Chapter 29: 29

Sitting cross-legged on her bed, Michelle slowly pulled spirit energy into her dantian, her concentration at its peak as she carefully studied every drop of spirit energy that entered her body. At the moment, her goal wasn’t to widen the pool of spirit energy inside her, but to understand the traits of each droplet, because while cultivating, she noticed some differences between the droplets. If she understood them, she might be able to cultivate faster.

Pulling the droplets of spirit energy into her dantian through her spirit veins one by one, Michelle realized that always after pulling in a droplet of spirit energy, her spirit veins would tremble a bit before pulling in another droplet, which slowed the process of absorbing spirit energy.

Michelle decided to observe the shivering of her spirit veins for a while, sending a bit of her consciousness into her body. She could see the net-like system of spirit veins all over her body. It was like a system of pipes, but they were empty. One droplet of spirit energy was nothing compared to the diameter of the “pipes” which clearly showed that Michelle had a potential to cultivate much faster. But for some reason unknown to her, she couldn’t pull in more than one droplet in at once, as the “pipes” would tremble whenever she tried to pull in a droplet.

With a slight frown, Michelle stopped cultivation and got off her bed. She stretched her body and looked at the door. She had already closed herself in her room for two days, so she went to take a walk. She went into the garden and leaned against a small tree. From cultivating for two days straight, her whole body was stiff, and her mind filled with a whirlwind of thoughts.

As she was standing there, she closed her eyes for a moment before feeling someone approaching her. She opened her eyes and saw the Archduke walking towards her. “Father…” she raised an eyebrow. “You never come to the garden…” She knew that from the memories of the original Michelle. “Why are you here now?” she asked with a tilt of her head.

The Archduke stared at her for a moment silently before answering. “I was looking for you. Do you have a moment?” he said seriously as he stopped a few feet away from her, keeping a respective distance.

Seeing how serious the Archduke was, Michelle raised a brow and pushed herself off the tree. “What is it that you want to talk about?” she asked with a tilt of her head.

“These past two days, were you trying to cultivate?” the Archduke asked.

The question caused Michelle to widen her eyes. “How did you know, father?” she asked in confusion.

“I felt a fluctuating spirit energy around your room.”

“I see…” Michelle nodded a bit. “Why did you ask if I was cultivating if you know that I was?”

“I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t mistaken. You see, the fluctuation was very weak. Do you have trouble cultivating? I might be able to help you.”

When the Archduke’s words fell, Michelle remembered that he knew David Elether, so he was probably able to help her. “Whenever I try to pull spirit energy into my dantian, it’s slow. I can always pull one droplet in, then, my spirit veins shiver a bit before I can pull in another one. It’s extremely slowing down the process.” Michelle then explained her problem to the Archduke in detail, and when she was done speaking, the Archduke went silent for a while.

After a long while, he spoke. “It’s probably caused by your soul. You are from a different world, so your soul must be somehow different from the people here, so you can’t cultivate like others can.”

“But isn’t cultivation related to my body? My body is from here…” Michelle was getting more and more confused.

The Archduke shook his head. “Not entirely. Cultivatig spirit energy strengthens not only one’s body but also their soul, and one’s potential in cultivation depends mostly on their soul. Your body might be the best for cultivation, but with an unfit soul, you will never be able to cultivate. The fact that you can even pull some spirit energy into your dantian is already shocking.”

Michelle frowned a bit. “So what you’re saying is that it might be impossible for me to ever properly cultivate?”

“It doesn’t have to be true.” The Archduke said. “It can also be that you need a special method. Come on! Let’s go to my library! We might find something useful out.”

Michelle followed the Archduke into his library. When he said library, she expected he would lead her into a room in the mansion, but instead, he led her into a separate building behind the mansion. “Father, the library is in this building? Isn’t it in the mansion where it would be easily accessible?” she asked. In the memories of the original owner of her body, she only knew about a small library next to the Archduke’s office.

But the Archduke’s answer was a shock to her. “The library in the mansion is only a small room with important books. This here is the collection of all my books.” The Archduke spoke with some pride in his voice as he unlocked the door and pushed it open, revealing a huge hall filled with shelves and shelves of books. And at the end of the hall was a staircase leading to more floors, all filled with books. Michelle’s eyes widened as she followed the Archduke in. “Books about spirit energy are on the eleventh floor… and higher…” the Archduke said as he led her up the stairs.

“Eleventh floor?!” Michelle’s eyes widened. “How many floors does this library have, father?”

The Archduke shrugged. “Close to a hundred…” he said it like it was nothing, but it left Michelle speechless. The floors by themselves were huge and tall, so to reach the top shelves, even the tallest of men would need a big ladder, and there were close to a hundred floors like that?! Michelle couldn’t process that. She didn’t know about a single library in the 21st century that big. She didn’t know all libraries in the world, but she doubted that one that big existed. And the library she was in was owned by one person and was so huge.

“Father, how are we going to find an answer here? If the whole eleventh floor is dedicated to spirit power, we won’t be able to go through it in ten years.” Michelle looked at the Archduke as he walked up the staircase. It was surprising how swiftly he moved when they had already passed five or six floors.

“Don’t worry about that!” the Archduke smiled. “We will find all books related to your problem quickly!”

Michelle lifted a brow but didn’t ask anything more and followed the Archduke to the eleventh floor. When they reached it, she looked at all the bookshelves and her head throbbed at the thought of having to go through all the books. But to her pleasant surprise, the Archduke led her to a separate bookshelf, which was quite empty compared to the others.

“Here are all the world’s methods to cultivate spirit energy. You can pick some or read all. And just so you know, you can take here and there from one book and here it with here and there from another book. Just make sure that the methods don’t contradict each other! Now! I’ll get going. I still have work to do. Good luck!” the Archduke said with a grin before walking away.

Michelle looked at the bookshelf in front of her and frowned. The bookshelf might have been emptier than the other ones, but the amount of books was still something Michelle wouldn’t be able to go through in a year. She sat down on the floor and stared at the book titles, as if waiting for something to tell her which to pick. Maybe she was just helplessly, or hopelessly, staring at the bookshelf, or maybe she was waiting for her blood to react to one of the books, but she sat there for a long while before standing up and picking up two books.

She opened one and skimmed the first Chapter before doing the same with the other book. As if the world was making fun of her, the books contradicted each other, so she couldn’t combine them. But she liked them. She didn’t feel the pull like when she saw Snow’s egg or the Spirit Clone skill book, but something was telling her to try combining the books. But she didn’t know if it was just her curiosity or something more.

She decided not to try anything against the Archduke’s advice until she was out of ideas and put the books back, leaving them a bit pulled out so she wouldn’t forget which books they were. Then, she started picking random books and dividing them into two groups. The two groups were contradicting each other. So she basically had two groups, and she could choose one group and from it blindly take two books and try to combine the methods in them to form a cultivation method for herself.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep