Chapter 328: 328

The monster continued staring down at Michelle.

“You should know that Orange Widows are widely hated amongst monsters for that ability of theirs,” the monster spoke using the memory manipulation skill, making its voice ring within Michelle’s mind.

As for the ability it was talking about, it was clear it was about the ability to absorb the Life Stones of monsters of its element.

Michelle nodded.

“I am aware it’s a vile ability.” She knew the monster wasn’t viewing her nicely after knowing she had the ability of the Orange Widow.

The monster quite liked Michelle’s attitude. “How many times did you use it?” it asked curiously.

Michelle looked up at the monster.

It seemed her following answer would decide whether the monster would hate her, and maybe even kill her, or let her go.

“Twice.”

The monster narrowed its eyes.

“What did you kill?” it continued asking.

“Some kind of dark element rabbit excelling in concealment. And a Frostbound Leviathan.” Michelle answered truthfully.

The monster’s eyes narrowed further.

“Why would you kill a Frostbound Leviathan?” it growled.

Michelle found that it would be difficult to explain.

“How about I give you access to my memories?” she finally asked.

For a moment, the monster pondered it before nodding.

“Then don’t resist if it hurts a bit.”

After the monster’s words fell, Michelle felt a sting at the side of her head.

Something was invading her consciousness.

It was quite the nasty feeling.

She herself knew that when she was using her memory manipulation skill to see someone’s memories, it was painless for them.

But it seemed monsters didn’t change their skill in such a way.

As the monster browsed through Michelle’s memories, they naturally surfaced in Michelle’s mind and she remembered them.

With that, she could perfectly see what the monster was interested in.

It checked how she killed the Orange Widow and the Frostbound Leviathan. Then how she absorbed the Orange Widow’s Life Stone, before moving on to the Life Stone of the dark element.

There, it stayed for a while, observing the abilities she gained to confirm what kind of rabbit she had killed but didn’t even notice in the past.

Finally, it saw how she absorbed the Life Stone of the Frostbound Leviathan at the barrier of the Heavenly Law and how it then turned to completely ignore her.

While looking through Michelle’s memories, the monster saw glimpses of other things and was quite interested in that.

If it wanted to, it could continue dwelling through Michelle’s memories to look through everything it was interested in.

But the monster had said it would only look at what made Michelle a monster.

Going back on its words was something only humans did.

The monster found humans nasty and never wanted to be like one of them.

So it deactivated the skill and looked back at Michelle.

“You are more like us than humans,” it concluded.

Michelle smiled and bowed her head.

“Senior, can I ask a question?” she asked.

Since the monster was being nice to her, she would act the same towards it.

The monster nodded.

“Ask away!”

Michelle’s smile widened when she heard that.

“Senior, neither I nor anyone I know knew what kind of monster the rabbit I killed was. Do you know something about it?”

The monster shook its massive head.

“Humans are much more knowledgeable about monsters, whether big or small ones. And that ancient beast of yours should be even more knowledgeable. If he doesn’t know, then no one knows. I’ve been in this ravine my whole life. I don’t know anything about monsters that don’t appear here.”

Michelle was a bit disappointed when she heard that, but not too much. She was expecting the monster not to know all that much since it was living in a closed-off ravine.

“Senior, did you ever want to leave this place?” she asked.

The monster shook its massive head. “I have everything I ever needed down here. There is no need for me to go outside. Here, I am one of the most powerful and nothing can really endanger me. Outside? My size would restrict me, and more powerful monsters would tear me apart.”

Hearing that, Michelle nodded in understanding.

There was a reason why huge creatures were sparse in the vast open world and mid-sized monsters ruled the wilderness.

For a while longer, Michelle and the monster talked before it decided it was time to leave.

For the last time, it let out a puff of hot breath on Michelle before turning around and leaving.

After the wave of hot breath hit her, Michelle nearly stumbled over.

She wasn’t expecting it after the calm conversation with the monster, so she was taken by surprise.

The monster clearly quite liked bullying Michelle.

Before it disappeared in the distance, it lifted its head once more and opened its mouth in what seemed like a roar.

But instead of sound, Michelle could feel the ground rumble.

Oh how she hated infrasound.

