The day the elders decided Tobias was to be executed, Michelle was sitting secretly outside the hall, listening closely.

Though nearly all the elders had agreed he deserved death, none of them were happy about it.

The Ostrich family had the rule of not executing their members.

Much more, they relied on preventing things that were punishable by death.

The fact that Tobias was able to bring things to the point where the ultimate punishment was needed showed that their system had failed.

And greatly.

Listening to all that, Michelle couldn’t help but imagine how the elders would react if they found out that everything that had happened was actually orchestrated by her and Vincent, and that Tobias was innocent (naturally only when it came to the poisoning).

For them, that would mean Tobias no longer deserved the death sentence, and it would probably be Vincent who would end up with his head rolling.

And the outrage it would cause...

Michelle smiled just thinking about their livid faces.

Especially if they found out that she wasn’t even Ana Ostrich, a member of their family.

Because that would make her untouchable to them unless they wanted to go against her family.

And the Ostrich family had no clue about who her family was, so they wouldn’t dare harm her.

But Michelle knew she would never get to watch such a show.

The Ostrich family could never find out that what happened was orchestrated.

That would ruin things, and that wasn’t worth the bit of fun it would bring along.

So, Michelle just silently listened to the sentence Tobias received.

He was to be poisoned to death.

A classic way to kill someone, just with a bit of a twist.

Usually, the poisoned wine given to someone meant to die was meant to kill them in a matter of seconds, at most minutes.

But the Ostrich family did that differently.

Killing by poison was a long and controlled process, slowly increasing the dose until it became lethal.

And the final lethal dose would be much bigger than the lethal dose for a normal person, because with the earlier doses, the person would build some level of immunity, prolonging their suffering.

After hearing the sentence, Tobias started thrashing around, begging and pleading with the elders for something else.

Before that, he was still denying being the one who poisoned the elders, but once he heard the sentence, he admitted to it, just begging to have an easier death.

He was willing to stain his name with an admission as long as he went off quickly.

But one of the people who suggested death by poison was Jonathan, the family head.

He was set on it, and the elders didn’t really want to go against him with how clearly angry he was at Tobias.

So, though Tobias struggled against his restraints while begging for mercy, a guard forced a non-lethal dose of poison down his throat.

With Tobias’ death certain, Vincent and Michelle met for the last time.

Michelle put her hand on the top of his head and started manipulating his memories of the last days, specifically of the days after Michelle staged her death as Ana Ostrich.

Vincent still thought Michelle was just a clone, and as he had agreed with her earlier, he understood Michelle didn’t want her ability to create clones to be known no matter what.

So he allowed Michelle (whom he thought to be a clone) to twist every memory from the last days and, instead of her, put Mare into his memories.

After the memory changing, even Michael Grayson was, to him, just Mare in a disguise mask.

The moment Michelle was done messing with Vincent’s memories, she made sure he stayed unaware for a moment longer so she could leave.

The last memory she had put into his head was Mare bidding him farewell, so he wouldn’t look for her.

A while later, Michelle was sitting upon Tenether, and the big black bird was flying above the upper realm aimlessly.

Michelle was planning to go to where her father was, but that had just one problem.

She didn’t know where Philip’s residence was, only that it was in the upper realm.

Once a fair enough distance from the Ostrich family residence, Michelle had Tenether land near a city and transform into a black feline.

In the upper realm, nearly everyone had a contracted transport beast, so Michelle didn’t look strange as she rode on a big black cat to the city.

But once she reached the city gate, she had to get off and send Tenether into her space, because big beasts weren’t allowed in the city.

The good thing was that she could keep Ivier (the little snake) with her since it was small.

Small beasts were allowed in the city.

That rule wasn’t for safety.

Even small beasts could be dangerous, and extremely so.

The reason big beasts were forbidden from entering was because if everyone brought their transport beast in, the city would be cramped.

It wasn’t really that big of a city, so most of the streets were quite narrow.

Big beasts would crowd the space.

Actually, that rule applied to most cities in the upper realm.

There were just about five to ten cities in the whole of the upper realm that allowed big beasts inside.

In the city, Michelle sat down in a restaurant, ordering some food while she thought about what to do.

From what she knew about her father, he wouldn’t let the location of his residence be known to just anyone, so she needed to find someone connected to him.

That made her consider the upper realm’s first academy.

She didn’t know the academy’s name, nor its location.

That probably meant she had to find someone random to ask what the best academy in the upper realm was.

A good person she could ask would be a waiter, so as she was about to pay for her meal, she asked him.

Instantly, the waiter gave her a weird stare, looking at her like she was some sort of caveman.

"Miss, you have never heard about the five top academies?" he asked with a frown. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

Michelle decided to just nod.

She didn’t want to explain herself, so looking dumb in front of a random waiter in a random city was acceptable.

"I lived in isolation," she decided to say instead of just nodding.

That sentence made the waiter raise a brow.

To him, Michelle looked like a beautiful young lady, and because, in her laziness, her expression was calm, she looked somewhat innocent.

That made the waiter pity her a bit, thinking she really had been locked up her whole life and only now got the chance to explore the world.

Also, the way she so calmly had a snake around her neck (Ivier was sleeping) made him think that she had had almost no social interactions, which made her form close bonds with animals.

So, Michelle ended up having to sit through a lecture about the top five academies, including the requirements to get into them.

After the man was done, Michelle made sure to pay him and went out of the restaurant.

Alone on the street, Michelle had to stop another person to ask them where the top academy (what she found out was called the Academy of Knowledge) was and how to get there, because the waiter hadn’t told her that.

Since Michelle already knew the name of the academy, she no longer received strange stares.

The woman she asked just told her she needed to get herself a map and go over to the City of Knowledge (named after the academy).

Or she needed to find a transport group that would take her there.

Apparently, there were two such companies in the city.

Then, there was also a third way.

She could go to the Array Master Guild, pay them a hefty sum, and they could let her use a teleportation array to get through part of the journey, depending on where the nearest Array Master Guild was to her destination.

And since going with a transport group or with her own beasts would take days, Michelle decided to go to the Array Master Guild to at least ask how much it cost.

In the upper realm, things were usually paid for with spirit stones, and more expensive things with smaller Life Stones.

But a single use of a teleportation array for long distance was actually two mid-sized Life Stones.

That surprised Michelle greatly.

Also, she didn’t exactly know what the sizing of Life Stones was in the upper realms.

In her space, she had some speck-sized ones, pebble-sized ones, palm-sized ones, and so on.

The biggest one she had was around the size of her head, and it was the one she found back in the attic of the Grace residence in the Land of Exile.

It was a dark-element Life Stone Mavreth had basically given Michelle.

So, not knowing what was considered mid-sized, Michelle took out two palm-sized Life Stones and showed them to the person by the array.

"Are these good enough?" she asked with a tilt of her head.

Seeing the two Life Stones, the array assistant froze in place.

"No, that’s already considered a big Life Stone..." he shook his head.

Michelle raised a brow.

"Then, can you show me how big a mid-sized Life Stone is?" she asked.