Maxine walked towards Silky''s nest while she recalled how poorly her class had performed today. When she had taught them how to form essence darts, none of them had gotten it right away and when they had, she had them do some target practice. They had a hard time hitting a basket ball sized target twenty feet away. Although it was much better than she had done when she had learned that attack, but it was pitiful for trained soldiers. She had to remind herself that they had no experience manipulating their essence to keep herself from yelling at them. When it was almost time for her class to end,Maxine made certain that each of them could refine essence cores on their own and handed out a total of three essence cores each to enhance their cultivation before she dismissed them. She had hoped that they would improve tomorrow.


    Maxine had her own training to attend to. She hadan ideas for an attack that she was going to try out after she was donefeeding Silky. "Hey, Silky," Maxine greeted as she saw Silky''s spider webs. Silky came out of her webs with surprising speed and ran around her. As Silky ran around Maxine, she noticed that Silky was slightly bigger. Maxine took note of her growth before pulling out a fresh spool from her backpack. Silky ran into her spiderwebs and dragged out a branch full of silk since Maxine had forgotten to leave her an empty spool yesterday. Maxine had forgotten because she had to handle that whole ordeal with Patrick.Maxine put the silk laden branch into her bag before feeding Silky a bronze essence core. Like always Silky did her dance after recieving her reward.


    Maxine walked a short distance away from Silky before forming her essence blades. This attack that she was going to try out involved the use of her blades. She picked a two foot thick tree that was twenty feet away as her target. Maxine closed her eyes in concentration as she formed ten palm-sized crescent moon shaped blades over the surface of each of her weapons. Once she was finished, Maxine opened her eyes and slashed out hard with both of her blades. The twenty crescent moon blades flung out from her weapons and cutdeeply into the tree. Bark and wood flew into the air. Snapping noises filled the air as the tree listed to the side andit fell over. Maxine was impressed with the damage output of her attack and it drained only alittle less than ten percent of her strength.If she combined all of those smaller crescent blades into one it couldbadly injure, or even kill, an iron stage essence beast, but that would require some more practice with this attack. For now she could use it to mow down groups of weaker essence beasts. She decided to call this move Crescent Moon Blitz.


    However Maxine remembered she had a hard time evading Patrick''s attack. She needed a combat movement technique to increase her evasion rate. It was too bad she hadn''t the foggiest idea where to even get started on making one. Maxine sat down and extended her spiritual sense. She knew martial artists of the past had found inspiration for fighting and movement techniques from nature and began looking for some inspiration of her own.


    She watched countless beasts within the range of her spiritual sense move and hunt. Each of them had their own unique movements and breath. However, it was a strange copper stage essence beast that caught her attention. It''s speed and agility were impossible for an essence beast of that level. It seemed to move from one shadow to the next without ever coming into the light. It was there and yet it wasn''t, just like a shadow. It was only when the beast stopped moving that she realized that it was a feline. Thestrange essence beast seemed to notice her observation of it and disappeared from her senses after running deeper into the forest. Maxine tried to find it again, but for some reason it could evade her spiritual sense. Since she couldn''t watch it any longer, Maxine tried to remember it''s every movement as she got to her feet.


    Maxine tried to emulatethose movements bizzare movements with her own body. It was awkward at first, but it got easier to do the more she practiced it. However no matter how she practiced it there was no significant improvement to her speed or agility. She didn''t know what she was doing wrong. It was only after nearly half an hour of practice that her speed suddenly increased explosively, but it was only for a few steps. Fortunately she managed to avoid embarrassing herself by running into a tree due to her increased speed. Maxine came to a stop and took a moment to think about what had just happened. She hadn''t done anything different that she knew of. In order to figure out the secret of that sudden increase of her speed, she needed to find that essence beast again to better understand it''s movements.


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    However Maxine didn''t have time for that at the moment. She hadn''t told anyone that Patrick had been the one following her around and her driver was expecting her back at the car in just under fifteen minutes. Maxine said goodbye to Silky as she picked up her backpack and ran around looking for any essence beasts along the way. She found one bronze and five copper stage essence beasts along the way and harvasted their essence cores.


    Maxine asked her driver to take her to Emily''s house as she hadn''t seen her for a couple days. When she got there, there weren''t any more reporters camping outside of her house. Maxine found that odd, but not overly so. Afterall, howlong can someone try to get an interview before they realize it''s futile and give up?


    When Emily opened the door, Maxine really thought Emily looked pretty today, especially in that mid-length black skirt. However Emily was about to go crazy from being indoors too much and demanded to go out somewhere. Maxine was only too happy to comply and suggested they go for a walk at a nearby park to get some fresh air.They got driven there and Maxine''s driver got out of the car and followed them around on foot.


    "How have you been?" Emily asked after they started walking around the park.


    "Great, other than the little mishap I had in the woods yesterday," Maxine answered.


    "Oh? Is that what you call getting injured?" Emily asked. Maxine almost missed a step after hearing that, but it was obvious that she had found out from General McKenzy.


    "It was only a shallow cut and I cleaned it after I got home," Maxine said in her defense.


    "I know how powerful you are so how did it happen?" Emily asked with concern. Maxine couldn''t tell her about Patrick. At least not without asking him about it first. She didn''t want to lie to Emily either.


    "I got careless and underestimated what I was up against while I was training in the woods," Maxine answered, "I won''t be making the same mistake in the future."


    "Alright, but I still want to take a look at your wound later," Emily said.


    "Fine," Maxine said.She saw no real point in denying her request. Mostly because Emily had already seen all of her and she could speed up the healing process. It would also be a good opportunity to tease Emily. Although it may raise some questions when Emily sees her rather straight wound. There weren''t many essence beasts that could leave such a wound since most attack with either claws or teeth.


    They finished their short walk and went back to Emily''s house. As Emily took a look at Maxine''s wound, Maxine couldn''t help herself as she teased Emily, "Can you kiss it to make it better?"Other than blushing fiercely Emily didn''t showany sign that she heard her. The healing energies from Emily''s essence quickly healed Maxines minor wound into smooth skin in a matter of minutes. Maxinewished that she could have Emily heal Patrick in the same manner without having to reveal thatPatrick is a cultivator. They gossiped for awhile and Maxine showed off the silk that Silky could produce and her Steel Silk Vest. She told Emily that she would make her one in the future once she had enough materials. When it was dinner time, Maxine headed home. After dinner while Maxine lay in her bed, she resolved to find that essence beast again tomorrow. She neededto complete her combat movement technique.