It was one of the few things she couldn’t defend herself against, so she ended up rudely falling on her butt.

Rubbing her head, she tried to get rid of the ache.

Then, she finally lifted herself off the ground and looked at the cave where Eleanor and Asher hid.

Once again summoning her shadow essence and putting it into her shadow, she entered the cave.

“Senior Sister? Senior Brother?” she called out.

“Junior Sister!” Eleanor rushed through the cave upon hearing Michelle.

“What happened? Are you hurt?”

She quickly checked Michelle for any wounds and such.

When she was reassured, she sighed in relief.

Michelle smiled a bit.

“Senior Sister, the monster didn’t even notice me! Don’t worry!”

Of course, that was a lie. She was talking with the monster just a while ago.

But Michelle didn’t want to reveal too much of her secrets, so she lied.

And she was a smooth liar, so no one could see through it.

Asher also walked from the back of the cave and looked at Michelle.

“Junior Sister, did you see why the monster didn’t leave for so long? We could still feel it at the entrance of the cave just a while ago.”

Michelle shrugged. “Maybe it was waiting for you to come out. It just stood at the entrance and stared, not doing anything.”

Hearing that, both Eleanor and Asher frowned.

They had encountered that monster quite a few times when they had come down to the ravine, and it had never acted like that.

Their gazes locked on Michelle.

She said the monster didn’t notice her, but what if that strange behavior was because of her?

What if it could feel her nearby and was just trying to spot her?

In the times they had encountered the monster, they understood it was intelligent.

Sometimes, it didn’t even bother to chase them so as not to waste its energy.

So why the unnatural behavior so suddenly?

And the last rumble of infrasound worried them greatly.

Not once before had the monster used infrasound against them.

So why when Michelle was nearby?

Michelle knew that Asher and Eleanor would have some questions, but she decided to play it dumb.

In the end, she was in the ravine for the first time, and could just say that maybe the monster was reacting to her concealment technique.

She was messing with the Heavenly Law, so it wouldn’t sound all that unbelievable, especially since it was well known that monsters had the tendency and capability to defy the Heavenly Law to some extent.

Asher and Eleanor accepted that explanation.

But they also decided that they would never again leave Michelle to just conceal herself like that since the monsters were clearly reacting to her differently.

It could turn dangerous.

So, with everything solved, they could continue the training.

Since Eleanor had already explained the basics to Michelle, she too went to train on her own. But she did say that if Michelle had any questions, she was free to come to her.

Before starting her training, Michelle watched both Asher and Eleanor for a moment.

While Asher was sitting on the ground, completely frozen, Eleanor was standing in quite a relaxed pose, her eyes half-open.

Looking at the two, Michelle remembered the moment when she disappeared in front of Marcus and he tried to find her.

He remained relaxed, but he closed his eyes for a moment.

So relaxed with closed eyes was the basic pose that Marcus was teaching.

After mastering that, the disciples could start looking for their own alternatives to better suit the situations in which they wanted to use the skill.

Michelle leaned against the cave wall and closed her eyes.

Then, she made her spirit energy pulse rhythmically under her skin.

At first everything seemed fine, but after a while, she suddenly felt dizzy.

Opening her eyes, Michelle rubbed her temples.

Was that a side effect of being exposed to the monster’s infrasound, or did she do something wrong when she tried the skill?

To find out what was going on, Michelle decided to keep her eyes open and use her shadow essence instead of spirit energy.

With that, she could observe the small waves of the energy, because they would affect the richness of the shadows in the cave, and thus she could see where things went wrong.

So, Michelle repeated the process, just with her shadow essence.

Moving most of it just under her skin, she started shaking it to create something like pulsating spirit energy.

Just like she had expected, the shadow around her turned a bit thinner before being replaced by a denser shadow.

The thinner shadow moved away from her, followed by the denser shadow.

With every pulse of her shadow essence, a wave like that would appear and rush away from her.

The shadow essence waves moved fast, so many waves got created within milliseconds.

And in a split second, Michelle already understood what was going on.

Everything was going smoothly until the wave hit the nearest wall.

There, it bounced back and flew back to her.

But on its way back, it crashed into the waves she was still sending out.

And there, things went wrong.

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