Chapter 52: 52

Back in the Archduchy, Michelle showed Nyxaroth around and then closed herself in her room, wanting to check the memories Rivenaar passed on to her. She laid on her bed and closed her eyes, letting the memories float through her brain. The sheer amount of memories made it so it took her over a week to get over them. Then, she stood up and went to eat something, thinking about what she found out.

By receiving the memories, she understood much more than any human about monsters and their lives, and she also got to see what the heavenly realm looked like.

The heavenly realm was completely different from the Land of Exile where she was. Everyone there was a cultivator, and there were no empires or rulers. The only hierarchy that worked there was between families. Basically, which family had more power had more say in the happenings. Families had disputes between each other and their own family laws. Nothing like a joined law of all families existed. The only thing that joined some families together were sects and academies. They had their own rules and if someone, a member of a family or a whole family, wanted to join, they had to accept their rules while on the academy or sect grounds.

Beasts also had hierarchy. They had beast clans with their laws and elders. They lived mostly secluded from humans, but there were some who mingled among humankind. Some clans lived all together, while some were divided into smaller groups and only met up all once in a while. The hierarchy between beasts was the same as between humans, but the clans didn’t interfere with each other as much as human families, sects and academies did.

Rivenaar didn’t have many memories from when he was a monster cub, but after that, the memories were perfectly intact, so Michelle immersed in them.

By watching the memories, she found out things that weren’t known to humans. Humans took monsters for intelligent, but emotionless creatures, but Michelle didn’t believe that since the moment she saw Rivenaar’s eyes. They held deep emotions. And after watching the memories, she saw to what extent monsters could feel, and it was in no doubt a shock. Monsters’ emotional intelligence could rival and was maybe even higher than humans’.

Even though monsters couldn’t speak the human language and communicate with other species until they reached a very high rank in the heavenly realm, they could communicate within their species, but monsters were divided into many species. And Rivenaar was of a species that was already born in the ranks when he could speak human language, thus communicate with all other species, since he was born.

Every monster species had a species name, but Rivenaar’s species was ancient and nameless, but once someone mentioned purple monsters, everyone shook in fear. Because an adult Ancient Purple, how humans finally named them, was so powerful that the only ones who could subdue them were the two people highest in rank in the heavenly realm.

The two looked like humans, but everyone knew that they were more like gods than humans. No one knew their ranks in cultivation, but it was known that their cultivation was so high that they were immortal. And that happened only when one reached the God of Gods rank.

While the two were the only ones who could subdue the Ancient Purples, the Ancient Purples were very calm and peaceful compared to other monsters, so if others didn’t bother them, they didn’t attack. There was no such case in Rivenaar’s memories when the two would interfere. He hadn’t even got to see them in his life. Or so he thought. But Michelle had a different guess.

When Rivenaar was still considered a young Ancient Purple, he fell in love with a female Ancient Purple, and they had a child together. A daughter. But he couldn’t even watch her grow up as he was captured by the human-looking creature clad in black and locked up in the cave. Michelle’s guess was that the creature was one of the two almighty in the heavenly realm. Because if an adult Ancient Purples were so powerful that the only ones who could subdue them ware the two almighty, the one who captured Rivenaar had to be one of them.

There were many other memories and small events which Michelle saw in the memories, so as she was thinking about it the whole time she was eating, the maid serving her was worried that the food didn’t suit her taste since she ate slowly, her eyes not even on the plate.

“My Lady, is the food not suitable?” the maid asked worriedly. Since Michelle “lost her memory”, no one dared to offend her as she had completely changed.

Michelle finally stopped thinking about the memories and glanced at the maid. ” It’s good. I was just thinking about something else.” She then returned to eating silently.

The maid was still worried, but seeing that Michelle turned her full attention to the food, she didn’t speak any further and remained in her place silently.

Quickly finishing her meal, Michelle stood up and went back to her room as the maid took her plate away. Until the Archduke returned, Michelle was planing to cultivate to the point when she could exit the Land of Exile and go into the lower realm. The person in black, whom she suspected to be one of the two heavenly realm’s almighty, told her that he would come to her once she entered the lower realm, and being curious and wanting to find out his intentions, Michelle was determined to get there as soon as possible.

Cold Flame was also cultivating in Michelle’s room because he was about to mature, and to be able to transform into a full-fledged White Vermilion Bird, he needed a sufficient amount of spirit energy in his body. He already had enough, but he wanted to have a reserve in case something happened.

As Cold Flame was cultivating, he was sucking all the spirit energy in the room towards him, so Michelle couldn’t cultivate there and went to the garden. She wanted to try cultivating the dark element spirit energy, and in the back of the garden was the ideal place. An old annex with no one taking care of it. All its doors and windows were blocked, so no light could get in over years, letting dark element spirit energy grow there abundantly.

Michelle went to one of the small windows and broke the blockage before breaking the glass. Then, she climbed into the annex and walked into the darkness. She didn’t mind the darkness as she already felt the spirit energy seeping into her body slowly. Instinctively, she followed the flow of the spirit energy in the annex and walked deep into it, reaching an old staircase. Everything was covered in dust and spiderwebs, showing how it was never taken care of. The dust had no footsteps on it, as no one entered the annex since it was closed off.

Walking down the creaky staircase, Michelle reached the annex’s basement. The door was locked, but old, so she could easily break it down and enter.

Sitting on the dusty ground, Michelle closed her eyes and started cultivating, her veins sucking in the dark element spirit energy. For some reason, the spirit energy was cold, but since Michelle’s body was cold by itself, it felt quite comforting for her. Also, she felt her cultivation speed being much faster than before, because of her veins being broken and having recovered in the forest, which made them sturdier and stronger.

Michelle felt her the spirit energy flow into her dantian, but, as the Archduke had told her, the spirit energy in her dantian didn’t grow in amount, instead it got denser. She didn’t know how dense her spirit energy needed to be for her to be able to leave the Land of Exile, but she guessed that once she reached it, she would feel something change.

After cultivating for a while, she felt something bubble inside of her, but it wasn’t Nyxaroth. It felt different. She opened her eyes and saw Nyxaroth leave her body, causing her to frown. “Nyx, were you the one bubbling in my body?” she asked.

“Yes! Why the frown?” Nyxaroth nodded, noticing Michelle’s frown.

Michelle’s frown deepened and she stood up. “Nothing… Why did you come out?”

“I want to explore this place,” he said before disappearing in the darkness.

Michelle looked in the direction where Nyxaroth disappeared and frowned. She didn’t know why the bubbling felt different, but her guess was it had either something to do with the fact that she was at the moment cultivating dark element spirit energy, or because of the place. She didn’t even know why the spirit energy was so cold. It did feel comforting for her, but she didn’t understand why it was so cold.

Not knowing the answer, Michelle didn’t bother herself with it and returned to cultivating, her mind sinking into immense darkness as her body started sucking the spirit energy into her veins and then into her dantian.

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