Chapter 243: 243

“Do you have a skill to quickly dry clothes?” Michelle glanced at Alexander.

Seeing him shake his head, she sighed a bit. Being in wet clothes felt disgusting, so she decided to change her clothes.

She summoned a ball of black mist around her, took off her clothes, wiped herself dry, and put on clean clothes.

“You aren’t going to change?” she asked when the black mist disappeared and she saw Alexander still in his wet clothes.

Alexander glanced back at her and shrugged. “I don’t really mind it.”

“Well…” Michelle sat down on the ground, reaching for the stone she got from the lake. “If you don’t mind that I can see everything through those soaked clothes…”

“Like what you can see?” Alexander smiled a bit.

But Michelle just shrugged. Her focus was on the stone.

She could feel immense light element spirit energy and a bit of all other elements from it, so how come it was in a lake surrounded by shadow essence?

“Do you know what this is?” she glanced up at Alexander.

Taking the stone from her, Alexander nodded. “It’s an elemental stone.”

“And what’s that?” Michelle was curious.

Alexander started his explanation: “A stone that sucks away all spirit energy of a certain element and some of the other elements. If a place is rich with one element and you put an elemental stone there, it will suck the spirit energy out, leaving room for either elementless spirit energy—in other words, the poison element—to gather there, or for a completely different energy. Shadow essence or soul energy. It depends on the place which of the three will appear.”

Michelle’s eyes gleamed. “So that’s what caused so much shadow essence to gather here!” She snatched the elemental stone back from Alexander.

Alexander nodded. “Do you want to take it with you? It could help you with your cultivation.” He was expecting Michelle to say yes.

But she shook her head. The elemental stone was in a place marked on the map. That meant Mavreth knew about it. He was probably the person who put it there. She, as his disciple, couldn’t just take it away, no matter how beneficial it could be for her. That would be plain disrespect.

“We should return it!” she decided and walked towards the lake again. She didn’t want to get wet again, so she summoned some soul energy on her hand, wrapped it around the stone, and had it carry the stone back to the place within the lake where she had found it. It was exactly in the middle.

“So what are you planning to do now?” Alexander asked when Michelle sat back down.

Michelle shrugged. “I’ll try cultivating shadow essence again to feel the poison’s effect. I don’t want it to wear off just yet.”

“Why are you so obsessed with poisons?” Alexander asked with a raised brow. He had met a few poison maniacs, but not a single one who was so eager to test poison on themselves. Even if they did it, it would be because they didn’t have anyone else to test it on. And they would have an antidote prepared beforehand.

“I don’t know.” Michelle didn’t have an answer. She just liked poisons. Both making them and feeling their effects.

She didn’t like pain or suffering, but when it came to testing poisons, she was a completely different person.

Knowing he wouldn’t get an answer, Alexander left Michelle alone. He had some things he needed to do, so he disappeared. But before he left, he glanced into the woods.

There, Unlucien and Noctis were hiding in the shadows, awaiting his commands.

That gaze was easy to understand. They were to stay behind and protect Michelle from the shadows in case something happened.

Michelle was already used to the presence of the two, so she didn’t really notice them. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she felt them come a bit closer so they could act quickly if something happened, but it all stayed in her subconsciousness.

But maybe it was better. No one could know whether she wouldn’t make them swallow poison if she was fully aware of their presence.

For the next few days, Michelle kept analyzing the poison. Every morning, she would take a pill and start cultivating shadow essence right away. That would bring the biggest results because the poison would be at its most potent stage, so it would activate quicker and with a much bigger reaction.

After just a day, Michelle had figured out the ingredients in the poison, but she still kept taking it. It was impossible for her to work with the ingredients.

They needed to be worked on with spirit energy. And she couldn’t do that.

So she needed to figure out how to make a completely new concoction that would have the same effect.

When Mavreth was giving her the poison, he knew that she couldn’t use spirit energy. So he must have wanted her to create her own variant of the poison.

And Michelle wouldn’t disappoint him. If she gave up because of the inability to use some ingredients, she would have been a failure of a disciple.

So, after a few days, Michelle had a list of herbs in her mind that she could use. And it just proved her point that medicine could be used as poison. Because they were all medical herbs. And they weren’t even that rare.

It was time to leave the lake area.

When Michelle came out of the forest, some nearby disciples were surprised. Most people thought she had already left or was killed by something in the forest.

No one could have guessed that she was conducting experiments on herself with poison.

Michelle ignored the gazes on her and went to the sect’s apothecary to collect the herbs she needed for the poison. When the disciple working there saw the list of herbs she needed, he had a complicated expression. He didn’t know of any medicine that could be made from all those herbs.

But he still gave them to Michelle. It wasn’t his job to question people about what they wanted to make. As long as they paid, he would give them anything the apothecary was selling.

When Michelle received the herbs and was about to step out of the apothecary, a woman stepped in front of her.

Not thinking much about it, Michelle stepped to the side, wanting to evade her. But the woman did the same, blocking her again.

Michelle tried to step to the side again, but the result was the same.

Lifting her purple eyes to look at the woman, she sighed. “How can I help you?” she asked calmly.

The woman narrowed her eyes. She was quite beautiful, but with that nasty expression, her beauty was completely overlooked. “Leave the herbs here!” she said coldly, her voice full of arrogance.

Rolling her eyes, Michelle understood there was no point in dealing with someone like that.

No longer caring that the woman was standing in her way, she stepped to the side a bit and passed by her. Because the woman tried to block her again, Michelle knocked her shoulder into her, forcing her to step aside.

The woman was enraged that Michelle dared so blatantly ignore her. “Stop!” she shouted.

But Michelle kept going. She wouldn’t let just anyone try to bully her.

“Hey!” the woman went after Michelle, wanting to stop her. But Michelle activated her Shadow Spirit Steps, adding soul energy into them, and disappeared like she was never there.

A moment later, she was already back in the forest.

Originally, she was planning to go into her room, but there, annoying people could find her. So the forest was a better hideout.

Also, if something exploded while she tried to make the poison, in the room, it would cause quite the commotion. But in the forest, if someone heard it, they would just brush it off, thinking someone was fighting a beast.

In the forest, Michelle looked into her map. For some reason, there was a marked place supposed to be rich with soul energy. But that puzzled Michelle.

As far as she knew, soul energy couldn’t really float around the world. So how could a place be rich with it?

But then, Michelle remembered that back on the lower realm’s side of the sect, among the spaces for cultivation, there was one for cultivating soul energy. So it was somehow possible.

Or maybe it wasn’t filled with soul energy and was just suitable for cultivating it. And maybe the place on the map was the same.

Anyway, Michelle decided to go there.

After walking for a while and defeating a few beasts on the way, Michelle reached the marked place.

It looked the same as the rest of the forest, but in the middle of the marked place was a high old tree. And Michelle felt that something was strange about it.

So she came closer to check it. It felt similar to Void Obsidian, intriguing Michelle quite a bit.

Still, she decided to put that to rest for a while. First, she had to try making her own poison. Then, she would have the free time to examine the tree as much as she liked.

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