Maxine got out of her bed and started to get changed into ahigh-necked green white dress with white lace along the hem of the skirt and at the wrist cuffs. It was the only dress that she had and she only wore it since she had to greet guests from Earth with her grandmother later. It went extremely well with her braid, but she still felt a little sad that none of the clothing that she brought with her fit anymore. Afterall in the past two and a half years, she gained four inches in height and her bust had increased by a cup size.But it wasn''t that big of an issue since she could find quite a few different styles of clothing in the main city. She still kept her original clothes in her dimensional storage ring for sentimental reasons.


    She wished she could go out and polish her combat skills against essence beasts, but grandma Victoria had forbidden her from leaving the city until after her seventeenth birthday. The few times that she tried to sneak out Neesa and her sisters detainedher and took her back to the mansion. But that wasn''t the only reason she wanted to go fight essence beasts. She wanted to get away from the countless young masters trying to win her affection through giftsand flattery. At one point, she stopped keeping track of their names and just saw them as a horde of assholes that only saw her as a means to gain access to Guan''s alchemical skills.


    Unfortunately on Earth, her popularity transformedalmost entirely into infamny once it was revealed that she was Guan''s daughter. The most people hated her just for being the daughter of the man that contaminated earth with essence. It didn''t matter if she was directly responsible for it or not. They were just looking for someone to blame and she just happened to be an easy target. But there were a small number of people that saw her as a girl trying to make up for the sins of her father. It was a blessing that they completely forgot about Silky and her mother. Things would have been bad if they hadn''t.


    On the positive side, heressence core hadreached iron stage rank nine and her mana core was at iron stage rank eight. As an unexpected surprise, her regenerative abilities had increased significantly. She discovered this when her hand had been hurt during a sparring match. The wound had completely healed in less than an hour when before it would have taken at least two, but she had a problem. She wasn''t able to breakthrough to silver stage no matter what method she tired. She was guessing the causes werethat her Twelve-Headed Hydra King bloodline was in the process of awakening, which was inhibiting her ability to condense her essence, or that she needed to balance out her cores to make a breakthrough. In either case, she would need to wait to make her next breakthrough.


    There was some other good news in the past two years. Chocolate had become quite popular in the Kavros Clan and a few other groups within the Alliance had taken a liking to it as well. However they didn''t possess a form of currency that Earth recognized or even understood. Thus they offered the services of their Iron Stage warriors to help them fend off essence beast hordes in exchange for large quantities of chocolate. The various governments of Earth promptly agreed. Unfortunately that also meant that her and everyone else in her family had nearly chocolate only type deserts during their birthdays for the lasttwo years. It was to the point that Maxine was getting sick of chocolate.


    In the shadow world, the village''s size had nearly tripled due to a massive influx imigrants and a wall had been errected around the village. She moved her bees to the shadow world to help with the defense of the village that was quickly turning into a city. Word had gotten around that Maxine was protecting them from bandits and the beasts in the forests.


    Lord Michail Kenta also made a visit during that time and he wanted to trade for the medicinal herbs growing in Maxine''s garden. Maxine hadn''t wanted to trade her medicinal herbs. Instead she had offered to trade potions in exchange for rare ores, durable leather and seeds of certain medicinal herbs. That way she could practice alchemy and equipment manufacture at the same time without alerting anyone in the Kavros Clan to her abilities. She had improved her alchemical skills to the extent that she could make iron grade potions with a seventy percent success rate.


    Maxine stopped thinking about the past two years and finished getting ready so that she could go get breakfast. She left her room and headed for the Dining Hall. Once there, she checked inside to make sure that Angela wasn''t there. Each time Maxine encountered her, she felt like she was stuck in a room with a crocodile that had a tooth ache and itdidn''t like her that much to begin with.


    Fortunately, Angela wasn''t in the dining hall and Maxine sat down to eat breakfast.It''s a good thing that I started waking up earlier to avoid her. She has recently been getting even more intolerable than normal. I wonder what her deal is. I kept my word and left Zephyr alone. What more does she want from me?


    It didn''t take long for Maxine to be served some eggs and toast with a smattering of honey on it. That honey reminded her of her bees and how much they had improved. The hive had become massive. It was easily twice the size of a typical barn and the bees themselves had increased in size as their cultivation increased. The queen bee had reached bronze stage just a few days ago and was a little longer than two feet. The warrior bees that it had produced looked more like heavily armored hornets than bees and were comparable to the queen in their size. Add on to the fact that there were hundreds of them and she could send them to helpthin out any essence beasthordewithin 500 miles of their location.


    She shook her head and quickly devoured her breakfast before heading into the city. She had something she wanted to take care of before the visitor from Earth arrived, but what she was going to do had nothing to do with the visitor. Who she cared about were his bodyguards, more specifically their assigned healer, who happend to be Emily.


    Maxine wasn''t sure how Emily ended up as their healer, since she hadn''t said a word about it until a couple weeks ago, andMaxine had no idea how she convinced General McKenzie to go along with it. But it didn''t matter right now since she would get to see Emily with her eyes again rather than with spiritual sense.


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    Maxine quickly checked the time and saw that she had roughly an hour and a half before they would arrive. She quickly went through the city and searched for a welcome gift for Emily to quell her excitement to a degree. She looked around various stores, and finally found a set of gold earings that provided would help her passively recover essence. It wasn''t nearly as effective as her Shadow Lord Form''s opaline gems, but it would still be very usefulto a healer.


