With a tight frown between her brows, Michelle walked out of an array, feeling like someone had taken hold of her stomach and intestines and switched their places.

She was in a place that looked extremely similar to the Array Master Guild she had been in just a moment ago, but she knew she was actually thousands of kilometers away, in a guild in a different city.

Seeing Michelle’s expression, the array assistant, a young-looking woman, quirked a brow.

Very rarely did she encounter someone who experienced discomfort because of arrays, and she was hoping Michelle wouldn’t cause trouble because of that.

But Michelle just asked if there was a place where she could sit down for a moment.

The array assistant lady pointed to a small bench near the array.

One like that was in every Array Master Guild near the teleportation arrays, exactly in case someone like Michelle appeared who felt sick from an array.

Michelle plopped herself on the bench, taking slow breaths to calm the churning in her stomach.

Just a while ago, she was completely fine, talking with the array assistant in the other city.

But after the array activated to send her away, she felt her world tilt along with her internal organs.

Did that mean she could not use teleportation arrays like normal people could?

Or was there some restriction on the distance she could cover at once?

She also had the idea that maybe it was the specific way the teleportation array had been built.

Because as far as she knew, though they were all called teleportation arrays, depending on who built them, they had different structures.

In theory, that didn’t affect the users, and only those who wanted to break the array.

Because to break an array, the method changed depending on the structure of the array.

But maybe Michelle was a special case who got affected by the structure of the array.

Yet, she wasn’t exactly worried about what was going on.

With how calm the array assistant lady was, it probably wasn’t unheard of for someone to be sick after using a teleportation array.

So Michelle at least didn’t have to worry about that.

A while later, Michelle was back on her feet, ready to leave.

She gave a slight nod toward the lady and walked out of the building.

She was in the City of Knowledge and needed to either find a way to get into the Academy of Knowledge to find the headmaster, or at least find some kind of information center where she could ask what she needed.

And soon, she found a place like that.

Near the Academy entrance was a so-called disciple post.

There, disciples rotated every week to answer people who were curious about the Academy, about how to become a student, or who to contact for collaborations.

Also, they were in charge of overseeing the order of the city, but only partially.

The rest of that was left to a second disciple post deeper in the city. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

Because the whole city belonged to the Academy and had to abide by its laws.

Stepping to the disciple post, Michelle made sure to put a bit more shadow essence into her shadow so her presence would be a bit more distinct.

She already had some shadow essence around, but that was just so she could interact with the array assistants while being ignored by others.

At the moment, she needed to be noticed from the start.

The disciples sitting in the post at the moment were two guys and two girls.

One of the girls was already explaining something to a man in clearly expensive clothes.

Michelle walked over with something like a polite smile.

"Good afternoon!" she stepped over.

The one who attended to her was the second girl because the two guys were busy discussing something.

"How can I help you? Are you curious about becoming a student?" she asked with a welcoming smile.

Michelle shook her head ever so slightly.

"Do you know a man by the name Philip Grace?" she decided to be direct about what she needed.

In the end, she was asking about her own father in a place under the control of his friend, so she shouldn’t get into that much trouble.

Hearing the Grace surname, the girl frowned a bit.

"As Philip Grace, you mean the Networking Lord?" she asked.

Hearing that title, Michelle hid a smile.

That was a nice way people referred to her father.

"Yes! That should be him. Do you know where I can find him?" she asked.

The girl’s frown deepened.

She herself had only ever heard about Philip Grace and never got to talk with him.

How should she know how to get in contact with him?

"I can’t help you with that. You can try to make an appointment with the headmaster, and he could introduce you to Sir Grace," the girl finally spoke after thinking about it for a while.

"And how can I get an appointment with the headmaster?" Michelle asked with a tilt of her head.

The girl cringed a bit.

She was hoping that using the headmaster’s name would scare Michelle away.

But since Michelle wasn’t intimidated by the name of the headmaster, she probably needed something important that the headmaster would be willing to look into.

"If you come back tomorrow..." the girl spoke, "I will get you a spirit stone into which you can fill out what you need from Sir Grace, and after being approved by a few people, it could be submitted to the headmaster. Then, you will be brought to him."

Michelle nodded a bit.

"Can I come back tomorrow around noon?" she asked.

After settling things with the girl, Michelle went through the city to find an inn to stay in for the night.

There, she paid with a few spirit stones and went into her room.

Sitting on a bed there, she pulled Ivier from her neck, planning to feed him.

The little guy had been gnawing at her collarbone for a while already, announcing his hunger.

But as Michelle was about to reach into her space to take out some food that she had stored there, a sound from the inn’s lobby caught her attention.

The sound of something breaking and someone shouting.

Still, with the little snake hungry and turning into a little devil, Michelle decided to ignore it and proceeded to feed him.

Ivier also didn’t mind the commotion and devoured his food like his life depended on it.

Actually, Michelle was sure the little guy wasn’t really hungry.

The little guy was just a terrible glutton, having to eat five meals a day, even though Mare said that two would be enough for him.

With how often he liked to eat, to make sure he didn’t get fat, Michelle had to make sure he got enough movement every day, which resulted in less sleep at night as she had to train him.

Most of the time, during the day, Michelle didn’t have time to train him.

Also, she suspected the little guy was a nocturnal beast, because aside from eating, he only slept during the day and was extremely active at night.

Even without Michelle nudging him to train, he would get up to do something on his own.

While the little guy was in the middle of his meal, Michelle frowned when someone started banging on her door.

She didn’t like being disturbed, and Ivier also didn’t enjoy it.

He stopped pulling the piece of meat into his mouth and turned his head toward the door.

Knowing that the snake was capable of violence even with his small body, Michelle left him on the bed while she walked to open the door.

"Yes?" she asked as she opened the door.

Outside stood the very man who had handed her the keys to her room, looking hesitant.

"Miss, I apologize very much, but a mistake has been made, and this room has already been reserved beforehand. I gave you the wrong set of keys."

"You want me to move to another room?" Michelle arched a brow.

She wouldn’t really mind that too much, since all the rooms in the inn were similar.

So why was the small fat man so hesitant when he spoke to her?

"About that..." when the innkeeper spoke again, Michelle knew that something had to be wrong.

But she let him continue: "There are no other rooms available..."

Michelle narrowed her eyes.

From the door of her room, she could see down into the lobby and to where the keys to the free rooms were hanging.

None of them had the reserved sign added to them.

"No other free rooms?" she stared down at the man.

She still had quite a polite expression, but something in her eyes had deepened, making her stare quite intimidating.

"I’m deeply sorry, miss. Your spirit stones will all be given back to you, and you can have a free meal whenever you come here from now on." The little fat man didn’t want to anger Michelle.

Michelle chuckled a bit.

"Don’t worry about it, sir. I’ll just leave, since someone doesn’t want me here. No need to try and fool me!"

With that, she walked back into the room, took Ivier and his food, and walked out.

As she walked past the innkeeper, he pulled his head back to hide his neck, watching the little snake swallowing a piece of raw, bloodied meat from Michelle’s hand.

He had seen the snake asleep when Michelle was taking her keys, and it had already greatly intimidated him.

So at the moment, seeing the snake in the middle of eating, the poor man’s blood nearly froze in his veins from fear.