Chapter 356: 356

“You can smell the blood here?” Antony had a frown on his face.

He couldn’t smell anything.

The barrier was working just fine.

Michelle nodded.

“The barrier is still there?” she motioned with her chin towards the bathroom door.

From Antony’s expression, Michelle already had the answer.

He wouldn’t be frowning so much if there was a logical reason for her to smell the blood.

“Do you know why the barrier isn’t working for you?” Antony asked.

Michelle shook her head, but she was already thinking of possibilities.

In that process, she turned her attention towards the bathroom door.

Since she didn’t know the answer why the barrier didn’t work on her, she could as well go to the place where the barrier was.

That way, she could not only check it, but also do what she originally wanted: see the state of the bathroom.

She was really curious about the supposedly grotesque scene.

Antony didn’t stop Michelle and let her open the bathroom door.

He was protected from the smell, so he didn’t really care.

Upon opening the door, Michelle frowned deeply.

The pungent smell of rot and metallic scent of blood intensified to the point that it felt like she was breathing in a liquid, not air.

Still, Michelle stepped into the bathroom and looked around.

When she saw the scene, mixed with the smell, she felt a dull ache where her neck and chin connected.

That was her salivary glands reacting, producing saliva for her mouth.

Was that a reaction from disgust or did something about Michelle’s taste change after she absorbed the Life Stones?

She hoped the first one was the case.

Partially, Michelle considered herself a human. Her whole life, she was one.

So she didn’t want to salivate at the sight of human flesh; she still considered it cannibalism even if she no longer could be classified as a human.

Seeing Michelle just stand in the doorway, Antony walked towards her, stepping through the barrier.

At the pungent smell behind the barrier, he had to cover his nose.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, knowing that something had to be wrong for her to just freeze up.

Michelle lifted her hand to her neck, pressing her thumb to one side of her neck and index finger to the other side, pressing on the glands, the ache bothering her quite a bit.

“It’s nothing much…” she knew Antony wouldn’t believe that, but he also wouldn’t ask her further.

Antony indeed didn’t ask more.

“This was the state we found it in. You can check it yourself, but you probably won’t find any clues about the culprit. A few people already checked, and nothing was found.” he explained.

Michelle gave a nod before looking down at her legs.

The past days, when fighting Alexander and when in the cube, she was mostly barefoot, giving her more sensitivity to the soles of her feet.

Suddenly being in shoes made her a bit uncomfortable.

Michelle didn’t like that the least bit so she just took off her shoes and threw them into her space before stepping into the bathroom.

The blood and cut pieces of the organs stuck to her skin as she walked, carefully looking around, so her eyes wouldn’t miss anything.

As she walked and observed, Michelle opened her mouth again: “Master, how much do you know about monsters?”

Antony didn’t expect such a question, but he answered.

“I wouldn’t say all that much, but probably more than the average person…”

The average person in the upper realm was considered someone who had studied in an academy, and those taught all the students at least the basics about monster and beast physiology.

So if Antony knew more than the average person, he knew more than the basics, but he wasn’t an expert.

To Michelle, that would be enough to answer her questions.

“Master, after humans reach a certain point in cultivation, they no longer need to eat. Do monsters have such level too? Or do they have to always eat, just less frequently?”

“Well…” Antony gave it some thought. “Monsters cultivate by absorbing the spirit energy of creatures they killed, which are mostly beasts and humans. And the best way to absorb the spirit energy is through devouring the corpse, eating it. So no matter the level, monsters still eat. It’s their cultivation method.”

Listening to that, Michelle continued walking through the bathroom.

With each step, her skin brushed against flesh or organs.

And, for some reason, each time that happened, the dull ache in her neck got slightly stronger, as if something in her throat tightened.

Feeling that, Michelle was extremely uncomfortable.

“I’ll go back to my room now… See you tomorrow, Master!” she said before retracting her shadow essence to disappear.

Then, she walked out of the bathroom, opened the curtains before opening the window and jumping out of the building.

