Chapter 73: 73

Once again sitting on the big swing next to Ivona Beltrez, Michelle petted Ivona’s gray dog. “Ivona… How high exactly is your cultivation? And what element do you have?” she straight on asked.

Ivona wasn’t really surprised by the question. From the start, she knew it was just a matter of time until Michelle found out that she could cultivate. “The spirit energy I can condense is enough to blow away a smaller banquet hall,” she said with a slight smile.

Her words made Michelle remember that in the Land of Exile, the only skill the cultivators could use was condensing the spirit energy, and to distinguish one’s power, they used the size of the explosion they could cause. It was quite ridiculous, but she didn’t really care.

But what intrigued her was Ivona’s power. At the threshold before Spirit rank, one could usually blow up a regular banquet hall, so if Ivona could blow up a smaller banquet hall, she was nearing the threshold. That painted a small smile on Michelle’s lips. “And how fast do you think you can reach power enough to blow up a normal hall?” she asked as she glanced at Ivona.

Seeing Michelle’s smile, a strange idea rose in Ivona’s heart. “I hope you aren’t planning to blow up a banquet hall full of people,” she said skeptically.

When her words fell, Michelle’s smile widened, and she chuckled a bit as she stopped petting the gray dog and straightened her back. “Don’t worry. That’s just the power you need to have if you want to leave the Land of Exile.”

Hearing that, Ivona sighed in relief. “I see…” she nodded a bit. “I think I would need a week if I relentlessly cultivated. But I don’t think that’d be possible…” Her expression was glum as she spoke.

To Michelle, it was clear that Ivona’s worries were caused by her family. “Ivona, if your family doesn’t care about you, why did you never leave them? You are smart enough to know that no matter what you do for them, they will never like you.” Michelle’s words stung, but they were the truth, and Ivona knew that.

She sighed and clasped her hands. “Nothing can ever escape your eyes…” she clearly didn’t like talking about her family. “It’s true that I know that my family will never acknowledge me, and I don’t want them to… I just couldn’t bring myself to run away. As a simple girl brought up, though in neglect, as an aristocratic Young Lady, I knew that if I ran away, I wouldn’t be able to take care of myself. Or so I thought… But maybe, I was wrong. Maybe the upbringing just clouded my mind, so I didn’t even realize that as a cultivator, I could easily survive…”

Her words widened Michelle’s smile. “I forgot to ask what element spirit energy you have?” she asked.

“Light element…” Ivona answered quietly. It seemed like she was ashamed of her element, which made Michelle raise a brow.

So she asked about it: “You don’t like the light element?”

Ivona shook her head. “It’s a well known fact that the light element is the weakest and causes the least impact.”

That made Michelle frown. As far as she knew, the light element was the same as the other elements. If all elements were without skills, the water and light element would be the weakest, but with good skills, any element could annihilate thousands, or heal, which was the ability of only two elements; water and light.

But living in the Land of Exile, Ivona couldn’t know all that, so she thought she had a useless element.

Michelle sighed a bit before speaking again: “Once we enter the lower realm, you will realize the full power of the light element, just be patient. I’ll go check the power of Kieran Ashford and tell him about the realms. You two will then cultivate in the Archduchy until you have enough power to go with me when I leave this place. Sounds good?”

“Fine…” Ivona nodded.

That made Michelle smile. “Then, I shall be going to see Kieran…” she said as she used her Shadow Spirit Steps to disappear, going into the Imperial Palace.

Entering the palace, she wasn’t planning on going to meet the little Emperor and straight away went to knock on the door to Kieran’s room.

Kieran opened and was a bit surprised to see her. “My Lady… I thought you wouldn’t come to the Imperial Palace until the Sloan Family’s execution…”

“I came to talk with you. Can you spare me a bit of your time?” she smiled a bit.

Kieran nodded, and since it seemed inappropriate for them to talk in his room, since they were of opposite genders and were both born as nobles, they decided to talk in the palace’s library. Just then did Michelle realize how big the Archduchy’s library was as the palace’s library had merely three stories, while the library in the Archduchy had… a few times more stories.

In the library, Michelle explained to Kieran about the realms very quickly and told him she wanted to take him with her to the lower realm, to which he agreed. He had no real reason to stay in the Land of Exile since his family was dead, and he had already taken his revenge. So Michelle asked him about his power and element, and it was a pleasant surprise. He said he would only need about half a year to reach the required power, and that he had the fire element.

His and Ivona’s elements made Michrlle cringe a bit. Why was it that her friends had elements contradicting hers? She had the dark element, so she was sensitive to the light element which Ivona had. She had the ice element, so she was sensitive to the fire element which Kieran had. It was like the world was making a nasty joke at her.

“After the Sloan family is executed, do come to the Archduchy to cultivate, so when both you and Ivona reach the power needed to leave this place, we could go straight away,” Michelle said as she bid her farewell and left, going back to the Archduchy. Evening was already nearing, so she contacted her contracted beasts and called them to come back from their training.

It had already been quite a while since she had seen them, and she missed them a bit. Also, she wanted to discuss something with them. She had been pushing it to the side for half a year, and it was time to finally take care of it.

Nyxaroth and the rest didn’t hurry to return, as Michelle told them it wasn’t urgent, and they only returned in the evening the next day. But the whole day before that, Michelle trained with the Archduke. He woke her up early in the morning and took her to the training grounds. “Do you remember the sensation when the binding chains appeared?” he asked as Michelle stood in front of him.

She nodded: “Clearer than anything.”

“Then, remember the sensation as accurately as you can and try to move your soul energy to revive it,” he said.

Michelle nodded and closed her eyes, imagining the sensation from when the chains appeared on her neck. At the same time, as if she was forming a Spirit Mark, she moved her soul energy around her body.

At first, nothing much happened, but after her soul energy was already moving around her body for a while, she felt the warm sensation of the binding chains on her neck again, but she didn’t open her eyes, so they wouldn’t disappear.

“Now, try to connect your soul energy with the soul leash!” the Archduke’s calm voice carried to her ear. “The best way to do so would be concentrating your soul energy in your neck where your soul leash is located.”

Listening to the Archduke, Michelle moved most of her soul energy to her neck, letting it touch the soul leash, and then, she slowly felt the two connect. She couldn’t explain how, but she felt them blend together.

After a while, she instinctively opened her eyes, and when she opened her eyes, she saw a shimmering golden chain wrapped around her whole arm, but she couldn’t feel it weighing her down. “They connected?” she lifted her brow.

The Archduke nodded: “Yes! Now you just need to learn to control it.”

“How can I control it, father?” Michelle looked at him curiously.

“Do you see the shimmer the chain has? Concentrate on it until you feel its pulse or flow.”

Michelle didn’t really understand how a shimmer could have a pulse or a flow, but she listened to the Archduke and stared at the shimmer. But she didn’t see or feel anything. So she closed her eyes and used her touch to sense the chain.

For a long while, she couldn’t feel anything and was starting to feel helpless, but then, she felt her hand tingle as she felt like a liquid was flowing over her arm alongside the chain. It was a strange feeling, so weak at first, that she could barely feel it, but as she kept her mind calm and concentrated on it, she felt it more and more clearly.

“Father…” she opened her eyes and looked at the Archduke. “What now?” she asked with a tilt of her head.

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