Chapter 193: 193

After talking with Tenether for a while, Michelle finally moved on to ask him how she could understand him after she fainted.

And Tenether somehow explained it. But with his childish ways, Michelle had to think about it for a while before she understood it.

To put it simply, Tenether sent his soul energy—the void—into Michelle’s head so it could enter her soul. There, the void worked on the part of her soul that was in charge of communication and altered it so Michelle could understand its meows.

And to achieve that, it basically made it so that Michelle could understand all monsters and beasts, including those who couldn’t speak, if she had a contract with them.

“I have to thank you for that,” Michelle said with a smile, finally activating her Shadow Spirit Steps again. From the peak to where she had just been was a trail of footsteps, and from that place, the footsteps disappeared like they never existed.

After a few minutes, Michelle finally reached the tallest peak she had been aiming for. From there, she had an excellent view over most of the mountain range. It was time to look for the Sloan family.

Looking around, she saw something that resembled a road beneath the mountain she was on.

Letting her gaze follow it, she lost sight of it as it entered a forest. And on the other side, it went behind a mountain.

“Nyx, Tenether, which way should I go?” she asked with a smile, going down the mountain towards the road.

Nyxaroth came out of Michelle’s body and flew above the road. “I doubt they would be living in a forest,” he said lazily.

Tenether jumped to the ground and turned where the road disappeared behind a mountain. “Forest stinks…” it meowed.

“Fine then!” Michelle nodded with a smile and stepped onto the road. She still had her Shadow Spirit Steps activated, so no footsteps were left behind.

It didn’t take long for Michelle to reach the place where the road took a turn and went behind the mountain. Peeking over, a smile appeared on her lips. “Found them…” she hummed lazily.

So it was time to find a hideout for the group. A cave or something similar would be ideal. And mountains always had caves.

Making sure not to leave behind a single footprint, Michelle started exploring the few mountains in between which the Sloan family lived.

After a while, she found a spacious cave with quite a small entrance, hidden by a huge rock that probably rolled down during an avalanche.

Venturing in, Michelle looked around and raised a brow when she saw the scratch marks all over. They were big and old, showing they were done by a huge beast long ago. That showed the beast must have been gone for a long time. It either died or, for some reason, found a different habitat.

Michelle went deeper.

Just when it seemed like the cave was ending, the ceiling getting lower and the walls getting closer, it started widening again.

Michelle continued forward for a while longer. And then, she stopped, her eyes sweeping over the huge head in front of her.

“When did you die…?” she walked around the huge beast skull and looked at the body. A huge lizard skeleton had filled up the last part of the cave.

After checking the skeleton’s size, Michelle stepped back. “I won’t disturb you. Me and my friends will only use the outer parts of the cave.” She spoke with a slight bow and turned to leave. A huge beast like that deserved respect, even if it was long dead.

Once outside the cave, Michelle contacted Snow and told her about the situation.

Snow then went on to tell her about their situation.

Kieran, Anastasia, and Ivona were all able to form bonds with their artifacts and tested them.

Anastasia understood her artifact first. The Soulstep Anklet was easy to use. She just inserted her soul energy into it, and her speed increased by folds.

Ivona and Kieran failed to understand their artifacts. Ivona’s brooch, the Bloom of Tyndaris, and Kieran’s pendant, the Flame of Forsaken Souls, remained a mystery to everyone.

After finishing the talk about the artifacts, Snow moved on to the encounter with the Snow Foxes.

When they realized that Snow was a Divine Snow Fox, they led the group deep into the forest, chasing away any creature that crossed their path.

In the forest, the group camped for some time while Snow followed the foxes to their den. There, she met with the oldest Snow Fox and inherited its knowledge and power. The old fox then peacefully died. It was clear that all it was waiting for was the arrival of the Divine Snow Fox to pass on its legacy.

After inheriting the old fox’s power, the other foxes all bowed down before Snow, taking her as their new leader. They refused to leave her. If she walked out of the snow mountains, they would all follow her.

Hearing that, Michelle raised a brow. After she had gotten to know that Snow was a Divine Snow Fox, she had guessed that something like that could happen, but she still didn’t expect the foxes to react in such an extreme way.

But since the foxes had decided to follow Snow, she wouldn’t stop them.

Glancing down at her wrist, her gaze fell on her spatial bracelet. One of the things she did before leaving the Archduchy in the Land of Exile was to focus on reforming the space there. So it had sections of biomes where she could let all the eggs she got from the illegal auction hatch.

And one of the biomes was similar to the mountains where she was at the moment. If they wanted, the foxes could reside there.

Michelle told Snow about it, and she agreed. If the foxes wanted, the environment in the spatial bracelet would be excellent for them.

“Where are you now?” Michelle finally asked.

“Still near the foxes’ den. But everyone’s nearly packed up, so we are leaving to go to you soon. The foxes will be following us.”

Michelle nodded a bit. “This here is near the Sloans, so move cautiously.”

It didn’t take long for a big white fox to ride into the cave where Michelle was, with a bird and three people on its back. And behind the big fox was a pack of ordinary white foxes.

The friends grouped back together, and Snow went on to explain to the foxes about Michelle’s space bracelet. That if they stayed there, they could accompany her without having to move around places with climates uncomfortable for them.

They readily agreed, so Michelle took them there.

Before leaving, Michelle told them where in the snowy biome she kept the eggs of the snow beasts and asked them to take care of the babies when they hatched. After the foxes agreed, Michelle left the spatial bracelet with Snow.

Of course, all communication between Michelle and the foxes was done through Snow because of the language barrier.

Just a few moments later, the foxes were all over the small mountains and snow fields, finding a good place to make a den. When they found a place, they carefully moved the eggs there, to protect and take care of them.

Feeling movement in the spatial bracelet for the first time, Michelle felt a bit unusual, but she quickly got used to it and returned to her friends. It was about time to make plans.

So a heated discussion started.

From the information Michelle got in the Red Velvet House, the Sloan family was the strongest family in the lower realm, alongside a Veren family which lived in the deserts of the South, which bordered the middle realm. The Sloans had one Spirit Saint, who was, at the moment, the strongest person in the whole realm. The Verens had one too, so the two families kept each other in check.

The Sloan family had complete control over the black market, using it to gather intel and resources, and scout new talents. They had a number of experts spread out all over the realm, and a number of them resided in the Sloan family’s main house in case of an attack. But the rest of the Sloan family’s power was stationed in more populated areas. If the group could take care of the experts, they were safe.

Easier said than done. One of the experts was the Spirit Saint, who was the family head. He alone would be able to kill the group of four with a flick of his finger.

So head-on confrontation was impossible.

Ivona suggested poisoning the water or food source, but even before she finished speaking, she realized it was pointless. Cultivators above Spirit Lord had no need to eat or drink, so the experts wouldn’t be affected. They were mostly Spirit Kings, and some weaker, but with special occupations, were Overlords.

Michelle frowned a bit. She was a Spirit Master, but Kieran and Ivona were just Spirit Juniors, the first level out of ten. Spirit Lord was the sixth level, and Spirit Saint the ninth.

She doubted she could even create a poison that could affect someone like that.

Still, the idea crept into her mind.

Theoretically, she could create a poison that was activated by the amount of spirit energy one had, so the weak people would be spared and she could take care of the experts. But she had never done something like that before and didn’t know if she would succeed.

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