After familiarizing herself with the Grace Residence (her home), Michelle went to find her father.

There was still a lot to talk about with him, and Michelle had genuinely missed him.

So, finding him in his study, Michelle talked with him for hours.

First, she spoke about her experiences since leaving the Land of Exile before Philip told her what he had come across.

Michelle listened to it with bated breath even though the story wasn’t long.

Philip told Michelle about the fact that for the past months, he had the feeling that someone unseen was watching him.

His subordinates were also growing more and more restless by the day.

But the subordinates themselves didn’t even notice the change in their own behavior.

It was subtle and slow.

Philip noticed only because he was slowly watching his men.

He needed them to be in peak condition for specific tasks, and restlessness messed that up.

When Michelle heard that Philip had a few times tried to locate the observer and failed, she was surprised.

As far as she knew, her father wasn’t trained in detection, but he was one of the most powerful men in the upper realm.

For someone to be able to observe him without Philip being able to spot them meant the observer had to carry the power of someone from the heavenly realm.

Michelle would genuinely like to see the observer, but she was far below in level compared to her father, so even though she was trained in detection, she doubted she would be able to spot the spy.

Of course, that didn’t mean she wouldn’t give it a try.

She still remembered that back in the Land of Exile, when she wasn’t even cultivating yet, she was able to spot Alexander and David’s observing gaze when they were watching her, so there was no telling she wouldn’t be able to do the same toward the spy from the heavenly realm. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

David and Alexander were also from the heavenly realm.

There was just one difference; in the Land of Exile, David and Alexander had their power suppressed far below their usual power.

Naturally, someone from the heavenly realm would be suppressed even in the upper realm, but not nearly as much as when in the Land of Exile, the lowest part of the lower realm.

Michelle and Philip didn’t only talk about that.

In her initial storytelling about what she had done on her journey, Michelle purposely left out the things that led to major changes within her body.

Those, she wanted to explain separately one by one.

So, Philip had a servant brew them some tea before the two went to sit outside in the courtyard to talk comfortably.

There, the first thing Michelle explained was her encounter with Lavreth (the so-called white god), and how she then became a disciple of Mavreth (the so-called black god).

She also explained the fact that she was told that Lavreth and Mavreth made a deal that as long as Michelle didn’t cause anything disastrous, Lavreth wouldn’t try to kill her until she came to the heavenly realm.

Philip naturally wasn’t happy to hear that, because it meant that Lavreth was planning to kill her once she got to the heavenly realm.

And Philip knew his daughter well enough to know that the threat of Lavreth killing her wouldn’t stop her from going up to the heavenly realm.

Also, before all the explaining about Lavreth and Mavreth’s deal, Michelle had to explain what she heard from them about Lavreth’s prophecy and why she even came to possess the body of Michelle Grace.

She retold the story Lavreth once spoke; that he had seen that the heavenly realm would be thrown into chaos, and in the middle of it all stood she.

To prevent that and keep order, Lavreth killed the body into which Michelle’s soul was supposed to be born.

But Mavreth (being a great lover of chaos) grasped her soul before it could die from not having a vessel, and sent her into the 21st century to live some years there.

Then, when he found a suitable body for her (the body of just-dead Michelle Grace), he brought her soul into it.

Mavreth wanted the chaos that Lavreth wanted to prevent.

Naturally, when Lavreth found out about Michelle’s existence, he came down to kill her, but by then, she was already under Mavreth’s protection.

So, the two opposing so-called gods made a deal that Michelle would be left alive as long as she stayed in the three lower realms, the lower, middle, and upper realm; but once she went up to the heavenly realm, Lavreth was allowed to go all out on her.

Philip was highly unhappy to hear that.

Not only did it remind him of his original daughter who died, which soured his mood, but it also guaranteed that his new daughter would face great danger from one of the two most powerful figures the world knew about.

Seeing how thrown off Philip was just after Michelle told him about Lavreth’s prophecy and the deal between Lavreth and Mavreth, Michelle doubted whether he would even be able to listen to the fact that she was no longer even a human after having absorbed the Life Stones of monsters.

But she wanted him to know.

He was her father.

But before moving on to that, Michelle went on to a lighter theme and introduced Ivier to Philip.

When Philip heard that the baby snake actually viewed Michelle as its mother and caretaker, he couldn’t help but cackle.

Philip knew that his daughter was a loner.

Even if she had friends she could trust her life with along with her contracted beasts and contracted monster, she was inherently a loner.

So hearing that a little beast was suddenly so dependent on her that she couldn’t even put it into her space made him have a good laugh.

With just that knowledge, he came to like the little snake wrapped around Michelle’s neck like a necklace.

Since Philip was curious about Ivier and the little snake also liked him (maybe because he was able to sense the biological relation between Michelle and Philip), Michelle let Philip give Ivier his following meal.

The little guy basically gobbled it up from Philip’s hand before returning to Michelle satisfied.

When he wrapped around Michelle’s neck again, she lifted her hand to gently pet him with her finger.

Though she had been at first a bit reluctant when she found out that the snake viewed her as his mother, at the moment, she found it extremely lovable.

Another thing that Michelle talked about with Philip was the currency of the upper realm.

She understood the spirit stones; those were to some extent (but in lower quality and quantity) also used even down in the Land of Exile.

But Michelle really couldn’t wrap her head around using the Life Stones as currency.

The concept in itself she understood, but the sizing was making her head ache.

When she was about to use the teleportation array that took her to the City of Knowledge, the array assistant there somehow roughly explained the sizing of the Life Stones to her, but Michelle still had a mess of it in her head.

Hearing that, Philip asked Michelle to show him the Life Stones she was in possession of.

Obediently, Michelle reached into her space and took out a few pouches.

Along with that, she summoned from the space the huge black Life Stone she had from Mavreth.

While summoning that one from the space, she made sure not to touch it so the inherent ability of the Orange Widow wouldn’t absorb it.

Michelle had no plans in the near future of gaining new monster abilities.

She already had enough trouble with the abilities she had at the moment.

Seeing the huge Life Stone, Philip just pushed it aside, saying that was stuff from the heavenly realm that defied their sizing logic.

With that, he took the pouches from Michelle.

Honestly, Philip thought they would be filled with pebble-sized stones at most, but when he turned a single pouch over, he knew just how wrong he had been.

"Michelle, just where did you get this?" he questioned.

Once again receiving a bewildered gaze about her Life Stones (the first time was with the array assistant whom she showed a single Life Stone), Michelle told her father truthfully where she got them.

That with her Spirit Soul Blood, she was able to attract all kinds of monsters to her and then kill them.

She didn’t find that method all that strange.

And Philip didn’t either.

He wasn’t surprised by the fact that Michelle was able to kill monsters that possessed such big Life Stones.

What concerned him was that Michelle was able to get them intact and whole.

Even skilled hunters who paid for their lives by getting Life Stones couldn’t really extract more than half of a Life Stone from a monster, and that was already considered a legendary feat.

So just how did Michelle do it?

The Life Stones that rolled out of her pouch showed little signs of damage; like they had popped out of their sockets on their own.