Chapter 242: 242
Under Alexander’s guidance, Michelle sat down and stopped moving. At first nothing happened, but after a while, she felt her eyes sting.
"Keep your eyes open!" Alexander reminded her.
Feeling the sting get worse, Michelle had a hard time suppressing the urge to blink and rub her eyes. But she bore with it and waited for what would come next.
The stinging caused tears to well up in her eyes. They then rolled down her face.
"That’s probably the only time you’ll let me see you cry!" Alexander couldn’t help but smile.
Michelle ignored him and kept her focus on keeping her eyes open.
That was until small black spots started appearing wherever her pupils moved to look.
The first reaction Michelle had was to rub her eyes. But she held back. Instead, she started considering what it was.
Back in her past life, she had learned that if blind spots appeared in one’s gaze, it could be a serious problem.
But she doubted that was the case at the moment. Alexander had led her into the situation. He must have known something like that would happen. Also, the black spots didn’t really seem like blind spots in Michelle’s gaze. They were literally black spots in the air.
"Is that the shadow essence?" Michelle finally asked after a while.
"Yes!" Alexander nodded. "It will come to you on its own. When it touches your body, you have to pull it in with the shadow essence I gave you."
Feeling inside her body for a moment, Michelle realized that there indeed was some shadow essence in her dantian.
That meant Shadow Masters could share their shadow essence if necessary. It could be a useful ability.
"How come I can see the shadow essence now?" Michelle asked. Just a few moments ago, she couldn’t see anything like the black patches.
"That, too..." Alexander started explaining, "is related to the shadow essence I gave you. All creatures have a tiny organ used to sense the energy they cultivate. Humans have it in the back of their neck, right under the head. It is used to sense both spirit and soul energy, and the shadow essence."
"The spirit and soul energy are similar so you can sense them both at once, but shadow essence is different. To sense it for the first time, it’s not enough to just have a shadow dantian. You need to temporarily drown your energy sensor in shadow essence so it would forget all about other energies. Shadow essence is the most subtle of all energies, so you wouldn’t be able to notice it if they were disturbing you. At least for the first time."
Michelle continued listening to Alexander’s explanation. Apparently, unless a new Shadow Master met an experienced one, they could never learn to cultivate, because they would never be able to sense the shadow essence.
And even if they did, it would be so sparse, they wouldn’t be able to pull it into their bodies.
After Alexander explained everything to Michelle, she tried to cultivate. Since she could already see the shadow essence, it was all easier for her.
It was time to see the effect of the poison her master had given her.
Cultivation came naturally to Michelle, so in just a few minutes, her mind had sunk deep into the darkness of the shadow element.
But it didn’t last for long before the poison got to work.
Opening her eyes, Michelle felt something moving in her dantian. And she could no longer cultivate. It was such an annoyance after she had succeeded in cultivating for the first time.
Alexander was surprised when Michelle stopped cultivating so suddenly, and it didn’t take him long to figure out she was poisoned.
Naturally, that worried him, but knowing a few things about Michelle, he knew she wouldn’t just let herself get poisoned. So he decided to just watch from the sidelines.
With an annoyed sigh, Michelle took her pulse. Then, the examination went on. She discovered that her spirit energy wasn’t flowing through her veins. It was just standing there. And when that wasn’t moving, the shadow essence couldn’t pass through and go into the dantian.
So the poison wasn’t just stagnating the shadow essence cultivation. It was affecting spirit energy too. And though Michelle had yet to feel it, she had the guess that it affected soul energy too.
Laying her back on the grass, Michelle wondered what to do. The poison was definitely interesting.
Thinking back to the pill she ate, Michelle tried to think whether it had any distinct features. She needed something, anything that could help in finding out how to get rid of the poison. There was nothing like an all-cure antidote, so Michelle couldn’t go get it.
But she didn’t care. She wouldn’t ever want something like that. It would surely just have nasty side effects and would be difficult to make. And it would take away the joy of exploring poisons to make antidotes specific for them.
The antidotes themselves could be fatal poisons. But clashing with another poison, they would neutralize each other. Or, even better, become precious medicine.
Getting lost in her thoughts, Michelle’s mind steered away from the main topic. She had to figure out what the poison she ate was made of. So she could learn to make it herself.
When she came back to her senses, she had been lying in the grass for a long time, her head turned towards the lake. Even though the trees were completely shielding all sunlight, it was shimmering.
Originally, Michelle didn’t notice it because she was preoccupied with other things. But after realizing it, she couldn’t get it off her mind. There had to be something down there.
Getting up, Michelle walked towards the edge of the lake, observing the water.
"Are you thinking of going in?" Alexander came over too.
Michelle nodded. "It shouldn’t be shimmering like that. Something is down there."
"Well..." Alexander shrugged. "I won’t stop you."
"It’s not like I would let you even if you wanted to!" Michelle smiled before stepping into the water.
At first, only her ankles were in the water, the hem of her dress getting wet. But the further she walked, the deeper the water was, and the higher it wet her clothes.
When Michelle was in the water up to her waist, she stopped going and started digging with her feet into the ground. She was already in the area where the bottom of the lake was shimmering. And she had to figure out why.
If she wanted to, she could brush it off, saying it was bioluminescence or something similar, but she didn’t want to. She had a strong feeling it was something much more important.
But she didn’t really feel like sinking underwater to check it. She didn’t feel like submerging.
"What are you checking?" Alexander remained on the shore, watching Michelle closely. Every single move, even the most subtle of them all.
"Don’t burn a hole into me with those black eyes!" Michelle said casually, continuing her lazy work. If by the next half hour she couldn’t find anything, she would go under the water.
"You are in water! The fire won’t spread!" Alexander sat down on the ground, keeping his gaze on Michelle. He didn’t conceal it the least bit.
"Since you have nothing to do..." Michelle turned to look at him. "Without using any shadow essence, come help me look for what’s shimmering under the water!"
So after a while, the two were diving into the lake, checking the bottom.
Finally, after a good two hours, Michelle dug something out from among the rocks. A glimmering stone.
"Just what is this?" Michelle frowned, walking out of the lake. Alexander was just behind her.
Though he was acting like he was helping her the whole time, he didn’t even lift a finger. He was just following Michelle around in the water.
"Do you know?" She turned to Alexander.
He stared at the stone and shrugged. "Just a rock."
Hearing that, Michelle raised a brow. She highly doubted Alexander’s words, because his standards about the usefulness of things were completely different from hers.
She was much weaker, so things Alexander would consider painfully weak could be used by her. She had a guess the stone was a similar case.
"What do we do now?" Alexander tried to wring some water out of his clothes, but it didn’t help at all.
If Michelle could, she would use her ice element to freeze the water in her clothes and then have it move away, but she couldn’t. Her Spirit Soul Blood would be exposed. Especially since a disciple was nearby.
She thought about using the black fire created by her soul energy, but it was nearly impossible to control. It would burn away her clothes.
And normal fire was ruled out. Starting it with wet hands would be troublesome, and the heat it produced was unbearable for someone like Michelle. Especially since she needed to dry her Everfrost Mantle which was keeping her cool.