from it…” Michelle snapped back to reality.

“But I can show you a slowed version of my footwork as much as you like. Once you understand it, you can explain your insights to me.”

When Michelle’s words fell, the boss lady beamed. She wanted to suggest the same thing to Michelle.

“In exchange, I’ll let you choose whether you want to watch a slowed version of my footwork, or if you want me to teach you. Of course, I can do both if you’d like.”

That offer made Michelle chuckle a bit.

“Aren’t you being a bit too generous?” she asked.

“I shall accept your offer before you change your mind,” she said with a smile as she got off the bed.

When she stood up, she noticed a mirror in the corner of the room and glanced at it. Only then did she realize that her disguise mask was disabled. As far as she remembered, she had activated it after her talk with the city lord.

“You are able to deactivate disguise artifacts?” she glanced at the boss lady.

“I apologize if it offended you!” the boss lady smiled, no remorse in her voice. She had a hunch that Michelle didn’t mind it the least bit.

Michelle touched the disguise mask, and it activated, transforming her into Michael Grayson again. Even with the same silver hair and purple eyes, it was impossible to guess that she was Michelle Grace. But to think that Michael Grayson was Michelle Grace’s sibling wasn’t that hard to think. Anyone who had seen Michelle in both forms would think they were siblings.

But Michelle didn’t care. All she needed was that once she reached the upper realm, she would have some history to the identity of Michael Grayson, so she could enter the second-best academy.

After a while, Michelle was standing in a training field, her eyes closed lightly. The boss lady was a few steps away, her eyes glued to Michelle.

Suddenly, Michelle opened her eyes and started moving in a circle at the highest speed she could without using her spirit energy.

Then, she started slowing down, until she heard the boss lady’s shout that she could see clearly. So she stilled her pace.

For a long time, Michelle’s legs danced around the concrete tiles, her eyes closed. She was moving in a circle, so she didn’t have to worry about crashing into anything.

Before starting, she took off her disguise mask, put on fitted jeans and a shirt, and didn’t have boots on. That way, every single flex of her muscles could be seen under the fabric of her clothes.

After some time, the boss lady spoke again. So Michelle picked up her pace, letting the boss lady see how she controlled the speed of her movement.

Until dusk, Michelle and the boss lady stayed in the training field. By the evening, Michelle was already moving with the wind, with the boss lady barely able to see her.

But neither the boss lady nor Michelle minded. Michelle used the situation to unwind a bit, pushing her muscles to their limit, and the boss lady took it as a chance to train her eyes. Even when she could barely see anything, she kept her eyes on Michelle, trying to analyze everything her gaze could catch.

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