    After paying for the earings, she checked the time and saw that the ship was going to arrive in twenty minutes. If she only walked, she would make it there shortly before they landed. She quickly made her way to the space port.


    Right as Maxine arrived, she quickly took her place beside grandma Victoria and saw a familiar ship descend from the sky. It was the same one that Zephyr had brought her to Earth on. After it landed, it took a few moments before the ramp lowered and people started coming out. To her surprise, Maxwell and Patrick were the ones that descended the ramp first. She hadn''t expected them to come.The next peopleto come down was the ambassador with Meagan and Emily at his sides and tailing them was Jack and an extremly muscular young man that Maxine didn''t recognize.


    Emily was the only one among them that recognized Maxine right away. She guessed that they weren''t able to recognize her because of the ice queen expression that she had perfected over the past two and a half years, but that is only the expression she showed in public. It was an effective deterent to the young masters that had been harrassing her. It was the reason she adopted it in the first place.


    Her attention was drawn immediately to the ambassador as he walked towards grandma Victoria.He looked like he was in his mid to late forties since his hair was only just now beginning to go grey. However his firm stride made him appear to have the energy of a man a full decade younger.


    "Greetings and welcome to the Kavros clan, Ambassador Sutton," grandma Victoria said pleasantly, "I am Victoria Kavros. I apologize that my husband was not able to greet you himself."


    "I understand entirely, Victoria," Ambassador Sutton said with a british accent in Alliance common, "May I call you, Victoria?"


    "Of course," grandma Victoria replied.


    "Excellent," Ambassador Sutton said with a smile and looked straight at Maxine, "Is this your daughter?" Maxine felt hostility bordering on killing intent coming from the muscular young man the instant that everyone''s attention was on her.Hmm, it seems that guy recognizes me, but I don''t understand whyany government would let someone that is hostile to me come with the ambassador. I may be Guan''s daughter, but I am also the grand daughter of the Kavros Clan''s patriarch. I know for a fact that they know that detail. Don''t they realize that if I get hurt by anyone from Earth that the protection gained from the Kavros Clan would disappear?


    "No, she is my grand daughter, Maxine," grandma Victoria said with a pleased smile.


    "She''s your grand daughter? I must say you don''t look like you should have a grand child yet," Ambassador Sutton commented, "Your husband must be one very lucky man."


    "Why thank you," grandma Victoria said happily, "But you must remember that cultivators live formany times longer than ordinary humans. I have recently celebrated my three hundred and fifty third birthday."


    "That''s incredible," Ambassador Sutton said, "It just disappointing thatI am far too old toculvitave."


    "That you are," grandma Victoria said and she seemed to realize something, "What am I thinking! You must be exhausted from your trip. Let me take you to my family''s mansion and find you some suitable accomodations." Grandma Victoria''s shadow expanded rapidly to create a square shaped platform and it started to rise with everyone on it.This is awesome! I had a theory this was possible, but I never had a chance to test it since I am not strong enough yet.


    The platform continued to rise into the sky and slowly built up sped as it headed towards the mansion. It looked like it was going to take them ten minutes to arrive at the pace they were going and in the mean time, Emily walked up next to Maxine. Maxine reflexively smiled at her and saw Maxwell, whom was facing her, stumble for some reason.I know I am beautiful, but he shouldn''t have reacted like that. Unless..Does he have a crush on me?However she immediately got a sneaking suspicion that his affections were prompted by something else.


    "Emily, did you tell Maxwell that Guan approves of him?" Maxine asked Emily via spiritual sense.


    "No, I didn''t," Emily answered with spiritual sense, "But I did warn him about what may happen if certain people saw him."


    "Did that include telling him, that I used his appearance to show everyone what I was looking for in a man?" Maxine asked via spiritual sense.


    "Yes," Emily answered simply via spiritual sense. FUCK! That''s why I had that dream more than two years ago!My subconscious was trying to tell me that Emily would warn him. Now he has this delusion that I am attracted to him. I had enough issues dealing with the incessant harrasment from those young masters. This is the last thing I wanted to deal with.


    "I really wish you hadn''t done that," Maxine replied via spiritual sense.


    "Why? He deserves to know his life could be in danger," Emily reasoned via spiritual sense.


    "True, but did you have to let him know that I used his likeness?" Maxine asked via spiritual sense.


    "He wouldn''t believe me if I didn''t tell him the reason why his life would be in danger," Emily countered via spiritual sense.


    "Fair enough. Let''s talk more later. I think my grandma might start listening in if we continue much longer," Maxine said before cutting off the spiritual sense link.


    After a few more minutes of silence, they arrived at the Kavros family mansion. Grandma Victoria was leading the way to the guest rooms and appeared to be showing them their rooms. She took them down a single hallway and gave Ambassador Sutton the most luxurious one of the bunch. She gave Maxine a look that suggested that she show them each their rooms.


    Maxine used her essence to open six guest rooms surrounding Ambassador Sutton''s room and said to Emily and the others, "These are your rooms. If you need anything, just pull the rope in your room to summon a maid." Maxine looked directly at Emily with a smile on her face as she continued, "Emily, let me show you the inside of your room."


    Maxine quickly lead Emily into the room. It was luxuriously furnished by Earth standards. It had a huge four corner bed with a canopy, a large chest of drawers and a vanity desk. It even had a small bathroom attached to it.


    However her thoughts were not on the room itself as she swiftly closed the door. Once the door was shut, she finally released all of her emotional constraints and quickly hugged and kissed Emily with tears in her eyes as whispered into her ear, "I''ve missed you."