Chapter 321: 321

Looking towards the courtyard entrance, Michelle, staging as Ana, saw a young man about her age, maybe a bit older. “Master, you called for me?” he bowed his head towards Marcus.

Antony was concealing himself, so the student didn’t notice him until he looked around a bit. Studying detection under Marcus, he had trained himself to always scout the surroundings to spot anything his Master could have concealed.

“Teacher Antony!” he greeted.

Seeing his disciple, Marcus concealed a smile.

“Asher. Meet your new fellow disciple, Ana Ostrich.” Marcus motioned towards Michelle at the stone stool.

Hearing his words, her eyes flashed as she shot him a glare.

He set her up.

Asher Fredig looked at Ana, not understanding why his Master would take someone like that as a new disciple. “Master, is Junior Sister concealing her cultivation?” he asked, quite unsure.

Michelle concealed a smile. That was basically a polite way of asking what his Master was seeing in her when she clearly didn’t even have a high cultivation level. Was there something special about her?

Marcus shook his head. “No, she isn’t. But she has quite some interesting abilities that make her better than most genius cultivators.”

Asher was used to the fact that his Master tended to exaggerate things, but he knew that when he talked about others’ abilities, he didn’t. He was also serious when he took in new disciples. That was why he had only a few.

So was the girl in front of him really that special?

“Can Junior Sister show me some of your abilities?” he turned to Ana.

He was expecting a refusal, but the girl actually nodded.

With that, Michelle retracted her shadow essence, instantly disappearing from sight.

Asher was shocked. Looking all around, he tried to spot her. Closing his eyes, he tried to sense her presence. But nothing came up. “Junior Sister, what did you do?” he asked into the air.

“Senior Brother…” Michelle’s voice, changed to sound like Ana, carried through the air, but it couldn’t be spotted where it was coming from. “Observe the shadows. Those can’t be fooled.”

That was only partially true. It was indeed true that if someone got ignored by the Heavenly Law, their shadow would remain and could be spotted if someone was looking for it. But if it was a Shadow Master who was ignored by the Heavenly Law, like Michelle, if she wanted, she could make even that shadow shrink. Just like she could make it shimmer to be noticed.

Asher tracked his eyes over the shadows in the courtyard. The sun was high up in the sky, shining straight into the courtyard, so the shadows weren’t mixing together like they would in the evenings and mornings.

Marcus’ shadow was connected to the shadow of the stone stool and the table. Antony’s shadow was nearby. Asher’s own shadow was a few steps to the side.

Then, when he looked at the spot where Ana was standing, he saw a glimmer of something dark. She had moved away a bit so he would have a harder time spotting the shadow.

Moving his gaze around the area around the second stone stool, Asher’s gaze finally locked onto a place. Once he saw a part of the shadow, he was able to see it whole, like it revealed itself.

Slowly, he moved his gaze over it, to where the shadow connected to Michelle’s feet.

Then, he tried to move his gaze to directly look at her, but he lost her. “What?” he was shocked. “I clearly saw you just now!”

A chuckle sounded from somewhere within the courtyard. “Sometimes, you have to be satisfied with just the shadows of things.”

When Asher put his attention back to the shadow, Michelle put her shadow essence into it and started quivering it again. Asher instantly noticed it. “How are you doing that?”

Subconsciously, he lifted his head to look at Ana. And to his surprise, he could see her once again.

“Master, where did you find this girl?!” Asher turned to Marcus.

Seeing him like that, Michelle saw some resemblance in his and Marcus’ behavior.

Did they influence one another?

“She’s the second headmaster’s daughter. She was sent here because someone was trying to kill her in her family.” Marcus didn’t bother with keeping secrets.

Michelle felt the corner of her mouth twitch. Would he also say that she wasn’t the real Ana Ostrich? Or that she was being ignored by the Heavenly Law?

Well, the first didn’t happen, but the second…

Asher wasn’t all that interested in Ana’s sad story. “Master, how come she could conceal herself so perfectly? And if she is a pro in concealment, why did she become your disciple? Wouldn’t Teacher Antony be better as her Master?”

Hearing the three questions, Michelle glared at Marcus from behind Asher, as if warning him not to say anything he wasn’t meant to.

