Chapter 53: 53

For over a month, Michelle sat on the cold dusty ground cross-legged, her eyes closed as she kept sucking spirit energy from the annex’s basement into her body. The whole time, Nyxaroth was floating around the dark building, as if searching for something. Within the first day, he had already gone around it a few times, but he couldn’t find the thing that was making him restless. He felt something in the air, that was making the spirit energy much colder and denser. It didn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing, but not knowing what it was could lead to some dangers.

Finally, after over a month, he found a place where the spirit energy was way colder than everywhere else. It was strange that he found it only after a month, when he went around that one place many times and didn’t feel anything.

Nyxroth solidified and transformed into a young man dressed in black with black hair and black eyes. He walked around the place with the cold spirit energy and frowned a bit. He sat down, and tried to cultivate, but the spirit energy made him feel like his soul would freeze if he let it into his dantian, so he opened his eyes and stood up with a frown. The spirit energy was dangerous for him, but his guess was that it could be beneficial for Michelle with her cold body. But he still had to confirm what was causing the coldness.

So he searched around the place until he found a big crack in the wall behind an old empty shelf. After moving the shelf away, he placed his hand on the crack and hissed from the cold. Spreading his own spirit energy on the crack, he opened the crack enough so he could walk through it. The cold spirit energy that hit him made him grit his teeth, as he wasn’t quite a cold creature, but he walked in and entered the space behind the crack. There, he found a gleaming black stone. A Life Stone of a monster, definitely one with cold blood, most probably a snakish monster.

Nyxaroth wanted to inspect the Life Stone, but it was too cold around it, so he couldn’t approach it anymore. But since the cold spirit energy was caused by a Life Stone, he knew that it was safe for Michelle to cultivate there, so he transformed back into the black mist and went back to the basement. “Michelle…” his voice stirred Michelle out of her cultivation and she opened her eyes.

“What is it, Nyx?” she asked with a tilt of her head. “Did you find something?” Her purple eyes glimmered in the dark, because after cultivating the ark element spirit energy for over a month, she gained partial night vision and her eyes changed a bit.

Nyxaroth nodded a bit. “I found a Life Stone which might help with your cultivation.”

Hearing that, Michelle was surprised. As far as she knew, monsters powerful enough to have life stones couldn’t be found in the lower realm and rarely in the middle realm. “A Life Stone? Here?” she frowned as she stood up and let Nyxaroth lead her to the place. It was on the third floor, and Michelle raised a brow when she felt the drop in temperature on the floor. She didn’t feel cold, but she noticed that Nyxaroth was clearly uncomfortable.

Nyxaroth pointed to the crack in the wall. “It’s behind the crack.” Then, he just returned into Michelle’s body. Though her body was colder than the surrounding air, but as he was in a contract with her, the coldness of her body didn’t affect him, so he could hide from the cold there.

With Nyxaroth back in her body, Michelle walked towards the crack and went through it, into the hidden space with the Life Stone. The cold spirit energy there felt pleasant on her skin. She placed her hand on the Life Stone and ran her fingers over the smooth surface. The Life Stone was quite big, but not as big as Rivenaar’s Life Stone was. It was a bit smaller than a human had, which showed that the monster it belonged to was at least the size of a smaller building, while Rivenaar was, by height, the size of a tower.

Taking a deep breath, Michelle enjoyed the feeling of the cold spirit energy slowly seeping into her body as she stood in the room. She sat down next to the Life Stone and closed her eyes, starting to cultivate once again. Maybe it was because the spirit energy was colder than before, or maybe because she was next to the Life Stone, her cultivation speed was higher than before. She knew there was still some time before the Archduke returned with Snow and Mare from wherever he took them, so she decided to use all that time to cultivate to reach the threshold of Spirit rank so she could enter the lower realm.

The day which marked two months after the Archduke took Snow and Mare from the Archduchy, the two girls had the last day of fighting against monsters. The Archduke was watching on as they were fighting against a horde of tiger-like monsters, not even noticing that they entered the territory of a more powerful monster. It was one of the most powerful monsters in the lower realm, and could rival the higher ranked cultivators in the middle realm, so the two girls stood no chance against it, but the Archduke wasn’t planning to help them if they didn’t get in direct danger. He wanted them to at least fight the monster for a while.

The place where he took them was an Ancient Land in the lower realm, where old and monsters were locked away, and the spirit energy was much denser, so every monster there could easily crush the average cultivator in the middle realm, and the most powerful monsters there, could rival the elders of the sects in the middle realm.

In actuality, the middle and lower realm didn’t have that big of a difference in power. While in the lower realm one could only cultivate to reach the peak of the Spirit rank, in the middle realm, one could cultivate to the peak of the Divine rank, so yes, the middle realm was more powerful, but the difference between the middle and upper realm was even bigger as in the higher realm, one could cultivate to the Emperor rank. And only in the heavenly realm could one cultivate to the God or God of Gods ranks.

