CHAPTER 203: 203

Two figures walked down a street in Riptide City, walking towards a shop with a strange name: "Scarred Weaponry."

And the two figures didn’t look ordinary either. A man with a nasty scar over his face and neck, and a young boy with striking silver hair and purple eyes walked side by side silently and calmly.

Every now and then, the scarred man would glance at the young boy, his gaze complicated.

Michelle felt the man looking at her, but she didn’t pay it any mind and walked into the shop. "What a nice place!" she said lazily, her eyes raking over the weapons on display. Swords, whips, spears, and bows were just the most ordinary things there.

"How did you guess I own this place?" the scarred man asked, following closely behind Michelle.

She shrugged. "Just a guess. But the name was quite suggestive."

"What do you want to do here?" the man lifted a brow in question.

"Well..." Michelle let out a low hum as she thought about it. "Uncle, both you and the tavern lady work under the Dark Lord? Just like Noctis?" she asked as she picked up a whip. The material was unusual, strange to the touch.

At the mention of the Dark Lord and Noctis, the scarred man frowned a bit. "Why do you want to know?" His voice had a dangerous edge to it.

But Michelle wasn’t the least bit intimidated. "No real reason..." she shook her head as she spoke. "I’m just curious about a few things." She didn’t say that she wanted to slowly find out just how influential Alexander Terce and David Elether were.

"If you have no reason to know, you won’t get angry if I don’t tell you."

Michelle glanced at the man and put the whip away. "True..." she stretched her hands in front of her. "I already know the answer." She moved on to checking other weapons. "Not just you and the tavern lady, but most of the tavern guests work under the Dark Lord."

"Why ask if you already have the answer?" The scarred man felt like the brat in front of him was just getting harder and harder to understand the more he spoke with her.

Michelle shrugged. "I just felt like asking."

"Aren’t you a great strategist? Why are you so careless now?" The man watched Michelle pick up and put away weapons one by one.

Another careless shrug came from Michelle. "Maybe I’m just relaxed now, so I don’t think about things too much..."

"Or you’re just pretending, while in reality, you’re trying to manipulate me," the man said with a laugh, not believing his own words. He was quite confident in his ability to discern lies and deception.

Michelle didn’t give a reaction to that. There was no point. It was clear the man said it just as part of his train of thought.

"Do you want a new weapon?" the man asked, seeing that Michelle had yet to pick a weapon that seemed to really interest her.

Michelle shook her head. "My arsenal’s good for now..."

The man was expecting such an answer from her. "Then what are we doing here now?" he asked.

Michelle gave it a momentary thought before taking out her shifting weapon, in the shape of a fan at the moment. "What do you think about this?" she threw the fan behind her carelessly, knowing the man would have no trouble catching it.

The man didn’t even move from his place, and just lifted his hand when the fan was just above him, catching it effortlessly. Turning over the fan, he saw the spirit stone embedded on the bottom. "The craftsmanship is quite good, but the abilities are limited. And the shifting takes too much spirit energy."

Turning to look at the man, Michelle leaned on one of the shelves with weapons. "Will it be useful in the upper realm?" she asked with a tilt of her head.

The man shook his head. "In the upper realm, most weapons have their own special traits or skills. This shifter doesn’t have such things. Any thrown-away weapon in the upper realm would be better."

"Pity..." Michelle didn’t show any emotion. "I got used to it already."

"It doesn’t look like it was used that much," the man raised a brow.

"It’s not even a year since I got it."

"That explains a lot of things..." The man unfolded the fan and looked at the patterns on it. "You could inscribe something on it to give it some weaker traits."

"But I would need an Inscription Master for that," Michelle said matter-of-factly. In the lower realm, finding an Inscription Master was impossible. "Or are you one?" she raised a brow. "You seem more like a Weapon Smith Master since you have a Weaponry."

"That’s true..." the man nodded. "I can’t enhance this weapon for you." He threw the fan back at Michelle and she returned it into her spatial ring.

"I expected such..." Michelle smiled carelessly, turning towards the door. "Well then, I’ll be returning to my cultivation."

The scarred man stared at her departing back. "You have a long way to go if you want to go to the middle realm."

Michelle turned her head back. "I won’t go there. I’m going straight to the upper realm."

That made the scarred man frown. It was possible to reach the rank required to enter the upper realm within the lower realm, but people never really did it because the cultivation speed in the middle realm was much faster than in the lower realm. So once they could, they would depart to the middle realm to continue their cultivation there.

Michelle was clearly a smart person, so why did she want to stay in the lower realm?

The scarred man had no way of knowing that Michelle was just repulsed by the Hilberg family, who was from the middle realm, so she didn’t want to set foot there.

For the next few months, Michelle remained in her room in the tavern to cultivate. But her progress wasn’t that great compared to Kieran and the rest. From Spirit Apprentices, Ivona and Kieran became Spirit Masters, and Anastasia’s soul cultivation reached a level equivalent to that of a Spirit Lord. Meanwhile, Michelle got stuck at the threshold of a Spirit Master.

The reason for Michelle’s slowness in cultivation was that she had the dark and ice element, which weren’t really present in Riptide City, so her cultivation was stagnating.

Meanwhile, the light element was all around the city, and the fire element wasn’t really sparse either, making cultivation easy for Ivona and Kieran.

And Anastasia’s cultivation speed depended solely on how much concentration and energy she put into it, so she was able to cultivate the fastest.

Thinking about a place with a lot of dark element spirit energy, Michelle remembered the basement under the tavern, but she suspected no such spirit energy would remain there, because of how she had used her void when releasing the souls from the Soul Seeking Pendants.

Still, it wouldn’t hurt to check, so Michelle went down there.

And just as she had guessed, the basement was nearly barren of any dark element spirit energy, so she returned to her room. To think about everything.

Michelle considered returning to the snowy mountains where the Sloan family residence used to be, but that was quite far away, so she didn’t feel like going. Her best bet was to go to the jungle to look for a dark cave with a lot of dark element spirit energy.

Before she could think more about that idea, a pair of hands caught her shoulder, turned her around, and pinned her to the wall.

"How were you while I was gone?" Alexander’s sickeningly handsome face appeared in front of Michelle, smiling teasingly.

Staring at him, Michelle felt like kicking him in the gut. Even though she knew she wouldn’t succeed because of how skilled and powerful he was, she still decided to do it.

So a kick flew at Alexander before he got an answer to his question.

With a chuckle, he leaned back a bit, evading the kick. As he did that, he didn’t release Michelle’s shoulders. "Well, that’s cruel of you!" he said with an annoying smile, making Michelle send another kick at him.

Instead of dodging, Alexander caught her leg and pulled on it a bit, making Michelle hiss ever so slightly. It surprisingly hurt.

"You really are the most annoying person I know," she said with a frown, pulling her leg back.

Alexander let go of her and sat down on the bed. "Why do you say so?"

Michelle didn’t answer. Instead, she threw a question back: "What are you doing here?"

Alexander shrugged. "I was bored, so I came to see you!"

Michelle nearly snapped when she heard that. But she knew it would just make him happier, so she withheld her rage and walked towards the door.

"Where to?" Alexander asked, still sitting on the bed.

Michelle glanced at him and opened the door. "A good place for cultivation," she huffed.

Alexander smiled and moved in front of her with a flash. "I know some places with a lot of dark element spirit energy."

The next moment, a rift in space opened behind Alexander and he walked in. "Follow me."

Though Michelle didn’t really like Alexander, she still followed him. He was powerful, so he definitely knew excellent places for cultivation.