Chapter 105
Walking out of the dungeon, Michelle hummed lazily, a playful smile on her face as she went to see Kieran and Ivova, and she wanted to tell them what she had done so they wouldn’t be shocked when they went to the dungeon again. She had completely wrecked Ferdinand Ostrich’s mind by beating him again and again without letting him see her, all the while leaving the door of the cell open, giving him some hope of escaping. When she was done beating him, she slipped out of the cell, closed it, and locked it.
First, she went to see Ivona, who was still training with the knights, and when she told her about the state Ferdinand was in, Ivona was fairly surprised. From the start, she knew that Michelle was both ruthless and capable, but also lazy; but she had never guessed that she was so lazy that she would completely wreck someone’s mind so extracting information from them wouldn’t be bothersome.
Ivona didn’t mind the method, but it was surprising. She herself could be quite cold-blooded and calculating, and her nature was basically the same as Michelle’s, but maybe she hadn’t experienced enough, so she never thought about the possibility of wrecking someone’s mind. She was also a bit surprised when Kieran came up with the idea to cripple Ferdinand, or when Anastasia asked for a knife, saying she wanted to stab Ferdinand from behind.
In the end, Ivona was still the most inexperienced and maybe even the most naive of the group, but she, and everyone in the group, didn’t mind. Experience and knowledge weren’t constant. They could be gained, but also forgotten, which made human life fascinating.
If one were already born with all the knowledge of the world, life would be boring. Also, it was impossible for a human brain to store so much data and information. Especially right after a person is born, so knowledge and experience have to be slowly attained in life.
After speaking with Ivona for a while, Michelle went to Kierna’s room, but before she could knock on the door, she halted her hand, and the corners of her lips turned up a bit. She felt the spirit energy around the room swirling haphazardly, or flowing through all cracks into the room. That was a clear sign that the person cultivating in the room had either gained enlightenment or was about to reach a bottleneck.
The first case was quite impossible, because enlightenments carried power superior to that of Spirit Paragons, so to attain it in the Land of Exile was impossible. The Heavenly Law blocked it.
As for the second case, there could be two reasons why a person reached a bottleneck. One was that they reached a breakthrough point, but were in a place where they couldn’t attain the next level, and the next reason was that they had a block, either mental or physical.
Physical blocks could be an old wound, or weak spirit veins that did not allow further cultivation, and mental blocks could be unresolved grudges or old burdens they even forgot about. Some blocks could be removed or overcome, but some stayed forever, and the cultivator got stuck at their level, forcing them to live only until their lifespan ran out.