Chapter 397: 397

After testing her handstand while having the poison from Mavreth in her system, Michelle went back to the training grounds to train.

Like that, her life went on for a while, and she also came to realize that letting the paralyzing poison stay constantly in her system in small doses was a terrible idea.

Her muscles were slowly tightening more and more, and she could barely dodge the strikes coming at her.

She was basically slowly immobilizing herself.

So, she quickly stopped and just let a dose run through her body once every night, paralyzing herself for a small while with Alexander by her side.

In that time, it also came to spread through the Academy that the Second Headmaster’s only daughter was never sleeping in her dorm room but in the guest teacher’s (Alexander’s) residence.

Of course, that gossip could only spread because Michelle let it.

If she had wanted to conceal it, she would have just concealed her presence whenever she went to Alexander, and not a single person could spot her.

But she revealed herself on purpose, so she could further cause chaos in the Academy, which in turn would make Vincent’s plan proceed.

Because though the plan mostly went about in the Ostrich family residence, chaos in the Ostrich Academy could speed things up.

So, for quite a while, Michelle made sure to cause more and more gossip about herself and Alexander, in the Academy known as guest teacher Terce.

And she was able to do that just in the evenings and mornings, because the rest of the days she was training either herself or the little snake constantly by her side.

Even that little one got noticed by the students, and they came to assume it was some kind of poisonous vile creature Alexander gave her for protection.

And while Michelle was training, Alexander had to act out his guest teacher role.

So, he started teaching some students hand‑to‑hand fighting techniques, ones specifically meant for prolonged fights.

Most students (those who weren’t trained by Alexander) just gossiped about him at most; but those that were being trained by him were both terrified of him while also holding utmost respect for him.

Alexander’s training methods were ruthless but highly effective.

Even the teachers heard about Alexander’s teaching methods; some were impressed, some just a bit put off by it, and some straight up disgusted, thinking it was inhuman.

There was even a time when a teacher came to Alexander to tell him he had to change his training methods because they would (apparently) traumatize the students.

But Alexander forced him to retreat with two sentences.

Also, the students, too, were against Alexander changing his methods.

It was ruthless and such, but it let them greatly improve.

And Alexander never forced anyone who decided to come to his class to stay; if they came once, found out it was not for them and left, he wouldn’t be surprised nor disappointed.

Then, there were also those who could bear with the first lesson but didn’t come for the second one.

Alexander was the teacher with the least students because of that, but since he was only a guest teacher, that was to be expected and nobody minded.

And the students also liked that because it meant Alexander would have more time for them.

But (as already stated before), Alexander was no gentle teacher.

If a student came to him for help with training while he was on his way back to his residence where he knew Michelle would be, he would give them a death glare.

And the students quickly learned that and only ever asked him for help while he was at the training grounds (the Academy had more of them, so Alexander had one whole training field for training his students).

So, while Michelle was training herself or her little snake, Alexander was training students.

After quite some time of training, Lucas came to the conclusion that Michelle could easily dodge the strikes sent out by the machines even when he added two more.

She was completely stable on her hands and could move as easily as if she was standing on her feet.

Also, her posture had somewhat altered over time, and when she returned to her feet, she finally stood like a normal human.

Her muscles were trained to be tight around her spine, preventing unconscious backwards bending of her joints.

She didn’t lose that ability; she could do it whenever she wanted.

But she no longer did it unconsciously.

So, even a body‑tempering teacher like Lucas couldn’t see anything wrong with her posture unless he knew exactly what to search for.

Even knowing to search for something wouldn’t be enough.

He would need to know what to look for.

After being done with her training under Lucas, Michelle thanked him, knowing it was time to return to training with either of her two Masters in the Ostrich Academy, and the only two people aside from Alexander and Vincent who actually knew she wasn’t Ana Ostrich but just staging as her: the Julian brothers Marcus and Antony.

Michelle knew that the upcoming next few weeks would be the last peaceful ones before Vincent’s plan would force her to go back to the Ostrich family residence.

Though originally, the plan was that she would just remain invisible in the Academy, but with how things turned out, they agreed she would get actively involved later on.

Actually, the one who disliked the idea the most was Alexander.

He was highly repulsed by the whole Ostrich family.

So, the next day, Michelle went to see Antony.

The last time she was training with someone else other than Lucas was with Antony, and it got interrupted because of her strangely bending joints.

So, she came to the conclusion that her return training would be with him.

Around the day Michelle started her concealment training with Antony, she had also let the last dose of the death‑simulating, paralyzing poison from Mavreth into her system.

After that, her poison element Life Stone and the area around it was empty of all poison, just overflowing with spirit energy.

So, in the following nights, instead of letting the poison paralyze her (since it was no longer in her body), Michelle tried to figure out a way to recreate the poison or make poison on the same basis as the poison from Mavreth.

In the days, Michelle was training as Antony’s student (or Marcus’ student depending on the week), and at night, she was meddling with poison.

And naturally, during the nights, Alexander was right next to her, sometimes even annoying or straight up bothering her; just for the sake of it.

Michelle actually enjoyed the pace of her life at the Academy.

The students left her alone, though they were gossiping about her, and nearly all of them knew what her face looked like (as Ana Ostrich).

The teachers were teaching her a lot about Concealment and Detection, which were two fields she knew she needed improvements in because of the Heavenly Law ignoring her (she needed to become master of those two fields so she wouldn’t get surprised in case something happened, whether with the Heavenly Law, or with someone sensitive to the Heavenly Law like Marcus was).

But, naturally, life like that didn’t last for a long time, though it did last longer than she had expected.

After something over three months, a letter came from Vincent, telling Michelle that soon, someone from the family residence would come tell her she had to return.

Michelle showed Alexander the letter, and also went to see Marcus, with whom she was training at the moment, to tell him that the next day she would be gone.

He was greatly disappointed to hear that, because that meant his dear disciple would soon be staging her death.

After that, she would probably never return to the Ostrich Academy.

It was clear she was allergic to the teachers there.

Also, she was the daughter of Philip Grace, who had close ties to the first academy of the upper realm; if she ever again needed to go to an academy to study, it would be that academy, not the Ostrich Academy.

After talking with Marcus for a while, Michelle returned to Alexander’s guest teacher residence.

She was guessing she would have to leave on her own, because as a guest teacher, it would take him a while to wiggle out of his responsibilities.

But, then, it was Alexander she was thinking about.

He could as well just make a clone of himself using the Liquid Shadow or whatever similar skill he had, and have that step in to take his responsibilities.

Or, if he wanted, he could just pressure Francis, the headmaster, to let him leave since Ana (Michelle staging as her) was leaving; in the end, everyone knew Alexander was only in the Academy because of her, as her lover.

But, then there was one more problem to solve before leaving, which would mean Alexander would stay behind for a day or two more.

As the Dark Lord, even if the Academy people didn’t know he was the Dark Lord, he couldn’t let them remember his face.

So, he would have to large‑scale use his monster shadow‑guards to alter the memories of everyone in the Academy.

From the start, he could have prevented all that trouble by simply putting on a disguise mask before appearing in the Academy, but he couldn’t be bothered about it back then.

Also, Michelle wanted to see his face all the time, so she didn’t agree to him using a disguise mask.

So it seemed, just like he highly disliked; no, hated Michelle wearing the face of another woman, she hated even the thought of him having a different appearance.

The two had equal levels of obsession with each other, and no one and nothing could make them give up the obsession.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep