Chapter 219: 219
When Mavreth disappeared, the disciple led Michelle and the rest out of the hallway into an open space. It was basically a huge city enclosed by walls. "Welcome to the sect!" the disciple started. "Since you don’t plan to become members of the sect, you will live in the guest quarters. The exit opens once a month, so you will have to wait a bit. The next time it opens should be in a week."
The group was led by the disciple to a dormitory-like building. "Each room has a map of the areas you can access as guests in the sect."
After explaining a few more things, the disciple left, and the group went into the dormitory building. Two people could stay in one room, so Kieran and Pete took one room, Anastasia and Ivona took another room, and Michelle had a room for herself.
The whole time, she was assuming the identity of Michael Grayson, so if she stayed with one of the girls, it could lead to pointless misunderstandings, and she didn’t feel like staying with either of the boys. So staying alone was the best choice.
After entering the room, Michelle sat down on the bed and let her mind sink deep into the world of her thoughts. She couldn’t stop thinking about what Mavreth had said.
He had basically told her that her body had changed after she passed the test. And she wanted to know how.
What could possibly have changed within her?
Since Mavreth didn’t say anything more and asked about it right after he saw Michelle, it probably meant he thought it wasn’t hard to discover.
So that meant Michelle was overlooking something.
But what was it?
"My body..." Michelle mumbled, looking down at her hands. She couldn’t feel any changes.
Michelle continued thinking about it, but she couldn’t come up with anything.
And then, her soul energy started moving within her body, out of her control, to form a sign. Serith was trying to communicate with her.
Reading the signs one by one, Michelle’s eyes widened. "How could I overlook something like that?!" She felt like smashing her head into the wall.
Using the signs, Serith said that Michelle’s muscles were more toned, and along with the tendons, they were showing more flexibility.
Michelle quickly stood up from the bed, took off her disguise mask to be able to see her condition perfectly, and then took off her clothes.
The room had a mirror on the side, so she stepped in front of it to check if the changes were visible.
And they were.
Michelle didn’t even have to try hard to see how distinct her muscles were.
After she had reincarnated as Michelle Grace, she didn’t put that much effort into building muscle, so her body was quite slim, looking even a bit fragile.
After the change, it remained slim, but its fragility was completely gone. Every muscle had a distinct outline.
It was extremely similar to how Michelle’s body was in her past life, but before she got permanent damage from the brutal punishment she received for failing her mission.
Still, Michelle had the feeling that that wasn’t the only thing that had changed.
Since she had fought with the scorpion, she had a weird, tingling sensation on her back, right where the scorpion had struck her.
To check it, she turned around to see her back in the mirror.
When her gaze fell on the reflection, her purple eyes widened. A strange mark was on her back: a skull with flowers growing out of the holes for the eyes, all purple.
"What is that?" Michelle was fairly confused. But she guessed that within the memories she got from Rivenaar, she could find some kind of answer.
So she sat back down on the bed and started going through the memories.
After about half an hour, she finally found something. The mark had something to do with poison element spirit energy.
With a frown, Michelle summoned Mare.
"Yes, Michelle?" Mare tilted her head a bit.
Michelle showed her back to her. "Do you know something about this?" she asked.
Mare stared at the mark for a moment before answering. "That mark usually represents that a human possesses poison element spirit energy..."
Michelle raised a brow. "I can’t feel any poison element spirit energy within my body. So what’s going on?"
"That’s normal." Mare wasn’t surprised.
"Right now, we can’t be sure whether you really have the poison element, or if it’s just because you fought the scorpion, but whichever is the case, you wouldn’t be able to feel the spirit energy. Poison element spirit energy is a bit different from other spirit energy."
"How so?" Michelle was getting curious.
From the moment she had contracted Mare, she understood that poison element spirit energy was special. If it wasn’t, she would have gained the element through the contract, but she didn’t. But that probably wasn’t the only difference.
So Mare started explaining.
The main difference between poison element spirit energy and other elements was that the poison element couldn’t even be considered a real element. It was an alteration of spirit energy.
Basically, it was elementless spirit energy that had absorbed poison.
Because of that, it couldn’t even be stored in one’s dantian. Instead, it filled up one’s whole body—from blood to muscles, bones, and even organs. And most of it was stored within the heart and brain.
Still, that didn’t mean the creature’s body was poisonous.
Even if someone ended up eating the meat of a creature possessing the poison element, they wouldn’t have to worry about being harmed. As long as they avoided the heart and brain, they would be fine.
Of course, that was only the case if the creature didn’t make the poison element spirit energy condense and explode within its body before dying. If they did, the whole body would turn fatally poisonous.
To attack someone with poison element spirit energy, one couldn’t just conjure up an attack like with other elements.
They needed to come in direct contact with their target.
And it would work even better if they created a wound on the target through which they could insert the poison. In those cases, the poison element worked more like venom than poison.
For it to work like poison, the best way was to find a drink and insert spirit energy into it, because once outside its owner’s body, the spirit energy turns into fatal poison.
It could also be inserted into food, but it worked better in liquids.
And the best thing about possessing poison element spirit energy was that the user could cultivate in any environment, as long as their body could bear it.
Because when the body pulled in the spirit energy of other elements, it would use the basically elementless spirit energy in the body to push out the element on the new spirit energy, making it elementless all the same. And then, the poison alteration would spread to the new spirit energy.
Listening to all that, Michelle raised a brow. The poison element was indeed formidable.
"So how do I check whether I have the poison element or not?" she asked. As a former assassin, poisons were something that greatly interested her, so having the poison element would greatly delight her.
Mare glanced around the room and frowned a bit. "Do you have a cup of water?" she asked. She didn’t see anything like that in the room.
Michelle reached into her spatial ring and took out a cup and a bamboo tube used as a water bottle.
"What do you need it for?" Michelle asked as she handed it over to Mare.
Mare took it and poured some water into the cup. "Insert your spirit energy into it. And avoid affecting it with your ice and dark element."
Michelle took the cup and stared into it for a moment. Then she placed her finger on the surface of the water and pushed her spirit energy into it.
Before she even tried to send the spirit energy out, a small layer of ice started forming on the water.
So Michelle had to retract the spirit energy and try again. She made sure to pull all of her ice element spirit energy back.
The water didn’t start freezing, but instead a black taint appeared.
Michelle had to once again retract her spirit energy.
Then she pulled the dark element spirit energy back deep into her dantian to join the ice element.
Once again, she tried to move the spirit energy within her towards her finger, but she could barely grasp anything. It felt like all her spirit energy was the dark and ice element. She couldn’t feel any elementless spirit energy within her body.
Mare noticed how Michelle was struggling, but she didn’t stop her. "Try to feel around your heart and brain," she reminded.
Taking a deep breath to concentrate better, Michelle tried to sense around her heart for any spirit energy.
She found a small sliver of hope: a thin layer of spirit energy that didn’t belong to the ice or dark element.
But it was impossible to command it.
Still, Michelle didn’t give up. She refused to give up. She would turn the water in the cup into poison.