CHAPTER 292: 292

Looking down at her arms when the mist disappeared, Michelle was speechless. She had really never desired to turn into a shadow. Her hands were literally gone, replaced by shadow stretching from where her hands used to be down to the ground.

But the state didn’t last for long. Just a while later, Michelle’s hands reappeared.

"What monster does this ability belong to?" Michelle glanced at Nyxaroth.

But he shook his head. He wasn’t so sure. There were quite a few creatures that could blend in with shadows, but he didn’t know about any that could literally become one.

That was most probably because such creatures were untouchable and mostly invisible. Before someone could even spot them, they would be gone.

The fact that Michelle had killed and obtained the Life Stone of such a creature meant it had to be in a strange state. Michelle had to either find it weakened or drugged.

Thinking about drugged creatures, that wasn’t a thought worth discarding. Whenever Michelle bled, the sweet scent of her blood would basically drug and intoxicate nearby monsters and beasts, making them lose their minds.

She must have killed the shadow monster while it was in a state like that.

"You could try coating your whole body in spirit energy, so we could see the shape of the shadow you will become," Nyxaroth finally suggested.

Hearing that, Michelle nodded. The worst that could happen was that it didn’t work.

Well, or that someone from the middle realm would pass by and notice her Spirit Soul Blood from her spirit energy. But if that happened, she would just chase after the person to kill or strike a deal with them to make sure they kept quiet.

Summoning her dark element spirit energy, Michelle wrapped it around herself slowly. The more it spread, the more she could feel tingling under her skin. Even though her body was turning non-physical, she could still feel physical sensations.

So, did that mean she was just invisible and could still be touched?

Michelle couldn’t see whether her guess was right until her whole body had undergone the transformation. Then, she could check.

It didn’t take long until then. As Michelle’s dark element spirit energy spread all around her body, she could feel tension under her skin all over her body.

After a while, her gaze got blocked by the mist of her spirit energy.

For a while more, Michelle didn’t know what was going on. But then, her spirit energy retreated back into her dantian without her controlling it. The upside of it was that she could see again. The mist of the spirit energy was no longer blocking her sight.

But seeing things didn’t make her any happier. Her view of the world was completely changed.

She was looking at things as if she was lying on the ground. And everything around her was extremely big. She had clearly shrunk.

Seeing the state Michelle ended up in, Nyxaroth suppressed a laugh. "Now I understand why there was no information about the monster you have slain!" he chuckled. What he was seeing was the shadow of a rabbit on the ground. But instead of a rabbit casting the shadow, it was cast by a tiny black gem with a pair of purple eyes lying in the grass.

Michelle frowned a bit. She didn’t know the exact state she was in. She tried to move, but she realized she didn’t have limbs to control. "How do I move?" she stared at Nyxaroth above her.

Nyxaroth gave it a momentary thought before moving his leg.

Very gently, he kicked the gem in the grass. It rolled a few meters.

"Uh-" Michelle’s head spun as she rolled over the grass. "This is nasty!"

Nyxaroth bent down and picked up the black gem.

"Put me down!" Looking down, Michelle suddenly thought the heights of a normal person as equivalent to a skyscraper.

Watching from afar, Alexander burst out laughing. He had never thought there would ever come a day when that cocky brat his eyes were drawn toward would become so helpless. "Let me try something," he walked over, extending his hand toward the black gem.

Nyxaroth didn’t think much and handed the gem over.

Rolling the gem on his palm, Alexander ignored Michelle’s curses.

Then, he grasped his hand around the gem, lifted his hand up, and threw it.

"You bastard!" Michelle’s voice echoed through the forest. Unlike the rest of her, her voice was the same as before.

She flew through the air, making her feel she was flying for a moment, before landing in the grass. To her surprise, her body didn’t hurt the least bit.

In the grass, she summoned her spirit energy. Slowly, her body returned to normal.

The only thing different from normal was the black gem glistening on her forehead.

Back in human form, Michelle looked around. She wasn’t even that far. Alexander threw her just about ten meters away. That was just a few steps to get back.

But when she was in the form of a stone, it felt like she had flown around the whole world.

"It could be a useful ability!" Alexander pulled Michelle into his embrace, pressing her back against his chest.

Michelle frowned. "You like it?" She didn’t like the ability.

The only one who remained rational was Nyxaroth. "If you learn to move in that state, it could be one of the best abilities for sneaking around. There is a reason why this rabbit creature was never recorded by others."

Michelle calmed down a bit. "But I can’t move around in that state."

Nyxaroth shook his head. "You were in the form of a gem, but you were casting the shadow of a rabbit. If you control the shadow, the gem would most probably follow. That is the best explanation about how those rabbits move unnoticed. It’s easy to overlook a stone rolling on the ground. No one would pay attention to it."

Nyxaroth’s words made sense, but Michelle didn’t really know how to put them to use. She doubted she could control the shadow.

If it was a normal shadow, she could control it using her shadow essence. She could basically reform it into an invisible Liquid Shadow. Or even a Living Shadow, and that way, she would basically be able to transform into a living rabbit.

But the shadow was far from normal. It wasn’t caused by an object blocking out light. So it definitely would have different properties. And maybe, shadow essence wouldn’t even be present within it.

"For now," Michelle was starting to get lost in thought. "I can definitely use it to hide if someone comes after me or to sneak into other places as long as there is someone to throw the stone to the targeted location."

While she spoke, she was already thinking of ways to move in the state of the shadow. If she could just find another monster like the one whose Life Stone she had absorbed, she could figure something out, but something like that was highly unlikely to happen. It was by pure luck that she had even somehow killed one.

Anyway, she decided to test things with the shadow.

Once again getting into the shape, she tried to move her limbs. But there was no response as if she didn’t have the limbs to control.

So she focused her mind on the unnatural shadow. She could see it through the corner of her eye.

But, once again, she didn’t achieve anything. It felt like the shadow wasn’t a part of her, when theoretically, it was supposed to be a part of her. She was supposed to be able to control it.

Somehow.

And the challenge was in finding out how.

Since the shadow was created when Michelle coated herself in her spirit energy, she thought maybe she could use her spirit energy to manipulate it.

She decided to try it. But even before starting, she knew there would be one problem.

If she used her spirit energy, there would be a high probability for her to return into her human form. She had to find a way to use her spirit energy in a way that wouldn’t activate the transformation.

Summoning her spirit energy, Michelle felt like instead of being small, she was just a shrunken version of herself, but unable to move. She could feel her spirit energy flowing through the veins in her limbs and all around her body.

And maybe, just maybe, that could be the key to her unlocking the ability to move in the state of a small gem with the shadow of a rabbit.

Channeling her spirit energy through what felt like her hands, she felt it reach the end of the gem. From there, she controlled it to flow out in a thin string which would trail down toward the shadow.

Michelle’s idea was to become the shadow’s puppet master.

It could work as long as she didn’t let her control of her spirit energy slip. If she did, the spirit energy would spread out around the gem and she would return to her human form.

Easier said than done. Though usually she had excellent control over her spirit energy, in the state of the gem, she felt stiffer, and even her control was much worse. Something was obscuring her.

If she wanted to move as a gem, she had to overcome the obstruction.

In other words, force her way through it.