CHAPTER 265: 265

For Michelle to understand everything, Alexander named out the ranks to her. Just like with most masteries, there were seven of them.

Shadow was the lowest, followed by Shade, Veil, Night, Eclipse, Chasm, and finally Oblivion.

As for the levels in each rank, there were ten of them, and they were exactly the same as in Spirit and Soul Mastery: Junior, Apprentice, Warrior, Knight, Master, Lord, Overlord, King, Saint, and Paragon.

The ascension between levels was quite ordinary. One just needed to possess enough shadow essence to break through, and they would advance into the next level.

But the case with ranks was completely different. It solely depended on control.

In other words, a person with just a speck of shadow essence could be much more powerful than a person with a sea of it. Because the person with the speck of it could control it better than the one with an abundance of shadow essence. And just that would make them higher in rank.

That made breaking through ranks in Shadow Mastery extremely difficult. Once someone became a Shadow Master, they would need to train for a while, and they would quickly bypass levels to enter new ranks. But at some point, their ascension would stop, and getting stronger would become increasingly hard.

That made for another funny thing. If someone was, for example, at the level of a Lord in their rank, and if they somehow ascended into another rank, there, they would skip all the levels until they became a Lord too. Because level was determined by the amount of shadow essence, and breaking through a rank didn’t affect that.

Still, people of higher ranks usually also had higher levels.

The reason was quite simple.

Their control over shadow essence—whether the one within them or the one in the surroundings—was better than that of those of lower ranks. With better control, they could absorb more shadow essence into their bodies and make it their own, leading to a breakthrough in their level.

Still, there were sparsely any Paragons. Even Saints were rare.

Listening to all that, Michelle stared at Alexander. "When not suppressed by the Heavenly Law, what rank and level do you have?" she asked curiously. She was clearly thinking about how strong she had to become to stand a chance to beat him up.

Alexander didn’t see a reason to hide it from Michelle. "Just before getting infected by the Void Plague, I broke into the Paragon level. For a few years before that, I was already of the Chasm rank."

Michelle raised a brow. "Has there ever been someone of the Oblivion rank?" she asked.

Alexander shrugged. "Maybe in the deep history."

Michelle didn’t really like that answer, but she didn’t ask about it again. She let Alexander continue his explanation.

He was finally moving on to something about her.

Since, when fighting Elise, Michelle was able to control the shadow essence around her and even manipulate it into entering her body without making it her own, once she trained a bit, her rank would probably be high. But she wouldn’t be able to show it because the Heavenly Law would be suppressing her.

But Alexander was guessing that once she got to the Heavenly Realm, her power would show. Which meant he thought that even in the upper realm, she wouldn’t be allowed to access her full power. He thought she was more powerful than what the Heavenly Law allowed in the upper realm.

That made Michelle frown. She didn’t feel all that strong. Cultivators from the upper realm were easily able to take her on, and she could only retaliate because of her quick wits and many techniques they had no clue about.

When Michelle voiced her doubt, Alexander shook his head. "You are more powerful than them, but without any shadow skills or training, you won’t be able to showcase it. You will be like a dynamite without the detonating cord. Completely useless unless something explodes next to you."

Michelle no longer asked anything and let Alexander keep explaining. She couldn’t wait for him to finally teach her the skills.

Alexander explained that the skills needed a certain level of control. In other words, it depended on rank whether one could use them or not.

And it didn’t matter whether they could or could not access the rank in the realm they were in. It couldn’t lower their control.

The only thing the Heavenly Law could do was weaken the skills.

So, as for the three skills Michelle wanted Alexander to teach her, the Liquid Shadow could be used by those of the Veil rank and above, the Living Shadow by those of the Night rank and above, and the Inner Shadow could be used by those of the Eclipse rank and above.

Alexander had no doubt Michelle would be able to use the Liquid Shadow and Living Shadow skills. She would just need time to train.

But as for the Inner Shadow, he couldn’t be sure. He had yet to see the full extent of her control over the shadow essence, so he couldn’t guess her rank.

When Michelle heard that, she was pleasantly surprised. If that was really the case, she had basically become the most powerful person in the middle realm.

And if she was of the Eclipse rank, that was the rank equal to the rank of Emperor in Spirit Mastery. And that was the highest reachable rank in the upper realm.

But the two ranks didn’t have the same power. If an Emperor Paragon and an Eclipse Paragon met in a fight, the Emperor would lose in a matter of minutes.

Because with Shadow Mastery, the power of the rank that was supposed to be equal to the rank of Spirit Mastery was actually higher—nearly by a whole rank.

So a Spirit Junior would officially have the same power as a Shadow Junior, but in reality, the Shadow Junior would be able to hold his own against a Divine Junior.

It was a bit overkill, but unlike Spirit Masters, after a certain period, Shadow Mastery couldn’t be significantly improved, so the slight head start would quickly disappear.

So, as for Michelle’s case, if she was really of the Night rank, she would be one of the most powerful people even in the upper realm.

But that would only be the case if she trained enough.

Because no matter how great her control would be, no matter how great the skills Alexander would teach her, if she wasn’t trained enough, she would only be able to cast one skill before passing out from exhaustion.

To prevent that, Alexander took on the role of Michelle’s teacher.

Before he could teach her the three skills she wanted to learn, he would have her train until she could instinctively use her shadow essence.

And there was bad news to it.

Once Michelle ascended realms, she would have to go through the training again—and harsher.

Because there, under less influence of the Heavenly Law, the control would feel different. So the training would have to be repeated to once again get into her subconsciousness.

So, even if Michelle got into the upper realm, she would still be weak compared to others there until she trained herself enough.

She had a long way to go before she would win her fight.

For the next few days, Michelle didn’t take the poison from Mavreth. She didn’t even have the time to look at or think about it. She was undergoing the brutal training of Alexander.

He didn’t let her sleep a wink at night, forcing her to run around while reinforcing herself with shadow essence so she wouldn’t fall down.

And the days weren’t much better. The only so-called rest she got was when she could sit down, only to suck in more shadow essence into her body. And even if she felt like making it hers, to increase her level, Alexander constantly had his hand on her head, controlling the flow of the shadow essence in her body.

Once she tried to make some of the foreign shadow essence hers, he would use the Inner Shadow to strike her. She wasn’t allowed to cultivate shadow essence. She just had to keep it in her body, under her control, without letting it harm her.

And if Michelle wasn’t sucking in shadow essence, Alexander made her create her own clumsy skills and try them on the surroundings. From the start, most ended in failure, and Alexander declared that until Michelle created a skill on her own that worked flawlessly, he wouldn’t teach her any new skills.

Michelle didn’t like the training, but she didn’t complain. She gritted her teeth and went through with it.

She had dark circles under her eyes, and she was barely keeping them open, but she forced herself to stay awake. She didn’t want to even imagine what would happen if she fell asleep.

Alexander wasn’t a nice person. He would definitely ruthlessly wake her up before making fun of her.

Michelle wouldn’t give him the chance. She wouldn’t let him enjoy himself like that.