CHAPTER 289: 289

Sitting on the ground, Michelle went through all the Life Stones she had gathered. When she compared them to the size of Rivenaar’s Life Stone, they were all small, but compared to the Life Stones of ordinary monsters, they were big.

So were they mid-sized? Michelle had no clue.

But luckily, Unlucien and Noctis were around. "You two, how big does a Life Stone need to be to be considered big?" She turned to them.

"Bigger than the fist of a man," Unlucien answered nearly instantly.

Hearing that, Michelle’s eyes gleamed. Most of her stones were like that.

Quickly, she divided them and put the smaller ones away so she wouldn’t accidentally use them.

Then, she picked up one of the remaining Life Stones and inserted her shadow essence into it.

After a while, it split into three, the parts falling off her palm.

Seeing that, Michelle was satisfied. Since it didn’t explode, she was probably safe to experiment with it.

Michelle started wondering how to start it.

During that, she remembered how she ended up in a contract with Tenether. He pushed his Life Stone into her blood.

She could try to do that with the Life Stones. But the reaction would definitely be different, since the Life Stones belonged to dead monsters. Tenether was a big anomaly since he didn’t die after peeling out his own Life Stone.

For a while, Michelle was deep in thought. If she wanted to put the Life Stone into her blood, what would be a good spot? She was guessing that it would make some difference if she put it in on her wrist, on her forehead, on her chest, on her neck, or anywhere else.

The reason for that thought was simple. Each place was a different distance away from the sensing center of her spirit energy. And the Life Stones were made of spirit energy.

If Michelle didn’t have Spirit Soul Blood, she would also have to take her absorption center into consideration, but Spirit Soul Blood gave her the ability to absorb spirit energy through her whole body.

Another thing Michelle considered was eating the Life Stone. To achieve that, she would somehow have to shrink it. Either by cutting it into smaller parts, grinding it into dust, or somehow melting it into a drink.

But all those ways could change the effects of the Life Stone or ruin it. And if she was really unlucky, it could even create invisible dangers in the Life Stone, which would bring trouble to her once she consumed it.

While Michelle was deep in thought, she didn’t even notice that a rift opened behind her and Alexander stepped out. He had sorted out his thoughts.

He was expecting that Michelle would already be experimenting with the Life Stones, but instead, he found her deep in thought.

Seeing the Life Stones scattered around her, he smiled a bit. She found ones the right size for her to use.

Reaching his hand out, he picked up three Life Stones. One black, one white, and one purple. One containing dark element, one ice element, and one poison element spirit energy.

Alexander wondered what element Life Stone Michelle would pick out. He was nearly sure it would be a Life Stone of one of her elements, since that would be the least dangerous.

There were three ways she could think about it.

If she chose the ice element, it would be because she was the most proficient with it. If she took the dark element, it would be because it most suited her fighting style, even more so after she gained shadow essence. And if she decided on the poison element, it would be because it was her weakest element, and could be strengthened by the Life Stone.

So, which route would Michelle walk on?

After Alexander was done inspecting the Life Stones, Michelle snapped out of her thoughts. As he was returning the Life Stones, she sensed his presence. "When did you come here?" she turned to look at him.

Alexander shrugged. "Just a while ago." He let go of the three Life Stones, letting them fall to the ground, clicking against the other Life Stones.

Seeing the three Life Stones, Michelle reached out for the purple one. "What do you think is the best way to do it? Put it directly in my blood, or consume it?"

Alexander gave it a momentary thought before answering. "You could always split it in half, eating one half and putting the other into your blood."

Michelle frowned. Alexander’s answer was no help. It just gave her another option to consider.

But she knew that since she was the one who wanted to experiment, she had to decide on the method she would use.

Thinking about it for a while longer, Michelle decided not to do anything that would cause her to bleed. The smell of her blood would attract beasts and monsters to her, and if, after putting the Life Stone into her blood, she ended up unable to defend herself, she would be in deep trouble.

Of course, she could ask Alexander to protect her, but that would take away the feeling of achieving what she wanted on her own.

So, Michelle reached the conclusion to consume the Life Stone. The only question was how to do it.

The easiest and most simple way was to cut it into pieces and eat those.

Michelle was worried that it would cause some side effects, but she could at least try to cut the stone apart. When she was done with that, she could inspect the stone for any change.

Alexander watched Michelle take a knife out of her space before putting down the purple Life Stone.

Life Stones of poison elements were rare. Most poison element creatures were beasts, not monsters, so the Life Stones were very sparse.

So Michelle decided to cut apart a different Life Stone first in case something went wrong. That way, she wouldn’t have to worry about losing the purple one.

She only had five purple ones, while of other colors, she had at least twenty each.

Picking up a white stone, Michelle put soul energy around her knife to make the slicing easier. Then, she stabbed the knife into the stone.

She was expecting resistance, but the knife sliced through the stone like it was butter.

"Eh-?" she raised a brow. She picked up one of the sliced parts and looked at the cut. When she pressed her finger against it, she was surprised by how soft it was. Only the surface was hard. But very brittle.

What surprised Michelle next was that after slicing through the Life Stone, the cut started reacting to the air and hardened. So the one big Life Stone basically turned into two Life Stones.

But there was one big difference with normal Life Stones like that. The spirit energy inside it was calm like in big Life Stones. In other words, Michelle was still safe to experiment with it.

Michelle inspected the two cut parts for a while before concluding there were no changes she could sense. So she cut each part a few more times, until she had ten smaller stones on her hand.

Ten small Life Stones with the properties of big Life Stones. Michelle liked that.

After checking every single one of the parts, Michelle put them away in a separate pouch. It could be useful some other time.

Then, Michelle turned her attention to the purple Life Stone.

Michelle no longer hesitated. Gripping the knife in her hand tightly, she cut the stone apart in no time.

"It looks like candy..." she commented, reminded of her time back on Earth. She knew about all kinds of candy, but she liked the most the ones that were jelly on the inside but hard and crispy on the outside. But that was only second after lollipops. Lollipops were her all-time favourite.

"Will you really eat it?" Alexander asked. He had been watching Michelle the whole time. She didn’t show any signs of being worried about what would happen to her if she really proceeded with the experiment.

She could die a nasty and gruesome death, but she didn’t seem to care.

That bothered Alexander.

He wasn’t exactly worried that she would die during the experiment. His gut feeling was telling him she would be fine. At most, she would suffer some pain.

But Michelle had no way of knowing that.

Her fearlessness of death made Alexander realize that if things got extreme, she wouldn’t mind losing her life in the midst of achieving her ultimate goal.

That made his stomach tighten. He would have much more liked if she was a bit cowardly. But she clearly didn’t care about her own life.

She wouldn’t kill herself no matter what happened, but if worst came to worst, she wouldn’t bother to protect herself.

After realizing that, Alexander felt like stopping Michelle’s experiment. He had the feeling that if she did it, there would be no turning back. She would continue pushing herself to more danger, until she lost herself in it.

But Alexander didn’t get the chance.

Michelle picked up the candy-like Life Stones and put a few into her mouth. They crunched in her mouth as she chewed on them.