The territory into which Mare and Snow stepped didn’t belong to the most powerful beast, but to one in the top hundred, so they stood a chance in surviving, but no chance in wining.

Mare and Snow were surprised when the monsters they were fighting suddenly turned tails and ran away, but before they could think clearly about anything, they felt strong spiritual energy behind them. Mare turned into a huge snake and Snow into her full fox form and both jumped away. When they looked back, the place where they just stood had a deep pit filled with fire. “Damn, a fire bastard!” Snow muttered, not liking the temperature of the flame.

A day later, the Archduke took Mare and Snow back into the Land of Exile and into the Archduchy. At that time, Michelle was already out of the annex and blocked the window which she used to get in. “Michelle!” Snow and Mare rushed over to her the moment they saw her in the living room, and threw themselves at her. Seeing that, the Archduke smiled. “I see, your cultivation has increased, and you’ve gained a new element,” he spoke with a smile.

“Welcome back, father!” Michelle smiled. “I’ve gained the dark element, by making a contract with Nyxaroth.” With that, Nyxaroth came out of her body.

The Archduke instantly recognized the black mist in front of him, but he didn’t make a fuss like Cold Flame did. “I see that the more beasts you have, the stronger they are. Wailing Mists are powerful beasts.”

“Nyxaroth’s been very helpful so far, and I was thinking of sending him along with Mare and Snow to go check if Thomas Hillber was really the one I crippled.” Michelle spoke with a smile as she instinctively reached to her side to pet Cold Flame, only to remember that he was still in her room. About a month before the Archduke returned, he turned back into an egg, but a huge one which filled nearly her whole room, and stayed like that for the whole month.

The Archduke noticed that Cold Flame was missing. “Is the Vermilion Bird taking on the maturity transformation?” he asked.

And Michelle nodded. “Yes. It’s been about a month now. Father, how long will it take?” she asked. But the Archduke didn’t know as he wasn’t an expert in Vermilion Birds. For a while longer, Michelle talked with the Archduke, Mare and Snow and found out what they did. Then she told him about her findings and mostly about Rivenaar. She didn’t elaborate much on what she found out from his memories, but she told them about the skill to pass on memories to someone else that she got.

She didn’t learn it yet, but she already found it in Rivenaar’s memories. She also found out that it was a skill all monsters had since being born, and it was nearly impossible for a human to master it. But there were a few cases of humans who mastered it, so Michelle wasn’t really worried. And if she really couldn’t master it, and she ended up meeting Rivenaar’s daughter, she would just tell her about his memories.

Getting to know what Michelle found out in the cave, and after she left, the Archduke suddenly felt unsettled. The thought that a powerful being he couldn’t rival had its sight set on his daughter was worrying. He wanted to forbid her from going to the lower realm, but he knew that he couldn’t make her change her mind. Since she was already determined to go there and meet the creature, he could just tell her to be careful.

Then, Michelle asked the Archduke to explain to Mare and Snow the best ways to spy on Thomas Hillberg, and she went to check on Cold Flame. She was hoping the egg would soon crack, but she felt helpless as she couldn’t do anything to speed up the process. She tried inserting her spirit energy into the egg and dripping her blood on it, but it didn’t do anything. She even asked Nyxaroth and searched Rivenaar’s memories for information about Vermilion Birds’ maturity, but Nyxaroth didn’t know anything, and from the memories, she only found out that every Vermilion Bird turned into an egg for some period as he reached maturity. But the period of time was still unknown.

Michelle knew that nothing was wrong with Cold Flame, but she still missed his happy chirping, and the reality that he would change after cracking out of the egg scared her. She didn’t know how he would act, and she dreaded the difference to come. But she couldn’t do anything and just leaned on the egg, hoping to hear the cracks of the shell breaking. But the egg was silent like it was dead.

The next day, Michelle sent Nyxaroth with Mare and Snow into the middle realm, and she returned to the annex to cultivate next to the Life Stone that Nyxaroth found. She wanted to reach the threshold of Spirit rank as soon as possible. Her cultivation speed was high and steady and after a week, she felt a strange pressure in her veins, the speed of her cultivation going down. After cultivating for a day longer, her veins completely stopped sucking in spirit energy.

Michelle stood up and went to see the Archduke. “Father! Does the fact that my veins stopped sucking spirit energy mean that I’ve reached the threshold of Spirit rank?” she asked.

Hearing her, the Archduke was clearly surprised. “No…” he shook his head after a while. “That means that you’ve long passed the threshold. Your body can still cultivate without breaking through into the Spirit rank even after you reach the threshold, and it basically makes a reserve for next breaking through, but there is a limit to how big that reserve can be. If you want to cultivate anymore, you need to leave the Land of Exile.”

“But…” Michelle frowned. “That would mean leaving Cold Flame here… I’ll wait for him to wake up before going.” She quickly decided.

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