Chapter 324: 324

After some time, Alexander could no longer watch Michelle. The poison was too much to bear.

At first, when it started working, he only felt his neck get warmer over time. Slowly, it started burning, but that was not that much of a problem.

The problem came later. The poison had seeped into Alexander’s flesh. And there, it worked a bit differently.

The heat did not spread evenly throughout the flesh of his neck. Instead, it started overheating and basically burning small spots. Alexander was basically having spots cooked inside of him.

Still, though he could not ignore it like before, it was not the worst that could happen.

A terrible moment came when the poison spread into the bones. From there on, it started feeling like someone was grinding his bones while setting fire within them.

Alexander tried to relieve the pain by stretching his neck, but that only made things worse.

The poison spread around more within his neck, burning more spots and pressing harder against the bones.

Also, the movement caused it to move down a bit, touching the flesh of his shoulders and neckline.

And there, it entered his collarbone.

Alexander understood that if he moved, the poison would only spread further, and could as well affect his whole body.

Naturally, he did not want that, but in some way, he felt a bit tempted.

He could feel Michelle’s emotions through the Shadow Pact, so how would she react if she found out that the poison had spread throughout his whole body?

Would she think it was a mistake in the poison and that it spread like that on its own, or would she understand that he caused it?

Still, Alexander decided not to do it. He knew Michelle would not give him the antidote if he did it.

Michelle was in the courtyard with Marcus, discussing what her training would be like.

More than to train her, Marcus wanted to come up with a way to detect her even if she was not actively doing anything to show herself.

Still, he would also train Michelle.

Because if the concealed person understood detection, they could see things within their own concealment that could help with detection.

But there was one problem with it.

Marcus was sure that if Michelle noticed those little things, she would indeed tell him, but she would also start working on removing them.

Basically, by teaching her detection, he would give her a tool to really become nonexistent.

After discussing everything, Marcus gave Michelle a map of the sect and showed her where the important buildings were, along with the dorms for his students and students of Antony.

Michelle thanked Marcus and left.

Since most students were either in classes or cultivating at the moment, Michelle retracted her shadow essence to disappear and activated her Shadow Spirit Steps.

With that, she rushed around the whole academy, memorizing every place.

She even went to places forbidden to students, as long as they were not blocked by barriers.

Then, she went to the dorm for Marcus’ students.

Marcus had given her a pendant which worked as a key to a room. Looking at the number, Michelle walked over and locked herself inside.

A nice thing about being the direct disciple of a teacher was that she had a room alone. Ordinary students had to share rooms with one or two roommates.

Michelle unpacked some of her things from her space, placing them in the room so it would at least look a bit like someone lived there.

Then, she sat on the bed and closed her eyes in thought.

She was free to do whatever she wanted until the next morning.

Very much, Michelle was tempted to go explore the academy once again.

But at the same time, she knew she needed to train her control of her shadow essence once more.

Since meeting Antony, she had been pushing shadow essence into her shadow, and even though it was just a speck compared to when she first discovered it as a method to show herself, she was still completely spent.

Naturally, Michelle remembered that when Alexander trained her to use shadow essence, he told her that whenever she would cross between realms, she would have to train again to grasp the full allowed potential of her control. So she knew that was the reason she was so spent.

Since coming to the upper realm, she did not have a chance to train.

Opening her eyes, Michelle moved back on the bed until her back was pressed against the wall. Then, she stretched out her hand and summoned her shadow essence.

The whole rest of the day and the upcoming night, Michelle stayed in the room, training just like when she was first learning to use shadow essence.

Constantly, she had to push herself to her limit, and to her surprise, it proved quite hard.

Not because she did not have enough endurance or something like that.

Solely because her limit of control had risen since she had entered the upper realm.

Though it did not show when she normally used her shadow essence. In those times, it even looked like her control got worse.

But in the training, when Michelle was not reshaping the shadow essence or doing anything special with it, to reach the limit of her control, she needed to push out all the shadow essence she had in her dantian.

And when even that proved to not be enough, Michelle forced the shadow essence to evenly spread out around the whole room, not just around herself.

Seemingly a little change, but in reality, Michelle nearly instantly felt some strain on her control.

Filled with shadow essence, the room got dark. It got to the point that one would not be able to see the tip of their nose if they stepped inside.

But, of course, no one would come in.

During her training, Michelle lost track of time and ended up stopping only as morning came.

And it was not because Michelle realized she had to go to Marcus Julians.

It was because, for a moment, she failed to control the shadow essence and it dispersed.

That had happened quite a few times to her actually throughout the training. So in those moments, she could see whether it was bright or dark outside.

That was also why Michelle was not worried about forgetting to go to her training with Marcus.

She would notice when morning came.

And she did notice.

Retracting her shadow essence, Michelle changed her clothes and left the room.

Before opening the door, she put some shadow essence into her shadow.

If others could not see her, they would find it strange that the door opened on its own.

That decision proved to be a good idea.

When Michelle opened the door, she saw a young woman leaving the room next door.

The woman looked over and nodded a bit when she saw Michelle.

“You must be my new neighbor.” She showed a smile, but Michelle could notice a bit of wariness in the woman’s eyes.

But Michelle did not mind it. Considering how big the Ostrich Academy was, it was only natural to be on guard before new people. Who knew what intentions they could have?

“Ana Ostrich!” Michelle extended her hand for a greeting.

The woman shook Michelle’s hand. “Eleanor Alaris. Nice to meet you, Junior Sister.”

Michelle raised a brow. So the woman was Marcus’ disciple too.

Well, it was to be expected considering she had a room next to Michelle’s. Disciples usually had rooms near each other.

Looking at the other doors, Michelle saw that in a part of the hallway, they were missing numbers. That meant no one was living there.

Those rooms were most probably reserved for the moment if Marcus accepted new disciples.

So Michelle, as Ana, and Eleanor were Marcus’ only female disciples.

It was a bit surprising considering how many students the detection major had.

But that just showed how picky Marcus was when picking disciples.

That also meant that Eleanor had to be extraordinary.

And Asher too.

“Where are you going, Senior Sister?” Michelle asked.

Eleanor shrugged. “Master called all his disciples to his courtyard. He is probably planning something dangerous again.”

Her stance was quite careless. She was clearly used to Marcus’ ways of teaching.

That meant she had to be his disciple for a while already.

“Does Master often plan dangerous things?” Michelle was quite curious about her new Master.

In the end, she was basically tricked or forced into becoming his disciple, so she did not yet completely have time to see through him.

Naturally, she saw the obvious, that Marcus was reckless and such. But she was sure there was much more to it.

Eleanor looked at Michelle and sighed. “Do not worry about it too much. Our master is a reckless bastard, and you will get hurt a lot training under him. But he will make sure you do not die.”

Hearing that, Michelle snickered.

Did that mean if she was only a student, he would let her die?

Or did he not put his students in dangerous situations, making that a privilege only for his disciples?

Somehow, Michelle found it funny.

So, walking alongside Eleanor, she went to Marcus’ courtyard.

There, he had already prepared something for them.

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