Chapter 230: 230
Mavreth didn’t feel like talking with Michelle in the barren hallway, so he took her to his office. "I won’t offer you a drink," he said as he sat down.
Michelle smiled carelessly. "It would have been poison even if you did."
Not a sign of surprise appeared on Mavreth’s face when he was seen through. "You now possess the poison element, so you would have been fine even if I did."
Sitting down opposite Mavreth, Michelle didn’t show much reaction. "But I haven’t yet had the chance to cultivate it. I still don’t have immunity to poisons."
"Even so, you would have been fine." Mavreth was calm.
Michelle raised a brow. "Because of my blood?" She leaned on her hand, pressing her jaw against her palm.
Mavreth gave a careless nod. "So what proposal do you have for me?" He no longer felt like playing around.
Slowly, Michelle’s purple eyes narrowed.
Her next words were surprising even for Mavreth.
"Just for letting the measly information guild cultivate in my sect? Aren’t you losing out a lot?" he asked.
Michelle’s smile widened. "Am I?" Something sharp gleamed in her eyes. It was a clear provocation.
It made Mavreth’s always-present smile widen under the hood. "True. That’s no losing deal." He reached under the table to retrieve something from a drawer down there. "Very well then."
Seeing the item, Michelle raised a brow. "Why do you keep poison under your desk?" she couldn’t help but ask as Mavreth handed it over to her.
Mavreth shrugged. "It has a lot of purposes." He clearly didn’t think much about it. "So, will you drink it? That’s the only requirement for sealing the deal."
Without any hesitation, Michelle took the small bottle and opened it, smelling the bittersweet fragrance that slowly wafted out. "Who made this?" she asked as she inhaled deeply. It had been a long time since she had come across such a well-made concoction.
"I did." Mavreth watched Michelle observe the bottle and take in the scent of the poison.
"Well, then I really made an excellent choice!" Michelle’s smile widened as she drank the poison. The sweetness stuck to the back of her throat, and the bitterness slid down after it. It was quite a disgusting feeling.
But Michelle didn’t show any signs of disgust. She just closed her eyes and waited for the poison to take effect. "I will have to ask you to teach me how to make this one..." she said as she put the bottle on the table. Slowly, she was starting to feel the poison spreading into her system.
"Aren’t you worried you won’t live to learn it?" Mavreth sat in a more comfortable position to watch how Michelle would deal with the poison. If she didn’t do anything, the poison would kill her. And neutralizing it was quite difficult. But Michelle had the small advantage of having the poison element.
"It won’t kill me right away." Michelle clearly wasn’t the least bit worried. Since the poison wasn’t one that would instantly kill her, she would let it spread throughout her whole body, so she could feel its effects properly. Only then would she consider getting rid of it.
That disappointed Mavreth a bit. He was hoping he wouldn’t have to wait long before Michelle showed her way of curing the poison. But it seemed waiting was inevitable. "What a pity..."
Mavreth’s reaction drew a chuckle from Michelle. "You should have used a faster-working poison if you wanted an immediate reaction from me."
"I didn’t know you were coming, so I didn’t have it prepared." Though Mavreth said that as an excuse, if he had wanted, he could have concocted a fast-working, lethal poison in a matter of minutes—especially since he wanted to use it on Michelle, a person so much weaker than him.
Michelle no longer responded. She just waited for the effects of the poison. And it came in about half an hour.
Slowly, she started feeling light-headed and her senses got blurred. The poison was one that aimed for the brain first.
Understanding that, Michelle knew time was pressing her. But it wasn’t that terrible. So before concocting an antidote or a neutralizer for the poison, she first decided to try the poison element spirit energy within her to drive out the poison.
The poison was already all over her body, but since it was mostly affecting her brain, it was safe to assume that most of the poison was concentrated there.
To stop it from causing more trouble, Michelle moved the spirit energy within her body and had it rush to her head. There, it wrapped around her brain, closing in on the poison.
After a while, Michelle’s poison element spirit energy had the poison completely surrounded and swallowed it, leaving no trace of it behind. Then, Michelle let her soul energy return to where it was before.
But she was still light-headed. Her senses were still clouded by something.
Did that mean getting rid of the poison was not enough? Had it already damaged her brain?
Someone could panic at the thought of that, but Michelle didn’t. Instead, she got excited. If the poison was able to mess up her mind in such a short time, she had to learn to make it. And if she had the time, she could try to improve it.
Before she could think about it any further, a small black speck splattered against her forehead, making her snap out of it. A nasty bruise formed where she got hit.
"Focus on the problem at hand!" Mavreth reminded. He really wanted to see how Michelle would deal with the aftereffects of the poison, so he didn’t like that she was getting lost in thought.
Michelle rubbed her forehead, a frown on her face. "Fine..." she muttered.
She didn’t feel like taking care of the haziness in her mind since her superior healing abilities would take care of it, but since Mavreth wanted to see something, she had to somehow comply.
Knowing that both spirit and soul energy were closely linked to one’s mind, Michelle summoned her void-like soul energy and had it create a misty layer around her head. Naturally, that was just the visible part. Much more soul energy seeped under Michelle’s skull, filling up her brain.
"Yuck—" Michelle frowned. The feeling of soul energy on her brain was repulsive.
But it worked.
With the void around, the spirit energy always stored in Michelle’s brain was forced into motion, speeding up the healing process by folds. Rapidly, Michelle could feel her senses clearing up and becoming sharper.
Seeing that, Mavreth didn’t know whether he was supposed to be happy or insulted. A weak little girl was able to get rid of all effects caused by his poison. But at the same time, the girl had struck an excellent deal with him.
When Michelle retracted her soul energy, Mavreth stared at her for a while. "You’ve passed the test. I’ll take you in as my disciple." He finally decided.
Hearing that, Michelle got up from her seat and knelt down. "Disciple Michelle Grace greets Master!" She brought her head down to the floor in a show of respect. She wasn’t exactly fond of Mavreth, but since she had accepted him as her Master, she would respect him.
With Michelle kneeling in front of him, Mavreth had a strange sense of foreboding. For some reason, it felt like a sin. "Don’t kneel in front of me!"
"Yes, Master!" Michelle got up quickly.
Staring at Michelle, Mavreth started wondering how long it would take her to keep calling him Master and when she would revert it back to old man and such.
In the first place, he was never hoping for respect from Michelle when he decided to accept her as his disciple.
Respect and formalities weren’t his things. In his eyes, they were just eyesores that obscured quick and efficient conversing.
Shaking his head a bit, Mavreth got up from his seat. "How did you even come to think about becoming my personal disciple?" he asked as he walked to a wall full of shelves, searching for something.
Michelle shrugged. "It seemed like something you would want, that would benefit me, and that I could use in a deal about the information guild with you."
"Why did you think I would want you to be my disciple?" Mavreth wanted a deeper insight into Michelle’s way of thinking. He wanted to know how much she understood him.
Michelle thought about it for a moment. "Well, you’ve already asked me to be the sect disciple. You don’t seem like the type of careless person who would invite just anyone to your sect. If you’ve invited me, it means you want me to improve for your future plans. And there is no better way for you to control and aid my growth other than me becoming your direct disciple."
"You might be right about that one!" Mavreth didn’t deny that he had included Michelle in his plans against Lavreth. Their longstanding enmity had been well known to the world since the beginning of times.