But he ignored her and explained things to his disciple. “Well, as you know, Asher, your Master has quite some understanding of and interest in the Heavenly Law. And your Junior Sister here achieved the concealment by messing with the Heavenly Law. Now it no longer considers her an existing creature. Somehow proficient in the Heavenly Law, I’m more suited to be her Master than Antony.”

Michelle’s hand twitched at her side before clenching into a fist. She really felt like punching a hole through her new Master’s skull.

Antony saw that Michelle was clearly angry, his eyes narrowing. He noticed her right eye showing a slight gleam. He couldn’t tell what exactly it was, but it was clearly different from the left eye.

What he didn’t know was that it was the first sign of Michelle’s anger. Since it was still on the milder side, her eye didn’t turn red, but it was already showing signs.

Like a reddish gleam.

If it was in both her eyes, it would be unnoticeable, but since she had the Eye of Nihil in her left eye, that one remained unchanged. So the difference in the eyes could be easily seen.

“Marcus…” Antony turned to his older brother. “How can you say you are a more suitable Master? We clearly agreed we both would be her Masters. Just like it was originally planned that both of us would be her teachers. While she will be residing in your students’ dorms, she will also be my disciple.”

With the change of the topic, the gleam in her right eye disappeared. Though she had been interacting with the brother teachers for just a while, she understood that what Antony was doing at the moment was to prevent his brother from saying anything further.

Because for all she knew, Marcus could start explaining that she had Spirit Soul Blood, and then she would be screwed.

Or she would have to kill Asher.

She didn’t like either, so she was thankful to Antony for silencing his brother.

Marcus tried to start an argument, not wanting Antony to also be Michelle’s Master.

While listening to that, Michelle noticed a familiar presence. From the start, she knew that Alexander was nearby, but she never tried to sense him.

But for some reason, he suddenly showed himself to her. Why was that?

Or was he just angry?

Michelle wouldn’t be surprised by that. In the end, he showed dissatisfaction even when she accepted Mavreth as her Master.

She was well aware of his possessiveness.

Glancing at Asher, Michelle saw that he was a bit tense. But she couldn’t tell if it was because his Master and Teacher were arguing, or because he could feel Alexander’s presence.

But was Alexander’s presence all that scary in the first place?

Michelle didn’t know.

She got so accustomed to Alexander being around that she didn’t consider how others could perceive his presence, especially if his manic side was showing.

Michelle was fully convinced that his possessiveness was fueled by the fact that he was a maniac.

“What’s wrong?” she asked Asher. She wanted to find out why he was so tense.

Asher looked at Michelle. “Something strange is in the air.”

Michelle raised a brow. So he could feel Alexander, but couldn’t tell it was the presence of a human. “Is there?” she acted confused. In the end, she could afford to.

She was to pretend to be someone with no presence, not someone excellent at detection, even if she was. So she could conceal that ability.

Asher stared at Michelle. “Are you doing this?” he asked. He clearly didn’t like the presence, or how he called it, what was in the air. It was keeping him tense, like he was on pins and needles.

Michelle shook her head. “I didn’t do anything since showing you my concealment.” She showed a perfectly innocent expression even though she perfectly knew what was going on.

“How come Master and Teacher didn’t notice yet?” Asher felt that since Marcus, a Master of Detection, didn’t notice yet, it meant that the source of the strange presence looming above them had to be extremely powerful.

But Michelle had a different explanation. “Maybe Master Marcus is way too engrossed in his argument with Master Antony.” She was quite calm.

“That could make sense, but still…” Asher still didn’t calm down. “We should ask them,” he finally decided.

Michelle stepped back, as if saying that she wasn’t stepping between the two while they were arguing, so Asher had to approach them on his own.

While he was doing so, Michelle threw her head back and looked towards where Alexander was.

When she saw him, her stomach tightened.

Alexander’s face was grim, clearly unhappy.

Not just any unhappy, but ready-to-kill unhappy.

Still, Michelle’s stomach didn’t tighten because she was worried or something like that. Somehow, she felt like if she stared at Alexander a bit longer, she would get lost in that expression.

So she turned her gaze away.

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