Once again alone in the room, Antony just closed the window with a sigh.

He could tell something was wrong with Michelle, but he knew not to ask too much.

The secrets she held weren’t something he wanted to know, even if she was his disciple.

Once outside, Michelle glanced around until she spotted what she wanted.

Unlucien was sitting up on a tree, watching over her.

Noctis wasn’t with him; he was probably near Alexander.

Seeing Unlucien, Michelle jumped over to him.

“Say…” she started.

“Do monsters get hungry even at your level? Do you have to eat regularly?” she asked quickly.

Unlucien was slightly surprised that Michelle approached him so suddenly, but considering that she had asked Antony the same thing just a moment ago, it wasn’t unreasonable.

Antony didn’t give her a straight answer, so she came to a real monster for an answer.

“Milady. If you want I could pass my knowledge about monsters to you so you can find out more than I could tell you.” Unlucien finally spoke.

He wanted to avoid being near Michelle as much as possible so he wouldn’t have to face Alexander’s wrath.

Alexander was extremely possessive about Michelle, so both Unlucien and Noctis knew to stay away from her as much as possible even when they were tasked to protect her.

Hearing that, Michelle shook her head.

She already had all memories Rivenaar had passed onto her before he died.

If she wanted to, she could go through those to find out.

But she had the feeling that just seeing the memories wouldn’t be enough with the question she had.

She needed a direct explanation.

When Unlucien heard that, he felt his stomach tighten, hoping Alexander wouldn’t find out about it.

Or it would be his death day.

But he still explained everything to Michelle, letting her ask questions and answering them in detail.

Quite a while passed before Michelle returned to her room, her expression sour.

So it seemed, the ache in her neck was because of the reason she wished it wasn’t.

Since absorbing the Life Stones, she had not once eaten.

And when she was met with corpses, it was only with those of monsters: and monsters didn’t eat other monsters.

So, she wasn’t hungry when she saw those.

But the smell and sight of human flesh awakened what she didn’t know was within her.

Her body wanted to cultivate the way of monsters, not human way.

It no longer wanted to pull in spirit energy from the surroundings.

Instead, it wanted to devour freshly ownerless spirit energy from corpses.

Still, that also meant one good thing.

Michelle didn’t become a cannibal; she didn’t need to eat human flesh.

Just beasts, and that was something even cultivators ate.

Because even though cultivators didn’t feel the need to eat, there was enjoyment in it, so while not in secluded cultivation, most of them ate regularly.

As for why Michelle reached that conclusion, it was all from Unlucien’s words.

He basically explained that monsters had to eat regularly, but not often.

They could go without eating even for over a year without starving to death.

Monsters ate nearly everything, not discriminating between humans and beasts.

But they didn’t devour other monsters.

It didn’t matter what species of monsters they killed or found dead, devouring such corpse was considered cannibalism, something the monster realm greatly scorned.

They avoided it for a simple reason.

While eating food, monsters could enter a spirit energy induced trance, leading to devouring everything.

That would mean they would also devour the Life Stones.

And most monsters couldn’t handle the amount of spirit energy within Life Stones.

So they avoided eating monster corpses.

Even after the Life Stone was taken out.

The only ones who ate monster corpses were outcasts of the monster realm, such as the Orange Widows.

Other monsters called them cannibals or devourers, refusing to associate with them.

Michelle was partially a monster, so she needed to regularly eat.

But since becoming a partial monster, she hadn’t eaten once, so her body was hungry.

She was also partially a devourer because one of the Life Stones she absorbed was that of an Orange Widow.

That meant that amongst monsters, she would be considered a cannibal.

But amongst humans, she could withhold that title because she didn’t need to eat human flesh.

Naturally, she could also hold back from devouring monsters and only stick to beasts as her food.

And she probably would.

As far as she knew, there wasn’t exactly a way to prepare monster meat for consumption, and she didn’t want to experiment with it.

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